Kat woke as bones. No skin, no muscle, no face they recognized. Someone had stripped their flesh in a single night and left them a skeleton in a blonde wig with crooked teeth. They wanted it all back. They wanted the family that vanished with it. But when Kat tried to remember that night, they found nothing. No faces. No place. No name to hunt. So Kat searched their own body for a clue. They ran finger bones along each rib. Something was lodged inside the cage, pressed tight between two ribs near the spine. Kat reached in and pulled. A flower came loose. Pink petals, layered and fresh, the stem still green. It had no right to be alive inside a dead ribcage. Yet it looked freshly cut. Kat held it to where a nose used to be. The smell hit hard, and a picture cracked open behind their eyes. Wet ground. A voice they loved, screaming. Hands pulling this same flower from a garden and pressing it into Kat's chest. "Keep this," the voice said. "So you find your way back." Then the memory shut like a door. Kat gripped the flower and forced the picture wider. One more detail surfaced. A shape had watched from the edge of that garden. Low and slow, built from twisting vines and leaves, with a rounded shell and calm eyes. A turtle grown from living plants. Kat had seen it that night. It had been there when their family was taken. The memory ended. But now Kat had two things they did not have before. A flower from that garden. A witness that could not have gone far. Kat stood. Their bones clicked into place. They still could not remember who did this, or where the night happened. But the flower and the vine-turtle both came from one garden, and gardens do not move. Kat tucked the bloom back between their ribs, gently, the way the loved voice had done. Then they began to walk, following the only trail they had: the smell of wet earth and cut petals still clinging to the flower. Somewhere ahead sat a garden that had watched everything. And in that garden, if Kat was right, a living turtle of vines still remembered the faces Kat had lost. Kat did not know who to hunt yet. But they finally knew where to start.

Kat followed the flower's smell for hours. Wet earth and cut petals pulled them forward. Then the trail broke. The scent split into three threads. Each one wound off in a different direction. Rot, smoke, and pollen all crowded in and blurred the flower's true path. Kat stood still and breathed the air through the gaps in their skull. They could not tell which thread was right. Pick wrong, and the garden would be lost. Kat pressed the flower to their ribs and closed their empty eye sockets. The three smells tangled worse. Panic climbed up their spine bone by bone. They tried the left thread, then stopped. They tried the right, then stopped again. Every step felt like a guess. And a guess could cost them the only path back to their family. A cat sat watching from a low rock. Sleek and black, with white paws and a clean white chin. It had not made a sound. It simply stared at Kat with steady eyes, the way something stares when it already knows the answer. Kat froze. The cat rose, stretched, and stepped onto the middle thread. Then it looked back over its shoulder. "You know the way," Kat said. Their voice scraped. The cat blinked slowly, turned, and walked. It kept to the middle scent, ignoring the rot and the smoke. Kat had no better plan. They followed. The cat moved without doubt. When the trail split again, it never paused. It chose, and Kat trusted it. Twice Kat's own nose screamed that a side thread smelled stronger. Both times the cat kept straight, and both times the wrong threads died out behind them. Kat began to believe. This animal had walked this path before. The smells thinned. The rot fell away. The smoke faded. Only wet earth and petals remained, sharp and clean now, growing stronger with each step. Kat's ribs almost hummed. The flower in their chest seemed to lean forward, toward home. The cat stopped at the edge of a clearing and sat. Ahead, rows of flowers spread across dark soil. Pink blooms, layered and fresh, exactly like the one lodged in Kat's chest. This was the garden. The place the voice had screamed. The place the family was taken. Kat stepped past the cat and into the rows. Their bones shook. They looked for the vine turtle, the witness that had watched that night. But the garden was empty of any turtle. The soil near the far edge held a wide, round dent, pressed deep, as if something heavy had rested there and left. Kat knelt and touched the dent. The witness was gone. Kat had found the garden. But whoever took their family had also moved the one thing that remembered their faces. The trail did not end here. It started again.

Kat stood over the round dent in the soil. The vine turtle had been dragged away. Kat could see the drag marks, but there were too many. Dozens of scuffed lines cut across the dirt, crossing and looping. Any one of them could mark the true path. Kat knelt and studied the ground, but the marks all looked the same. Pick wrong, and the witness would be lost for good. Kat pressed their palm flat to the deepest scuff. The soil felt damp there, colder than the rest. Something wet had crossed this ground. Kat leaned close and breathed through the gaps in their skull. Under the petals and earth came a new smell. Salt. Brine. The sea. A sound scraped behind Kat. They turned. Something moved between the flower rows, low and dark. Red streaks flashed along its body. Eight arms pulled it forward across the dirt, each one leaving a fresh scuffed line. Two huge round eyes rolled toward Kat, wobbling as it moved. An octopus, far from any water, dragging itself through the garden. Kat froze. The creature stopped. It lifted one arm and pointed at the ground, then curled the arm back and pointed again at the same spot. Kat looked where it pointed. One drag mark ran deeper than the others. Wet. Salted. It matched the cold trail under Kat's hand. "You made these marks," Kat said. Their voice scraped. "All of them. But you're showing me the real one." The octopus blinked its wobbling eyes. It slid one arm along the deep track, tracing it toward the garden's far edge. Then it lifted the arm and pointed away, past the flowers, toward a low gap in the brush. The creature had crawled every false line to hide the true one. Now it chose to reveal it. Kat stood and followed the wet track with their eyes. It ran straight and unbroken toward the gap, away from all the tangled marks. The salt smell grew stronger the closer the track came to the brush. Whoever took the turtle had gone toward water. Kat looked back at the octopus. "Why help me?" The creature only pulled itself onto the deep track and waited, arms coiled, eyes fixed on Kat. It would not answer. But it had already answered enough. Kat stepped onto the wet trail. The false marks fell away behind them. Ahead lay one path, salted and clear, leading past the garden toward the sea. The witness that watched their family taken had been dragged toward water. Kat could not tell why, or by whom. But the trail no longer forked. For the first time since the garden emptied, Kat knew exactly where to go.

The salted trail ran straight to the shore and stopped. Kat stood at the edge of the water. Ahead lay only open sea, flat and gray to the horizon. The wet track led into the waves and vanished. Kat waded in to their knees. The salt smell broke apart in the current and washed away. Whoever dragged the turtle had crossed water Kat could not cross. The path had gone cold. Kat searched the shallows for any sign. Bones did not swim. They could not follow a scent that the sea had swallowed. Kat pressed a hand to their ribs, where the flower still sat, and stared at the empty water. The witness was out there, and the family with it, past a wall of waves. Something bumped Kat's shin. A blue shape bobbed in the shallows. It was round and soft, with bright green eyes and a small crown of scales along its head. The creature rose to the surface and blinked up at Kat. It opened its mouth, then dove and surfaced a few feet out, waiting. Kat did not move. The blue thing dove again and came up farther out. It circled back, nudged Kat's leg, and swam off once more. It wanted Kat to follow. "I can't swim," Kat said. Their voice scraped. "I sink." The creature slid close and pushed its broad back against Kat's hip. It was firm under the softness, buoyant as a cork. It ducked low and pressed up beneath Kat's arm, lifting. The meaning was plain. Hold on. Kat hesitated. Trust had led them right before, when a cat chose the true path and an octopus showed the real trail. Kat gripped the creature's slick sides and let their feet leave the sand. The blue back held. Kat floated. The creature pulled forward into deeper water. Waves slapped Kat's skull and drained through their eye sockets. Kat clung tight. Land shrank behind them. The blue shape swam with steady kicks, its crown of scales cutting the surface, green eyes fixed ahead. Then a scent returned. Salt on salt, but sharper now, a thread running across the open water. Kat breathed it in through the gaps in their skull. The trail had not ended at the shore. It continued over the sea, and the creature was following it. Ahead, a dark shape broke the horizon. An island, low and rocky. The salt-scent led straight toward it. Kat's grip tightened. The turtle had been carried there. So had whatever hands had carried it. The blue creature slowed as the rocks drew near. Kat could see a strip of black sand and, above it, the round shell of the vine turtle, propped against a stone. The witness. Kat had crossed the water. But between Kat and the turtle, dark shapes moved along the shore, watching the sea. They had seen Kat coming.