Page 28 of The Otherworld

“Lucius, find.”

He sets off with vigor—leading with his nose, paws vanishing beneath the ferns and undergrowth. I follow his trail, the tall pines dwarfing me as I venture into the forest.

The silence thickens with the trees and ground cover. Young yellow saplings shoot up playfully at the feet of their weather-worn ancestors, and the scent of pine rolls up from the forest floor, mingling with morning dew. Golden fingers of sunlight cascade through clearings to drink up the moisture last night left behind. Songbirds chatter in every direction, warbling and mimicking each other—delighting in their secret language.

Lucius wades through the ferns, his head submerged, hard at work with his excellent nose. I trek forward slowly, putting my own faculties to use. I search for even the slightest disturbance, which is considerably more difficult in the forest than on the beach. I scan the ground for footprints, but I also check the spaces between trees where spiderwebs glisten in the sun, pearls of water sparkling on their threads spun so perfectly from one tree to the next—

This one is broken.

I step closer to examine the web better. It was once large and elaborate, but now the translucent strands hang listlessly in the soft breeze. It’s about a foot over my head—the height of a man.

My heartbeat quickens as I stoop to scour the forest floor and notice a scuffle of golden pine needles.

Footprints.

“Lucius!”

His head emerges from the undergrowth.

“Come!”

He hops over, porpoising through the ferns and skidding to a stop at my side. I tap the disturbed pine needles.

“Find.”

He sniffs the area and picks up a scent. Moving carefully, he begins tracking it—forward, through the trees, over a log, and veering off to the left. I follow a few paces behind him, searching for more clues.

My heart pounds, hope reawakening in my chest. We’re onto something. I can feel it. We’re going to find him.

Lucius’s head snaps up. He looks to the right as if he’s heard something.

I scan the woods around me but see nothing.

Only trees behind trees behind trees.

“What is it, Lucius?”

He sniffs the air delicately, as if pulling apart the layers of scents in his mind. I wait, listening and scanning for anything out of the ordinary, my heart hammering in my chest.

Without warning, Lucius bolts forward with reckless abandon, sending up a cloud of pollen in his wake.

That’s when I see a squirrel ahead, flying over the ground in a gray blur of panic.

“Ugh, Lucius, no! We’re supposed to be—” I let out a furious growl, chasing after him. My feet race over the soft earth as I dart around trees in pursuit of my dog. But no matter how loudly I shout his name, he doesn’t listen. Squirrels are the only creatures that usurp me on Lucius’s scale of loyalty.

At last, the offending squirrel chooses a tree to escape into. I see the frantic animal claw its way up the trunk and disappear into the canopy, leaving a small explosion of leaves in its wake.

Lucius skids to a halt, jumping against the tree and barking viciously as if the squirrel will take this as a friendly invitation to come down.

“Lucius!” I’m using my scolding voice now, and he knows it.

He gives me a mischievous side-eye and dares to bark a few more times before I grab him by the scruff of his neck.

“Bad boy,” I mutter, dragging him away from the tree. “We were doing so well before you saw that squirrel. We were onto something! Now we’re going to have to find those footprints again…”

But that’s the thing about the forest—everything looks the same. I should have taken note of some landmarks near the broken spiderwebs and the footprints.

Lucius lopes beside me, panting with his pink tongue out, trying to win back my affection. Futile—I’m focused on the woods around me, scanning every space between the trees for broken cobwebs. But alas, the sun has vanished behind the clouds, bathing the forest in shadow and making the spiderwebs disappear.

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