Morning at the Four Towers

The four crayon towers of Crayon Beaver Lodge caught the early sun like tall, bright markers standing guard over Craft Room Forest. One was red, one yellow, one green, and the tallest — dead center — was blue.

Ms. Crayon Beaver stood on the lodge's wide front deck, her blue-and-black supersuit already on, her giant blue crayon resting against the railing beside her. She sipped a mug of pine-needle tea and watched the forest wake up.

Below, a family of armadillos jogged the morning path in matching tracksuits. A gecko neighbor waved from his mailbox. Two deer teenagers zipped past on hover-scooters, laughing loud enough to scare the birds.

"Fast crowd this morning," Ms. Crayon Beaver said to herself, smiling.

Then she noticed something odd. One of the deer had simply… stopped. Mid-laugh. Mid-stride. Perfectly still, like a photograph.

She set down her mug.

Still Air, Moving Questions

Ms. Crayon Beaver jumped the railing and landed in the dirt path below — no flying, just a straight drop and a solid thud. She walked up to the frozen deer teenager, a young buck in a yellow hoodie and sneakers, locked mid-laugh with one foot lifted off the ground.

She waved her hand in front of his face. Nothing.

"Not sleeping," she muttered. "Not sick."

She pulled out her phone and snapped a photo. Then she heard it — a second pop, like air being pinched — and turned around.

The other deer teenager was gone. But three armadillos from the morning jog were now frozen in a triangle on the path, arms mid-swing, faces mid-blink.

A small drone zipped overhead. It was boxy and painted bright orange, about the size of a lunchbox, humming at a pitch that made her teeth itch. It made one tight circle above the frozen armadillos, then shot off toward the deeper forest.

Ms. Crayon Beaver stared after it.

The frozen deer's phone buzzed in his jacket pocket, rattling uselessly against his completely still leg.