The First Green Step

The trees started normal enough.

Oak, ash, a little mud — the kind of forest Ivy had walked through a dozen times on school trips. But this one kept going. Every time she thought she'd found the edge, there was just more of it, deeper and greener and older-smelling, like the ground itself had been here since before anybody had names for things.

Pip, her tiny lizard, clung to her shoulder and flicked his tongue at the air. His faint stripes glowed just barely — something he did when he was paying attention to something Ivy couldn't see.

"You're doing that thing again," she told him.

He blinked one slow eye at her.

She'd found Pip two years ago in her grandmother's garden, curled inside a cracked flowerpot. Nobody believed he glowed. Ivy had stopped trying to explain it.

She pulled her hoodie tighter and kept walking.

The One Who Writes Things Down

The forest floor got softer the deeper Ivy walked — more moss, less dirt — until she almost didn't notice the old woman sitting on a tree stump like she'd been placed there on purpose.

She was small and round, with silver hair piled unevenly on top of her head. She wore a coat that had too many pockets. In her hands was a thick, battered notebook, and she was writing in it very fast.

Ivy stopped.

The old woman didn't look up.

"Don't hover," she said. "Either sit or don't."

Pip — the little lizard on Ivy's shoulder — pressed flat against her neck the way he did when he was deciding something.

Ivy sat on a root nearby. "What are you writing?"

"Questions." The woman turned a page. "I collect them. Good ones are hard to find." She finally looked up. Her eyes were sharp and pale gray. "I've been waiting for someone interesting to come through."

She pointed her pen directly at Ivy.

"What do you want, girl? Not today. In general. What do you actually want?"

Ivy opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.