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“The day before you arrived, she came by my cabin with the duty roster.” I clear my throat. “She said, ‘Be nice to this one, Holt. I’ve got a feeling about her.’”

Her mouth falls open. “Prue’s been shipping us since before I even got here?”

“Apparently.”

“That sneaky, wonderful woman.” She shakes her head and stabs another pancake. Then she leans back against my chest with a happy sigh and pushes my hand right back where it was.

That afternoon, I sit on the porch steps with my carving knife and a block of basswood, while Wren curls up in the old rocking chair beside me with her leg on a cushion. The forest is quiet, and the sun streams through the pines in long, golden stripes.

She watches my hands for a long time.

“How did you learn?” she finally asks.

“The first winter after I changed.” I turn the wood and shave off a curl, thin as paper. “These hands broke everything. Pens, coffee mugs, door handles. I couldn’t even shake hands without hurting someone. So I picked up a knife and made myself learn small: tiny cuts, tiny curves.” I shave off another curl. “It took me two years to make anything worth keeping.”

“And now?”

“Now I can do this.” I hold up the block, revealing the start of a tail and the curve of a wing.

“What is it?”

“You’ll see.”

She grins. “You’re making me a present.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Your left ear did.”

I tuck the half-finished carving into my pocket before she can look closer. She laughs, and the sound rolls across the clearing. A jay answers from somewhere up in the pines.

She tilts her head. “Do they have a name? Did you ever look them up?”

“I looked everywhere: field guides, university databases. I even wrote to a museum once without saying where I found them.” I set the knife down. “Nothing. As far as anyone knows, they don’t exist.”

“So they’ve never been named.” Her voice softens. “That’s kind of perfect. Nobody goes looking for something that doesn’t have a name.”

“That’s what I’ve always thought.”

She rocks the chair with her good foot for a while. Then she says, “I want to see them again.”

I look up at the sky. It’s clear and pale blue, with no clouds in sight. Tonight will be the dark of the moon.

“Tonight,” I tell her. “They’ll fly high.”

We take the truck to the creek road and enter from the back way, slow, with her hand in mine. When the ground starts to rise, I crouch down with my back to her, and she climbs on without a word.

“I’ve been thinking about the report for two days straight,” she whispers against my ear. “I can’t stop.” Her arms tighten around my neck. “I keep thinking about the trail, my job, and the funding. And then I think about the moths, and none of it matters as much.”

“It matters to me,” I say. “Your job matters to me.”

“I know.” She presses her cheek against mine. “That’s one of the reasons I’m crazy about you.”

I nearly trip over a root.

She laughs softly. “Eyes on the trail, Ranger.”

At the stile, I set her down and help her over. We walk the last few yards, her boots in my prints over root, stone, and bare ground. We stop at the rim of the bowl.