Deep in the Green Forest, Franek, Tula, and Professor Bubo discover strange footprints beneath the Old Sage and follow them toward a mystery no one expected.
In the middle of the Green Forest stood the Old Sage, an enormous oak with roots as thick as fallen logs and branches wide enough to shelter half the clearing. Every year the animals gathered beneath it to settle disputes, share news, and plan for the seasons ahead. But on this morning, the clearing felt wrong. Too still. Too watchful.
Franek the fox was the first to notice. He slipped from his burrow by the stream at dawn, when the mist still clung to the grass and every leaf seemed to glimmer with sleep. Usually he liked that hour best, but today even the birds were quiet. He crossed the mossy path with his ears pricked and his nose low to the ground.
Near the roots of the Old Sage, Tula the hedgehog was already waiting. She bounced on her paws, trying very hard not to look nervous. "Franek, come here," she whispered. "You need to see this."
Pressed into the damp earth beside the trunk were footprints unlike any Franek had ever seen. They were too large for a fox, too broad for a badger, and too deep to belong to anything light-footed. The marks curved around the tree as if whoever made them had been circling it, stopping, then circling again.
"I've never seen tracks like these," Tula said. "Have you?"
Before Franek could answer, a shadow passed over the roots. Professor Bubo glided down from the beech trees without a sound, his round spectacles catching the pale morning light. He bent over the prints, then blinked once, twice.
"Interesting," he murmured. "Very interesting indeed."
Franek's tail flicked. "You know what made them?"
Professor Bubo did not answer at once. He stared at the tracks as if they had reached into a memory he had not visited in years. At last he said, "I have seen something like this before. Once. A long time ago. During a winter full moon."
A cold gust rushed through the clearing. The leaves shivered overhead, and somewhere beyond the Old Sage, a low hoot sounded from deep in the forest. Tula moved closer to Franek.
Then came a sharp snap of branches, just behind the great oak.
All three froze. Something was standing in the shadow of the Old Sage, and whatever it was, it had been listening.