Jurek, Pola, and Franek find strange footprints in the Old Forest and follow them deeper inside, where feathers, noises, and a flicker of light hint at a secret they are not ready for.
The Old Forest was never quiet for long, but that morning it felt as if the trees were holding their breath. Jurek the hedgehog, Pola the bunny, and Franek the squirrel met in their usual glade, expecting the same safe paths and sunny chatter as always.
Instead, they found something that made all three of them stop at once.
Across the grass ran a line of fresh paw prints, each one bigger than Jurek’s little round foot and sharper than anything any of them had seen before. He crouched beside them, peered closely, and wrinkled his nose. "Those are not from any neighbour I know. Look at the claws."
Pola’s ears sprang upright. "Do you think it’s a wolf?" she whispered, glancing into the trees.
Franek leaned forward, curiosity sparkling in his eyes. "Or someone new. Maybe someone lost. We should follow them."
The prints led them away from the bright edge of the glade and into the deeper, dimmer part of the forest. Ferns brushed their legs. Twigs snapped under their feet. Here and there, leaves had been scattered as if something had hurried past in a great hurry. Then Pola spotted a bright feather snagged on a bramble, blue as summer sky.
"That’s odd," she murmured.
They went on.
A low rustle moved through the undergrowth. Then another. Franek froze, tail twitching. Ahead, between two dark tree trunks, something pale flashed once and vanished.
Pola pressed herself against the bark of an old oak. "There," she breathed.
All three listened. A soft hoot drifted through the trees. Branches cracked somewhere nearby. And just beyond the ferns, something glimmered again, close enough now to make Jurek’s whiskers tremble.