Zosia, Maks, and Igor find strange wolf tracks in Rusalka Forest, but when night closes in, a rusted compass and eerie howls turn their game into something far more dangerous.
Rusalka Forest always looked harmless from the path, all sunlit leaves and soft moss, but once you stepped under the trees the light changed. It thinned. It bent. Shadows gathered between the trunks like they were waiting for someone to make the first mistake.
Zosia, Maks, and Igor had spent half their holiday wandering those woods, playing at being trackers. They knew the signs of deer, foxes, and wild boar. They could read broken twigs and pressed grass as easily as the titles on the books in Zosia's room. But that afternoon, when they pushed through a curtain of ferns, they stopped at the same time.
The prints in the mud were too large for any wolf they had ever seen. Long, deep paw marks stretched in a narrow line between the roots, as if something heavy had passed through here at a run. Around them glittered tiny specks of silvery grit that caught the light and disappeared when Zosia leaned closer.
Igor swallowed. "Did you hear about the wolves people said they saw near the old ridge?"
Maks crouched beside the tracks, already pulling a notebook from his pocket. He sketched in quick, tense lines, his face set in that focused way that meant he was trying not to show he was uneasy. "These aren't normal," he said. "Look at the spacing. And the shape."
"Then what are they?" Zosia asked.
No one answered. The forest had gone unnaturally quiet, as if even the birds were listening.
They followed the prints deeper between the trees, where the undergrowth thickened and the air turned cold. The light faded fast beneath the canopy. Then Maks's boot caught on something hidden under a ridge of leaves, and he stumbled forward with a sharp curse.
He knelt, brushing away damp leaves, and lifted out a rusted compass on a cracked leather strap. The metal was cold enough to sting. Its needle twitched wildly, then settled for a second before jerking again, as if it couldn't decide where north was anymore.
At that exact moment, a howl rose somewhere ahead of them.
Another answered from behind.
Zosia tightened her fingers around the compass. The needle shivered in her palm. Then the paw prints at their feet began to glow with a faint blue light, one after another, leading straight into the mist.
The three of them stood frozen. Then, through the pale haze between the trees, two bright eyes opened and stared back at them.