She didn’t sleep again. She sat in the armchair until dawn, the cup of cold tea still beside her, watching the forest turn from black to gray to green. Every shadow transformed into something harmless until none of it felt harmless anymore.
When the first light spilled across the porch, she rose and checked the steps. No paw prints, no broken boards, nothing to prove that the cub, or anything else, had been there. The quiet mocked her. By seven, she gave up pretending she could let it go. She picked up the phone, thumb hovering over the ranger station’s number.