Inside was a room made entirely of soft, worn blankets. And there, curled on a cushion, was Pippin—not as a ghost, not as a memory, but warm and breathing and thumping his tail.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

From that day on, Olly came to the Cracklewood every Sunday. He never told anyone about the tiny door. And Zinka never charged him—because, as she said, “Missing isn’t a broken thing. Missing is a bridge. You just need someone to show you where it starts.”

She sent him into the forest with a lantern and a single instruction: Follow the ache. Olly walked until the trees grew close and whispering. His feet knew where to go before his head did. At the base of a twisted silver birch, he found a tiny door no taller than his knee. Beside it, a keyhole shaped like a dog’s paw print.