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.
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. zinka rezinka
“He’s not dead?” Olly whispered.