"I don't understand. It should be here," Mayna said, her voice deflated. She brought the map close to her face and turned it this way and that, trying to make the lake they searched for materialize.

"May I?" Pyke held out his hand. "Maybe we just veered off the path."

Mayna thrust the damp square of leather towards Pyke and plopped herself onto the ground. The knee-high grass cushioned her and gave off a sweet smell. She pulled her hike-fizzed hair free of its tangled braid and brushed her fingers through the snarls. Mayan's pale, freckled skin was flushed by the heat. By now, she'd envisioned Pyke and herself floating on calm, clear water instead of trudging through the humid forest on a seldom-used and overgrown path.

She twisted her hair into a fresh braid and tied off the end with a strip of cloth. Mayna then closed her eyes and waved her hands in a fluid motion in front of her. A soft breeze kicked up and cooled her's and Pyke's sweaty skin, before dying again, leaving them hot and sticky.Pyke sighed. "That felt amazing."

"I wish I could ask for rain, but the wind is already irritated with me," Mayna said. From where she sat, she blew a kiss into the air. A small gust snatched it up and carried it away.

Pyke studied the map, running through his mind where they'd walked and what they'd observed on their journey. "Well, I don't think we're lost, and oddly enough, I don't think the map is wrong either. Everything we've run across so far is on the map except for the lake, and from what the map tells us, the lake should be right here."

"Too bad we can't swim in grass," Mayna said. She ripped a clump from the ground and blew the blades off her palm. They fell listlessly in the hot air. Groaning, Mayna let herself fall backward, flopping on to the waterless, sea of green.

Pyke peered around the clearing. There was a strangeness to it; instead of being flat and rocky like most of the forest clearings in the area, it rose and fell with smooth, rolling undulations. Thick, deep green grass spread across the clearing, stopping abruptly as it reached the tree line. Pyke knelt and examined the alien plant life.

"What do you make of this stuff? I mean, it's similar to the grass in the eastern farmland, but it's too tall and thick, and the color is too green. And these flowers. I've never seen anything like them before." Pyke plucked a small purple flower from one of the long, snaking vines.

Mayna noticed the odd makeup of the clearing first time. "You're right. The grass has a strange, sweet smell, too."

Closing his eyes, Pyke knelt and brushed his hand over the tips of the grass, listening. "It sings a song I don't understand." Pyke stood and walked through the high grass, listening to its foreign melody. He'd made it to nearly the other side of the seizable clearing when something crunched underfoot.

"What do you mean you don't understand?" Mayna asked, brushing her hand through the grass and listened. She heard nothing, not even birdsong. "I thought you knew all the language of all the plants in Drakston."

"I do," Pyke said. He lifted his booted foot. The crunch wasn't the sound made by a dried twig. This had a different tone to it, one that made his set his nerves on edge.

Through the silky green growth, Pyke saw what two rows of slender white sticks curving in uniform rows up towards each other. From his time learning of the inner working of livestock, Pyke immediately recognized what he was seeing; ribs. He parted the grass and followed the ribs to the skull of a mid-sized wolf or large fox, which was odd, since neither animal lived in the area. One would have to travel to the foot of Mount Tikkal far to the north to catch a glimpse of the elusive animals. Why would an animal adapted for extreme cold be here in the woods?

"Hey, Mayna, could you come here?" Pyke said over his shoulder, not taking his eyes from the skull.

Mayna hurried over to Pyke, not wanting to be alone in the eerily quiet clearing. "Why aren't the birds singing"

Pyke stooped and picked up the skull. "What animal do you think this was?"

Mayna shrugged and wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She tried to be nonchalant, but something wasn't right. The air felt electric. "It could be anything. Things die in the woods all the time."

Pyke studied the sun-bleached remains for a minute before speaking. "Well, the overall size and shape are wrong for it to be a wolf." Pyke turned the skull over in his hands. He opened the jaw and thoughtfully examined the teeth, or what was left of them.

"A wolf? Like the Grimach?" Mayna asked. Thoughts of howling specters tearing naughty children apart flooded her brain. She shivered despite the heat of the day.

"It can't be Grimach, because it's real, not a willow whisper," Pyke said, paying Mayna no real mind. "The snout is too flat to be a wolf or fox." He examined the ribs sprouting from the meadow. "From the shape of its ribcage, it was barrel-chested, like a bull."

"A pig?" Mayne offered, kneeling next to Pyke. The contrast between the white of the bone with the green of the grass was striking.

Pyke slipped the leather pack from his back and gently stowed the skeleton in the towel he had brought with him for their planned swim. "I'm going to take this back and see if I can't identify it. It might have something to do with the missing lake." He pulled a large clump of grass out by the roots and placed it in his pack as well. "I think I should tell Kyler about this place."

"But then he'll know we sneaked out," Mayna protested. "How are you going to explain finding this place? Do you want to go before the Council?" Mayne shook her head. "No way, Pyke. There's no reason we can't research all this on our own. I have full run of the archives. Whatever we need to know will be in there."

"All right," Pyke said and sighed. "We'll keep it to ourselves for now, but if we can't figure out what it was, we talk to Kyler."

"Agreed," Mayna said. She glanced uneasily at the quiet woods surrounding the clearing and stood. It was as if the animals steered clear of this part of the forest. "Let's get out of here. This place scares me. Dead thing or no dead thing, something's not right here."

Pyke nodded and began to stand when something shiny caught his eye. He reached for the brassy object. It was shaped like a crude drawing of a bone. A small ring attached it to a weather-bleached green, thickly woven scrap of fabric. Pyke rubbed the face of the small, flat object, no more than an inch in length, and found a strange markings engraved into the metal.

"What's that?" Mayna asked, rubbing her arms. Goose bumps bloomed along her skin. The eeriness the clearing gave intensified by the second. The air jumped with electricity.

"I'm not sure, but something tells me it belongs to the skeleton. I can't tell what it says," Pyke said, stowing the object in his backpack.

Mayna jumped to her feet. The electricity in the air swirled around her, tingling her cheeks. "We need to go. There's a storm coming." She yanked Pyke to his feet, and started running for the cover of the trees.

As he ran, Pyke glanced at the clear blue sky.