Moonlight shone upon the water, painting everything in a relief of silver and black. Except for the buzzing of insects, the night was very still again. On the far side of the lake, fireflies danced and whirled above the surface, some glowing pink and blue instead of yellow. Maybe she'd only imagined she'd heard a noise. Nothing seemed to be moving except for an old log drifting toward her.

That's where the dream ended.

She slowly reaches for the length of rope in her bag of convenience satchel.

She woke up, quickly sitting in her makeshift bed.

That log suddenly looked a lot like the top half of a horse's head, if a horse could swim like an alligator. And then the dead white eyes, the thin shiny teeth were very much visible.

A loud snore sounded. Puck was sprawled out on the couch across from her, one arm flung over his eyes, his torso wrapped in a squirrel blanket. It was dark in Twiggs's home; the fireflies or whatever they were had stopped blinking and were now clinging to the walls, apparently asleep. The only light came from a flickering orange glow outside the window. Maybe Twiggs had the porch light on or something. That glow was actually candlelight, and above it, a face was peering into the room from outside.

Ethan.

She looked over at the candle light, not yet noticing Ethan looking down on them through the window.

"Hm." She seems more interested now. She's read literally hundreds of books about myths. She knows exactly what this is. She takes out the rope and ties it into a {insert word for the thing you put on horses to ride them idk the word for it}.

Those blue eyes turned to the inside of the tree, and a face they knew all too well backed away into the night.

(Halter or bridle, whichever)

The horse thing was only a few feet away, raising its neck out of the water to expose a mouthful of needlelike teeth. Well, that thing was going to eat her.

She looked up at the window, all but a few seconds too late.