Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It didn't look much like Harvest yet, except for on Judy's phone.

Everything here was a blur of still-green leaves and flashing sunlight as the train wound its way up from the bay and into the mountains, toward Mentor Forest and the plains on its other side. It was too close to the water to turn all at once.

Nick had never had opportunity to watch it all pass by until Judy had arrived. Now they made this trip so often the train's route had become familiar. He liked watching the ocean bay become the foothills, and then the steep scarps of the Flintheads. Every change meant the high plans of Bunnyburrow were getting closer.

For once, Judy wasn't glued to the turn of the vista outside. She had chosen instead to get a head start on their pumpkin planning. But from what Nick could see as she scrolled, the algorithm that had started with simple jack-o-lantern patterns had already morphed into full scenes of curated magazine perfection, full of decked-out dining rooms and extravagant sunset patio scenes.

"I thought you said all that stuff was made up."

"It is." Judy twitched guilty ears up at him and scrolled a couple more times. "It's nice to look at, though."

"Go back one." He nudged her forward so he could lean closer around her and look along. "How do you even do that? And where is everyone?"

"We made the garden at home look like that one year. We have a bench swing just like that one. All it takes is helpers to move everything outside."

"And about a thousand dollars," Nick said. There was a whole patio table set loaded with food, and not one but two fire pits lighting the whole thing up. He could nearly smell the cinnamon coming off the cozy scene. But it was deserted, in the way of things that were arranged more than used. He knew better now that no proper Harvest party was completely empty like that. "They're just trying to sell you candles and themed pillow cushions, you know."

"You don't put candles down by the blankets like that," Judy allowed. "That's asking for trouble."

Her phone burbled, interrupting their view of the moodboard with a new notification. She was getting a video call. A brand new contact portrait peered uncertainly out at them.

"Well, look who it is," Nick murmured.

"Do you want to talk to her too?" Judy didn't really need to ask, and she knew it. Instead she was snuggling closer under his chin, so they would both be able to see the screen when she answered.

"Of course."

Judy tapped the receive button. "Hello, Winter!"

"Hi, Judy." Her little sister was seated in a shadowy alcove, lit by a single work lamp. "And Nick. Um. Are you coming home for Harvest soon?"

Judy nodded. "We're on the train right now."

"What's up?" Nick asked.

"And where are you?" Judy added.

"I'm in my lab," she said. She reached forward to adjust the camera and the view wobbled. Behind her were what looked like racks of industrial shelving covered in farm equipment and boxes, creating a sort of hallway that extended in both directions off the screen. Cabling snaked overhead in runner cages. "When you get home, do you want to help me with a project? I need mammals who know how to go camping."

"Camping?" Judy looked up at him, her nose twitching. She sensed an adventure already, and Nick knew that was all the convincing she needed. It was probably where Winter got it from. "We're expert campers."

"Especially around Harvest," Nick agreed. It hadn't been so long ago that they had spent the night trekking to the shores of Silver Lake, deep in the woods, and something about the eerie shoreline had followed them all the way back to the tent. He remembered the noise on the cold wind, and how they had gathered in the cozy confines of the shelter to keep it at bay.

"Where are we camping?" he asked.

"It's not really camping," Winter said. "It's going to be in a permanent structure with walls and a roof."

"Are you talking about the old cabin?" Judy asked. "I thought we knocked it down after the storms, years ago. Almost before you were born."

"No, it's still there." Winter shook her head.

"That sounds great, then," Judy said. "What are you working on?"

"I'm gathering data on the Watchers. I searched through the library and there's nothing about them. Nobody ever took pictures, or video, or any kind of measurements at all." Winter sounded scandalized. "We don't know anything about, um. About how they're formed or where they came from. So I want to learn more."

"Nobody has ever taken a picture?" Judy asked.

"No. But if we can see them, that means they give off some kind of electromagnetism. And that's something I can measure. I just need the right tools. I have most of them." She was closely consulting a notebook. "But I need a camera that can detect ultraviolet bandwidths. I'm still working on that."

"Did you ask Violet?" Nick said.

Onscreen, Winter frowned. "Why? She's a psychologist, not an optical engineer."

Judy snorted, and Nick had to grin. "Never mind."

"We'll be there soon," Judy told her. "We should be in right about when dinner's starting."

"Okay." Winter said. "I need to finish this list."

She hung up the call. Judy tilted back to look up at him. Her eyes were twinkling.

"I think Winter's just preoccupied. I thought it was funny."

"It was funny. What does she need fancy cameras for?"

"I'm sure she'll tell us all about it," Judy said. "It sounds like fun, whatever it is."

---

There was woodsmoke on the breeze, but the dusk was still warm, so Nick and Judy took their time on the short walk from the train station down the dirt roads to the turnoff for the Hopps farm.

Here it did look like Harvest, and Nick thought it put anything that could be set up for a photo shoot to shame. Ranks of cornstalks and wheat stretched out to the very edge of the mountains, growing in every available bit of the soil and soaking up the last of the waning sun as it began to set. The light glinted gold off windmills and the domed tops of tall silos in the distance.

Behind the windbreak of trees and shrubs there were box trucks parked on the big ring driveway out front, taking on stacks of crated produce. Judy tilted her ears at them.

"Do you recognize them?"

"They must be neighbors," she said. "Or else locals. They must be here to get a shipment for the community center."

They returned waves and greetings all the way up the porch and into the front room. Nick stopped to wipe his paws and take a deep whiff of the promise of dinner that floated along as soon as they were inside.

Bonnie Hopps was in the thick of it, as ever, helping several of the kits unload a big basket full of broccoli and carrots for washing that Nick felt he could safely assume had come out of the ground just hours ago. She paused to wipe her paws on her apron and hug both of them hello.

"You're just in time," she said, and sure enough she turned her ears as something deeper in among the ovens went ding. "That'll be the latest batch of biscuits for the soup. We can get someone to run your bags to your room if you're hungry enough to eat right away."

"We can get it," Judy told her. "I want to go find Winter before we eat anyway."

Her mother got a knowing smile. "Well, you'd best load up a tray and take a bowl out to her, then. If she's still at her desk she might have forgotten to eat lunch."

Nick felt his bag slipping off his shoulder as Judy tugged on it.

"You do that," she said. "And I'll put these away."

She trotted off into the press of rabbits, looking a little unbalanced under the weight of the larger-scale duffel. Bonnie chuckled at his expression as he watched her go.

"She's still working as hard as ever, looks like."

"She never stops." Nick got down and helped lift the basket onto the countertop. "But now we're supposed to be on vacation."

"On a farm at Harvest," she pointed out. "This is probably our busiest time of year. But I won't tell her if you want to take it easy." She sorted through the broccoli and flicked an ear at him in a rabbit's wink. "Go on, scoot. I've got plenty of paws waiting to help here. Go make sure you both get a hot meal."

The soup pot was at the head of the monolithic old table that took up the center of the room. Rabbits of all ages and other mammals besides sat on its worn bench seats to eat dinner, gather around phones and tablets or just chatter with the mammals across from them. Nick joined the line beside it and was surprised to see he faintly recognized the rabbit turning to greet him.

"Nicholas Wilde?"

"Aunt Sherrie." Nick gulped as he clasped her paw. He'd remembered her name, but every one he learned was from Judy's perspective. "Well, not my Aunt Sherrie."

She just laughed. "Oh, I may as well be, these days. It's good to see you. Where's Judy?"

"She went to stow our bags, so I'm getting her dinner."

"Good mammal. Can I help? I'm all done here, and someone else deserves this seat anyway." She got up and nested her empty soup bowl into the top of a stack of dishes a youngster was carrying past to the scullery. He didn't even break stride.

"We're supposed to bring dinner for Winter."

"You'll want a tray, then. What's she off doing now?"

"That's what we're going to find out," Nick said. "She sent us a call earlier - it looked like she was in a closet somewhere."

"Probably the stacks," Sherrie said. "Joe has turned a lot of that into workspaces for his team. Let's get you your food and I can show you the way."

There were trays and a big selection of mismatched dishes near the front of the table, for the frequent busy mammals who didn't have time to sit down with proper tableware. Nick gathered three sets and filled the bowls with steaming potato and celery soup, and set a fresh biscuit from the cooling racks to bob on top of each. Judy arrived in time to help carry the drinks, and they followed Aunt Sherrie out the mudroom hall to the yard.

The project du jour seemed to be a complete overhaul of the wide floral and garden beds that bordered the big brick patio. Nick was used to seeing them full to capacity with carrots and radishes this time of year. Now everything had been turned out and dug up with expert care. In the fading light, a team of rabbits had excavated every square inch of dirt and was rolling out lengths of fresh landscaping fabric.

"They're getting a head start on winterization." Aunt Sherrie saw his interest. "You can just plow under the fields out there to give them all the nitrogen and phosphorous they need, but the yard committee is particular about how the family beds look."

"And you got everything out of them already," Nick guessed.

"We'll put in some garlic over the winter, once the dirt goes back in," Judy said. "And mâche or something in a sun box."

"Where are the pumpkins?"

"West B-7, this year," Sherrie said.

Judy smirked at his expression. "We'll ask Joe for a map, don't worry."

They crossed the road during a gap in the steady traffic to and from the fields and passed the towering main barns, where a group was busy unloading a trailer full of paw tools and other equipment.

On the end of the row was the tech annex, a low-slung building in prefab steel with a couple of garage doors rolled up and a roof serrated with solar panels. Guyed behind it was an impressive forest of masts and antennas for radio communications, satellite internet and network repeaters and even a small radome.

Inside was less like a barn and more like a well-lit computer lab, complete with air conditioning ruffling their fur. There was a double row of back-to-back of desks covered in monitors and roll-away tool storage stacked along the walls. In the center of the room, a drone was broken down on the workbench, missing a rotor assembly and spilling multicolored wires onto the table like a dissection subject.

A pawful of rabbits were working at the desks, and most didn't even look up as Nick and Judy arrived. But Sherrie seemed to know where she was going. she led them past a whirring 3D printer into the narrow hall that led deeper into the building, where the light and ceilings were lower and snaked with cable ducts. There were little bays off the main passage, and each of them looked to be dedicated to different technical projects - more drone designs, or plants growing under glass studded with rosy red lights. One of the alcoves was filled top to bottom with charging computers and paw radios.

Winter's desk was near the back. She was hunched on a stool over a battered lab table, scribbling in a notebook. In front of her in the beam of the work lamp, Nick saw a pegboard and a farm crate bookshelf, holding a collection of weather-related technical manuals and texts. Winter had a computer, and a microscope and a well-used mirrorless camera in a charging cradle. A minifridge hummed in the corner under the worktop, and a scarf and a blue windbreaker hung on a peg on the wall.

Winter was so focused that she didn't look up until Sherrie placed the tray in the limited clear space.

Hi, Aunt Sherrie," she said, then turned and smiled. "Hi, Judy. Hi, Nick."

"We didn't think you had eaten yet," Judy said. She stepped forward to hug her sister hello.

Winter shook her head. She paused only for a second before she slipped off the seat to hug Nick, too. "I'm busy. I need to finish getting ready for tomorrow."

"Sounds like you might need to pack a dinner, then." Sherrie ruffled Winter's headfur and excused herself.

"What's coming tomorrow?" Judy asked. She gave Winter her bowl, and Nick his.

"Well-" she got back on her chair and promptly tried to talk around a spoonful of hot soup. "You know that Watcher sightings get more common around Harvest."

"Of course."

"So it's the best time to gather more data. Look at this." She reached past the bowl to tap at her laptop and wake it up. It displayed a stack of spectral bands and waveforms.

Nick had to shrug, when she looked back at him.

"This is what a Watcher looks like. Um, in infrared. I got this from a night vision monocular last year. Now look at this."

She called up another set of bars. Nick couldn't tell the difference.

"It looks the same," Judy said.

"Yep." Winter beamed at them. "There's nothing there."

"Why not?"

"Um. I don't know yet. But you can see Watchers, right?"

"Right," Nick said.

"Well, that means they are giving off radiation. In the visible spectrum. So why can't I detect them in the other parts of the spectrum?" She pointed her spoon at the inscrutable data. "Like right there?"

Nick glanced at Judy's amusement. It had been a long time since he sat through a science lecture, but he had an idea of where Winter was going with this. "So what's your hypothesis?"

She finished another bite of soup and grabbed for her notebook. "If the Watchers emit visible light, then... they are likely to emit something at other wavelengths along the non-ionizing electromagnetic spectrum, too."

Now Judy was nodding along. If the rigorous dissection of cherished old memories was bothering her, she wasn't showing it. More likely, Nick thought, she had decided Winter's way of doing things was just as valid as any other Harvest pursuit. "Is this why we're going camping?"

"I'm going to run a set of experiments," Winter said. She had a hardcopy map for this, and spread it out for them so they could see the route sketched out to its endpoint in red dry-erase. "See?"

It looked a bit like the route they had taken once upon an earlier Harvest, when they had ridden in the hay wagon out to a tumbledown barn on the edge of the property. This time, though, they were set to hook the other way, into the deeper woods that grew on the hills to the north.

"It's further out than I remember," Judy said.

Nick got alongside her to look. "Not too far out for Watchers, though?" It had never been explained how or whether the apparitions respected things like property lines.

Winter shook her head, emphatic enough to make her ears sway. "No. They go everywhere."

Judy looked up at him. "We'll have to pack sleeping bags. And cider, too."

"I need to take equipment," Winter reminded them. "I have receivers for low-" she tapped a carrying case on the desk, and an antique-looking desktop box with dials all over its face- "and high radio frequencies. I got a microwave scanner from the kitchen." She picked up the camera with both paws. "And Joe gave me a filter to see infrared with this. So I just need an ultraviolet camera."

"No geiger counter?" Nick asked.

Winter stopped and got a little frown. "Ionizing radiation is more energetic. It's not in the scope of my test yet."

"Fair enough."

"Where are you going to get a UV camera?" Judy asked. "Does Joe have one?"

"He said he never needed one before, so I asked him to ask the college and see if they had one I could borrow." She smiled up at them. "They do. Can you drive me into town tomorrow?"

Chapter Text

With a family the size of Judy's, even a simple jaunt into Bunnyburow's sleepy town center often became a production of errands and appointments. 

Judy had secured the use of the farm's old truck for the trip, but it had come with conditions that she drop off commissions and pick up orders of specialty ingredents along the way. Today she and Nick had been through The Grand, city hall's mailboxes and down the road a bit the other way to barter seasonal specialties at the Weston family's own produce stand.

Winter had waited in the center seat the whole while, craning up at the thready clouds through the windshield or scribbling notes in her book. 

"I have a to do list, too," she said, when Judy asked about it, and went back to her neat writing. "I've never been to college before."

Nick looked over her ears at Judy and smirked.

Now they were pulling into the lot at McLaren Tri-Burrows Technical College. It was clearly the holiday - there were more leaves than cars scattered across the blacktop.

Winter climbed out of the truck behind her, still clutching her notes. The door squeaked and snapped as Nick pushed it closed.

"Where to?" Judy asked. "This one's your errand."

"Um." Winter looked over her writing. "I have to meet with Professor Reeder. At the solar agriculture lab."

"Okay. Can you go straight there, or do you need to find out where it is?" Coaching the young ones through their first steps off the farm and into the public was a shared responsibility. Judy was happy that it came naturally, despite her not having as much practice as some of her siblings.

She guessed Winter knew what she needed to do, and that the trick was going to be the actual conversations. That couldn't all come off written cues.

Winter studied the directory sign that was posted in front of the sidewalk. "He's not here." She set off down the path toward the columns of the nearest old building. "I have to ask."

Judy and Nick followed. It wasn't a huge school. There were a quintet of old quarry-stone buildings wrapped around a central quad on the other side of the main hall, and in the distance behind them the familiar shapes of silos and barns. A group of wind turbines turned lazily in the far distance, too far away to hear properly. The sun was starting to stretch the shadow of the buildings out toward them.

"Nice place," Nick said.

It tugged at her memories, in the way of settings from childhood that she hadn't spend much time in. She had visited once or twice in high school for events and career fairs, and once to tour the campus as a candidate for college. Since then it hadn't changed at all. But it was still a school for biologists and nurses and scientists. It had never had a criminal justice program.

"I would have gone here, if I hadn't wanted to be a cop."

"Yeah, it seems slower than your speed. I can't see you as a farmer," Nick said. "Not a full-time one, anyway."

Winter led the way up the steps and tugged on the inset door for mammals their size. It hinged halfway along the larger door's dimensions and opened onto a long hallway of polished rose granite with high, arched ceilings that echoed their steps. It smelled like old books.

There was a reception desk in the intersection. Winter paused and looked back at them, and when Judy nodded to her, climbed the steps to get on eye level.

The elderly hedgehog working there tapped away at the keyboard for a moment without noticing, and Judy had to bite her tongue. 

Winter just waited, standing still as a statue. Eventually the secretary turned, and straightened in surprise.

"Oh, hello there!" She put a paw on her chest and reached the other up to straighten her glasses. "I'm terribly sorry, my dear, I didn't hear you at all. Can I help you?"

Beside her, Judy heard Nick let out the same breath she'd been holding.

"Yes." Winter twitched and looked down at her notes. "I need to talk with - Professor Tobias Reeder. Can you tell me where to find him?"

"I see." The hedgehog looked over at them, in case they might explain why someone so obviously younger than a college student was asking around, but Nick simply nodded to show Winter had it right. "And do you have an appointment?"

"Yes," Winter said. "My older brother sent an email, um. Two days ago."

"And your name, miss-?"

"Winter. Winter Hopps." 

"Very good. I see you here on the schedule now." The receptionist clattered at the keys. "Professor Reeder is on his office hours now. You'll want to go through the library here and then left in the first hallway after you go out the far doors. His office is number 104."

"Okay." Winter turned to leave, stopped, and faced the hedgehog again. "Thank you."

"Of course, dear." She smiled a little uncertainly at all three of them. "Good luck."

"Nice work," Nick murmured to Winter as they crossed into the library's soaring study hall. "That was easy, huh?"

"I forgot his name," Winter pointed out. 

But she trotted gamely along, sparing little more than a glance for the intricate scrollwork on the library's grand staircase, or the double-height bookcases that needed ladders to access along the far walls. They went out the propped-open interior doors into a slightly newer-looking hallway, and down to room 104.

The door here was open already. Judy followed her sister in, and this time she couldn't help discreetly rapping a paw on the jamb as she went.

There were pictures of wheat fields and rows of root vegetables in frames on the wall, along with a panoramic landscape of lightning striking from a storm over the plains - Winter stared at this for a moment - and a vibrant false-color image of a bared ear of corn that glowed purple and blue instead of yellow. On the other side of the room, glass cases held a range of vintage microscopes and other lensed instruments. There was an open door in the back, through which Judy could hear at least one other mammal moving around.

A shrew was seated at a minuscule version of an office desk, itself set atop a mid-scale one in front of the windows. The nameplate read PROF. REEDER. He got up at Judy's knock and scampered to the front edge of the table.

"You must be Miss Hopps," he said.

"Yes. I'm Winter."

He had wiry headfur that stood out at strange angles, making him look a bit like he'd grabbed an exposed wire at some point. "Well, it's good to meet you, Winter. And who's this with you?"

"My sister Judy, and her partner Nick. Did you get my email?"

"I did."

"Thank you for meeting with me to talk about it, professor."

Judy felt her ears twitch. That was a little out of order. And when he bobbed his tiny head in greeting at her and Nick, it occurred to Judy to wonder what context Reeder thought partner came in, because she knew Nick would be wondering the same thing. But at least he smiled more easily than the receptionist had.

"I get so few citizen scientists along these days, I'm happy to oblige them when I can. My researcher Stennis is in the back getting it ready for you now. He should be along shortly and I can give you a demonstration."

"Okay." Winter turned her head, unable to pull her attention all the way away from the panorama on the wall. "Did you take that picture?"

Reeder followed her look. "Oh, the storm of '82? No, that was one of my students from that class."

"Is it a composite image?"

"Sadly, yes." He went to the corner of the desk to get closer to it. "It was rare back then to capture multiple bolts within a single exposure. We worked with film, you know. She wasn't in the field with the right sensitivity to take a proper long exposure."

"Oh." Winter studied it some more. "I listen to lightning."

"Do you? To thunder, you mean?"

"No, to lightning. They send electromagnetic waves, through, um. The ionospheric waveguide. It's part of the atmosphere. I built a receiver with an antenna to turn them back into sound. It sounds like static, but it's not. I can hear almost the whole hemisphere."

"Fascinating." Reeder sounded like he really meant it. "How old are you, Winter?"

"Eleven."

"Well, you have found some very exciting hobbies. What's got you interested in optics and electromagnetism?"

She went back a page in her notes and read closely for a moment. "I am measuring different wavelengths of radiation emitted by local atmospheric phenomena, which we can observe in the visual spectrum at night."

"At night, then. Do you have an ultraviolet light source? This camera is not the most sensitive - it tends to work best on reflected light, particularly from the sun."

"I want to test if Watchers emit their own radiation first," Winter said. "My hypothesis is... if the Watchers can be seen in visible light, then they are likely to also emit radiation at other wavelengths along the non-ionizing electromagnetic spectrum."

"I'm sorry- Watchers?"

"They look like a pair of eyes floating in a dark cloud. They show up at night in dark places on the farm when it gets close to Harvest. We can see them, but no one has ever measured their properties."

"But-" Reeder stopped and gave a tiny frown. "It sounds like what you're describing is a ghost of some sort."

"Have you seen them?" Winter asked.

"I'm sure I haven't." I don't think I've ever seen a ghost."

"You can't see ultraviolet light," Winter pointed out, and pointed at the image of the strangely colored corn cob. "But it still exists. You can still measure it."

"Yes, but we know to look for it."

"That's what I want to test," Winter said, as if he had answered his own question. "Nobody else has ever looked too see what else could be there."

"They do exist, Sir." Again, Judy couldn't help herself. Next to her, she sensed Nick nodding along. "Nearly everyone in the family has seen them."

He looked from earnest Winter, clutching her notes, to Judy's own serious expression, and raised his tiny paws.

"Bah, that's just me spending too long cooped up in the lab," he said. "I suppose I forget sometimes that there are some things that just haven't been explained yet. And that's the whole point, is it not? Oh, here we are."

A stout badger came through from the far room with a padded camera case in his paws. He nodded hello to them and set it on the desk to open it up for Reeder.

The camera had started life as something for mid-scale users. It would be unwieldy for someone Winter's size. The body, with its bulky pentaprism, looked like a normal SLR. But the oversize lens on its front was decidedly homebrewed. It had multiple focusing rings and emplaced filters that stuck square corners out at odd angles.

Sitting on the desk, the camera was taller than Reeder when he came up beside it.

"Now, most of the controls here are original," he told Winter. "Have you used a camera like this before?"

Winter peered at it for a moment. "Yes. I have one like it."

"Wonderful. You'll set the shutter speeds as you need them with these knobs here. But focusing is trickier. It will require a minimum distance of about ten feet. And I'm afraid the view through the finder won't show you what you'll see in the end, because it's still sending visible light. You'll probably need to perform some trial and error."

She scribbled a note. "Okay."

"Also, the lens is now hard-wired into the body, mind, so I'll ask that you don't try to remove it."

She nodded seriously. 

"There's a spare battery and a charger in the bag, and a memory card. Now try a picture of the lamp here, just to make sure everything works. If you don't see anything, change the aperture with this ring here."

Winter reached up to swivel the camera around, keeping it braced on the desk. Reeder watched her for a moment, approving of her cautious handling, then went to the edge of the table again and beckoned to Judy.

"Judy, was it? Forgive me - are you Winter's older sister?"

"Yes, Sir. The family farm is down near Silver Lake. Do you need my ID?"

"Just for reference. I've got the paperwork here if you could simply sign for custody of the hardware, and then you can be on your way. I'll need it back for classes starting on Tuesday."

Judy looked over the boilerplate release and liability form, and scribbled her signature. Hopefully two days would give Winter the time she needed for her experiments.

She had bagged the camera back up and was holding it carefully, with the case's strap as secure as she could make it. The whole assembly was half her size. Judy nodded to her.

"Ready?"

Winter nodded and turned to the desk. "Thank you again, Professor Reeder."

"Good luck with your observations." His beady little eyes twinkled. "I'd love to see what you're able to collect."

They left the way they came. This time, Nick slowed down to look up at the library's impressive stacks. Judy watched him, and enjoyed how he took in something entirely new.

"They let you sign for things?" he asked.

"Most anyone who's a legal adult can do it," Judy said. "Our word is as good as business, at least around town."

He grinned faintly. "Do you ever get someone abusing it? Or would the focused shame just incinerate them on the spot?"

"Almost," she laughed. "They wouldn't be able to show their face, for sure."

In the main hall, the sunlight was lancing down through windows set into another pair of doors. They paused to look through at the interior quad.

"Want to go for a walk before we head back?" Nick asked. "It's pretty out there."

"Hey, Winter!" Judy called.

She paused and looked back at where they had stopped.

"But we came in this way."

"Nick and I are going to take the long way. Do you want to come see this?"

Winter frowned and hitched the bag on her shoulder a little higher. But she turned to retrace her steps.

The Mclaren Quad wasn't particularly large, but it more than made up for it in charm. All of it was pristinely kept, which made sense for an agricultural school.  Down the broad steps of the main hall, a series of paths crisscrossed the lawn. Most of them met in the center at a series of flowerbeds. The largest was flanked by two rows of maple trees, whose remaining leaves were now a riot of yellow and orange.

They started down that one, past a group of mammals clustered around the sturdy roots of one of the trees, busy with some kind of soil probe. As they went, the canopy stretched overhead into a sort of tunnel of golden leaves, sheltering benches that were set along the walk.

"Now that looks like Harvest," Nick said. 

"Would you have gone to college like this?" Judy asked. He was certainly enjoying it now.

Nick's ears flicked and he shrugged. "For years, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I certainly didn't have the grades for it." He smiled down at her. "I probably would have ended up in night school."

She squeezed his paw. "There's nothing wrong with night school."

"The academy was faster anyway. And it had trees like this. So I got my taste of campus life."

Winter was ahead of them again, meandering a little as she looked up at the wispy clouds through the branches.

"Do you think she'll go here?" Nick saw Judy watching her. "She's already got an in at the science department now."

"That's up to her," Judy said. If she had to guess, she expected Winter was bound for a full ride at one of Rodentia's premier research universities. "But I bet she'll like the schools in the city more." 

"If you have any say in it, I'll bet. She can borrow the couch."

"Yeah." She wasn't going to deny it.

The late season sun spilled over the grass, still just enough to warm the fur on Judy's ears. A wolf glided by on an old road bike with a basket full of books on the back.

She felt the pull again, of a memory that wasn't quite hers but only got stronger as the breeze stirred more leaves off the trees. And the problem with nostalgia was the harder she tried to grab onto it, the more it would just slip through her paws. It was kind of like the Watchers themselves, something you couldn't look straight at.

But there was still plenty she could savor in the moment - like Nick's paw in hers, and the way the light set off his russet fur as spectacularly as it did the leaves, and Winter's tangible excitement as she set up their next adventure. She would be trying to look directly at those things that made the season what they were - and if there were anyone who could nail down those mysteries, it was her.

Chapter Text

The sun was almost down by the time they made it back to the farm and its sprawling patio. Winter went off to check in the borrowed hardware and finish her packing for their trip. Nick and Judy left her to it, so they could deliver the rest of the errand goods they're come back with.

An acre of pristine soil was now back where it was supposed to be in the beds near the house. In the newly cleared space, patio furniture had been wheeled back out around the coals in the long firepit so mammals could take their dinner outside if they wanted to. A river of running lights showed the procession of UTVs and other esoteric vehicles continued from the field, each of them packed to the brim with pumpkins and other ground crops. 

Off to the side by the kitchen doors, Stu was taking a report from two teenage rabbits who were reading something about yields off a clipboard and looking very proud of themselves. The old farmer winked as Nick went by.

"Are they your brothers?" Nick asked, when they paused by the cubbies to take off scarves.

"Leo is. I think that's cousin Andrew with him."

"Are they running the whole place?"

"Just an assigned field," Judy said. "It's been their responsibility to see it through its growing season since we planted them. The top growers get prizes."

"Is it more pumpkins?"

"They grew zucchini this year," a new voice said. They turned to see Violet easing through the kitchen crowd. She had a basket full of clinking empty jars in her arms. "They did a great job, too."

"Vi." She didn't have her paws free for a hug, so Judy hugged her. 

"I don't mean to eavesdrop. Hi, Nick."

He waved it away. Everyone tended to hear everything, around here.

Including, it seemed, their plans for the night. 

"Did Winter really talk you into another one of her adventures?" Violet asked.

"Maybe." Nick settled his claws on Judy's shoulders. "If she's going to go out hunting Watchers, she could use a chaperone."

"Not to mention dinner," Violet said. "I take it none of you have eaten since lunch."

"We were in town all afternoon," Judy said. 

Violet sighed, and even to Nick it sounded like Bonnie for a second. "Go pass off all your deliveries, then. I'll meet you back here to make sure you're ready."

They gathered soup - now slightly modified since last night with the addition of new vegetables and spices - and scones and a second thermos full of spiced cider. Violet had emptied her basket and refilled it with a set of dishes and silverware for them.

"You'll need blankets or sleeping bags, too, if you're going out late."

Judy counted the bowls as Violet tucked a bag of caramels into a corner of the basket.

"But there's only three."

"And?" 

"You're not coming with us?"

"You two don't need a chaperone," Violet said. "Usually. And if you were planning to sneak off somewhere quiet, I don't want to intrude."

"Judy snorted. "It's a science trip, not a date night."

Nick laid his ears down. "Well..."

Judy's own ears reddened through their thin fur. She smirked up at him. 

"Okay, you're right. Winter's going to be pretty distracted." She turned to her sister. "But you could still come with us. There's plenty of room in the cabin."

Violet shivered. "Oh, I knew it was going to be someplace cold and foggy."

"Well?"

"All right, then." She smiled. "I'll get another blanket. And make sure Winter packs a good jacket, okay?"

---

Winter did have her jacket - and, as she had reminded them, an entire truckload of specialized equipment. When they went to find her at the tech annex, she was busy checking a stack of camera bags and cases against a list in her notebook, lined up next to the familiar blue pickup. 

There was another rabbit with her, wearing glasses and scruffy chin fur, leaning on a loaded paw truck and looking on as she set the packing order. 

"Hi, Joe," Judy greeted him. She stepped wide around the boxy device on the cart. "What's this thing?"

"A battery," Winter said.

Joe nodded, and gave Judy a knowing grin. "I got a request for silent power, enough to run a whole lab overnight while it's out in the field. This is about the only thing that'll do the trick."

"Can you help me load that first?" Winter asked. "Since it will stay in the truck."

Nick got down to help. The case was a lot heavier than it looked, but that meant it would sit securely in the bottom of the truck bed. The three of them got it settled. Winter packed a coil of power cables alongside, and then directed the team to secure her radio receiver and a set of tripods onto the pile. She kept her laptop in its bag with her, and another case about half its size.

Judy found a place for their food basket and Violet arrived soon after with bundles of sleeping bags. By then the truck was so full it looked like they might not all fit. It took some creative work with the seatbelts until Violet was satisfied they could all safely ride, and then they set off down the main road, bucking the trend of all the loaded produce trucks and field buggies coming the other way.

Soon that traffic peeled away into the distant produce rows somewhere, too, and they were driving past the lake on their own. The last of the sun was crowded under ranks of thick clouds overhead, sending red and orange flashes off the choppy water.

Winter, half on Violet's lap, spread out the map to guide them.

"Go left after the lake," she told Judy. "On the old path."

It was twisty old doubletrack, leading them past the reeds and cottonwoods that gathered around the water and over a steep ridge into proper forest. Stands of oak gave way to taller willow and hickory trees that even with half their leaves gone still swallowed the light.

They were looking for a clearing, Winter said. And while Judy focused on the road, Violet related the story of the old cabin that had hidden out here for generations.

"It was one of those family projects," she said. "Like the gazebo at the lake, only much less official. We used it for camping trips and hiking in the forest."

"Only Violet never really went on the hikes with us," Judy put in. 

"No, I didn't." Violet smiled. "I only visited a couple times, like this. By then it was beaten up and half falling down anyway. I guess I never saw the appeal."

"Aunt Kim says it's haunted," Winter said.

"Well, we're looking for Watchers, aren't we?" Nick asked her.

"Not like that. She says it's something else." Her shrug went all the way up to her ears. "But I don't believe it. There's not enough evidence."

Nick watched both Judy and Violet smile to themselves at that. Winter was so engrossed in the map that she probably didn't even notice.

Suddenly she held up a paw.

"There!" She said. "See that big tree? We're here."

They were indeed there. On the other side of the willow's sweeping branches was a gentle gully, open to the sky and hemmed in all around by the skeletal trees. Leaves drifted down on the wind.

And at the edge of the trees, tucked in under their shelter, was a tiny wooden structure that looked as old and weather-beaten as the rest of it.

The cabin was built mostly of wood, mismatched and gapped in places where spot repairs or improvised patches used different timbers. The tin roof, spotted with willow leaves, had gone to rust so dark it nearly matched the rest of the building. It was maybe fifty square feet, counting the rickety porch that sat out front, and still mostly upright. An open door and window frame sat like lopsided eyes looking out at the clearing, with broken balusters on the porch railing for jagged teeth.

Judy pulled them carefully alongside and backed the truck in next to the porch. Winter craned through the windshield to see the sky past the roofline.

The breeze stirred a circular path through the open space, pulling leaves around in a gentle whirlwind. It tugged at their fur as they opened the doors and got out.

"It's already cold," Violet murmured. "I hope it doesn't get worse than this."

"It's forecast to rain soon." Winter sounded excited about it. "Did you see the inflow over the lake?"

This time Violet hid the smile behind her scarf. "I must have missed it..."

Nick didn't know what he was looking for, either. But if Winter said it looked like rain, he believed it. The clouds they could see were slate-colored gloom, with the barest of red sunset light still coming through.

It made the interior of the cabin dim enough that he felt his eyes adjust when he poked his head inside. Winter went on ahead into the dark, like she knew the layout of the place already.

The floor was more bare timbers, stepping up in the back to a raised section. A little sill table was built in under the window. In the corner, an old cast iron box stove crouched on four legs. It had lost its chimney pipe.

"Do you see any wasp nests?" Violet was still fretting, peering up at the peak of the ceiling and looking under the lip of the windowsill. "That was why we left it alone last time."

"That was before I even left for the city," Judy said.

"Mister Weston said he fixed it," Winter said. She brushed leaves off the table and vanished back out the door. "They sprayed something."

Violet even checked the stove, which did not hide wasps or even old soot but a collection of mismatched, half-burned candles. Judy, looking on over her sister's shoulder, shrugged.

"If you can't have a real fire in it, that looks like the next best thing. Someone must have been out here recently."

"Did we bring something to light them with?"

"Maybe in the truck," Nick said. "I'll look."

Because it was still a working farm vehicle, there was a field kit with first aid supplies and other necessities in the glovebox. Nick was able to follow his nose to the sulfur scent of a roll of strike-anywhere matches, and soon they had the candles in the stove flickering.

Meanwhile, Winter worked off a neat checklist in her notebook. Her tripods and their cameras went up in either corner of the window, and her radio tuner and her computer went on the table between them so she could operate them. Nick was immediately deputized again to help her run an extension cord back out to the power source outside, set up the aerials and antenna that worked off the truck's hotspot, and hammer a long copper spike on a wire lead into the dirt some distance away. Winter flicked the activation switches herself and led the way back in to bring her battery of sensors online.

"This one plugs into the computer," Winter said. She ran a USB cable from her modified camera and plugged it in. A new window popped up saying CAPTURE READY.

"Can you do that with the one you borrowed?" 

"No," she said. "I have to use a card and check it later. I wish it was redundant, but I don't have the right interface."

The tuner was an old analog wheel model with a bouncing VU meter and a pleasant incandescent glow to its band display. Winter opened the case she'd brought in the truck and took out a small box, which accepted plugs from the radio and sent another out to the computer. 

"See?" She opened another long, thin window on the laptop that showed a scrolling field of static. When she twiddled the radio's tuning knob, the patterns onscreen changed and sharpened.

"That's soundwaves?" Nick didn't even have to pretend to be intrigued. Winter's focus and enthusiasm reminded him of someone.

"It shows signal traces and live band data." She pointed to the most energetic of them. "That's, um. WBUN. The local radio station. It's 90.9 megahertz. I can listen to shortwave, AM and low frequencies, too."

He remembered her encounter with the professor earlier in the day at the college. "Is that how you listen to lighting?" 

"No, that's with this." She took out another small box with a single switch and knob on it and held it up almost reverently. A serious whip antenna was collapsed down alongside it, reminding Nick of the deployable batons they sometimes carried. "Joe helped me make it for my birthday. I soldered it myself."

"What does it sound like? The lightning."

"Um. Static," she said. "But it's not as loud, because the emissions come from specific transient events within the atmosphere."

"Neat."

"Do you want to listen to the storm?"

"Maybe soon," Nick promised. "Come on, we're supposed to eat first."

The stove now gave just enough light for Judy and Violet to see their work unrolling the blankets. Their picnic basket was unpacked and laid out, steaming gently in the glow as Violet portioned out the soup.

"This looks cozy," Nick murmured, taking his seat on the blanket next to them.

"Are you two all set up?" Judy asked him.

"I think so. I only know what half of it does."

"It's just in time," Violet said. "Look how dark it's gotten."

The sun had gone, in fact, and the thick clouds overhead meant there wasn't likely to be moonlight, either. As they started in on their soup, the first of the thunder rumbled out from the distance. Winter had barely sat down to eat; now she jumped right back up to go take some sort of calibration.

"Is it going to rain on us now?" Judy asked. 

"No," Winter said, without looking up. "The radar shows the precipitation in the storm will pass to the north."

"That's a bit of a shame," Violet said, chasing croutons around her soup with a spoon. "It would have been nice to listen to on the roof."

As it was, the wind carried the scent of fresh-fallen rain to them through the forest, and stirred the trees into motion outside. They could see clear through the door to the leaves dancing along on the gusts, chasing through the trunks. Occasional lightning was starting to flicker overhead.

Their soup kept them warm, and so did the stove's subtle radiant heat, as the candles began to work on its old iron. They clustered in front of it and Nick found they could even put their paws on it to keep the chill from the breeze at bay, and their drinks on the flat top to keep them from losing their effectiveness.

"It's brighter than I thought it would be," Judy said.

"For those of us who are old-fashioned about it, anyway." Violet smiled and watched Winter, cutting a profile in concentration in the steadier blue glow of a computer screen. She had her headphones on.

"She's doing what she wants, don't worry."

"I don't. But she'll wish Harvest night lasted longer, just like I do." Violet shrugged. "Every year it seems faster and faster, and every year I miss it more. Even when it was chasing after you on our adventures."

"I know how you feel."

"You do?"

"We were at the school, helping her with her camera." Judy shrugged. "We went for a walk on the lawn, and for a second I felt like a little kit again. I wish I could make that last."

"It's so... bittersweet, almost, watching her try to pick apart the magic." Violet looked over at their little sister again. "But she was always going to do the things that no one else had ever tried. And you're right. That is what she wants, even if her memories will just be numbers and data, instead of getting lost in the maze."

"Those mean a lot more to her than they do to us." Judy shrugged.

"And she'll have pictures," Nick pointed out. "Technically."

"What are your Harvest memories like, Nick?" Violet asked. "If you don't mind me prying."

"Not at all. Mostly I was sneaking around the dark in the city, because I could see well in it. I never had a costume, or even carved a jack-o-lantern until Judy brought me back to do things properly here." He set his muzzle against her brow, between her ears. "You might say this is where the fun really started for me, too."

Judy smirked. "And now Winter is going to ruin the mystery of the Watchers for you even faster."

"I don't know about that," Nick said. "They still make my fur crawl. In a good way."

The storm was intensifying. They took the blankets with them and went to sit at the door to watch properly. 

The lightning in the clouds came so quick now that it picked out the sharp edges of the trees like a strobe, blinking through the forest in a continuous series of gentle flash frames. The thunder that followed was a constant low-level rumble, more like the roar of an otherworldly wind than individual peals.

Judy was close under the blanket, and clinging to Nick's tail as an extra layer of warmth besides. She was scanning the treeline with such focus that Nick could nearly feel it.

"I hope they don't get scared away by the storm."

"I'd be more worried about them being camera shy," Nick said. "With all this hardware."

"I hadn't thought of that."

Violet looked morose for a second. "She'll be devastated if she doesn't see any tonight."

Those fears proved groundless almost at once, though, when Winter suddenly shushed them for quiet and hunched forward, reaching up to press her headphones tighter to her ears.

"I can hear them!" she gasped. "I can hear them on my lightning catcher." She fumbled for her notebook to scribble observations.

The rest of them tried to watch her excited work and the forest at the same time. She was flicking relays and starting recordings, tuning the radio down into its lowest receiving range.

Her instruments were surely more sensitive, because Nick didn't see any of the telltale smoke or twinkling eyes out in the trees yet.

Winter eagerly stripped off the clip drivers and held them out to her sisters, so they could each put one on. When she pointed the long antenna out the window, their eyes widened.

"It sounds just like them!" Violet sounded shocked.

Judy, looking spooked, gave Nick her earpiece. When he cupped it to his ear, he heard a tinny crackling, like graupel on a windowpane, in time with the lightning overhead. But beneath it, making his hackles stiffen, there was a familiar muted burbling, like water rushing away underground. 

"Do you know what that means?" Winter was nearly bouncing. "The Watchers could radiate in the very low or even the extremely low frequency. But how? There's no visible antenna. Where does their energy come from? What if-"

"Look!" Violet said.

There they were. In the deepest buttresses of the tallest oak, the mist resisted the urging of the breeze and hung still. Bright points of amber light, like fireflies, flickered in the dark. Nick dug his claws protectively against Judy's shoulders, keeping her close - and Violet was holding tight to Winter, too.

There were two of them, and then a third further back. Their floating eyes brightened, and with it, the rushing sound reached them - loud enough to just barely hear themselves, over the storm and from across the clearing.

Winter clamped her headphones back on and reached up to trigger the cameras, staring not at the Watchers themselves but at whatever represented them amid all of her streaming data. Nick was listening so hard the soft clicking of the shutters sounded much louder in his ears.

The rest of them stayed crowded in the doorway, waiting with bated breath as the Watchers continued their scrutiny. One of them, apparently deciding the strange entourage in the cabin was no threat, seemed to turn its attention away, fixing it instead precisely on where the farm would be, off in the distance down the twisting path.

"I want to know how they know where to look," Judy whispered. 

"And why doesn't the wind do anything?" Violet said.

It was as strong as ever, driving the fallen leaves to huge swirls of activity that seemed to jump and transpose as the storm lit them. But the Watchers were stock still, as if they somehow existed beyond the reach of the weather. Even the lightning only touched off a dull edge against their forms.

"Infrared is inconclusive," Winter was muttering. "Microwave..."

She got up on the sill and reached up to adjust the detector on its clamp, hanging nearly halfway out the window to do it. It was finally enough to tear Violet's attention away from the specters.

"Careful, Winter."

"It's not showing anything! How can they only register in the lowest frequencies?" She frowned at her screen. "They must be even more localized than I thought."

But the storm was moving in. The staggered flicker of the lightning and the constant noise of the thunder had swallowed the whole sky, making the trees stand out like skeletal claws reaching up over the clearing. Nick could smell rain falling somewhere nearby, even if it wasn't on them. 

Eventually the glow of the Watchers' eyes dimmed and scattered away, and the mist was gone as abruptly as it had appeared.

"Did they leave?" Judy asked, peering out into the dark.

Winter, paws clamped over her headphones, paused for a moment and then nodded. "I don't hear them anymore."

"Maybe-" Violet stopped and shivered as the wind sent leaves scattering up the porch and across the door. "Maybe the storm is too much for them."

"Where do you think they go to wait out bad weather?" Judy asked.

A cozy old cabin in the forest, Nick hoped. Because this was turning out to the perfect spot to shelter from the Harvest cold.

The stove, when they returned to it, sent its glowing warmth into cold eartips and tails and picked out the amber highlights of the cider as Violet poured it into cups for them.

They made up a mug for Winter, too, for when she finished poking at her scanners and cameras, and took it to her at the window. She was sitting with her antenna box in both paws, watching up at the lightning show overhead.

"Here, you," Judy said. "We have a blanket, too, if you want it."

"Did you get good pictures?" Nick asked her.

"I don't know yet." She took the drink and sipped at it. "I need to do analysis of the images first."

But for now she seemed distracted by the storm, and the way it lit up even the deepest recesses of the forest to the north. That was reasonable, Nick decided. It would have been worth the trip to see its fury rolling through, even without the Watchers coming out to see for themselves.

Judy leaned back against him, following her sister's gaze. Nick nosed at her and made sure she was comfortable, before he looked up, too.

"Are we sure we won't get rained on?"

"It's moving further away," Winter said. "We're behind the front now."

"I still worry about the tin roof, and all the antennas on the truck." Violet came up with Winter's blanket, which she wrapped around her shoulders. 

"We grounded all of those. If the lightning does strike them it will go away from us." Winter pointed briefly with the aerial on her listening rig, before she angled it back out the window. "That way."

Violet didn't look entirely convinced, but she didn't press the issue, either. She settled in next to Winter to watch out into the stormy dark.

"Maybe the Watchers will come back out when it's gone."

"I'll listen for them," Winter said.

Chapter Text

Country storms had a way of scouring the air even cleaner than the squalls that boiled over from Rainforest's canyons. When they returned to the open air outside the farmhouse the next morning, Judy swore they could see details for miles out over the fields, and to the forest, and to the hills beyond.

The morning sun was about to reach its noonday height. Brunch carried on behind them, because even they and their lazy Harvest morning weren't the last ones out of bed. And for once Judy understood the urge to sleep in that came so naturally to her partner.

Winter had eagerly packed all of the gear at first light at the cabin, where the sun had only just started lancing through the chilly mist of the clearing. There were images and readings to analyze, she explained, and she wanted the resources of the tech barn's computers to help as soon as possible. She'd been holed up there since they got back. 

Judy wasn't sure she'd even had breakfast herself, much less a morning nap like theirs. They were on their way to check on her and see what her experiments had uncovered.

Beside her, Nick yawned wide enough to swallow the pumpkin in his arms.

"The cabin," she said.

"Sorry?"

"That's what we should carve in the pumpkin this year. It's where we spent Harvest."

He grinned at her, and inspected their only slightly lopsided candidate. "That's not going to make sense to anyone, though."

Judy snorted. "Don't worry about that. Have you seen some of the things my siblings put in their carvings?" One of her more avant-garde brothers had started work on his jack-o-lantern that morning, if it could be called that. He was patiently punching a needle through over and over to turn the whole vegetable into a fine mesh. It was going to take him hours.

Nick put their chosen gourd down out of the way at the entrance to the tech annex, and they went down the warren of cramped halls into the back.

Winter was at her workshop bench, tapping away at her laptop. She turned an ear for them when they came into the nook, but didn't look away.

"Did you eat breakfast yet?" Judy asked, coming up alongside to watch.

"I will. But I want to finish backing up my data first."

A memory card sat in a blinking cradle on one side of the computer, next to the hodgepodge assembly of the UV camera she'd borrowed. She had windows open showing a pair of false-color images of the clearing, and was peering closely at them. Progress bars were crawling across the screen.

"What are we looking at here?" Nick asked.

"These are from the ultraviolet camera. This one-" she pointed - "is a control image from when there was nothing in the clearing. And this one is from when there were Watchers. Right there."

The images looked, at least to Judy's untrained eye, to be exactly the same, just like the first scans Winter had shown them before.

Winter's frown was the same, too, for that matter.

"That's not what you expected, is it?"

"No. There has to be a source of radiation somewhere. Maybe the camera wasn't sensitive enough. All I detected was VLF activity, and I couldn't even record that."

"With your lightning detector?" Nick asked.

She nodded. "Um. And all of my infrared pictures are inconclusive. And the microwave readings too."

Judy smiled. That tone was way too familiar. She heard it whenever their case ran out of leads and they were stuck staring at the blank pages of their reports. "Sorry, Winter."

"Why?" Winter frowned even deeper, but her ears stayed up. "We didn't know anything about Watchers before. Now I know more about what we don't know." She picked up her notebook to read. "My experiment showed they emit almost no radiation, except in very low frequencies. Or maybe very high ones. That tells me where to look next."

Nick shrugged and grinned silently over Winter's shoulder.

"And what if there's nothing there, either?" he asked.

Winter looked up at him, as if the possibility hadn't occurred to her. But then she got a little hopeful smile. 

"If they can't be explained according to known science, then I have to do new science to fill in the gaps. And I can use more cameras."

That felt familiar, too. Judy ruffled her little sister's headfur.

"What cameras haven't you used yet?" Nick asked.

"X-ray." Winter stopped and considered. "And film."

"I didn't know they still made those."

"They do." Winter assured him. She scribbled something in the margin. "Misty has four. I'll ask her about borrowing one."

The computer beeped and flashed a BACKUP COMPLETE message. Winter ejected the card and plugged it back into the camera.

"We can take this back to Professor Reeder now," she said.

---

It wasn't long before they saw their next Watcher, late that evening as they hunted for checkpoints in the most remote depths of the maze. 

Once again Winter was the first to spot it, and held out her paws to stop the rest of them on their hike. Judy came up short and crowded in with Nick under the cornstalks, where the leaves tickled her ears.

Violet, bringing up the rear, looked round and froze at what they saw.

"Oh, my."

It floated along into the middle of what might have been a dead end crossing, paying them no heed at all, and stopped there, looking off at something. It would be the farm, of course - but Judy was so turned around in the dusk and the close confines of the maze she had no idea which direction that was now.

Winter stared down at it like she was hunting, at least at first. But her expression changed to a simpler excitement as she watched it go, turning back the way it had come and melting without a trace into the stalks. 

"One day I'll learn how they do that," she promised.

Judy felt Nick's claws prickling under her vest. 

"Should we go after it?" he asked Winter. "See where it goes?"

"They don't like being chased, remember," Violet reminded them. She drew her scarf tighter around her tucked-in ears. "They'll just disappear again."

"And I don't have my lightning catcher." Winter sounded put out. "It's still charging."

"Are you really thinking of coming back later? It's already dark." 

That was more reflex from Violet than anything, Judy knew, but she also had a point. It had been a long day for all of them already, with their early start and then their duties in the fields as they helped with the annual harvest. After they had carved their pumpkin together at dinner, it had taken a round of freshly brewed coffee to really brace against the evening chill of the maze. 

"No." Winter picked up her paws and led the way down toward the junction, going slow. "I need another hypothesis first. A new one."

Judy didn't think it was an accident that Winter's experiments had come up just as blank as any of their other explanations. It was like the Watchers didn't want to give up any of their secrets.

That would never stop Winter, of course. And it was strangely reassuring to know that her curiosity and scientist's mind wouldn't ever admit defeat, even if they were never satisfied. She would always have something to chase out here in the dark of the maze each year, just like the rest of them.

Mist - plain old fog, not the otherworldly stuff that followed the Watchers - wound along through the leaves, making the quarters feel even tighter. Higher up, the wind passed overhead across the waving tops of the cornstalks. They edged closer to the blind corner. Judy heard Violet hold her breath.

But it was just another holloway, deserted, almost lost to looming shadow at the other end. 

Winter started fearlessly down this one, too. Judy followed, ears prickling with what she was now sure was a universally tantalizing feeling of the unknown.