Solid wood feels like a prize.

You sit on the boards with your wet sock dripping through the slats. Jonah’s flashlight is a small sun. Ranger Dev is here in a hissing rain jacket—the kind of person who shows up when kids invent physics, and stays until the physics is finished.

“Wisps don’t kidnap,” Dev says, not as a joke. “People wander. Lights wander because bubbles wander, and sky sits on water, and your feet follow your eyes. The ground here is peat. Peat is a sponge. Sponges lie about being floors.”

Jonah looks disappointed and also, privately, relieved.

You write: Lights moved with wind / sky in puddles / tiny flame over bubbles. Smell like blown-out match. Ankle held. Boards honest.

Dev crouches so you are not a lecture. “Old names are still useful. Will-o’-the-wisp. Jack-o’-lantern. Fool’s fire. Folks needed a story for ‘I followed a shine and the world got wet.’ The story kept people on paths. The chemistry is methane and friends—gas from plants rotting with too little air. The danger is unsound ground, not a spirit who wants your shoes.”

He tips his chin inland. “Ellison keeps the rest of the names in two columns, legend beside mechanism. If you want that book, her porch is the next honest ground.” Jonah’s flashlight is already half-turned that way.

Your phone finds one bar. Aunt Mara: Boards. Thermos. I believe you.