You stop at the fence.

Tracks tell the morning in one glance: slot prints arriving, bunching, turning, pacing, turning again. No miracle. A wall. Deer do not argue with wire. They meet it, fail, and spend the night on the wrong side of breakfast.

You can have trees and still have no forest a wide animal can use. A cart road, a logged strip, a fence—each one is a small no. Stack the nos, and a hallway becomes a postage stamp. The Pale One’s vanishing paths vanish for real.

Mira bites her lip. “Father thought the fence was only about sheep.”

“It is also about the valley being cut in half,” you say. “A gate-gap is a hole a deer can choose and a sheep can be discouraged from. Costs less than a cursed horn. Costs less than a sick wood.”

Down-valley, the mill’s water-wheel ticks. Cole will be at the ledger, listening for luck.

The logged square sits like a missing tooth to the south, a second exhibit if you need one.