Nan’s attic smells like paper, apples, and a little mold that has not yet become a character.

The bestiary is a heavy book with a broken clasp. Unicorn: horse-body, spiral horn, a face too gentle for any real horse you have met. On the next page, a rhinoceros, copied from someone’s cousin’s cousin, thick and armored, horn on the nose. The artist has given both beasts the same eye, as if truth were a family resemblance.

You feel the collage click.

“Far travelers saw a one-horned something,” Nan says, delighted. “Or two horns in a line. Or a tusk on a table. Then a monk needed a picture. Then a mill needed a miracle. Then a child needed a reason to be careful in the ferns. All stacked.”

Mira turns a page to a white stag labeled spiritus. “That’s our Pale One. Still drawn like a church window.”

Dust motes act like tiny snow.

You can take the click to the hollow, where living threads will agree in a different language.

You can take it to the stream, and see whether the water-story still holds when you test it with a cup.