Mike didn't go straight home.
He couldn't.
The weight of the bow and device in his satchel felt heavier than it should have—like they were pressing down not just on his shoulders, but on his chest. On his thoughts. Every step away from the cave made him more certain: he had found something important. Something dangerous.
By the time he reached the edge of the forest, the sun was climbing past the tree line. Birds had returned to the branches. Squirrels darted through fallen leaves, and the forest felt… normal again.
But Mike didn't feel normal.
He cut around the back of town, avoiding the path that passed near the well or the smith's yard where Steve sometimes loafed with his friends. Instead, he slipped through the narrow alley beside the old grist mill and ducked behind a half-rotted fence to reach the barn behind his house.
Safe—for now.
He climbed into the hayloft and settled into the farthest corner, hidden behind piles of dried grass and empty feed sacks. This was his thinking spot. His safe place.
He pulled out the bow first.
Now, in daylight, he could examine it properly. The wood was dull gray, the grip wrapped in faded leather. It had no carvings, no symbols. No signs of enchantment. It wasn't ornate like the ceremonial bows Harold once told him about—those were lined with silver or etched with vines and flames.
But this one felt alive in his hands. Warm, balanced, as if it had been shaped for him and no one else.
Mike nocked an arrow from the quiver, stood, and drew.
The pull was smooth—smoother than any bow he'd used before. There was a tension, but also… something more. A slight resistance that responded to his breath, like the bow was listening.
He lowered it, heart beating faster.
"This is no ordinary bow," he muttered.
Next, he removed the device. It sat quietly in his lap, no brighter than a firefly now. The symbols on its surface were etched with clean precision, curling and twisting like ivy. When he turned it, the symbols seemed to shift subtly, like they didn't want to be read.
He tried pressing a few of them.
Nothing happened.
He shook it. Still nothing.
But the moment his skin touched one of the curved grooves along the side, the center glowed and pulsed once. The air shimmered around it, then stilled.
Mike stared at it for a long time.
"I don't know what you are," he whispered, "but Jake does. I saw it in his eyes."
He opened his journal and sketched both the bow and the device as best he could. Every line. Every symbol. Then he wrote down what the whispering voice had said—"Return what was taken."
He didn't know what it meant.
But he would find out.
And when he did, he'd be ready.