Autumn and the Crooked Waymarks

The first waymark pointed toward the brambles.

It was a wooden arrow fastened to a post, meant to guide travelers at the fork. Harey's route note said the safe path turned left at the oak with the split trunk. The arrow pointed right.

Autumn crouched beside the post. Morning light warmed the russet fur along his back. The ground still held the night's dampness.

He brushed one paw across the fastening.

"New peg," he said. "Old holes beneath it."

Harey adjusted the message satchel across his shoulder. "The tree matches my note. The arrow does not."

Moss covered the shaded side of the post except for a pale scrape beneath the arrow. A single boot print pressed into the mud.

Autumn rose and adjusted his weathered green mantle. "Someone turned it."

Harey's ears lifted. "You know that?"

Autumn looked at the fresh peg, the scrape, and the print. "I have evidence."

"That was not my question."

Autumn's tail flicked once. "Then I think someone turned it."

Together they set the arrow toward the firm ridge described in Harey's note. Autumn tightened the peg before they continued.

The second waymark pointed down a rain-softened slope.

Autumn pressed the post with one paw. It shifted in the wet earth. A dark ring around its base showed where it had stood before the storm.

"Another wrong turn," Harey said.

"And another changed post."

"Changed by the same someone?"

Autumn studied the shallow tracks nearby. "Possibly."

They turned the post until its arrow faced the higher path on Harey's note.

At the third fork, a fallen branch lay across the open trail. The waymark pointed toward a narrow gap between thorn bushes instead.

Autumn found fresh scratches on the arrow and a strip of bark wedged behind it.

Harey touched the fallen branch. "This could have struck the marker."

"Or someone could have placed it there."

"Could have," Harey repeated.

They pulled the branch aside and reset the arrow toward the cleared trail.

The fourth waymark still pointed the correct way.

Autumn stood among the ferns and looked back along the route. Three wrong markers. A fresh peg. Prints. Scratches. One correct marker waiting at the end.

The answer felt neat.

Too neat to ignore, he thought.

He took one of Harey's blank parchments and wrote a short warning.

Harey held out both paws. "What is the exact message?"

Autumn passed it to him.

Harey read aloud. "Someone is turning the outer-path waymarks. Keep off the route until that traveler is found."

"Deliver it to the village," Autumn said.

Harey did not roll the parchment.

"Who is the traveler?" he asked.

"I do not know yet."

"Did one traveler change all three markers?"

"The signs fit."

"Do they prove it?"

Autumn glanced toward the corrected route. "Not separately. Together, they make a pattern."

Harey looked down at the warning. "If I deliver these words, the village will hear a fact. You are giving me a theory."

Footsteps sounded from the path behind them.

An unnamed neighbor appeared carrying a wooden mallet, spare pegs, and a small coil of rope. Mud darkened one boot to the ankle.

"There you are," the neighbor said. "Did the new peg hold at the first fork? I replaced it yesterday before the rain."

Autumn went still. "You fastened that arrow?"

"In the last bit of light. The old peg split."

"Which way did you point it?"

The neighbor frowned. "Toward the ridge, I thought. Unless I matched the wrong set of holes."

Autumn looked at Harey's unrolled warning.

"We should check," he said.

They returned to the first fork. The neighbor set the muddy boot beside the print. A small nick in the heel matched the mark in the mud.

Then the neighbor fitted the mallet head against the pale scrape beneath the arrow.

"My repair," the neighbor said. "And my mistake. I fastened the arrow backward."

Autumn looked from the boot print to the fresh peg. Every clue had been real. His answer had not.

At the second fork, the neighbor pushed the post. It turned easily in the soaked ground.

"Rain loosened this one," Autumn said.

They packed flat stones around its base until it held firm.

At the third fork, Autumn fitted the strip of bark to the broken branch. The edges matched.

"The branch struck the arrow," he said.

They cleared the last twigs, tightened the marker, and checked its direction against Harey's note.

At the fourth fork, the arrow still pointed where the note said it should.

Harey counted on his paws. "First marker?"

"Fastened backward during a hurried repair," Autumn said.

"Second?"

"Twisted in rain-softened earth. Now packed with stone."

"Third?"

"Struck by a fallen branch. Now cleared and tightened."

"Fourth?"

"Already correct."

"So, one culprit?"

Autumn looked at the warning he had written.

"No culprit," he said. "Three wrong markers. Three different causes."

He drew one line through the warning, then took a fresh parchment. This time he wrote what they could prove.

Harey read the new message aloud.

"All four outer-path waymarks have been checked. The first was fastened backward during repair. Rain twisted the second. A fallen branch struck the third. The fourth was correct. All four now point along the safe route."

He looked up. "Do you need an answer?"

"Yes," Autumn said. "Ask the village to confirm they received the report and to tell us if another marker is found wrong."

Harey repeated the request, rolled the parchment, and tucked it safely beneath his satchel flap.

Before leaving, he tapped the crossed-out warning.

"Exact words," he said.

Autumn folded the false warning and placed it in his own satchel. "Wrong before they left my paw."

Harey's ears relaxed. "Good thing I asked."

"Good thing you needed the truth, not merely a message."

Harey set off toward the village on the corrected path.

Autumn remained at the fourth fork with the neighbor. From there, he could see the first three waymarks standing straight through the trees.

He had wanted one clever answer to explain them all.

The path had required three honest ones.