She picked the flowers just days before—bright, wild things, placed gently into a bottle left behind by men who carved roads through the forest. She found it buried in the underbrush, a ghost of the logging days, thick with rust and memory.

That night, I carried it to the gravel pit, set it among the broken stone, and waited.

At first, the northern lights were nothing more than a soft breath—barely there, like something the sky was still deciding. But then, without warning, they opened up—ribbons and flame, dancing above the pine edge like a signal from another world.