An old iron key groans in a lock, resisting for a second, but after a firm turn, the bolt clicks back. The man with the key puts his shoulder into the wood, and with a low, rumbling creak, the heavy door to the log cabin swings open.

Suddenly the foyer is flooded with the outside world. A single shaft of afternoon sun pierces the gloom of the interior, illuminating a veil of suspended dust. The cabin is a time capsule; everything sits exactly where it was left, as if the house has been holding its breath since the day someone last locked the door over two decades ago.

Framed by the bright green of the woodlands behind them, the Hawthorne family stands on the porch like explorers at the mouth of a cave. To Kathy and the kids, it’s an abandoned wonder they’re seeing for the first time; to James, who steps over the threshold with a heavy sigh, it’s a return to a life he hasn't seen since he was Rowan's age.

“Wow,” James whispers in awe as his brain floods him with childhood memories. The floorboards beneath his boots feel solid, though they, and everything else for that matter, lie hidden under a thick, grey carpet of dust.

“It’s good to be back. Well... mostly,” he says, the last part half to himself. He looks around at the draped furniture and the thick, silver cobwebs clinging to the rafters. “It’s not exactly the paradise I remember, kids, but after a few hours of good ol’ elbow grease, I’m sure we’ll have this place back to its former glory. Trust me, it’ll all be worth it.”

Kathy follows him in, her suitcase wheels clicking loudly against the hardwood. She removes her light jacket and hangs it on the coat rack, then looks around, taking it all in.

“It’s more beautiful than I could’ve imagined, James, really. Even with the... layers,” she says, dragging a finger along the edge of a side table. She examines the line she’s carved through the dust, failing to suppress a grimace.

She’s not wrong to be enamored with it, either. This is no ordinary log cabin. Towering timber beams, a polished stone fireplace, and handcrafted furniture speak to a level of craftsmanship rarely seen anymore.

“Though I’ll be honest, dear, in this day and age, it’s a miracle nobody’s broken in and ransacked the place,” Kathy says, visibly relieved.

"I guess that's the beauty of being this far off the map," James muses, leaning against the doorframe. "That's partially why my sister and I just never did anything with the place; it's a hassle to get here unless you know exactly where to look… Doesn't really make for a quick sale. Plus, after Dad went missing and Mom got sick, it was a lot easier to just leave it locked up than to decide what to do with it at the time."

Kathy nods sympathetically.

"Course, the locals always had stories about these woods too. Bigfoot sightings, weird sounds at night, things people swore they saw between the trees."

Kathy folds her arms. "Bigfoot, huh? Sounds more like somebody saw a bear after one too many beers."

James lets out a short laugh.

"Either way, everybody around here had a story. Some even claimed they'd seen ghost lights. Well..." He scratches his chin. "Will-o'-wisps is what they called them. Little lights wandering around the forest after dark."

"And did you ever see one?" she asks, eyebrows raised.

"Nope." He grins. "Which probably explains why I'm still a skeptic."

“Dad, seriously… Where’s that metal detector you were talking about?” Rowan interrupts and pushes past them, his eyes already scanning his new surroundings. At thirteen, he’s in the middle of a growth spurt and constantly outgrowing his favorite shirts. “You swore Pepa’s old one is still here. You promised we could explore the woods with it!”

“Yeah, Dad. And for the record, if we do happen to find a buried fortune out there, I'm officially requesting that we swap from 'middle-of-nowhere dust-cabin' to 'Disney World' for our next family vacation,” Skye adds with an air of dry resentment. Eleven years old and already showing a sense of humor that’s distinctly her own.

She trails behind her brother, nose buried in a field guide, the sky-blue streak in her otherwise brown hair falling into her eyes as she walks. It catches the light with every step—bright, deliberate, entirely her. She’d wanted her whole head dyed, but this was the compromise her parents had allowed. Something different, something a little magical, and it stands out even more against the cabin’s dull, weathered wood.

Her eyes dart over the top of the page, quietly taking in the unfamiliar setting. Even if she’d much rather be in a resort, she knows how to make the best of just about any situation.

James rubs the back of his neck, a look of doubt crossing his face. “You know guys, come to think of it, I know he had one… Whether or not it survived the estate sale or the humidity... well that’s another story.”

Kathy leans in close to James, her voice a low murmur meant only for him: “I sure hope you didn't promise them a goose chase, James. If that thing isn't here, then you’ll be the one explaining it to them.”

He winces, suddenly second-guessing the decision to bring up the metal detector before the trip at all. “Go on, you two,” James says, waving the kids toward the stairwell. “Go ahead and get familiar with the place while we start unpacking. There’s a guest bedroom where you two can sleep with a bunk bed on the second floor. I’ve gotta get gas in the generator, and your mother will be stocking up the cabinets in the kitchen down the hall. We’ll call you both when we’re ready for help with the first round of dusting, okay? Just stay out of the attic for now… the ladder was shaky back then, Lord knows how it’s doin’ nowadays.”

The looming threat of chores is all the motivation they need to vanish. To the siblings, the cabin is a coin toss. Heads: it could contain a fantastical, life-changing discovery. Tails: it could be nothing more than the crushing boredom of a world that refuses to be magical.

Rowan is at that treacherous age where adulthood feels like it’s closing in, and looking for treasure starts to feel like something you’re supposed to outgrow. He watches his sister, a girl far too smart to be naive, yet one who willfully chooses myth over reality. She knows the physics of Santa doesn't add up—she’s done the math—but she ignores logic anyway, preferring a world that still has room for secrets to be kept.

Rowan isn’t so lucky. He is caught somewhere in the middle: too old to be naive, yet too desperate to let go. For him, this family trip is a final trial: he either finds a spark of magic in the woods this weekend, or he finally throws in the towel and accepts the mundane reality—the inevitability—of becoming an adult.

They take the stairs two at a time, their footsteps thundering through the quiet cabin, footprints appearing in the dust behind them like evidence of a crime. Framed along the walls are old family photographs. Some are sepia-toned, others black and white, each featuring faces frozen mid-laugh, mid-life. Skye slows for a second, studying the unknown faces as they pass.

“Which one do you think is Pepa?” she asks quietly, briefly captivated by the past.

Rowan barely looks. “No idea.”

None of the photos are labeled. Some of the faces look familiar in a distant, inherited way, but none of them feel like people they’ve ever known.

Above the pictures hang relics of another era: mounted antlers and bleached skulls stare down from the walls and watch the siblings pass with hollow eyes.

They burst into the guest room and skid to a halt. Rowan reaches for the light switch out of habit before remembering the generator isn’t working yet.

The room is smaller than Rowan imagined, but cozy. A wooden bunk bed sits against the far wall, its frame sturdy and worn smooth by time. A dresser with a crooked lamp stands beneath a faded painting of a waterfall, and an oval woven rug sprawls across the center of the floor. Beyond the bunk bed, a narrow closet sits tucked into the corner, and a single window looks out onto a dense wall of green trees pressed so close they feel like they’re listening.

Skye points to the bunk bed. “Rock, paper, scissors for the top bunk?” she asks, hands already poised.

Rowan drops his backpack onto the lower mattress with a dull thud. “You can have it, Skye. I don’t care.” His tone is a forced surrender. The sound of a boy reluctantly stepping into a more mature role while his heart is still back on the top bunk.

Skye blinks and her hands drop. The thrill of the win vanishes instantly. If Rowan doesn't want it, then why should she? “Well... I was joking anyway,” she says, looking sheepish but trying to match his bored tone.

Rowan rolls his eyes, but his voice softens. “God, Skye, don't be weird about it. Take the top bunk. I know you want it.”

She hesitates, then climbs the ladder. The wood creaks under her weight, after years of no use. From above, she leans over the rail, eyes bright again.

“Hey… remember when we used to have our own bunk bed at home and we’d play fishing? You’d sit up here and cast your line out into the sea, and I’d be the fish you were catching?”

Rowan lies back on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling where dust motes drift lazily through the sunlight like microscopic planets caught in a golden tide.

“Yeah. I remember… You were a shark. I always imagined you as being a massive great white shark I was reeling in.”

His mind drifts back to those simpler times—times when use of his imagination was encouraged.

Funny how memories diverge. To Skye, she had never been a predator of the sea; she had always been a mermaid.

“Well, we could do it again y’know,” she says hopefully, her index fingers meeting and parting in a nervous, rhythmic tap. “But since I’m up here, maybe I could be the fisherman, and you could be the shark!” She overenthusiastically mimes casting a line out into the room below her, grinning at him.

He doesn’t smile back; his face turns serious. “That was a long time ago, Skye,” his words are followed by silence.

Skye’s grin falters, but she hides it quickly, mimes reeling in her line, then swings her legs over the side of the bunk. “Aw, you’re no fun…”

Rowan shrugs, staring at the floorboards.

“Maybe fun’s for little kids.”

The words land heavier than he means them to.

Skye knows it’s supposed to sound dismissive, but honestly? She’d rather be a little kid than whatever miserable thing Rowan is trying to become. She rolls her eyes.

“Oh my god, Rowan, you’re fourteen. Not forty.”

He huffs out a laugh despite himself.

“Seriously,” she says, reaching her hand down to rustle his hair. “You haven’t stopped talking about that metal detector since Dad brought it up. And now you’re just gonna sit in here and be weird all day?” She lets the last word hang in the air like a challenge, trying to prod him out of his teenage funk before the whole afternoon is wasted.

Rowan rubs at his face. She’s right and he knows it. Ever since the thought hit him—that someday he’ll have to stop pretending, stop playing around, actually become someone important—he hasn’t been able to shake it.

But the metal detector does sound better than sitting here spiraling.

“Okay, okay,” he mutters, pushing himself off the mattress. “Maybe we can still find it before Dad does.”

Skye catches the change in him immediately. Her prodding worked. Rowan stands up straighter now, looking a little more like the brother she knows.

“That’s the spirit,” she says slyly and with a tone of encouragement. “And maybe it’s just me, but I think people are allowed to have fun no matter how old they are,” she adds, pushing back against his earlier claim.

Her attention shifts.

“But just think about it, Row—what if we actually find something crazy out there with the metal detector? Something worth millions of dollars! I’d buy enough books to make my own library!” Her eyes glaze over at the thought of her fantasy.

Rowan glances out the window, toward the woods beyond the glass. For a split second, something moves between the trees.

It is gone almost immediately—a dark shape slipping behind a trunk far deeper in the woods than he can clearly see. Rowan squints, waiting for it to reappear, but nothing ever does.

Probably a deer, he thinks.

He shakes his head, then turns away, still deep in thought.

“If I found something big,” he says slowly, “I think I’d do something important with it.”

“Like what?” Skye asks, snapping out of her trance.

He thinks for a second.

“I dunno. Maybe start some huge treasure-hunting company or something.” A smile finally pulls at his mouth. “We’d travel all over finding lost stuff people forgot about. Things that actually matter…”

Skye points at him dramatically. “See? See! Isn’t this way better than moping?”

Rowan shakes his head, but he can’t stop smiling. Sometimes Skye is exhausting. Other times, he isn’t sure what he’d do without her.

After a few moments of his own vivid daydreaming, Rowan returns to reality with a sigh.

“But first we need that metal detector…”