“Poe and the Path of Lights

At midnight, when all of Shamrock Hollow slept soundly and the air hummed with crickets, Poe the black cat lay curled in the windowsill. One velvet paw twitched in a dream, and his tail flicked like a thought he hadn’t quite finished.

Then—

A flicker.

Poe’s eyes opened to slits, golden and gleaming. Beyond the windowpane, three tiny fireflies floated like sparks caught in slow motion. They hovered a moment. Then began to drift toward the edge of the woods.

Poe blinked once. Then again.

Finally, he slipped down from the sill without a sound.

He found Nellie snoring softly by the kitchen door, her long ears flopped like two warm scarves.

Poe padded up and tapped her paw.

“Nellie,” he whispered.

Nothing.

He tapped again.

“Nellie,” he purred. “The lights are calling.”

She blinked blearily, “Is it breakfast?”

“No, better.”

They slipped through the cracked screen door and onto the porch, paws clicking softly on old wood. The fireflies floated ahead like breadcrumbs made of starlight.

Into the trees they went—past the barn, past the goat pen, past the fence with the ivy curling through it. The woods swallowed them gently, and the stars above blinked like they knew a secret.

Past the sycamores and foxglove, the trail sloped steeply into a cool ravine. The air was different there. Still. Expectant. Every twig crack beneath their paws sounded like the whisper of turning pages.

And then they reached it.

A clearing opened before them—and it was filled with light.

Thousands—no, tens of thousands—of fireflies drifted in the air, blinking, rising, pulsing like the beating of one enormous quiet heart. They floated through the branches, wove silver patterns above the moss, danced in wide silent circles around the trunks.

Nellie sat down slowly, ears drooping in awe.

Poe’s tail curled around his paws.

“They’re painting the sky,” Nellie whispered, eyes wide.

Poe nodded, but said softly, “Maybe…they’re showing us how to glow.”

The two sat in silence, wrapped in light and stillness, while the forest breathed around them. And when they finally turned to leave, the fireflies followed twinkling like a trail of dreams lighting their way home.