She turned off the flashlight. In the absolute dark, she listened.

Elara looked from the city's haze to the hollow. "The Kine Book says there's water under the hollow. Grandfather marked it with a star."

"A kine knows the way home before the road is built. Trust the herd's silence. When they stop lowing, listen beneath."

Elara was the fifth generation of her family to wake to the lowing of cattle. But this morning, the sound was a mournful one.

She ran back to the barn. Old Ben was standing at the gate, his nose pressed between the bars. The other eleven cows were behind him, utterly silent. No mooing. No shuffling. Just twelve pairs of eyes glowing in the moonlight.

By dawn, a small spring bubbled up through the gravel. By noon, the hollow was a mirror of sky. Elara sat on the bank, her feet in the cold water, and wrote a new entry in the Kine Book: