The kitchen table was a mess of crumpled papers, colored pencils, and half-eaten apple slices. Ten-year-old Luca hunched over his latest masterpiecea treasure map of the woods behind their house. His tongue poked out slightly from the corner of his mouth as he added another X to mark a supposedly haunted tree stump.
"Haunted by what?" he muttered to himself, tapping the eraser end of his pencil against his chin. "Ghost squirrels? Zombie chipmunks?" He giggled at the thought, then paused when he heard the distinctive squeak of the back gate.
The kitchen door burst open moments later, letting in a gust of summer air and his best friend Maya, who was practically vibrating with excitement.
"You'll never believe what my grandma told me," she announced, dumping her backpack on an empty chair and leaning over Luca's shoulder. "Whatcha drawing? Is that our woods?"
Luca covered the map with his arm. "It's not finished yet! And anyway, I was just about to add the best part."
"Which is?"
"The ghost squirrels, obviously."
Maya's nose wrinkled. "Ghost squirrels? That's the best you could come up with?"
"They're very scary when they want to be," Luca insisted, but he was already setting his pencil down. Maya's excitement was contagious, and she clearly had something important to share. "So what did your grandma tell you?"
Maya glanced around the kitchen as if checking for eavesdroppers, then lowered her voice. "She told me about a light in the woods. A hidden light that only appears at a very special time."
"What kind of light?" Luca asked, pushing his map aside.
"She wouldn't say exactly. She said it was an old story, from when she was a little girl. There's this light that appears in the darkest part of the woods, but only when—"
"Is that Maya?" A voice called from upstairs, followed by the rapid thud of small feet on the stairs. Moments later, Luca's eight-year-old sister Lily skidded into the kitchen, her mismatched socks sliding on the linoleum floor. "I thought I heard you! Are you guys planning something?"
Luca sighed. "We're just talking, Lily."
"About what?" Lily hopped up onto one of the kitchen chairs, her legs swinging back and forth underneath.
"Nothing important," Luca lied, shooting Maya a look that clearly said we'll talk later.
Lily's bottom lip jutted out. "You're always saying that, and it's always something cool. Last time you said 'nothing important' you were planning to build a tree fort."
"Which we never finished because someone told Mom about the hammer I borrowed," Luca reminded her.
"I didn't know it was a secret! You didn't say 'don't tell Mom about the hammer,'" Lily protested.
Maya stepped in before the siblings could start bickering. "I was just telling Luca about a story my grandma told me. About a light in the woods."
Lily's eyes went wide. "What kind of light? Like a fairy?"
"Maybe," Maya said, her voice dropping to a mysterious whisper. "Grandma Rosa said that when she was young, there were stories about a hidden lantern that could—"
The back door opened again, and this time a lanky boy with close-cropped black hair stepped inside. Jamal, Luca's cousin who was staying with them for the summer, carried a stack of books that looked too heavy for his skinny arms.
"Your mom said to return these to the shelf," Jamal said, setting the books down on the counter with a thud. He noticed the small gathering at the table and raised an eyebrow. "What's going on?"
"Maya's grandma told her about a magic light in the woods," Lily blurted out.
Jamal's expression shifted to one of skepticism. "Magic light? Like what, a flashlight someone left behind?"
Maya crossed her arms. "It's not just a flashlight. It's a special lantern that's supposed to be hidden somewhere in the woods behind Old Man Jeffries' property. Grandma Rosa said when she was a girl, they all knew about it, but nobody was allowed to go looking for it."
"Why not?" Luca asked, completely invested now.
"Because," Maya leaned in closer, "she said it's a doorway to somewhere else."
A brief silence fell over the kitchen, broken only by the soft hum of the refrigerator.
"That's just a story," Jamal said finally, but his voice lacked conviction. "People make up stuff like that all the time."
"Aren't you even a little curious?" Maya challenged him. "What if it's real?"
Jamal shrugged, but Luca could tell he was interested despite himself. That was the thing about Jamal—he always tried to act like the practical one, the voice of reason, but deep down he was just as curious as the rest of them.
"I want to go look for it!" Lily exclaimed, bouncing in her chair. "Can we go? Please, please, please?"
"We don't even know where to start," Luca pointed out, but his mind was already racing with possibilities. A hidden lantern in the woods? That sounded like the beginning of an actual adventure, not just the made-up ones they usually had to settle for.
"Actually," Maya said with a grin, "Grandma Rosa said it was supposedly near that old shed on the Jeffries property. You know, the abandoned one?"
Luca did know. Old Man Jeffries had moved to a nursing home two years ago, and his house had been sitting empty ever since, with a 'For Sale' sign that was so weather-beaten it was barely legible. The property backed up to the same woods that stretched behind their own homes, with an old shed sitting right at the edge of the tree line.
"That's trespassing," Jamal said immediately. "We can't go on someone else's property."
"The house is empty," Luca pointed out. "And it's not like we'd go inside the house. Just to the shed."
"I don't know…"
"What if we went after lunch?" Maya suggested. "We could pack some snacks, bring our bikes, and just… explore a little. If we don't find anything, no big deal. But if we do…"
She didn't need to finish the sentence. The possibility hung in the air between them, irresistible and mysterious.
"I'm in," Luca decided. "This is way better than ghost squirrels."
"Me too!" Lily said, raising her hand as if she were in school.
They all looked at Jamal, who hesitated, then sighed. "Fine. But if we get in trouble, I'm telling everyone it was Maya's idea."
Maya grinned. "Deal."
Luca tore off a fresh sheet of paper from his notebook. "Let's make a plan. We'll need bikes, snacks…" He began to list items, already mentally preparing for an expedition.
"And band-aids," Jamal added. "Just in case."
"And my magnifying glass," Lily chimed in. "For clues!"
"And a camera," Maya said. "To document our discovery."
They huddled around the table, their heads close together, as Luca wrote everything down. Outside, the summer sun cast dappled shadows through the kitchen window, and a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the oak tree in the backyard. In that moment, Tender Hollow seemed like the most ordinary place in the world—a quiet town where nothing extraordinary ever happened.
But that was about to change.
The four children made a solemn pact, sealing it with their own special handshake—a complicated series of high-fives, fist bumps, and finger wiggles that they'd perfected over countless summer afternoons.
"After lunch," Luca confirmed, a thrill of anticipation running through him.
"After lunch," the others echoed.
Have you ever made a promise that changed everything? Our heroes had no idea what waited in those woods, beyond the tangled blackberry bushes and the gnarled old trees they'd climbed a hundred times before. They didn't know that this ordinary summer day in Tender Hollow was about to become something extraordinary. They didn't know that the legend of the hidden light was more than just a story.
And in that moment of not knowing, anything seemed possible.