Midnight at the Construction Site

The clock in the church tower struck eleven—three slow, uneven booms that echoed through Willow Lane like distant thunder. The city wore its nighttime coat now: a ripple of shadow, a sprinkle of dew, and the uneasy hush that sometimes settled when everything held its breath. Even the moon kept low, uncertain if it wanted to watch what would happen next.

Mia and I set off quietly, past the closed-up houses with their porch lights flickering like tired eyes. She tiptoed, head bent, clutching the blue collar like a talisman. I hopped in a pattern as old as my name: stick to the shadows, listen for wings or whiskers, and always—always—move as if you know exactly where you’re going.

We crossed Willow Lane and ducked behind Mrs. Bowes' sagging azalea hedge. From here, the construction site looked like a gaping wound: heavy yellow machines hunched in the dark, fences draped in faded caution tape fluttering in the cool wind, and the old willow’s ghostly branches spelling warnings overhead.

Mia gulped as we approached the locked chain-link gate. “Are you sure he’s in there?”

I let out a slow, judicious croak. “My pond is nearby. If Charlie slipped through, he’d be drawn by everything that’s missing—scent and memory. Dogs, like frogs and girls, will sometimes go where they shouldn't, just to find what’s lost.”

She nodded, jaws set. “How do we get in?”

I shuffled close to the base of the fence, prodding for soft ground. “Follow me, but quiet. Frogs are stealthy, if nothing else.”

It didn’t take marsh-magic to find the gap at the back corner, where a stack of broken boards leaned half-heartedly against a trash bin. Mia’s jacket caught on a splinter and she gasped, but I shushed her with a flick of the throat. “City nights have many ears,” I whispered, remembering the crows and raccoons, but also the harsh, frozen noise of human machinery.

Inside the fence, things changed. The world smelled of oil and churned clay. The air was tight and restless. Shadows stretched and twined, thrown by the beams of distant floodlights across piles of pipe, footprints crusted deep into mudbanks, and pools of water reflecting stars like broken glass.

Mia tucked in behind a mound of gravel, eyes wide, heart drumming loud enough to make a cricket flee for cover. “I can’t see him,” she whispered. “What if he’s gone?”

I flicked my sticky toes on a wet rock—testing old magic. “He isn’t gone. Dogs leave trails. Frogs can follow.”

I sniffed the air, noting the tang of dog fur beneath the heavier smells. “That way,” I pointed with a hop, toward the broken half-wall near the willow’s roots. She followed, careful as a moonbeam.

We crept past the yellow digger, ducking beneath a fallen ladder. The ground was slippery with mud and stones, churning up old secrets—pieces of glass, an acorn, a forgotten marble, the jawbone of a small, city-wise mouse. The willow trees' shadows trembled, curtain-like, over a low, wide pit whose edges sloped sharp and uncertain.

As we neared, a sound shivered through the air: a whine, thin as a ghost, from somewhere beyond the pit.

Mia gasped. “Charlie!”

We scrambled to the edge. There he was: a limp silhouette spotted with mud, wedged between two toppled plywood panels, his leash snagged on exposed rebar. His eyes caught the light—wide and desperate, desperate in a way that made my throat ache.

Mia started forward, but I threw out a webby foot. “Wait. This place is full of dangers: holes, wires, magic that’s turned sour with anger and forgetting. Let me scout.”

Night pressed close as I made my way, tracking the slippery bank with all four limbs splayed, tongue ready for stray flies—though city flies brought little comfort now. Halfway down, I froze: a shadow swooped overhead, silent as a falling feather. Amber eyes glowed in the beam of the distant work light. An owl, immense, riding the updraft off the construction’s torn ground.

It perched on a rebar rod, so close I could see the flecks in its eyes, and for a moment the world held its breath. I knew the rules: owls and frogs have a long, uneasy history. But old marsh-magic was strong tonight; I whispered a plea into the damp air, words winding back a thousand nights to when the marsh was whole.

“Not tonight, cousin. Let us pass. There are greater hungers here than frogs.”

The owl clicked its beak once, harsh and slow, then with a sweep of enormous wings, disappeared into the blue-black sky. I let out my breath and scuttled to where Charlie was stuck.

The dog was shivering, tail tucked, eyes fixed on me in mingled hope and terror. His leash had tangled so tightly I doubted Mia’s small fingers could free him. I flexed my strong–for a frog—back legs, and with three determined pulls and a little dash of amphibian awkwardness, tugged the leash enough to loosen it.

Charlie bolted a few steps and promptly disappeared under a tilted plank, whimpering.

Mia, above us, was calling his name. “Charlie! Don’t be scared, I’m coming!”

I called up to her, “Careful, the bank’s muddy. Come at the side, near the willow.”

She scrambled down as best as she could—her shoes slipping, breath quick and sharp in the dark. The plank wobbled, threatening to collapse deeper into the pit.

Charlie barked once, helpless. Mia threw herself down next to him, grabbing his collar. “It’s okay, it’s me, it’s me—”

As she tugged at the leash, I spotted a fresh danger—wires just beneath the mud, sharp and waiting like city roots. My croak split the quiet: “Stop! There’s something—!”

But her foot slipped. She skidded, pulling the leash and Charlie both with her. For a wild, sharp instant, chaos whirled.

I leapt—stupidly, bravely—pushing Charlie free from the wires with the last of my strength. I felt the sting of metal slicing along my side and the hammer-blow ache of landing hard, all four legs splayed as stars popped behind my eyes. I tasted iron and city dust and panic.

Mia wrapped her arms around Charlie. “Come on, boy, out—now!” She scrambled backward on hands and knees, tugging him free, damp and panicked but alive. Above, a new shadow staggered across the wall—the night watchman’s torch, seeking, blinding in the dark.

“Quick! Under here!” I croaked, barely above a whisper. Mia scooped up Charlie and, seeing my crumpled shape, scooped me quick as a marble, sliding us under the overhang of a concrete slab.

Bootsteps scraped the periphery—shouts, stray words: “Trespassers?...Animals? Must’ve been a raccoon…”

We all held still, hearts thudding together: a girl, a dog, and a frog, clutching the tail end of hope under the city’s wounded moon.

Finally, the torch wavered away. Mia let out a shaky breath. “Roger? Roger, are you okay?”

My side throbbed. My mind floated, weak and drifting. But I managed a feeble croak: “Still here. Just a… little bruised.”

Mia blinked away tears, hugging me gently to her chest before returning me, muddy and aching, to her palm. “Thank you. For being brave.”

Charlie licked my hand—a dog’s rare, grateful blessing. The willow branches trembled above us, shaking loose a pattering of dew, the city’s strange benediction.

Together, battered but all accounted for, we crawled away from the pit and slipped back toward Willow Lane, the chain-link fence closing softly behind us like a fairy-tale ending—though we all knew that trouble, and magic, had only just begun.