Owls

There are owls in the forest. The normal kind, of course, but there are carved owls too. Made of wood and bark, they sit beside the trails and scattered through the undergrowth.

During the day, children run from owl to owl, shrieking as they reach them before their sibiling, or wailing as they don't. Adults think the owls are charming/whimsical/cutesy/insufferable (delete as appropriate), and wonder at the work that went into them. (Or why someone would bother, if they are at the cutesy end of the spectrum.) Teenagers, it has to be said, occasionally take swings at them, out of a desire for credibility or a need to get all the unnameable emotions inside of them out. (More than you might think also quietly put the owls back up on their stands once they're sure no one is looking.)

And at night – well, at night the forest belongs to things older and more enduring than people. And there's a reason why some of the owls face away from the edge of the woods.