Then, to my relief, the undergrowth thinned, the trees became larger but spread farther apart. Soon, we could walk unimpeded, over a velvety compost of earth covered with moist leaves and pine needles. A smell arose from the ground, a rich smell, almost like coffee or muted mint. I heard again the hawk that had been wheeling overhead earlier, and an owl in the murk above us.

Duncan stopped for me then. He must have known how tired and thirsty I was, because he took my hand in his, and smiled as he said, “I think we are almost there. I think we almost are.”

We had reached the heart—or a heart—of the forest. We had reached a place that in a storm would be called the eye. The light that shone through from above did so in shafts as thin as the green fractures of light I can see from the corner of my eye as I type up this account. And in those shafts, the dust motes floated yet remained perfectly still. Now I heard no sound but the pad of our feet against the earth.

Duncan stopped. I was so used to hurrying to keep up that I almost bumped into him.

“There,” he said, pointing, a smile creasing his face.

And I gasped, for there, ahead of us, stood a statue.

Made of solid gray stone, fissured, splashed with light, overgrown with an emerald-and-crimson lichen, the idol had a face with large, wide eyes, a tiny nose, and a solemn mouth. The statue could not have been taller than three or four feet.

We walked closer, in an effortless glide, so enraptured by this vision that we forgot the ache in our legs.

Iridescent beetles had woven themselves into the lichen beads of its smile, some flying around the object, heavy bodies drooping below their tiny wings. Other insects had hidden in the fissures of the stone. What looked like a wren’s nest decorated part of the top of the head. A whole miniature world had grown up around it. It was clearly the work of one of the native tribes that had fled into the interior when our ancestors had built Stockton and claimed the land around it. This much I knew from school.

“How?” I asked in amazement. “How did you know this was here, Duncan?”

Duncan smiled as he turned to me. “I didn’t. I just knew there had to be something, and if we kept looking long enough, we’d find it.”