A male. That much is obvious, even at this distance: six hundred pounds, at least. She can hear it huffing at her, or barking. Maeve’s breath caught in her throat. She tries to hold steady, tries not to show her fear, but when it charges a few yards—Maeve jumps back.

It was never waiting for her. It’s just defending the cache.

Head up, ears up, alert. It pounds a paw against the ground, and snow sprays up in a mist.

There’s no other sound. The woods and the wide white belt between Maeve and the bear are silent.

She can no longer picture the bear from her dream. This bear seems bigger, more sharply outlined by the snow, its eyes hidden, shadowed by fur. It is completely dark. There is no reason to it.

She thumbs the claw in her pocket, thinking of Anna, Anna’s words. Suddenly realizing her mistake: Nature turns to chaos. The problem is you can’t control it. The sign in the road: ALL WILDLIFE IS DANGEROUS.

The grizzly paws the ground, huffs again.

Sim is gone. Only Maeve stands alone in the bear’s home. Its cache. She needs to get away from the elk, get out of the area, but she’s afraid to take her eyes off the bear. It stays focused on her, its gaze never changing. Now padding forward again. Stalking her. Closing in.

Maeve starts moving backward, her arms stretched out wide both for balance and in the hope that this will somehow make her look bigger. The bear doesn’t charge again but keeps coming the same way. Starting and stopping.

Her knees are shaking and she tries to still them. She’s no threat to the bear: she’s prey. Her only chance is to get to the wall and climb.

Light filters through the trees but the bear’s fur seems to absorb it. It is just a mass of darkness, moving ahead. Then it halts. Head low. Watching her.

Maeve spins and sprints the last stretch to the wall.

Her fingers dig into the ice; she finds a toehold and begins to climb. The outcrop goes up, not quite vertical but at a slim angle. Fifteen or twenty feet to the top. Where the ice dips and gathers snow, the wall looks pockmarked. Each spot another rough ledge she can—maybe—jam her boot into, maybe push higher. She can hear the bear’s huff as it closes in. The wound on her palm leaving a mark, a streak of blood wherever she puts it down.

Near the top, there are no more rough patches: a thick layer of ice pours over the edge toward Maeve, snowless, as smooth as if someone had held a hose to its lip. Her hand slips and she slides back, boots scraping to stop the fall. She’s four or five feet down before she catches herself, finds her footing, tries again. Her fingernails useless against the slick of ice above.