As the wind gusted and sprayed wet snow, my skin felt raw. I pushed my way forward, stumbling into branches that slapped my face. The drifts got inside my boots and melted, and soon my feet were cold and wet. Several times, I lost Jay’s footprints and had to stop and scan the ground to find them again before we could continue. During one long stretch, when I was afraid I’d lost his trail altogether, we heard movement not far away from us. Ben immediately had his camera up, and the pop of his flashbulb nearly blinded me. As my eyes swam with orange reflections, I spotted a deer bounding away through the trees.

“Next time, give me a little warning about the flash,” I said.

“And miss the Ursulina? I’m sorry, Deputy, but no. Strike while the iron is hot!”

I said nothing. I kept scanning the snow for Jay’s footprints. My chest felt tight with fear.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Ben murmured, his voice coming out of the darkness. Strangely, in the cathedral of the forest, it felt right to whisper.

“About what?”

“That when I was a boy, I saw the Ursulina.”

“I never said I didn’t believe you.”

“Well, when I told you about it the other day, there was a strange look on your face, which I assume was skepticism. Believe me, I’m used to it. However, even if you think my television show is a fraud, I’m not lying about what I saw.”

“No?”

“No, it really happened. Actually, it wasn’t all that far from here. I was camping alone on a weekend in September. I think I was eighteen. The woods have never frightened me, you know. Not like other people. I spend hours out here by myself, and I always feel perfectly at home.”

I wanted to say: Me, too.

“If I have my bearings right, we’re not far from Sunflower Lake,” Ben went on. “Do you know it?”

“Yes, I know it.”

I knew that lake, because this was where we’d camped when I was ten years old. My father, my brother, and me. This was where I’d gone into the woods and seen him, smelled him, heard him. Hufffffff. I’d come back to this place dozens of times to search for him. Weird, isn’t it? On some level, I missed the beast. He belonged to me in an unfathomable way. Not to Ben Malloy. Not to anyone else. Me. Rebecca Colder. I resented the idea that Ben had seen him, too.