That was what Mo had told me to do. I wanted to let my guard down, but I didn’t trust myself not to make something terrible happen, so I turned my attention back to the map. I could hear the trees righting themselves as I put my thoughts elsewhere.

Three paths led into the dense forest, but the map said I should take a fourth. I flipped the map around, and in that moment, I was pretty sure I’d learned my map-reading skills from Mo.

After a closer look, I noticed a depression marked the ground where the other path might have been at one point, but it was completely overgrown. Hundreds of Dutchman’s-pipe vines tangled together to obscure the way. Smaller leaves with razor-sharp serrated edges—stinging nettle—interlaced with them, forming an impenetrable curtain. They weren’t deadly unless you were allergic, but their leaves and stalks contained microscopic barbed darts tipped with a mild poison. Contact with the skin caused rashes and pain that could last for days. I didn’t want to have to douse myself in calamine lotion, but after my encounter with the poison ivy and the hemlock, I wondered if I even needed to worry about it.

I looked at the map again. Even the drawing included the overgrowth of plants, but the red ink cut right through them. I took a step forward. Testing my theory, I reached out to stroke the leaves of the stinging nettle, then braced myself for the pain. It didn’t come.

A cool sensation washed over my hand, more intense than it had been with the poison ivy, but nowhere near the numbing pain I’d felt with the hemlock. It spread to my wrist, stopped, then retreated to my fingertips.

I took another step. The tangled curtain of ivy and nettle unwound before me. The layers of foliage parted, revealing the well-worn fourth path. I paused, and the plants responded to my hesitation. They curled back over the opening, making it impossible to see.

“Okay,” I said aloud, trying to calm my racing heart. “Okay.”

I stuck my hand out again, fingers trembling. The vines pulled back. I stepped onto the path, and the cloak of leaves and vines closed behind me.

The late afternoon sunlight slanted through openings in the canopy. The black spruce and red pine groaned as they shifted like hulking shadows, creating a corridor for me to walk through. The ground flattened as if it was making a way for me. Walls made of twisted branches bordered the trail. The red line on the map snaked through the woods before running into some sort of open space marked with an X.