A branch cracks. She turns toward the sound, but she can’t make out anything in the dark. The path narrows ahead, trees leaning in to form a tunnel. There’s something ominous in the way the trees bend unnaturally close. They make her think of a deep hole burrowing into the earth, or the mouth of a great beast waiting to swallow her, like Jonah and the whale. But what if the path leads to a way out?

She takes another step. Something strikes the top of her foot. She jumps back, and something else hits her shoulder, sharp as an insect sting. She whirls in a circle, but she still can’t see anyone, and anger rises in her, making her shout.

“Peter, is that you? Stop it right now! You aren’t being funn—” Her words are cut off as the next blow just misses her, the flying object skipping into the fallen leaves covering the path.

Her mouth hangs open, stunned. Then all at once the projectiles fly thick and fast, like hard, pelting rain, driving her back from the tunnel-like path.

She ducks, covering her head with her arms, managing to snatch up a few of the missiles without being hit. She raises an arm, meaning to throw them back into the trees and show that she isn’t defenseless, but she can’t even see her attackers to aim.

She backs along the path, and once she can no longer hear projectiles hitting the ground, she pauses to look at the objects in her hand. Stones, and among them is an arrowhead. She has one in her collection at home. Cook gave it to her. She had it sent specially from Canada. A long time ago, her people used to make them, and use them to hunt. Now they still make them, but they don’t use them for hunting as much anymore.

The one in her hand isn’t sharp, but still she feels lucky that none of them hit her with more than a glancing blow. Perhaps whoever threw them wasn’t trying to hurt her, merely scare her away.

She drops the stones and turns the arrowhead in her hand, studying it more closely, wishing she knew more. Maybe then it would give her some kind of clue. She’d tried to ask Cook more about the arrowhead she’d given her, but unlike the stories Cook told—passed to her by her mother—talking about real history seemed to make her sad. She’d been surprised as well, as though she’d never expected anyone to ask. It was only when Cook hadn’t been able to answer all of the questions, admitting she didn’t know as much of her history as she should, that she’d left Canada so young and hadn’t been back since, that she began to look troubled.