“Ah.” He nods with the slow cadence of a man with all the time in the world—to sit and ponder, to assess the strangeness of my discovery. “Perhaps the woods grew fond of him. Decided not to devour him after all.” His eyes shimmer like he’s making a joke. But I don’t laugh.

“And there’s something else,” I say, pushing my hands back into my coat pockets, watching the fire toss sparks out onto the rug, expecting one of them to ignite—to catch on the curtains and torch the whole tinderbox in seconds. “I think a boy has died.”

His jaw makes a circular motion, but he doesn’t speak.

“I found his pocket watch,” I continue, pulling out the watch and holding it by the broken chain, letting it hang in the air for Mr. Perkins to see. He squints but doesn’t make a move to touch it, to reach out for it. “Maybe he went into the woods,” I suggest. “Maybe both boys did, and only one returned.” Maybe Oliver and Max went into the Wicker Woods that night and something happened, something Oliver would like to forget. “Maybe—” I begin again, “one of them is to blame for the other’s death.”

My fingers tremble, and I worry I might drop the watch, so I place it back in my pocket. My head thuds and my vision darkens, making it hard to focus, to see anything clearly—to be sure of what I know from what I don’t.

“You found the watch in the woods?” Mr. Perkins asks. I can tell he’s starting to worry, the creases deepening along his jaw, around his weary, tired eyes.

“I found a boy,” I clarify. “And he had the watch hidden in his pocket.”

“And you think he did something to the boy who died?”

I pull my lips in, not wanting to answer.

Mr. Perkins leans forward, his hands quivering in his lap, arthritis in the joints. “Many miners died in these mountains over the years,” he says, facing the flames. “A felled tree once crushed a miner’s tent, flattened him where he slept. Some miners broke through the ice on the river and drowned, some got lost in those woods and froze to death, their bodies recovered in spring. But mostly, the men killed one another over gold claims and theft. Those woods up there are dangerous,” he says, nodding up at me, knowing that I understand, “but not as dangerous as the men themselves.”

I know what he’s saying: There is more to fear in men’s hearts than in those trees.

He leans back in the chair, his eyes clouding over, like he’s drifting into a dream or a memory. “Some say they still wander the lake and the forest, lost, not realizing they’re dead.”