Standing at the mouth of nature, where waves lapped my heels and waterfalls carved blue texture into isolated mountains, I understood the Vikings' reverence of the great waters. I glanced at the flat, papery rendition of all that stood before me, almost disappointed at how little life it captured.

The fjord flowed inland several miles southeast. The inlet led almost straight to the Engen's doorstep. Oslo and my ticket home remained two splayed hands away. Their home itself went unmarked, but there was a small activity symbol that on the legend indicated horseback riding tours and lessons on an historic farm.

Amy's ears rotated toward the stalky underwood of a spruce forest. A large brown shape barreled through the trees. In a single bound the beast cleared the tangled undergrowth separating woods from shore. Dark hooves sprayed sand across my legs as the antlered caribou coasted to a halt, neck outstretched, chest heaving. Muscles twitched flies from its dense, tawny fur.

By the time my muscles reacted and I sprang back, all that remained was a glimpse of a bushy white tail and tracks the waves quickly filled.

My palm smoothed the ridge of risen fur along Amy's neck, where the faintest scent of coconut scented dog shampoo lingered. Emma had bathed her while I'd slept. "He wasn't running away from anything bad," I reassured the cub. "He was as surprised to see us as we were to see him."

Grunt.

There were no polar bears on the mainland. I knew that. 

But absent a phone and having no shelter, and only the barest sense of direction; the idea wasn't so far-fetched. In fact, as we headed along the banks, I was quite certain that there were some situations where a wild imagination should be sternly discouraged.

Branches bowed and broke across the water.

I tensed. My gut screamed meat-eater. Prey crept. Predators broke whatever they wanted. My fingers inched to stiff belt loops and pulled my nervous body into a crouch beside a berry bush as the brush of the far bank yielded to a woodland king.

Amy might one day rival the adult prowling the far bank, but today she was settled into the wrap. Her head bobbed gently even long after I'd frozen. She'd barely slept on the boat and not at all since four this morning. Of course she'd nap now.

The brown bear's arctic cousins had a couple hundred pounds on him, but he looked damn ferocious. The woodland behemoth never lifted his eyes off the water. He strode in, opposing every current. Before I counted to ten he'd waded halfway.

Fords extended miles deep in places, or so I'd read, but whether this one included such a drop-off mattered little: soon he'd splashed in neck-deep and paddled onward.

The glint of sunlight on minerals shifted my attention between my feet.

Tracks of variable size dried in crusty pockets of soil: remnants of passing animals cast in rainier times. The level of activity here was unsettling. I ran my hand along my thigh, telling myself to relax. We had to enter the woods to stand a chance of going undetected. There, I'd keep the long arm of Norway in sight without feeling terribly exposed.

A quarter mile away, the bear's nose hovered inches above the rushing water, yellowed fangs caught on his upper lip, dark eyes fixed on us. Pushing off the ground, I forced a deliberate, measured walk to the tree line.

The steady rush of water burst into frenzied splashing. I walked quicker, yelled back over my shoulder at the thing like I remembered we were supposed to do with black bears in New England. Ten yards into the woods I ducked behind the widest tree. The cub yawned and licked sweat off my chin. Bark dug sharp ridges into my back. The air hummed and shivered. Dizziness pressured my pulse skyward.

One step at a time, dry pine needles crunched.

I slipped the backpack off my shoulder, and, after leaning the painting against the trunk, gripped the straps tight in my hand.

The hunter closed in, purposeful, slow. Footsteps ended just on the trunk's other side.

"Not today!" I screamed, and swung.

A ground squirrel bolted for cover. Rocked awake, Amy brayed.

"Ass!" I called after the rodent, punting a pinecone after it.

The bear had trapped a salmon on the rockier section of bank. A second bear, maybe what I'd first heard, emerged stiff-legged and grunting from the forest. Their feuding roars drove Amy and I inward at a steady clip. Predators—and squirrels, apparently—felt a little more distant after an hour's false protection of walking through trees- the entire childish concept of "If I can't see you, you can't see me".

Beautiful forests, the guidebook said. Nature as it should be, as it is, as it was, as it can be again!

What the guidebook failed to mention was the quiet darkening of thickets on cloudy days, or how the forest's primordial wind died beneath trees that had across centuries overlaid branches and swallowed the sky. Sweltering in the listless breeze, my heart skipped a beat at the lengthening shadows. The atmosphere was stifling, wooden: a timber coffin slowly creaking shut.

Breaks I kept to a minimum. If it meant reaching the Engen's faster, I'd risk my knee, whose occasional creaks I'd been doing a good job of ignoring up until now when I had nothing to think about except how gross my body felt or what sinister, sharp teeth would snatch me while I peed.

Amy snapped at the occasional insect, but otherwise slept.

"This time tomorrow you'll be headed to a secluded sanctuary," I told her. Whenever a noise dragged my heart into my throat, I'd talk loud nonsense to Amy, announcing our presence so as not to accidentally surprise any animal. "You're a pain in the ass, but I'm gonna miss you. I'd visit, but we have to survive, and to do that we have to go where we belong."

I didn't belong in Norway. Even Nik wanted me gone. I had to get out, reach the embassy an contact my dad to have funds wired so I could purchase a ticket out of this hellhole. 

And what were Kasper's motivations? Killing off a fellow researcher earned no respect in the scientific community, except perhaps through diligent and scathing peer-review. Queen Joronn had given what, a medal of merit? Had he done more for her than I knew, than Emma knew?

A mixture of longing and alarm tightened my chest. Had Niklas fled country, fame and fortune because of his mother? Had he known the wolf she was and been content to let me stay at her side? I took an angry swig of water to wash the bad taste down. No, he couldn't. Wouldn't.

"We broke up," I told Amy, twisting the cap. "I've got all my fingers and toes. I should call myself lucky and work on lifting my legs from the grave." But could I leave Nik in the hands of a scheming murderess, or wish the best to the inevitable next victim?

Grunt.

"It's not like I have proof." Technically, I'd stolen the stolen Rembrandt.

The awkward weight of a painting and squirmy bear killed my back. I took five to stretch and check our progress. The second her paws touched the ground Amy loped ahead, a fuzzy ghost bounding across a red pine sea. Emma's regimen of salmon and nutrients had helped the cub regain her rambunctiousness. She'd survive, but she'd need a secluded habitat away from human contact.

We were about four and a half miles distant. Folding the map, I called for Amy.

She didn't respond to commands, but she made for a great haunter. When she wasn't tripping me, twenty yards seemed the magic separation point. Any further and she boomeranged back with grunts and churlish whines.

Three miles from the ranch, mushrooms faded into pooled shadows, exchanged for a clearing's weedy hem and the heavy buzz of insects. An overcast sky sucked the cheer of open space from the verdant landscape. Dewy, crushed grass sweetened the still air.

Swatting flies, I took a trampled ATV trail forward to discover the fly-blanketed corpse of a deer.

Scarlet ribbons wept from the corpse's tawny hide, where raptor's talons and blood-brushed wings had swept along exposed bone. Morbid curiosity drew me closer, first to its red neck, twisted and mangled; then, to a maggot-laced tongue that bulged and wriggled. Gorged ticks dropped off one ear.

Smeared footprints pattered around the scene, joined soon by Amy's five-clawed paws. She climbed onto the doe's ribs, stumbling along exposed vertebrae until she reached the neck. The deer's head turned. A fly walked across its milky blue eye, froze at the steady rock of Amy's feeding, then zipped off and landed on my sleeve.

Memories of the white bear returned with a sharp bite of pain through my arm. I threw up, once, twice.

With an abrupt flutter of wings, the wild birdsong dropped away. An ill feeling leached cheer from the air, pervaded every sense.

I heard only the hum of flies, the slippery crackle of claw against bone, and my sickly wheezing. I hadn't seen what startled the birds, but felt its eyes on me, watching, waiting, considering.

My fingertips tingled. I inched beside Amy. "We'll come back later," I whispered, stooping without lowering my gaze.

A section of grass swayed despite the dead air.

Her snout burrowed between broken ribs. My hands found her belly.

With a wild snarl her teeth dug into the unprotected palm of my right hand. Pain rocketed up my elbow, momentarily stunned me from the shoulder down. She broke free and charged headlong into the meat.

"Amy," I demanded, nursing my palm, trying to observe every rustling source at once.

She'd heard it now, round ears rotating, teeth pulling away from splintered bone. But she wouldn't leave, wouldn't come, wouldn't let me get close even as the rustling closed in on us. I had no choice. I wrapped my hand in shirt hem and walked, too angry and nervous to wait. Life was better than the alternative.