When I was five years old, Dad took me to the waterfall at Lake Tuonela. It was more than a hundred feet high and the water made the most amazing sound as it fell from the river, cascading into the chilly lake below. He took me to the top, right out onto a rocky ledge that hung over the drop, and we stood there looking down. I remembered how afraid I was to be so high, and to stare through the mist and spray at that angry, frothy water. It looked to me as if it was boiling, and I imagined the shape-shifter down there — the näkki — waiting to pull me in and drown me at the bottom. I had seen a picture in a book, of a giant squid trying to drag down a submarine, and that’s what I thought of right then. I thought the näkki had turned into that squid and was looking up at me with those staring yellow eyes, its long tentacles swaying in the current, ready to wrap around me.

“Now that you are five years old,” Dad said, “it’s time for you to begin your journey as a man.”

I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“Don’t be afraid, Oskari, you know how to swim. You swim better than I ever did at your age.”

I remembered looking up at him and nodding. “I like swimming. Are we going swimming?”

Dad looked down at me with a serious expression. “In a manner of speaking.”

I reached up to hold his hand, but he pulled away and turned to glance behind us. I looked back to see the other men standing on the rocks, Hamara right there at the front. He nodded at Dad, and Dad frowned and nodded back.

We stripped down to our shorts and stood shivering in the cold air, while Dad took a coiled rope from over his shoulder and tied one end around his waist. I asked what he was doing, but he just smiled and told me it was going to be fun. When he tied the other end of the rope around my waist, I finally understood.

We were going to jump.

“I don’t want to do it,” I told him. “Please. I don’t want to.”

I cried and held on to his leg, my whole body shivering. I begged him not to make me do it; I was so afraid of that long drop into the mist and froth and the näkki waiting for me below. All I could think was that I would sink and sink and never come back up. I would never see Mom again.

Dad reached down and put a hand on my head to comfort me, but he was looking back at Hamara. “Don’t be afraid,” Dad said. “I’ll keep you safe. It’ll be fun.” Breaking my grip, he pulled me away from his leg and moved us right to the edge. “The rope will keep us together.”

Then he picked me up and stepped over the edge.

We fell and fell and fell.

I kept my eyes closed the whole way down. There was a tremendous tightness in my chest, pressing the air right out of my lungs as the wind rushed about me and the spray from the waterfall battered me like rain. When we finally hit the bubbling surface, there was a sudden sensation of cold, and my muscles stiffened as we cut through the water.

The power of the waterfall cascading above us was terrifying. It pushed us deeper and deeper into the never-ending darkness of the lake, as if we would never be able to get back to the surface. My lungs were empty and my head was pounding and I began to panic. I opened my mouth, desperate for air but sucking in only water, and right then, sinking in the raging lake, I thought I was going to die.

I thought the näkki had me in its twisting, crushing tentacles and would never let go.

That’s what I woke up to now: the feeling of the world raging about me, a cramping in my chest, and the sensation of my muscles tightening like cords. The memory of the lake was fading from my thoughts, pushed away by the sound of crashing and tearing, and the rain of forest wreckage that continued to fall on me. My face was right in a muddy puddle and I was drawing in water as I tried to breathe, but as reality snapped back to me and I remembered where I was, I lifted my head and coughed the puddle water from my mouth and nose. Lying on my front with my mouth open wide, I gasped for air, but something solid struck my back. Hard and painful, it thumped me right between the shoulders, and I immediately curled myself into a ball, tucking my head beneath my arms, wishing it would all stop.

I stayed like that for a long time, waiting for the worst of it to pass and for the terrible noises to die down. After a while, the forest grew quiet, so quiet that even the birds didn’t dare sing, and the only sounds were the gentle patter of falling rain, the crackle of fire, and the creaking of the trees.

Even then, I hardly dared move. But I knew I couldn’t spend all night like that, so, preparing for the worst, I uncurled, opened my eyes, and slowly got to my feet.

The path was gone. Nowhere to be seen. Instead, I found myself standing in what looked like a war zone.

A few feet ahead, there was a huge scar through the forest. That was the only word I could think of: scar. A massive trail of destruction cut right across what had once been the path, and now I was surrounded by broken and splintered tree trunks, scattered about like snapped matchsticks. Here and there, small fires crackled in the rain that now fell freely through the enormous hole left in the forest by the destruction.

Smoke drifted around the smashed trees. It settled across the ground or whipped about in storms where the breeze caught it and lifted it into miniature swirling tornadoes. The smell of it was strong, but it wasn’t just the pleasant scent of wood smoke; there were other smells in there, too. Melted plastic, maybe, charred rubber, and even the cloying stink of burning fuel. And everywhere I looked, sparks and embers and glowing wisps of papery birch bark floated in the night, dancing in the dark like fireflies.

I stumbled about, shell-shocked, wondering at the awesome power of whatever had caused this, but also at how amazing everything looked. Despite the destruction, it was beautiful in a strange kind of way.

When I kicked something hard with the toe of my boot, I crouched to pick up a piece of steaming metal that hissed when the rain touched it. “Ouch!” It burned the tip of my forefinger and thumb, so I withdrew quickly and pinched the cold lobe of my ear to prevent my fingers from blistering.

I booted the piece of metal away, and took the bow from my back to check it was intact. Satisfied it was in one piece, I ventured through the smoke, waving my hands in front of me, trying to clear the air. Stepping over small dying fires and broken branches, I finally found the ATV, upside down like a dead insect, with the trunk of a large pine lying across it. The vehicle was crushed beyond use. Three of the tires were shredded and the front was dented.

Dad was going to kill me — if I even made it back alive.

I trudged over to the ATV and walked around it, wondering if there was any chance of saving it.

“Damn!” I kicked the side of it, making a hollow clanging sound. “Damn!” I balled my hands into fists and put back my head and shouted at the sky. “Damn!”

To my surprise, the sky answered with a blinking red light.

The strange red light hung in the darkness above the broken trees as if it was just floating there, and it took me a few moments to realize that it was actually growing larger. Whatever it was, it was coming closer, drifting slowly from right to left — the same way the destruction had come — and I craned my neck to watch it, mesmerized by the regular blinking of that red light.

On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.

“What the hell is that?” I whispered.

The light drifted lower and closer until it passed overhead and I could see there was something behind it.

A large dark shape.

I was beginning to wonder if the day could get any worse. First the helicopter and Hazar, then the … well, whatever it was that had just happened — some kind of crash or attack, I guessed. “And now there’s you,” I moaned at the blinking red light. “What the hell are you?”

The red light didn’t answer. It just blinked on and off and floated past, coming down in the trees on the other side of the scar. There was a crackle of breaking branches, followed by a soft thump.

Whatever it was, it had just landed. And it was close.

A part of me wanted to ignore it — to just keep on moving, but it had sparked my curiosity. I wanted to know what it was. And when I looked at the ATV, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.

I glanced back across the scar. The red light wasn’t far out of my way. In fact, it was more or less on my way. And it was probably my duty to find out what it was. It had crashed in our wilderness, after all.

I had to know.

“Right,” I said. “Let’s find out what you are.”

I jogged over to the ATV and salvaged what I could of my gear. The backpack carrying-frame was still intact, so I secured as much to it as I could and grabbed the bow.

Crossing the huge scar wasn’t easy. I had to climb over and crawl under the fallen trunks of ancient, gnarled trees. The air stank of burning and it irritated my throat, making me cough when I was in the thickest of the smoke. I had to scramble through twisting, clawing branches, all of them trying to snag my camouflage netting.

Despite the cold night air, I was sweating under my rain jacket when I finally made it to the other side of the scar and stood on a large, knotted trunk, watching the red light winking at me through the trees.

On. Off. On. Off. On. Off.

A shiver ran through me and I considered turning back. Maybe that was the best thing to do. As I stared at the light, though, I remembered Hamara’s last words before I left: A boy sets out into the wilderness, but it is a man who will return.

A man. I should not be afraid.

“Be brave,” I whispered. “Be brave.”

Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I jumped down from the tree and headed deeper into the forest, keeping my eyes fixed on the winking red light.