Higher up the mountain, about twenty minutes after finding the bodies, the constant helicopter sound changed and we turned to see its lights descending into the trees below. For a moment the noise lulled, then it stopped completely. The president and I stood together, watching the quiet forest, wondering what Hazar and his men were up to.

“Conserving fuel,” the president said. “They can’t keep that thing in the air all night.”

“They’ll start again when it’s light. Or maybe they’ve decided just to track us on foot.”

The president turned to look at me. “Could they do that? D’you think they’ve found a trail? Is that why they’ve landed the chopper?” There was fear in his voice. “They know where we are?”

“Impossible.” I thought back to everything we had done to cover our tracks. Not even Dad would have been able to follow us. “We didn’t leave a trail.”

“Fuel, then,” the president said.

“Fuel,” I agreed.

We stayed as we were, looking out at the wilderness, a sea of black stretching as far as the horizon, where it met the dark-blue sky. Stars glittered in and out of the passing clouds. From this high up we could see two scars, some distance apart, glowing like ugly wounds in the forest’s body. The flames were still burning, illuminating the destruction that cut through the trees for at least a half mile, ending with large fires like periods at the end of sentences.

“Those must be the escort fighters,” the president said. “They’re both too small to be Air Force One.”

“I wonder where that is, then?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything, he just shook his head, and we stared at the fires for a while longer before setting off again.

The president checked his phone from time to time, but always with the same disappointing result.

The air was colder the higher we went, and he was shivering. His clothes were damp from the rain, and his breathing was becoming labored again. He needed warmth and rest, and we were both tired, but we pushed on. We scrambled over loose rocks, trekked through thinning patches of pines, climbed ledges and boulders. And all the time, we tried to leave no trace that we had ever been there.

When we finally reached an open, rocky plateau on the side of Mount Akka, close to the secret hunting ground marked on Dad’s map, I stopped and went to the sheer edge at the side of the mountain, to look out across the wilderness. The chilly wind whistled about me, plucking at my camouflage and snaking under my rain jacket. I watched the flickering scars in the forest far below, then looked back at the way we had climbed before I turned to inspect the rest of the plateau.

The ground here was mostly bare and hard, but there were areas of grass, and the occasional spindly tree trying to live in patches of thin soil. On one side — the side opposite the way we had climbed up — the plateau sloped gently around the side of Mount Akka toward Dad’s secret hunting ground. On the other side, opposite the sheer drop off into the forest, the crags of Mount Akka rose steeply toward the summit, but there was a large overhang in the rocks that would provide a good shelter.

Dad had told me to wait until dawn and stay under the wind, and even though I wasn’t going to be doing much hunting right now, I glanced up to check the sky.

The president came to stand beside me and looked up. The sky was more or less clear above us now, and the moon was a large silver disc, with just a few clouds passing across it. From time to time, they dulled the silvery light.

“See the way the clouds are moving?” I said. “The wind is blowing across the mountain. It means we’re under the wind from above and below.”

“And that means … ?”

“It means we can have a small fire and the smoke won’t blow down the mountain to …” I glanced back at the trees below us. “To them.” The helicopter was gone now, but we knew the men might be down there, maybe searching the forest on foot.

I told the president to sit under the overhang and shelter out of the wind while I prepared a fire. There weren’t many trees around the plateau, but there were enough for me to gather wood to last for a few hours. In just a couple of runs, I managed to build a good pile of sticks close to our shelter, then I went back and forth collecting suitable stones and piling them beside the sticks.

“Can’t I help with something?” the president asked. “I feel like a spare part.”

“No, President. You stay where you are.”

He kept offering to help, but I wouldn’t let him do anything. He was so useless at being in the wilderness that he made me feel like an expert. For once, I was the best at something, and so I told him to rest while I worked. He sat forward with his forearms on his knees, the pistol beside him, watching my every move.

“You speak good English, Oskari,” he said when I brought the final armful of stones. “Does everyone in your village speak English?”

“Yes. Some of the older people maybe aren’t so good.”

“They teach it at school, I guess.”

“Mm-hm. And we watch American TV.”

“Of course. The power of TV.” He shivered as the wind picked up. “So, tell me what you’re doing with those rocks.”

“This will stop anyone seeing the fire,” I said, building the stones up into a low wall. “And it will absorb and reflect the heat. Soon it will be nice and warm under here.”

“You really know what you’re doing, don’t you?” He sounded impressed.

When the wall was almost waist height, I made a small circle of stones on our side of it and took out my fire kit. A little ball of lint and a few scrapes from my fire steel was all I needed to get a flame going, and once that was done, I fed the fire with small sticks until it was strong enough for larger ones.

“Pretty good, Oskari.” The president put out his hands to feel the warmth. “I can tell you’ve done that before.”

I sat back and leaned against a rock, putting my arms around my knees. “One of the things I’m best at. Dad always gets me to build the fire.”

“I wouldn’t have any idea how.”

“It’s easy really; all you need is a good fire kit. Every hunter needs a good fire kit.” I took the plastic tub out of my pocket to show him. “It has everything I need — fire steel, lint, storm matches — all inside this tight, waterproof tub.”

“Storm matches?”

“For emergencies only,” I said. “They will light anywhere and they don’t go out. You can light them, put them underwater, in the soil, wherever you like — and when you take them out, they’re still lit.”

“Amazing.” The president shook his head.

“Look.” I unscrewed the lid and took out the tube of storm matches. “I’ll show you.”

“Don’t waste them.”

“It’s okay.” I took out one of the matches. It was longer than an ordinary match, and almost the entire length of the stem was covered in a red coating. I scraped it against the side of the tube to light it and it flared up right away. I held it up for him to see before sticking it into the soil at my feet. I covered it over, stamped on it, then dug it up. When I took it out, the flame popped into life again.

“Impressive.”

I took my cup of water and put the match into it, dousing the flame. When I removed it from the water, the match flared again so I blew it out, only for it to relight.

“See? With this kit and my knife, I can survive anywhere,” I said.

I threw the match on the fire.

“I guess the bow comes in handy, too.”

I glanced at the bow leaning against the rock beside me, and thought about how I had felt when I was standing on the platform in the Place of Skulls, trying to draw it all the way. “With my knife I could easily make a bow,” I said.

“So why don’t you? The one you have is obviously too big.”

“No, it isn’t,” I argued. “It’s not too big.”

“Oh. Okay.” The president backed off, sensing that he had touched a nerve.

For a while, neither of us said anything, and I kept feeding the fire until it was just right. When it was ready, I gave the president a thin blanket from my pack so he could take off his clothes and spread them on the rocks by the fire to dry. While he did that, I rummaged through what I had saved from the crashed ATV, asking if he was hungry.

He nodded. “I guess I am. Haven’t had much time to think about it, really, but now that you mention it …”

He looked wretched, holding the blanket around him, probably wondering how his whole world had fallen apart. One moment he had been flying in his plane, and the next he was here, sitting on the mountain trying to keep warm. It was still so strange to think that he was Alan William Moore, the President of the United States.

“I have dried reindeer meat,” I said, taking a fold of cloth and holding it up.

“Really?” He screwed up his face. “Reindeer?”

“You don’t like it?”

“Never tried it.” His expression said he didn’t really want to, either.

I shrugged. “I have sausages.”

“Now you’re talking.”

“Blood sausage it is, then.”

“Wait … what did you say?” He leaned closer as if he hadn’t heard me properly. “Blood sausage?”

“Sure. We make them from pig’s blood.”

He detected my hint of a smile and pointed at me. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”

I laughed. “My dad loves them, but I never liked them much. Don’t worry, I have normal sausages.”

The president smiled and shook his finger at me, making me laugh again as I took out a couple of sausages and chose some good sticks to skewer them. I handed one to the president and we held them over the flames until they were black on the outside but heated right through. The smell that came off them was delicious, and my mouth watered as they cooked, then we sat beneath the overhang, close to the warmth of the fire, and settled down to eat.

“They’re good,” the president said, waving a hand across his mouth because it was too hot for him.

“The rabbit would have been better.”

“Well, you’re doing a great job of looking after me, Oskari, so thank you for that.”

His words made me feel good and I looked over at him, huddled beneath his blanket. “What is it like to be powerful?”

He almost choked on his food, coughing and spluttering, so I passed him a bottle of water and waited.

The president took a long drink, tipping his head back, then wiped his mouth with a hand, and cleared his throat. “Powerful?” he said with a distant smile. “That took me by surprise, Oskari. I don’t exactly feel powerful sitting here in my boxers.”

“No, but … usually you are.”

He became serious. “Well. I guess I’d say power is … ephemeral. Which means you can’t touch it, and it’s easy to lose. For example, a few hours ago, I could send armies around the globe, and invade foreign soil if I wanted to. Now I can’t even order a pizza.” He sighed and took another bite of his sausage.

“I like pizza.”

“Yeah?” He looked up at me. “Do you have a favorite topping?”

“Pepperoni.”

“Good choice. Tastier than blood sausage, I’d bet. And where do you stand on cookies?”

“Cookies are good.”

“And ice cream?”

“That’s good, too.” Mom used to make the best vanilla ice cream. I could almost taste it just thinking about it.

“In that case, when all this is over, I’ll invite you to my place. We’ll have a blast. Pizza, ice cream, and video games. You like video games, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s a deal, then.” He finished his sausage and leaned over to take another from me. “As long as it’s okay with your mom and dad, of course.” He skewered the sausage and held it over the flames. “You never mentioned your mom. Is she a hunter, too?”

I stared at the fire and took a deep breath. “She died. Last year.”

“Oh … I’m sorry … I …”

“It isn’t your fault,” I said, without looking up. “Why do people always say ‘sorry’ when it isn’t their fault?”

He sighed. “Well, I guess it’s because they feel bad and they wish there was something they could do. And, maybe, because there isn’t really anything else to say.”

“Then they should say nothing.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

I continued to stare into the flames, watching the way they danced and curled around each other. The heat was fierce on my face. “She had cancer in her head. She was sick for a long time and then …” I gritted my teeth and fought back the tears. My voice was tight in my throat. “Dad is still very sad. He’s not the same as he used to be. I thought that maybe if I got a good trophy it would make him happy, but that’s not going to happen now.”

I could feel the president watching me across the fire, leaning back and looking away only when something scuttled across the rocks in the dark. He studied the emptiness beyond the fire for a while, then turned back to me. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

I shook my head and sniffed. “Mom always said one was more than enough trouble.”

The president laughed gently. “My mom said something similar whenever I asked her why I didn’t have a brother or sister. I guess we have something in common, eh?” He leaned forward to put his food over the fire once more. “So what made you ask about power?”

“No reason.”

He sat there, waiting for me to go on.

“My father is powerful,” I said. “In fact, my family is very famous here. Maybe you recognize my dad’s name. Tapio. It’s the same name as the forest god.”

“I’m sorry. I never heard of him.”

I shrugged. “You don’t know much about hunting.”

“That’s true.”

I took the photograph from my pocket and handed it to the president. “This is my dad.”

He studied it for a while, nodding. “And that’s the bear you told me about.”

“Yes.”

“Wow, that’s … impressive.”

“In my village, we all do this when we turn thirteen. We come into the forest for a night and a day, and what we kill shows the world what we are as a man.” I remembered Hamara’s words, remembered him standing on the platform beside me, doubting that I would manage to hunt anything at all.

“That’s what you meant by ‘trophy’ just now?” the president asked.

“Yes.”

He looked up from the photo. “So what does it mean if you kill a bear?”

“That the man is brave and strong.”

“And now it’s your turn, huh?”

“Tomorrow is my birthday. When morning comes, I will be a man. ‘A boy sets out into the wilderness, but it is a man who will return.’ That’s what Hamara said.”

“Hamara?”

“He’s our elder.”

The president watched me for a while longer, still nodding as if he understood something. Now he knew why I was out here alone. “And I guess I’ve messed it all up for you. I’m sorry.”

“Mom used to say the buck would be my animal because it means the man will be quick and smart and inde … indep …” The English word for it was on the tip of my tongue but refused to come out.

“You mean ‘independent’?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think you’ve got those things covered already.” He glanced down at the bow and pointed at it with a tilt of his chin. “And that?”

“I have to use it. It’s the traditional bow; the one we all use. It’s at least a hundred years old.”

“Really? It doesn’t look that old.”

“It’s been well looked after.”

“No one would know if you used a different one,” he said. “One that wasn’t so big.”

“I would know.”

“Of course you would. You’re very honest, Oskari, and that’s a good thing to be. You’re stronger than you think, too.” He handed the photo back to me. “You look like him.”

“We’re made from the same wood, me and my dad.” I tucked the photo away. “He believes in me even though everyone else thinks I’m a bad hunter. When Hamara gave me the bow, I couldn’t even draw it all the way and some of the boys laughed, but I decided I would try my hardest to make Dad proud. Now, though, I’ll have to be rescued and we’ll both look bad.”

“These are exceptional circumstances, Oskari.”

“Doesn’t matter. You have to be tough in Finland.” I took a bite of my sausage. “Everyone has to see that you are tough.”

“Well, you got us away from those men and brought us here. You covered our tracks, made a fire and shelter. Fed us. I can tell everyone that.” The president leaned forward and turned the skewer in his fingers as he spoke. “Anyway, instead of being tough, you can just look tough. And let me tell you, I’m a world expert on that.” The firelight reflected from his face and glittered in his eyes as he spoke. “Hell, I read self-help books and eat cookies. Morris laughs at me because I can’t even do ten push-ups.” He looked down when he said that, and I knew he would be thinking about the bodies we had found on the rocks.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “When I gave my last State of the Union address, I suddenly needed to pee just before it was about to begin. So I dashed to the toilet, with only minutes to go, and in my hurry, I tried to … ah, ‘replace’ myself a little too quickly, and some of it splashed. Hit my upper trouser zone.”

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. The idea of the President of the United States peeing on his own trousers was ridiculous.

“Exactly.” He shrugged. “Happens to us all, eh? Anyway, moments later, I had to walk out, on to the floor of the House Chamber, which is a huge room filled with important people. The eyes of America were on me, and I had to go out there with a sizable wet patch on my groin.”

“Oh my God.”

“Look it up sometime,” he said, “and notice the way I’m holding my notes to obscure the disaster area. And then notice the way I give my address. My voice doesn’t shake, my nerve doesn’t break, I command the attention of the room. Inside, though, I’m terrified. I’m a mess. I think I’m going to go down in history as the president who peed his pants. But on the outside, I’m a rock.”

“So what happened?”

“No one noticed. The moment passed. And there’s only two people on this entire planet that even know it happened. Me, and you.”

“Wow.”

“You won’t tell anyone, right?”

“As long as you don’t tell anyone I missed the rabbit.”

“Deal.”

Together, we pulled invisible zips over our mouths, locked them, and threw the keys into the fire.

The president laughed, good and loud, and I laughed with him, but after that, he didn’t say much, and I watched him as we finished our meal and licked our fingers clean. From time to time the breeze would catch the fire and it would flare up and buzz, then retreat into the circle of rocks, but that was the only sound.

A little later, as we both sat, lost in our own thoughts, the wind picked up and a light flurry of snow began to tumble in the chilly mountain air.

“Snow?” the president said. “In spring?”

“We’re high up now,” I replied. “And very far north. It can snow at any time of year.”

“This place really is tough.”

I smiled. “Well, your clothes are probably dry now. You should get dressed.”

“Yeah.” He checked them and said they were good enough, then re-dressed and sat back down in his place, exactly as he had been before. The small badge on his lapel glinted in the firelight, and I could just about make out the blue and red of the US flag.

The president’s expression was serious and he was biting his lower lip as he stared into the flames. He rubbed a hand over his bald head. “You asked what it’s like to be powerful, Oskari. Well, one thing is that you’re always wondering who you can trust.”

“You can trust me,” I said.

“I don’t mean you. I mean that someone set this up,” he said. “Someone sabotaged my men’s parachutes. I have a feeling it was someone I thought I could trust.”

“Who?”

“The man we saw at the crash site.”

“Hazar?”

He shook his head.

“The man in the suit?”

“I think I know who it is. I don’t want to believe it, and I’m not sure how he even managed it but … no.” He shook his head again. “It couldn’t be.” He fell into silence once more, and I could tell he wasn’t going to say anything else.

“I think maybe you should sleep now.” I stifled a yawn. “I’ll keep watch.”

“I should do that. I’m the adult —” He stopped, as if he realized he was saying something I wouldn’t like. “I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, President. I was going to come here anyway. I was going to stay up all night and hunt. I will keep watch instead, and if a buck or a bear walks across my path, I will be ready to kill it.” I held up the bow so he could see I had it ready. “Maybe I can kill a trophy after all.”

“And what if those men come?”

“I’ll hear them before they ever see us.”

“Well, make sure you wake me if you hear anything. I’ll keep this close.” He showed me the pistol, then lay down in the dirt and placed the weapon on the ground beside him. He hesitated, as if he was going to suggest he keep watch again, but I shook my head at him.

“Go to sleep,” I said.

He sighed, then threw the blanket across himself and moved about until he was comfortable.

“Good night, President,” I said.

“Good night, Oskari.”