There was no thought or feeling at all, just a slow falling through never-ending space. But soon the emptiness was filled with the smell of burning fuel. A grim, ugly smell that slipped its fingers down my throat and blackened my lungs. It scratched its nails along my throat, making me cough. With that came the dull throbbing at the back of my head, and I remembered that I had hit it when … when had it been? Yesterday? A year ago?

No, not that long. In the president’s suite. I had jumped up to distract a man called Hazar and …

“President?” I opened my eyes and sat up. “President?”

He was lying beside me, pressed against the rocks and curled into a ball. His face was covered and his hands were wrapped over his head.

“President?”

Smoke drifted around us, thick and black, and the ground was littered with pieces of twisted metal and broken plastic. The sound of crackling flames made me look back to see a series of small fires burning at the tree line, reminding me of last night’s plane crash. Tangled piles of driftwood were on fire, too, as if the whole world was going up in a blaze.

“President? You alive?”

I couldn’t think straight. Dazed by the thunderous explosion, I felt as if my brain had been scrambled in my head and everything was fuzzy. There was something, though: a familiar sound that was growing louder by the second.

Thucka-thucka-thucka.

A helicopter.

NO! The word screamed through my head. They couldn’t have survived. I saw them explode … I saw them burn up and burst into a thousand pieces. Not even Hazar could have survived that.

The sound came closer, thumping across the lake toward us, and I leaned back to see two helicopters flying side by side.

More hunters. More men coming to take my friend.

I pushed to my feet, wobbling with dizziness and putting a hand on the rocks to support myself as I watched them reach the shore and hover like giant black insects.

Smoke swirled in tornadoes beneath them as ropes dropped down from either side and men in black zipped down, armed with assault rifles and submachine guns.

“No,” I said, moving away from the rocks and stumbling into the open to meet them. They weren’t going to have him. He was mine. “No.” I reached down to grasp the handle of my knife and pull it free of its sheath. “No.”

“It’s all right,” said a voice behind me, and I turned to see the president standing there. His face was bloody and his clothes were tattered. He reached out and put a hand on mine, stopping me from drawing the blade. “These guys are with me.”

I tried to pull the knife anyway, but he held my hand firm and shook his head. “They found us, Oskari. The rescue party. It’s time to go home.”

Beyond the rocks, close to the waterline, three of the soldiers remained on the ground beneath the helicopter, facing in different directions, watching for threats. Another four hustled toward us with their weapons pointed at me. As they came closer, the president limped forward and held up a hand.

“Am I glad to see you. Stand down, Captain,” he said, but his voice was quiet and they ignored the order. They moved between us, escorting the president away while others continued to point their guns at me, and I wondered if they had really come to rescue us. Maybe they were more of Hazar’s men.

“I said, ‘Stand down, Captain’!” the president ordered, raising his voice and pulling himself away from them. “And take good care of this young man.” He came back to me and pushed the soldiers aside to put a hand on my shoulder. “If it wasn’t for him, you’d have a new president now.”

The captain glanced down at me with a serious look. He had square features and cropped hair. His brow was furrowed into a frown, and he gave me a curt nod before looking back at the president. “Sir, please come with us. We have a jet at Rovaniemi Airport waiting to take you to Helsinki.”

The president nodded and looked at me, reassuring me that it was all right, and the soldiers surrounded us while we waited for one of the helicopters to touch down. Once it was on the ground, the men escorted us back along the shore toward the waterline.

“Wait!” I said, suddenly remembering something. “My bow!”

One of the soldiers turned to grab me, but the president stopped him, saying, “Let him go.”

I ran back to the rocks and searched through the sticks and other wreckage until I found the bow that Hamara had handed to me on the platform yesterday. I could hardly believe it had only been a day since I had left Dad behind and ventured into the forest alone.

“Can’t forget that,” the president said, glancing down at the bow as we climbed aboard the helicopter.

We sat opposite one another and the soldiers buckled us into our seats. I put the bow across my knees and looked at the battered and bruised president. Within seconds the helicopter lifted off the ground, rising high above the lake, then turned, put its nose down, and sped off across the trees.

“I want you to contact the Pentagon and have the vice-president arrested,” the president said to the captain. “Do it now.” He didn’t sound so much like my president now; he sounded like a man who was used to giving orders rather than a man who needed to be led through the wilderness.

“Sir.” The captain spoke into his communicator, passing on the message.

“And we won’t be going to Rovaniemi.” The president kept his eyes on me as he shouted over the noise of the helicopter.

“Sir, those are our orders,” said the captain. “From there you’ll be taken to —”

“That’s not where we’re going.” Still he didn’t look at the soldiers. “We’re going to take Oskari home first.”

“If you mean this boy, sir, then we can take him home after —”

“I know you’re just doing your job, Captain.” The president shifted his eyes to look at the soldier sitting beside him. It was a look that dared the man to disobey him. “But remember who I am. You take your orders from me, and I am ordering you to take this young man home. It’s the least I can do for him.”

The captain paused.

“Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes, sir. Um … you have a location on that? We need to know where ‘home’ is, sir.”

The president looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Where do you want to go, Oskari?”

“The Place of Skulls.”

“The what?” The president looked surprised and leaned closer as if he hadn’t heard me properly.

“The Place of Skulls,” I repeated. “That’s where Dad will be waiting for me.”

“I thought that’s what you said. Sounds like a serious place.”

“It is.”

The president nodded and turned to the captain. “You heard the man. Take us to the Place of Skulls.”

“Um. You have coordinates on that?” asked the captain.

“Southeast of the lake,” I said.

The captain spoke the directions into his microphone, relaying them to the pilot. Immediately, the helicopter banked east.

“No coordinates?” the captain asked. “Nothing else?”

I shook my head, wondering how I could explain where to go. “Wait,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt and turning to look out of the window behind me.

The wilderness was whipping away beneath us at an incredible rate as we skimmed across the tops of the trees. Staring at the vast sea of trees and mountains around us, I searched for something familiar.

“Come into the cockpit,” the president said, unbuckling himself and taking me forward.

“Sir,” the captain warned. “I really must ask you to —” One look from the president was all it took. He stopped what he was saying, nodded, and saluted. “Sir.”

We moved forward to the cockpit, looking over the pilot’s shoulder, seeing Lake Tuonela below. From this height it looked even bigger than I had imagined. Like the sea. The mist had cleared and the weak sunlight sparkled on the surface. Close to the shore, the water was still burning, and there was a dark shape drifting below the surface.

I looked up at the president and knew he was thinking about all the people who had been on the aircraft. Hazar and Morris might have deserved to go down with it, but the others hadn’t.

“Sir,” the captain said to him. “I’ve just had word from the Pentagon. The vice-president was found dead in the bathroom a few moments ago. Apparently he slipped on some soap and struck his head.”

“Soap?”

“That’s the information I have, sir.”

“Have you ever slipped on soap in the bathroom, Captain?”

“Can’t say I have, sir.”

“Me neither. I think maybe someone helped him slip. The kind of person who helped him organize this setup, because God knows he couldn’t be this devious on his own. Someone silenced the vice-president, inside the Pentagon, and whoever it was, they’re probably still in there now.” The president thought for a moment. “Captain, have security lock the place down. Someone there knows who set me up.”

“Lock it down, sir? The whole Pentagon?”

“Those are my orders. Get it done.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

We flew past the waterfall and I pointed, showing the pilot which way to go: over the top of the mountain, down past the scars in the forest where the planes had crashed, and then on to where Dad would be waiting.

When we came to the Place of Skulls, I couldn’t believe how small it looked.

Yesterday it had seemed so big, it was my whole world. Now it just looked like a run-down platform and a collection of battered caravans, dented SUVs, and temporary shelters.

It was my place, though. Dad was there, and that gave me the best feeling. I was home.

The noise had drawn the men out of their shelters and caravans, and they were all standing, necks craned and hands over their brows, to watch our approach. Hamara was there, unmistakable, and Davi, who had almost knocked me off my feet yesterday when he slapped me on the back. I could see some of the older boys there, too, Risto and Broki shielding their eyes as they looked up, and my friends Jalmar and Onni standing near them.

The pilot circled the helicopter once over the Place of Skulls, and as we finally came to a hover and began to descend I saw Dad standing beside our SUV, rifle over his shoulder. When we touched the ground, the president ordered the pilot to switch off the engine, then we went back into the body of the helicopter as the captain drew back the door and jumped down, weapon trained on the hunters. The other soldiers disembarked next, some crouching, some standing and moving away in an arc, keeping their weapons ready.

When I jumped down, I saw the shock and surprise on Dad’s face. I had never seen him look that way before and it brought tears to my eyes. I was so relieved to be home, to see him again, and knew that he felt the same.

He stood by the SUV for a second in disbelief, then came forward, slowly at first, but then breaking into a jog.

One of the soldiers stepped into his path, pointing his weapon at Dad’s chest.

“That’s my son!” Dad shouted, and raised a hand to point. “My son!”

I wanted to run to him, too, but I stopped myself. There was something I had to do first.

It was tradition.

I wiped my tears and stood tall and strong, gripping the bow in my right hand and keeping my eyes forward as I strode across the Place of Skulls, past the other boys and men.

I marched straight toward Hamara and stood in front of him, looking into his eyes.

“The traditional bow,” I said, holding it out to him.

Hamara opened his mouth, but no words came out. He looked at me, then at the soldiers and the helicopter. Then he looked at the man who had come to stand beside me.

“The traditional bow,” I said again, trying to make him look down at me. “And I have brought this man out of the forest. This is my trophy. This is what the forest has given me.”

“Are you … ?” He couldn’t take his eyes off the president. “Are you … ?”

“The traditional bow,” I said once more, grasping Hamara’s hand and pressing the weapon into his fingers.

Finally he took the bow and looked down at me. “Is that … ?”

I didn’t reply. I left him standing there openmouthed, and walked over to Dad, taking the president with me.

“Oskari?” Dad looked stunned and confused and concerned all at once. I’d never seen such a look on his face. “What’s going on?”

“Dad, I want you meet someone,” I said. “This is …” I hesitated. “This is Bill.”

The president stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Bill?” Dad said, looking from me to the president and then back again.

“Bill,” the president confirmed. “And you’re Tapio?”

Lost for words, Dad could only nod as he put out a hesitant hand and shook with the president.

“I’ve heard about you,” the president said. “Oskari tells me you’re an amazing hunter. Well, just so you know” — he took his hand from Dad’s and rested it on my shoulder — “so is your son. He’s pretty good at saving presidents, too.”

“You saved the president?” Tears welled in Dad’s eyes as he looked down at me. “You brought the president out of the forest?”

“There’s something I need to tell you, though,” I said. “I crashed the ATV. I think it’s —”

“I don’t care about that.” Dad suddenly seemed to come to life. He grabbed me and pulled me to him, hugging me tight. He leaned down to put his bristly cheek against mine and he spoke into my ear. “Damn it, Oskari, the president of America? Mom would be so proud of you. I’m so proud … but … couldn’t you have just settled for that buck?”

A cough and I looked around to see Hamara standing behind us with a camera in his hand. He shrugged and showed us an embarrassed smile. “Tradition is tradition.”