Sunday morning, when she came downstairs, Nicky found Josie at the kitchen table, slicing grapes into her oatmeal. Watermelon stretched out on the back of her neck, gulping down a blueberry. The iguana twitched as Nicky sat down and picked a couple grapes from the bowl.

“Hey. Get your own.”

Nicky ignored Josie as she chewed, looking out the window at the low gray clouds. “Happy Sunday to you too. Is Dad still sleeping?”

“Either that, or someone let a bear in the house. What’s up with the cargo pants and raincoat?” Josie asked. “You look like you’re going on an expedition.”

“Clete wanted to show me a few things around town.”

“Oh,” Josie mumbled, squeezing honey over her oatmeal. “I guess I’m not invited.”

“You want to come?” Nicky said, excited that her sister might join them, but also appreciating the opportunity to get revenge on her sister for saying she couldn’t come to Totem Park with Veronica.

“I’m practicing for my speech on Wednesday. Dad’s helping me,” Josie said, swallowing a grape.

“I can’t believe you’re going to be talking.”

“Someone needs to explain to people here that it takes a five-hundred-year-old tree five hundred years to grow back. Might as well be me.”

Nicky heard a knock at the bottom of the stairs. She grabbed a few more grapes and started for the door.

“Hey, Nick,” Josie said.

“What?” Nicky said, turning.

Josie paused, then carefully set down her spoon full of oatmeal, as if considering her question. Her eyes flashed.

“How often do you think of her?”

It took Nicky a moment to understand the question. Then she realized that she hadn’t thought of her mother once the entire morning. A feeling of guilt washed over her. “Four. Maybe five times a day. Sometimes I talk to her, even though she’s not there. Just to tell her I’m okay, or that Dad misses her. Or that you miss her,” she added. “Sometimes I just say I love you, and I wish you were here.”

“Do you ever get mad at her?” Josie whispered.

“No. Not really,” Nicky said. “Do you?”

Josie picked up the knife she had used to cut the grapes, examining it for nicks. Watermelon’s throat shifted as he swallowed the blueberry.

“I see her all the time. When I do, I usually just say hi. Then she goes away, and I get angry all over again. I hate it.”

Nicky started across the room, wanting to hug her sister. Josie cut her off, standing and taking her bowl to the sink. “Have fun with Clete,” she said. “Go talk to the trees, or commune with nature, whatever you do.”

“I love you,” Nicky stammered.

“Okay,” Josie said, moving past her to go to the attic.

At the bottom of the stairs, Nicky took her windbreaker from the hook and pulled the door open. Clete stood in the light rain, his hands in the pockets of his camouflage coat.

“Hey,” she said. “Sorry it took me so long.”

“It’s okay. You have gloves?” he asked.

“No. My hands won’t be cold.”

“It’s not for the cold. It’s for thorns. I have an extra pair. Ready?”

She zipped her windbreaker and stepped outside. She heard the scrape of a window, and looked up to see her father leaning out. “Hey, Clete,” he called out.

“Hi, Uncle Danny,” Clete said, squinting into the rain.

“Where you guys off to?”

“A walk,” Nicky answered.

“Have a good time.” He waved, and Nicky gave him a quick wave back as they started down the gravel road.

“Did you bring the spray?” Nicky asked.

Clete held up a red bottle that resembled a small fire extinguisher. “Their bellies are full of fish. That means they’re not aggressive. They’ll hear us way before we see them.”

“I’d rather not take chances.”

Clete gave her a mischievous smile. “I thought you wanted to see one.”

At the bottom of the road, he turned left instead of right. They walked in silence along the sidewalk by the harbor. A car passed, its windshield wipers making a squeaking sound.

“Next time I come into town, I’ll bring a bike for you,” Clete said. “So you can get around quicker.”

“Thanks,” Nicky said.

At the old boarding school campus they turned left again, following a path that led into a grassy quadrangle bordered by brown-shingled buildings.

“My grandmother on my Dad’s side went to school here,” Clete said, pointing at one of the structures. Its brown paint was peeling, and one of the doors hung off its hinges. “She lived in that building over there. It was a Presbyterian school.”

“My grandfather—well, your grandfather too—was a Presbyterian minister,” Nicky responded. “In Danville. We lived across from his church in an old house with stained-glass windows.”

Clete nodded. “My mom told me about it. That’s where she grew up.”

“Mom and Dad did a really good job making the house pretty again.”

“That’s cool,” Clete said as they passed a broken window in one of the buildings. “My grandmother hated this school. She said if you were caught speaking Tlingit you’d get hit with a ruler on the back of the neck.”

“My mother said the same thing happened to her, except on the knuckles, at Catholic school.”

“Where did she grow up?”

“In a small coal-mining town called Ashland. Her dad was a miner who came from Italy. I never met him.”

“My dad says the forest is his church,” Clete said. “When he hunts, he says he finds God.”

“That’s strange,” Nicky said, enjoying the light rain on her cheeks and the growing heat in her muscles as they crested the hill. “And he still wants to cut down Sky River Valley?”

“He says that just like the salmon and the deer give themselves, so the trees provide in times of need. He tells me that the trees want us to be here, where my father’s family has been for so long. White people are so obsessed with wilderness and untouched nature. That’s just not how we think about the forest.”

“Do you agree?” Nicky asked. “About cutting down the valley?”

“No,” Clete said. “I think it’s different. The scale is different. Yes, you take five berries and leave one. If you take that valley, you’re wiping out an entire family. For example, I’d never shoot a doe with fawns. Neither would my dad,” he added.

They cut through a patch of woods and came out on a wide asphalt road. Cars rushed past. At a break in traffic they crossed, passing the Alaska State Trooper Academy. Cobalt blue cars with black matte hoods dark with rain were parked in front. Clete gestured toward the building. “That’s where my dad says I’m going when I turn eighteen. To be an Alaska state trooper.”

“But you don’t want to?” Nicky asked.

He shook his head. “That’s the problem. I love working with wood, but I hate killing trees.”

“Sounds like a problem,” Nicky agreed.

The woods grew thicker as they left the main street and followed the packed gravel of Sky River Road. The rush of cars receded. A few houses appeared through the trees. Nicky heard the gurgle of a river off to the right. Along the side of the road she saw a medicine cabinet with a cracked mirror stuck in the brush. She went over and tapped the rusting metal box with the toe of her boot. It made a tinny, echoing sound. She leaned over and opened the door. Inside she saw a series of circles rusted into the enamel shelves, where bottles had once rested.

She closed the door again, then peered at her reflection in the mirror, noting how determined she looked in the tarnished glass. She pushed the hood of her windbreaker off her head and held her gaze, not minding the rain in her hair.

Clete joined her in the mirror. The two of them stood there, watching their reflections. The intensity of her eyes reminded her of her mother before she left for work. Maybe these were Josie’s eyes, but not hers.

“Now that everyone thinks that Lars Ruger is going to cut the valley, they’re leaving their junk back here,” Clete commented.

Fog rolled in behind them, covering the tree trunks. With an effort Nicky broke the stare.

“What about your mom?” she asked his reflection. “Does she ever come into the woods?”

“No,” Clete said back at her. She saw fog behind them in the mirror, winding between the tree trunks.

With an effort Nicky broke the stare. As they continued down the road, Clete said, “Trees scare her. She said that when she was growing up in Pennsylvania, her parents told her that monsters lived in the woods, and she never got over it. The only way she’d agree to live here is on a small island so she wouldn’t have to worry.”

“That’s funny,” Nicky said. “She doesn’t seem like someone who gets scared.”

The fog continued to thicken. From high above she heard the squeak of a bald eagle. The asphalt ended. A tangle of bushes grew at the base of the trailhead, where a drab wooden sign said sky river valley trail—5.6 miles. Below that, another read be aware of bear. There was a bear print, four ovals and four points making a shape that resembled a campfire.

“You ready?” Clete said. “Our cutoff for the grove is only about two miles in. After the first bridge.”

Now that they were here, standing at the trailhead, she was having second thoughts. She’d never be able to find her way back to town if something happened to Clete. No one on the island knew where they were going or what they were doing.

“Do these trees, the Old Yellow Cedar and the Three Guardsmen, whatever they’re called, know we’re coming?”

Clete only laughed. “You still don’t believe me about any of this, do you?”

“If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be here. It’s the part about them having a message for me I’m not sure about.”

Clete turned to her, took a moment to redo the bun in his hair, then hitched his thumbs in the pockets of his coat. The ease with which he stood, his arms bent at the elbows, and his shoulders square, reminded Nicky of her mother.

“I know it’s difficult to imagine, but all these trees here, they’re alert. Their reactions are slower—a third of an inch per second, to be exact. It’s like having a slower heartbeat, but they’re just as alive as we are. All the things that we experience—friendship, love, pain, and hunger—trees feel too. I’m not making it up. It’s been proven,” he insisted. His eyes shone above his damp cheeks.

“Maybe,” Nicky said, wanting to believe him in the same way she always believed her mother. “Maybe trees experience these things individually. But their roots don’t, you know, grab each other. They’re not joined.”

“Trees can become friends, and their roots can intermingle. They can share sunlight. When one dies, the other usually dies right after it. But you’re right. They don’t attach at the roots. Mushrooms do it for them, building these networks beneath the soil, like electrical lines. Then the trees send messages on the wires. It’s like the internet, except in the soil.”

“The Wood Wide Web,” Nicky filled in.

“Right. It’s not only messages they send, but also food. Mom trees feed their babies sugar. Other trees poison each other, like the Three Guardsmen, or black walnuts, to keep saplings from growing too close. But most trees cooperate. That is the part my father doesn’t understand. They’re a family. When one goes down, they all start to fall apart. The rest of the forest doesn’t survive.”

Nicky realized she had been holding her breath. She exhaled, gazing into the trees in front of her.

“C’mon,” he said, stepping past the wooden sign onto the trail. “We’re losing time.”

As they walked Nicky found herself examining where the tree trunks pushed out from the moss-covered soil. Just as the whale she had seen on the ferry took her down into the depths of an ocean she had never really considered, Clete’s words, and these towering hemlock and spruce trees she now walked beneath, plunged her imagination into the soil below. She could see in front of her filaments sent out by mushrooms, thick roots, stones, even underground rivers, all of it holding these trees together.

The trees in Sky River Valley grew even taller, maybe twice as tall as the trees near town. Far, far above she could only make out fragments of sky among their arching crowns.

Ahead, Clete climbed a stairway of river rocks and roots glistening with rainwater. The soles of her boots seemed to mold to the contours of the trail as she came along behind him.

“Have you heard the story of the Lady of the volcano?” Clete asked. Nicky shook her head.

“It was one my grandmother’s brother told me. His name was S’áaxwshaan, which means ‘Old Hat.’ He said that when the Tlingits returned to the land after the last ice age, there was only grass and alders on the land, but no evergreens. When they came to this land, they saw smoke from the volcano, and the mountain was blinking and spouting fire. But the men in the canoes still found trees nearby where the lava hadn’t reached.

“Then a woman appeared to them. She was dressed in white deerskins, which are deerskins left out to be bleached in the winter sun, that’s what he said. The woman in white said the island should be left alone. The Tlingit medicine man stepped up, all dressed for trouble—that’s how S’áaxwshaan described it when he told me the story. But then the woman in white noticed the beautiful earrings and bracelets the Tlingit women wore, and she took them for gifts in return for letting the Tlingit return to the island.

“They built first on the island with the volcano, and then here on Shee. At’iká is Tlingit for ‘on the outside of,’ and the people from the inside waters started calling settlers here Sheet’iká Kwáan, which means ‘people on the outside edge of Shee Island.’ My grandmother always told me never to forget how slow time passes, and how we are all part of something much larger than any of our small bodies, which spend such a short time on this earth. We can’t truly understand trees, she always said, because we see so little of their lifespan.”

The more Clete spoke, the more Nicky felt like she was stepping into a story she had once known and loved, but had forgotten. The same with the land—she recognized the volcano, and these trees. As she walked she thought that she could even be content living the rest of her life in the cool light of this forest, without ever seeing another piece of plastic or a computer or cellphone again. The heady smell of sap and the power of Clete’s story filled her with both strength and awe in the same way the Presbyterian church back in Danville once had, with its vaulted ceilings and purple stained-glass windows.

When Clete stopped ahead of her, she was so deep in her thoughts, imagining the woman in white putting on her jewelry, that she almost ran into him. He poked a pile of green mush with a stick.

“You have any songs you like to sing?” he asked. “Because it sure looks to me like that is some fresh poop.”

Her heart revved in her chest. The feeling of peace and wonder evaporated. The pile was as big as a funnel cake.

“That looks really big,” she said.

“Big poop, big animal. That’s also what S’áaxwshaan would say.”

A soft wind moved through the bramble. Above her a branch creaked.

“The bear went over the volcano…,” Nicky started. She caught herself as Clete laughed.

“Sorry. How about ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’?” He nodded and joined in, the two of them bellowing out the song as they walked.

The trail swung back to the river. When they reached the water Clete led the way up a series of yellow stumps arranged into steps. They crossed to the halfway point of the cedar, the log flexing beneath their weight. Clete stopped and poured tea from his thermos, holding a steaming cup out to her. The hot liquid warmed her chest.

Clete sipped and stared into the current. Nicky thought he was going to tell her another story. Instead, he said, “It’s kinda silly, isn’t it, having children, then swimming off to die.” As he spoke, what she had thought were rocks below transformed into hundreds of salmon.

Clete’s eyes slid toward her. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Why?” Nicky said, focused on the fish below.

“I mean, with your mother.” His eyes shined. “That wasn’t nice. Also, what I said earlier. You know, about trees dying, and families falling apart.”

Nicky considered this as she watched the river run beneath the bridge. “Listen. I know my mother’s dead. We all do. It’s no secret. So you don’t have to tiptoe around it.”

He continued to watch her, as if he didn’t believe her words. “I wish I had known her, my aunt,” he said. “Mom says she was really smart. Like, really smart. Maybe not friendly. But when she smiled, it was like the sun fell on you. That’s what she said.”

Nicky didn’t know how to respond. After a moment, Clete screwed the thermos cap back on. “Just a little farther,” he said, starting again across the log bridge.

The trail arced away from the river, and the forest grew quiet again as they left the chatter of the riffles behind them. Heavy drops thudded into the moss. Nicky kept running Clete’s words over in her head. It was true. When her mother smiled, like when she saw Josie and Nicky running up the driveway toward her at the end of the day and smiled through the truck windshield, there was nothing better. A smile both exciting and reassuring. That everything was going to be okay.

Ahead, Clete paused.

“This is it, where the game trail breaks off. Ready?” He handed her a pair of thick gloves. “My mom uses these for cutting back brush. They’re also good for devil’s club.”

Without waiting for a response, he disappeared into the wall of green.

“Clete?” Nicky said.

“I’m here,” a voice said. “Just duck your head. Don’t touch the bottom of the leaves, there are thorns there too.”

The heart-shaped leaves shook back and forth in the breeze, as if taunting her. This is so stupid, she thought. Thorns and talking trees and grizzly bears. On top of that, she had never lied to her father. If he found out, he’d never treat her the same again. Trust was a big deal for him. Josie was one thing—she had always gone her own way, dying her hair in the sink at the RV park, or whatever. But Nicky was never dishonest. She knew he depended on her. Even more now.

The wind coursed through the branches, pushing at her back. She thought of the view from her window, the Old Yellow Cedar standing high above the other trees. Then of the medicine man dressed for trouble, and the woman in white deerskins. She looked down at her gloves and took a deep breath. With her elbows protecting her face, Nicky flung herself forward, gritting her teeth against the thorns as they tore at her wrists. She closed her eyes, trying to push aside the pain. Her boots squelched into the mud. The leaves parted, and Clete stood there waiting.

“Okay?” he said, starting forward.

“Okay,” she confirmed.

They crossed a small stream running through the moss, and climbed to an open expanse of grass pocked with small brown puddles. Miniature trees draped with aqua-colored lichen grew up from the soil, which flexed with each of their steps.

“This is a muskeg,” Clete told her as he pulled a few strands of lichen from the branches and put them into his pocket. “This is called Old Man’s Beard. Always good to have for fire-starter. That, and sap from Sitka spruce.”

Ahead of her she heard a branch snap, and she froze, sure that a bear was going to lunge from the leaves. Clete’s head turned to the fringe of the muskeg just as a brown shape rose from the brush, charging away from them.

Clete exhaled, smiling back. “Blacktail. We startled him.”

“Would your dad have shot?” she asked, trying to calm her thudding heart.

“Probably,” Clete said. “In August you can only take bucks. He was a forky, a smaller one.”

They climbed a hill of trees separating the lower muskeg from the higher one, which was longer and wider. Networks of black mud trails pocked with deer hoof tracks wove through the grass. The sun emerged, lighting up the gnarled trees growing from the swamp, which Clete called dwarf pines. Her XtraTufs sunk into the spongy soil. It moved ahead of her like a wave. Water bugs skated along the surface of the silty brown puddles.

“Almost there,” Clete called out.

Even as she saw the thick block of trees ahead of her, it was difficult to imagine how some of the world’s tallest, oldest trees could emerge from this forest. The dwarf pines, which Clete said could be hundreds of years old, were short and twisted. She caught up to where he waited, at the edge of the muskeg. He had removed his can of bear spray from its holster.

“We need to hurry if we’re going to make it back by dinner. Luckily the sun’s breaking out, but that could just be a sucker hole.”

“What’s a sucker hole?” she asked.

He smiled. “For suckers who think it’s about to get sunny.”

“Oh.”

“Ready?” he asked.

She didn’t move. Her legs wouldn’t budge.

“Nicky,” Clete said slowly. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Actually being out here—it’s just a lot of feeling.”

“I understand. It’s just—if town votes to cut these trees, we might never see any of this again. Not the muskeg, or the dwarf pines. This might be our last chance. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Then he disappeared into the bushes.

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She brought her elbows to her face, and pushed through.