Billows of clouds in every shade of gray hung low over the forest. The forest stream was beautiful with the stone bluffs rising over it. Its rocky pools were clear and deep. When she was far from camp, she bathed with vegetable soap so she didn’t harm the water ecosystem. She cleaned and changed into fresh clothes with practiced quickness. Then she washed her soiled clothes and put them in a plastic bag that she stuffed into her backpack.

She rubbed leave-in detangler into her hair and sat on a rock to pick the knots out. Her unruly curls were long past her shoulders now. Her hair hadn’t been that long for years. Since Zane used to call her Lion Queen and chase her around growling. Since Mick used to say he’d seen a bird fly out of it.

Ellis had cut off her hair in the fall of her senior year at Cornell. She thought it would make her look more professional. More adult. But what she’d seen when she looked at her shorn head in the salon mirror was a man. She’d been insecure about her small breasts and lack of curves since high school, and the short hair made her feel more lacking. She’d cried when she got back to her dorm. Dani had insisted she looked great, said her eyes and cheekbones were all WOW without her hair hiding them.

Maybe the haircut had changed her life, possibly brought her to this very rock in this forest, because the next day, Dani had dragged Ellis to a Halloween party to try to cheer her up. The party she’d nearly refused to attend was where she’d met Jonah.

Ellis was dressed as a cloud, a costume she’d made in a half hour by gluing pillow stuffing to a short white dress Dani was giving to Goodwill. Jonah was Zeus in toga, sandals, and beard, a costume from a rental store. Every time he was near her, he’d poke his plastic lightning bolt into her cloud billows. “I’m trying to make thunder,” he said.

“This symbolism is a bit obvious, isn’t it?” she said.

“No, explain what you mean,” he said, grinning.

The third time he poked her, she stole his lightning bolt and stuck it into the fluff on her chest. He said it looked so good on her, he’d let her keep it. He reclaimed it later that night, when they were both drunk. They talked for a while, and he kissed her.

The kiss was a surprise. She looked ridiculous in her costume, not at all sexy. She’d hidden her lack of breasts beneath the cloud, only exposed the full length of her legs—her best feature, she thought.

After two months with Jonah, when he told her he’d fallen in love with her, she started cutting her hair regularly. She wore fitted clothes that showed off her slender figure, a shape that had captured a smart, attractive law student.

But everything about her figure changed soon after. Only eight months into their relationship, her breasts swelled, and new curves emerged all over. By then, she was four months pregnant and had been married for a month. They took the oaths at a courthouse with only their best friends as witnesses. The senator and his wife had refused Jonah’s invitation.

Ellis put the comb in her backpack and climbed off the rock. She had to move to generate some heat. She climbed a bluff and looked down over the ravine. The trees were just beginning to leaf out. The chartreuse hue of early spring in the eastern forest brought to mind her Wild Wood. But she didn’t dwell there. Forever forward, she told herself.

She followed the trail back to camp but froze as she neared her tent. Her pulse skipped, then rushed with a suddenness that made her light-headed. There were two men in her camp. One was keeping watch as the other broke into her car.

The man keeping watch saw her at almost the same moment she saw him. She turned and ran, no time to contemplate if she should. She looked backward as she tore into the forest, sickened when she saw both men chasing her. Why would they chase her and not run away when she’d seen them trying to burglarize her car?

Maybe she shouldn’t have run. Maybe they thought she had something valuable in her backpack. A camera. Binoculars.

She did have binoculars, but they could have them. The backpack was slowing her down anyway. She pulled it off and let it fall behind her as she ran. She had her hunting knife on her, as always, but it was in its sheath, attached to the belt of her hiking pants. She took it out of its case and hid it in her pocket. But the sheath would give it away. She popped the snap on the case and let it fall.

Seconds later, one of the men grabbed her. His momentum knocked her facedown onto the ground, his body sprawling over hers. He moved off quickly, replacing his weight with his boot on the small of her back. The gesture said everything she feared. She was afraid she was going to vomit.

“Got her,” he said breathlessly.

“She’s fast,” the other man said, walking over.

Ellis had to stand. She appeared too vulnerable on the ground. She forced strength into her quivering body, rolled out from under the boot, and jumped to her feet. The men didn’t try to stop her.

She faced them. They were in their late twenties, both fairly big. The taller one, with a short, dark beard and brown eyes, had a beer gut. He was still breathing hard and holding her backpack. The other, the one who’d put his boot on her back, had a face prickly with a day or two of red-blond beard growth. He was fitter than the other man, and his blue-gray eyes made her stomach reel again. Something about how he looked at her. As if her capture excited him.

“Now, why were you running?” he asked, scratching his fingers in his cropped hair to feign puzzlement.

“You know why. I saw what you were doing.”