The October air in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana has a way of cutting straight through you.
It isn’t just cold—it seeps into bone, damp and sharp, carrying the scent of pine sap, rotting cedar, and coming snow. That’s the first thing I remember about that Tuesday. The second is the silence.
My name is Hannah Cole. I live with my grandmother, Margaret Cole, in a cabin that’s been in our family since the logging days of the 1920s. We’re so deep in the wilderness that cell service dies miles before you reach us.
We live off-grid—grow our food, split our own firewood, and treat our own ailments. Grams is an herbalist, the kind people seek out when clinics feel too sterile and rushed.
That day, I wasn’t expecting anyone. I was checking my traplines along the creek.
The woods were unnaturally quiet. Not peaceful—watchful. Even the birds were gone. I slid my knife from its sheath, every instinct on edge.
I smelled the creek before I saw it. And then I saw him.
A boy stood on the slick rocks by the water, no more than ten years old, utterly out of place. He wore a jet-black designer coat worth more than our truck, and ruined leather shoes sunk in river mud. His skin was pale, his hair plastered to his forehead with cold sweat.
But it was his eyes.
They were wide open, staring into the trees, empty. Like the power had been cut behind them.
“Hey,” I called. “Kid, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
I moved closer, waved my hand in front of his face. No blink. His body trembled uncontrollably, lips blue with cold.
“You’re freezing,” I whispered.
When I touched his hand, it was ice-cold. I scanned the forest—no parents, no hikers, no cars. Just wilderness.
“We’re going home,” I said. “My name’s Hannah. I’m going to help you.”
He flinched violently but didn’t resist. I had to guide him like a machine, nearly carrying him the last stretch uphill.
When I burst into the cabin, Grams looked up from the stove.
“Hannah—who is that?”
“Found him by the creek. He’s hypothermic. And Grams… I think he can’t see.”
She didn’t ask questions. “Get him dry. I’ll get the tinctures.”
We stripped off the soaked, absurdly expensive clothes. Beneath them, he was just a thin, shaking child. We wrapped him in thick wool blankets and set him by the fire.
