Pine needles crunched underfoot as I made my way through the underbrush. 

The wind bit at the nape of my neck, causing me to pull up my collar. The cold was bitter, a little too intense for this early in the fall. It forebode of an early winter, one that I wasn’t quite ready for. 

For the next month my entire existence would be devoted to hunting and stacking wood. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

After a few hours of tracking, I made my mark. 

A young doe gracefully twisted and twirled beneath branches, nibbling at the forest floor. 

She wasn’t a trophy, but she would feed me for nearly a month. 

I went to my knee, raising my rifle and resting an elbow on my thigh. 

Just breathe… 

Upon the exhale I counted, 1…2…3… 

Boom!

She dropped immediately. My heart thundered in my chest as I quickly shouldered my rifle and jogged over to her resting place. 

Her eyes were large and swimming with fear. I covered them with my hand, thanked her for her life and unsheathed my knife, driving it between her rib cage. 

Her body went stiff, rigid for a moment, and then fell into that eternal slumber. 

I hummed a song my mother used to sing to me as a child as I went to work with my knife. Field dressing was at best a simple chore, and at worst full of remorse. But that was life out here. Surviving from within the Evergreens.

The sun was nearly set by the time I was finished. The last leg of my journey back to the cabin would be in total darkness if I didn’t hurry. 

I pulled her over my shoulders and set out at a steady jog. It was tough going, but I knew I needed to get the doe inside and the offering out on the steps before it got too late. 

She wouldn’t accept a belated gift.

I let my mind slip into that static place, the place I went to when the pain crept in, and I grinded through. The minutes passed by painfully slow as the warmth of blood from the doe soaked my back. 

My calves were cramping and my lungs were burning from the cold. But I made it… 

The cabin came into view just as the sun faded over the horizon. 

The next hour was a blur as I started a fire in the hearth of my home and carefully set out to extract the heart from her chest. 

Once it was free I carefully wrapped it in burlap and tied bailing twine around the package. Fingerprints of blood traced around the exterior of the gift, but I knew she wouldn’t mind. 

It was heavy in my hands and somehow still a little warm as I set it out on the first step of the front porch. 

I scanned the tree line, looking for signs of her, but saw only darkness between the trunks. A wolf howled in the distance, cutting through the silence of the night. 

My breath poured out like smoke into the air. Winter truly was on its way. 

And I wasn’t ready…

—

The next three weeks passed by entirely too quickly. 

I’d stacked plenty of wood behind the cabin sure, but staying warm just to starve to death was a moot point. 

Since the doe I’d only been able to trap some wild snowshoe hares and bring down a few geese. 

So when I awoke to the first snowfall of the season this morning, panic began to stir in my gut. 

I decided to double down on my hunting efforts, seeking out new game trails for trapping and spending my entire afternoons with my rifle in the forest. 

Hopelessness was starting to set in just before I finally saw movement in the brush up ahead. 

My heartbeat pulsed in my neck, and my mouth went dry. Something was beating through the shrubbery. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was loud and borderline obnoxious. 

Perhaps a young black bear that hadn’t mastered the hunt yet. Bear meat was gamey, but it held plenty of fat that could sustain me for weeks. 

I pushed down my excitement, stifling it in my stomach, and slipped my rifle from my shoulder. 

I watched as limbs shook and leaves fluttered until finally I caught sight of what I thought was its head. I aimed about a foot down and a few inches to the right, where I thought the heart and lungs would be. 

Breathe… 

1....2…3…

Boom!

A cry rang out just after the shot, one that sounded… wrong. 

I couldn’t place the noise but it certainly wasn’t from a black bear. 

I furrowed my brow and slung the rifle over my shoulder before taking off through the brush. 

After breaking through thorns and entanglements of vines, I stopped dead in my tracks…

My heart that had thundered like a war drum suddenly felt like it had stopped beating in my chest. 

“Oh my God…” I croaked. 

It was a man. He was covered head to toe in camouflage with his own gun in tow. 

Blood pooled around his body, saturating the snow in crimson. 

I pulled my glove off and reached down to check for a pulse, but found none. The shot had struck true and had been fatal. 

I spent the next hour muttering prayers, asking for forgiveness and creating a makeshift sled from the brush using my hatchet. 

Once it was done I carefully rolled the man onto it and strapped him on with the belt from around my waist. 

I drug him back to the cabin, once again going to that static place. Not to avoid the pain, but because my mind was reeling with shock and disbelief. 

The sun was setting by the time I’d gotten him inside. After looking through his belongings I’d found his wallet and I.D. 

Liam Fournier from Toronto. 

What in the hell was he doing way out here?

I fired up the HAM Radio and got a hold of the authorities out in Fairbanks. We both assumed he was a tourist, hunting on a big game license. The officer said it sounded like an accident, and that these things happen. But that didn’t erase the guilt that constricted my chest. 

They would be out after first light on a puddle jumper to investigate and retrieve the body. 

I reached for the bottle of whiskey I had hidden above the cupboards. It had been so long since I’d had any I had to wipe off a thick layer of dust from the cap. 

I didn’t bother with a glass. 

I drank until I was numb and fell asleep by the fire, curled up on the hardwood floor with a prayer still on my lips. 

—

 I awoke to what sounded like a whisper in my ear. 

A sinister sound that scratched around at the base of my skull. 

I opened my eyes. My vision swam. 

There was a scratching, it sounded like nails… nails on glass. 

I rolled to the side just in time to see something dark run past the window. 

I froze. Adrenaline coursed through my veins like fire, but I couldn’t move. 

It couldn’t be…

The flames flickered, casting shadows of a hand on the ceiling. Long fingers spread like deciduous branches above. 

No, no, no… she couldn’t have expected an offering from this.

The front door rattled violently in its frame. 

This was a human being for Christ’s sake! Not an animal I’d killed for sustenance. 

“STOP! Damn you, stop!” I cried, and the door fell silent. 

“This was not a hunt! It was an accident. He is a man. This is not in our agreement!” 

It was quiet for so long I thought that maybe she had gone. But suddenly I heard footsteps from above. Heavy footfalls thundered across the roof. 

She wasn’t going to stop. I knew she wouldn’t. The witch of the woods cared nothing for my moral dilemma and demanded her offering. 

I’d made a kill in her forest, and payment was due. 

I looked over to Mr. Fournier with tears welling in my eyes. 

I could hear the splintering of wooden studs from above as she threatened to come through the ceiling. 

I’d been a survivalist for so long, I just couldn’t bring myself to lie down and die now… 

I hummed a hymn that I used to hear in church as a child and went to work with my knife. Field dressing was at best a simple chore, and at worst full of remorse, and this time.. I was drowning in it. 

But that was life out here. Surviving from within the Evergreens.

You did what you had to, to stay alive.