-c- 2008 Mcgraw-hill Ryerson Limited <EXCLUSIVE ⚡>

August 17, 1932. Rations gone. River too swift to cross. Compass pointing to the same bearing for eleven days. I believe the needle has frozen. Or I have lost my mind. But I saw the cairn yesterday—the one marked on no map. Inside it, a second journal. Not mine. Someone else’s. Dated 1789. The ink was soot and water. It described this valley, this cabin, this river. The writer called it “the door.”

Elias held up the compass. The needle pointed northeast across the tundra. -C- 2008 mcgraw-hill ryerson limited

The summer Elias turned sixteen, his grandfather gave him a brass compass in a worn leather case. The glass face was cracked, and the needle trembled instead of pointing north. August 17, 1932

That night, Elias couldn’t sleep. The compass sat on his nightstand. At 2:17 a.m., he picked it up. The needle, which all day had spun lazily, snapped rigid. It pointed not north, but northeast—straight through his bedroom wall, across the hayfield, toward the dark line of the boreal forest. Compass pointing to the same bearing for eleven days