I’ve been warned to be wary of strangers in the woods since I was a little girl. A person, alone, unfamiliar, hidden in the dappled darkness, is not to be trusted. And, certainly, the woods can hide the sorts of people you’d rather not encounter. Outlaws and outcasts. Gruesomely mutilated pariahs—those with fingers taken for thieving, lips and tongues cut out for lying, flesh rotting for submission to disease. But just as shadows serve to hide and disguise, they also provide privacy and solitude, and, if you look carefully, beauty. The darkness of the woods offers a break from watchful eyes and rules to follow and stiffened skirts and the never-ending etiquette of being a woman in the world. For a few short hours of the day, I’ve always considered it a fair trade: darkness for freedom.

But when I first heard the twig snap and saw the man ahead of me, I was scared. I saw beard and sword and steel. Year after year of warnings—to stay in the light, to travel in pairs, to avoid complicity in your fate—surfaced with one shallow breath.

That morning, it was early, and I had been somewhere I was not supposed to be. No matter if the stranger intended no harm. Fear makes people dangerous. And you see: To him, I, too, was a stranger in the woods.