It took until Rusk was nineteen to master making arrows out of anything, and by that time Mandy was long gone from the forest community. When she turned fourteen she’d left on a journey, leaving behind only a note for Rusk to find, plus whatever was left in her little hut. Every day since her departure the note has haunted him.

Some people need to save themselves, the note had said.

Rusk remembered the crinkle of the paper, and the words bursting angrily from his mouth of their own accord.

“Some people should let people help!”

He’d been bitter, but he couldn’t maintain that bitterness for very long. Not since along with the note, Mandy had left her entire hut to his family specifically, detailing on the other side of the scrap of paper in eloquent handwriting in the older language who should receive what, and which items were left up to the family’s own choice. The way the note was written was all very formal, except for the list of items Rusk should personally receive. Those were merely under his name in a neat table of where they were and what he should do with them.

He had the Elva Bow of course, but in her note she’d left him a spare, handmade, along with an elegant quiver full of flawlessly crafted arrows she’d carved herself from the best woods available in the forest, a spool of waxen string, and a shooting glove, though over the years Rusk had decided against using those. His calluses worked well enough to keep the string from cutting into his fingertips after so much practice shooting. He never wore an arm guard either, even though Mandy had left him one of those as well. Also handcrafted. The girl had a way with leather.

She’d left so much inventory behind for Rusk and his family, quilts and baubles and needlework, that they ate better than they had in years that winter, and were warm. Not to mention she’d personally made sure Rusk could shoot adeptly before she even considered leaving. So he couldn’t truly be angry. Not maliciously.

To deny his sadness over a lost friend would be dishonest though.

Then there was the box. She’d also left him the box. The one her father hadn’t filled. Every once in a while Rusk would open it with the single key he’d found weighing down her note and stare at the nothing, the emptiness, trying to picture what Mandy felt all those years ago. Every time he did it it made him angrier with the man who’d abandoned her, and for no reason Rusk could discern.

So he spent years training, building on the archery knowledge Mandy had passed to him, supplementing all he’d learned with whatever resources he could scrounge, and by nineteen he could walk into the forest with his Elva Bow and an empty quiver and return midday with a full batch of arrows and supper. He could pin a bird to a tree midflight with one arrow through its skinny neck. He could bowfish in the river better than most people could use a traditional line. And he could pull arrows out of shadow, forge them with the Elva the same as his bow. The Elva Arrows he would search for after he fired, never letting them burrow into the ground or weave themselves into the grass. Sometimes he would search for hours and then find the arrow right back in his quiver, innocently fluttering its goose feathers in the breeze.

That’s how magic was. It could never be completely controlled, only bargained with.

The rest of the community called him a hypocrite even when he tried to help, and since Mandy’s departure, seemingly ever since Rusk had grown proficient enough to prevent it, monsters had swarmed the forest even more than before. There was talk it was his fault, that him messing with the darker forces was what summoned the danger. But even louder was the talk of the bad luck of heroes.

“It was only a matter of time,” some would say.

“This is what we get for letting him hang around after hearing of his aspirations,” said others.

“That poor family.”

“Foolish more like.”

“Why didn’t they kick him out the first time they heard?”

“Perhaps they thought he’d grow out of it.”

“If you ask me, he grew into it.”

Rusk took to walking with his back rigidly straight so the comments wouldn’t slouch his shoulders. He would dispatch of the monsters when they came, strike them true with an arrow either Elva forged or otherwise, and carry on his way. Mostly he spent his days on the hunt, patrolling the forest trails, not making a name for himself but surviving. Surviving off the land, like Mandy had shown him. Like his father hadn’t shown him. At least his mother’s support never wavered.

“Don’t listen to those naysayers,” she would whisper in the older language. “They’ve never dreamt of anything.”

At nineteen, the mantra was getting a bit stale, but Rusk appreciated the effort nonetheless. Then came the day when he was hiking the usual trails and a monster sprung into his path instead of fleeing at his advance.

They blinked at each other. Rusk knocked an arrow.

“You’re a bold one,” he told the little girl with the eerie smile and the bloodstained dress.

The little girl didn’t speak. She pointed at him and grinned. Her teeth were fangs. Her wrists were broken, but she had full control of all the digits. She couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

Rusk had grown used to the way monsters looked, but this one was so young it gave him pause. The Elva Arrow vanished from his bow and reappeared in its designated spot inside the quiver at his hip. A reflection of his hesitation.

“You sought me out,” said Rusk. “Why?”

The girl giggled. The sound was ordinary. Simply a child’s laughter. “My other one wants to tell you Sanctuary awaits.”

“Your other one?”

The girl curled over at the waist, like a dried flower stem breaking under the pressure of a finger, and vanished inside a puddle of shadow. The laughter lingered.

Rusk hadn’t heard talk of Sanctuary in years.

He knew he wasn’t welcome anymore.

So he wrote his parents a note, packed lightly, and journeyed outside the territory.