The Cessna came down hard in a patch of black spruce. For a long minute Mara heard nothing but her own heartbeat. Then her cousin Dell coughed in the seat beside her, alive, his glasses cracked but still on. The radio was dead except for one thing: a clean tone, repeating, over and over, on an old frequency. A tower beacon. Somewhere out there, someone had left a light on.

Dell put a hand on the dash. "We don't leave the plane. They teach you that. Rescue looks for the wreck, not for two kids wandering the woods." He pointed at the bright wing sticking up through the trees. "We stay. We make a fire. We wait."

Night came and no one had found them. The cold crept in hard. "Maybe staying was wrong," Dell admitted, teeth chattering. Then Mara remembered the beacon still ticking on the radio. "At first light," she said, "if no one comes, we follow that tone."

At dawn they followed the tone north, cold and hungry but moving. By afternoon they reached the tower, climbed it, and found a radio that still had power. Mara called for help. A ranger answered fast. "We've been searching for that plane," he said. "Stay there. You did the right thing."