Martin was a twenty-nine-year-old anthropologist working on animism in Siberia when a bear leaped on her. He raked her with his claws, put her head into his mouth, and was about to crush her skull when she stabbed him with her ice axe. He loped off into the woods, carrying part of Martin's lower jaw and, if Martin is right, half of her soul—but leaving half of his soul in return. Martin lay bleeding in the snow. She managed to fashion a tourniquet that slowed the bleeding from her leg. Miles away, a friend was fishing. He fell backward and blacked out. When he came to, he knew that something bad had happened to Martin.
But was it bad?
It certainly seemed so for a while. A Russian helicopter lifted her to hospital. Her wounds were treated, but the hospital seemed more brutal than the bear. She was strapped to...
