“I have a story to show you,” he said.

The Stranger nodded. He cranked the projector one last time.

He set up his contraption in the center of the village square. The brass tripod unfolded like the legs of a dying spider. He placed the metal box on top—a projector, though no one there had ever seen one. He cranked a small handle, and a beam of white light pierced the mist, landing on the blank wall of the old granary.

A young woman appeared on the granary wall. She was running through a forest of silver birch trees, laughing. Behind her, a shadow with too many elbows was gaining ground. The film crackled. The emulsion bled. The woman looked directly at the audience—at them —and whispered: “Help me remember.”

So when the Stranger arrived, they didn't know what to make of him.

The Stranger tilted his head. “Do you? Name one story from last winter.”

He appeared at dusk, walking out of the eastern bog where no path existed. He wore a long coat of cracked leather, and his face was hidden behind a pair of dark goggles that reflected the setting sun like two small, angry fires. In his left hand, he carried a metal box. In his right, a tripod of polished brass.