She didn’tthinkhe was nearby. But she could be wrong. He could be anywhere, and she had no idea what kind of tracking skills he had or how determined he was to find them. Barely anything he’d said had made sense, so she couldn’t expect him to act rationally either. “We’ll take turns keeping watch next time we have to sleep, and we’ll all be alert while we’re awake.”
“Okay, so what’s our biggest priority?” Reyva asked.
“Hypothermia,” Claire said promptly. “We’re soaked. Our clothes, our shoes. We need to get dry, and to do that, we need a fire...”
“... but the whole forest is soaked,” Mariana finished for her.
“And if we do manage to light a fire, it could make Jack an immediate problem,” Reyva said. “A fire will be visible.”
“Less visible during the day, but you’re right—we’ll need to be careful,” Claire said. “We need to get a fire going and get dried out as quickly as possible, and then put as much distance between us and our fire site as possible.”
It wasn’t a thorough plan, but it was at least a start of one. She looked from Mariana to Reyva and back again, waiting for their reaction.
Mariana scraped her fingernails against the inside of the trunk. “Seems flammable.” She held out a wad of dry, fluffy wood innards. It would make a beautiful tinder bundle. “We can start with this.”
Claire exhaled. They could have bickered with her. Theycould have fallen apart under the stress of their situation. She felt herself want to smile.Maybe we’re stronger than that.
While Reyva continued to break off bits of dried wood from the interior of the tree, Mariana and Claire scoured the nearby area for other dry or close-to-dry bits of wood. They piled all the wood bits they’d found, along with branches that didn’t seem as saturated, near their alcove.
“As soon as we’ve got it going, the fire will dry out whatever sticks we put near it, and then we can burn those,” Claire said. It wasn’t going to be quick, but itwasnecessary. She really, really hoped Jack was nowhere nearby.
“You think it’s a weakness that you see all the negatives, but I think you’re wrong,” Mariana said. “You’re the one who sees what we need to do, who keeps coming up with solutions. I’d be a mess now if it weren’t for you. So would Reyva. You’re the one who found our shelter last night, even after you fell off a cliff and blacked out.”
Claire shrugged and felt herself blushing.
“You see problems,” Mariana said, “but you also see solutions.”
No one had ever put it that way before. She looked away, blinking, as her eyes filled up. Of course, Claire wasn’t entirely sure she believed her, but it was still nice of her to say. She filed the words inside her heart, to think about later. “Thanks. Um, we should start the fire.”
“You got it, boss.” Mariana unwrapped a stick of gum, split the gum between the three of them, and then used the wrapper and her battery to start the fire.
Boss, she thought.
It was a sickly fire at first, but they coaxed it larger.
Shedding their clothes down to their underwear, they draped shirts and shorts over the top of the fallen tree, where the heat would rise into it. Reyva kept her shirt on, since it was impossible to remove with her splint. Shivering, they crouched together next to the fire, with Reyva the closest to dry both her and her shirt. Claire laid her socks on a rock and scooted them closer to the flames. Mariana had her shoes upside down next to the fire. Plus there was the future firewood, drying out.
They didn’t speak for a while, intent on keeping the fire alive, keeping watch for Jack, and making sure their drying clothes didn’t burn. Claire spread out the fiddleheads and dandelions in the spaces between the clothes. When the greens got crispy, she split them three ways.
Helping herself to her share, Claire nibbled on a fiddlehead. It wasn’t terrible. A bit like eating hot lawn clippings, but whatever. She touched her shirt. It was damp, steaming a little. Not yet dry. They waited longer. Mariana flipped her socks again.
She wondered what the others were thinking about. Food? Home? Or about the shot that rang out over the lake at the end of the weird conversation between Jack and his dad. She wished he’d just explained whatever was going on. They could have worked together and used the phone to get help for both them and his father. Now, though, what were their options? “As I see it, we have two choices: either we find Jack and try to get the phone from him—”
“Not loving that idea,” Mariana said. “We’re down our bestright hook, and he still has that knife.”
“—or,” Claire continued, “we try to hike out of here, like we originally planned.”
“But minus all the supplies we planned to have,” Reyva said.
“Yeah.” And there was another problem, one that affected both plans. She hesitated for only the barest of seconds before saying, “Also there’s the minor issue of the fact that we’re lost.”
Neither of the others had thought much about that. But she saw the moment that they both realized how true it was. With the thick forest around them, it was hard to see the sun, much less know which direction led to civilization.
“One problem at a time,” Mariana said.
Claire nodded, even though she couldn’t help but think of all the problems.
Pulling out her phone, Mariana waved it in the air. “Besides, I’ve got a possible solution. No GPS without coverage, I know, but thereisa compass app.”
