Chapter Twelve
Waking up was a warm and almost luxurious experience, which was strange as sleeping on a hard wooden floor was far from luxurious.
The chorus of sleepy breaths lulled me into a doze, but the cracks of light from outside called to me.
Disentangling myself from the guys, I stood up.
I ached a little but in a delicious way that made me want to arch my back like a cat, roll my muscles this way and that, feel the limits, and press the tender pieces of myself.
Padding softly to the door and pulling on my shoes, I slipped out of the cabin, closing the door behind me softly.
Dawn was breaking, but it broke yellow. Or at least not red, just a ruddy, light orange.
I watched it for as long as I could until the sun had risen enough that it was painful to look in its direction.
Then I turned and sprinted back to the cabin.
I threw the door open.
“Get up! Get up! The ash has cleared!”
Oskar sat up almost immediately, rubbing his eyes, but Ettore rolled over, covering his face with his arms.
“I’m sure it will be cleared for a little while longer. Come back and sleep.”
I was frustrated enough to almost stamp my foot like a child, but instead, I just grabbed the arms of Jin Woo and Bartosz and pulled them into sitting positions as they looked at me blearily.
They were utterly endearing, their shirts backwards and inside out, respectively.
I couldn’t help myself up. I leaned forward and kissed them both on the cheeks, and then leaned over and kissed Oskar on the cheek as well, but before I could pull away, he turned his face so that we were kissing properly.
If I had one shred less of self-control, I would have been back on the makeshift bed in a moment.
It was so good to feel, touch, just be around him again.
However, my self-control was just a smidge too strong; I pulled myself away with more than a little regret.
“The storm cleared away all of the clouds, which, at least Oskar knows, is incredibly rare on the west coast of Norway. Most of the wood will be wet and will take a while to burn. Basically, we need all of the time we have to make a bonfire if we want to be noticed, so” I nudged Ettore’s foot with my foot, “we need to get up and get moving.”
I turned to leave, to figure out where the best place to set the fire would be, when something caught on my pants. Ettore held on to my hem, looking up pitifully.
“Where’s my good morning kiss?”
“Only people who have actually gotten up and are not currently lying on the floor get kisses.”
I cracked a smile listening to his whining as I left the cabin.
In all the movies, they set their rescue fires on the beach of the deserted island that they were shipwrecked on, but in the movies, the shipwreck always happened on a flat tropical island.
Here we had a hill, in the middle of the pasture, that was taller than the trees surrounding it.
After a couple of minutes of debate, I decided that the top of the hill would be better than anywhere else on the island.
Next, in all the movies, there is HELP or SOS written in big driftwood letters.
The grass on the top of the hill was still green, no doubt flourishing due to the ample rain, and I worried that even if we could spare enough wood from our bonfire, it would blend into the grass.
No, we needed something else…the sand! It was more dark grey than brown thanks to the ash, but the storm had wiped most of the ash off the grass, meaning that there would be a pretty stark contrast between our message and the surroundings.
I walked over to the edge of the hill and looked down at the not inconsiderable distance to the beach. It would not be easy to carry all the sand we would need up the hill. Luckily, I had four semi-alien grunts.
“I think it’s a good plan,” Jin Woo said, after I had explained everything, “we can use the spare dry wood that we gathered yesterday as the start of the bonfire and use it to dry the rest of the wood before we put it in!”
Bartosz eyed the distance as I had.
“It’s not going to be fun,” he grumbled.
“I’ll bring up the dry wood and some of the wet wood, if you guys bring up the sand. How about this: the person who brings up the most sand gets to take me first tonight. Oskar, do you think that’s a good prize?” I asked him mischievously.
He nodded so aggressively that I worried that he’d give himself whiplash. Bartosz and Jin Woo were already jostling each other, and I saw a scheming light in Ettore’s hazel eyes. I slipped my arm in his before I said,
“Competition starts…NOW!” and I laughed as they went rocketing down the hill, shoving each other, their arms wheeling. Ettore waited at my side, looking at me expectantly.
“Yes, salvatrice, what’s up, amore?” he said.
I rose up onto my tippy toes and kissed him on the side of his cheek.
He looked pleased, but still said,
“What was that for, not that I’m complaining.”
“You’re no longer in bed, plus you deserved a kiss regardless. Thank you for taking charge yesterday.” I knew I was blushing, but I had wanted to say it. Ettore had made our first time together go as smoothly as a well-oiled machine, and I was grateful.
Ettore smiled at me, a little sheepishly.
“While I will take your kisses any time, I’m afraid that’s just how I am in bed, I boss people around. I know I don’t look like I should,” he said, gesturing down at himself.
I more firmly wrapped my arm in his and started down the hill.
“I think it’s hot,” I said without looking at him, though at this point I knew that I was practically a tomato, well, at least it felt that way.
Ettore stopped us in our tracks and dipped me, honest to god dipped me, kissing my hard enough that I was panting when he set me upright again and started strolling again like nothing.
“You know I will win the sand competition, right?” he said conversationally, “I might cheat, actually, I’ll probably cheat, but I will most definitely win.”
I gathered all of my bravery to look him in his face and say,
“I look forward to it.”
***
The four piles of sand were massive by around 11 o’clock in the morning. I had to call an end to the competition because we were going to have much more sand than we actually needed, and I wanted the words to be done by noon.
A debate about whether HELP or HJELP, help in Norwegian, or SOS were the best options, HELP was decided upon, though I thought that SOS would be better, but it wasn’t like we were short on sand.
Of course, it took five minutes for me to judge the sand piles, and, as Ettore had predicted, he had won, though Oskar disagreed.
“I swear, Mina, that my pile was larger than this,” Oskar protested, “ he must have taken some of my sand!”
“I wasn’t watching the piles, so unfortunately, I can’t say that I saw anything,” I said diplomatically. Ettore smirked at Oskar from across his huge pile.
“She said the biggest pile, she didn’t say how. Don’t be a sore loser, Oskar, I’m sure you’ll get another chance…eventually.”
Jin Woo shoved Ettore for being a sore winner (or cheater), and they moved on to moving the piles around as I started on the fire.
I wanted it to be the size of the average above-ground pool or a small elephant.
I had gathered a pile of dry wood that was up to my shoulder, but it was mainly thin branches and would burn out quickly.
“Guys, would one or two of you go and try to kick down some saplings? I think I underestimated the amount of wood we’re going to need.”
They obliged, and by noon, we had a pile of flammable materials taller than my head and about as wide as a dinner table was long.
I gathered the smallest, driest pieces of wood and dry grass, and once I caught them alight, I placed the burning bundle onto the edge of the woodpile.
Once it had caught, I went around and lit the pile in three other places on the edge.
It took some time, but with the very carefully constructed air pockets and air tunnels that I had built into the bonfire pile, it began to blaze.
With the pine needles and the wet wood, it put up an impressive column of grey-white smoke that spiraled straight up into the air, the slight breeze spinning the column, but not diverting it.
It was hard to prevent myself from cackling like a mad scientist as I watched my creature burn and burn.
“Det er et skikkelig bra b?l!” ‘That’s a fucking good fire!’ Oskar exclaimed as he watched it burn with his hands on his hips, like a middle-aged Dad.
I sketched a short little curtsey and then a bow, as the guys laughed and clapped.
There was nothing much to do as the hours ticked by. I prodded the fire this way and that. The boys occasionally ran off to grab bigger and bigger pieces to burn, which escalated until Oskar brought me a medium-sized tree.
As it hit around three, I began to lose hope.
I was too optimistic when I started this plan.
They probably weren’t even looking out into the ocean for smoke; all of the lookouts and scientists were probably in their homes with their families, avoiding the still-bad air quality.
The island only had enough wood for maybe two more days of burning, and then we would have to stop or be left without any fuel for fires at night. We would be stuck.
It hit about four, the sun only about four fingers up from the horizon.
I sat on a rock next to the bonfire, smelling like smoke, even more ash than usual on my face.
I combed my fingers through Bartosz's hair as he sat on the ground in front of me, his eyes closed. I was very occupied with braiding tiny little braids into his hair and very decidedly not worrying about what would happen if this bonfire didn’t work, while Jin Woo and Ettore argued about what was the best plane beverage.
“Champagne or a light white is perfect, they are not too heavy, soothing, and just get you a little drunk,” Ettore insisted.