Chapter 13 #3
And so we begin another torturous trudge through the forest.
The cloud has completely lifted now, and weak sunlight filters down between the gaps in the canopy. But there’s a cold breeze blowing, and my clothes are still damp, so despite generating heat by moving, I can’t help shivering.
Harry glances back at me and stops abruptly.
“We need to light a fire while it’s still daylight,” he says.
“What about the smoke? If someone is still here, it’ll lead them straight to us. We’ve just convinced them we’re dead, and ghosts aren’t exactly capable of lighting fires.”
“We’ll die if we don’t dry these clothes,” he replies simply. He looks up at the clear sky. “Now it’s clear, the temperature will plummet as soon as the sun goes down. We’ll need every layer of warmth possible. And the fire won’t be as visible in the daytime as it will be at night.”
“All right,” I agree.
Let’s face it, I would agree to almost anything to get out of these damp clothes.
How have I not appreciated how amazing dry clothes are? Every morning of my life, I’ve pulled on clothing without appreciating their absolutely incredible properties of being warm and dry.
So, for the second time in a day, I find myself undressing in front of Harry Matheson. I feel weirdly self-conscious, and the way Harry’s gaze lingers on my body adds to my shivering.
And my question from earlier is back in the forefront of my mind.
Is he…?
I’m almost certain that’s heat in his eyes.
I push the thought away as I wrap myself in my survival blanket and then lean down to rummage in the survival kit for the fire-making materials.
“The only fires I’ve ever lit have been metaphorical ones,” I say. “Don’t they say that when you’re in government, your job is to put out fires, and when you’re in opposition, your job is to light them?”
“Then, as a Labour politician, you better start working on your fire-starting technique,” Harry retorts.
“I’m on it.” I triumphantly hold up the ferro rod from the multitool.
“Have you ever made a fire before?” Harry asks skeptically.
“It’s fire, Harry. Humankind has been successfully making fire for hundreds of thousands of years. It can’t be that difficult.”
Famous last words.
My cavalier attitude obviously pissed off the fire gods because they have decided to prove to me that lighting a fire is actually extremely difficult.
My hands are numb and trying to strike ferro rod with the metal produces nothing but a few pathetic sparks, which the wind snatches before they can ignite the dried pine needles and moss we’ve gathered.
“How can this be so hard? It’s just basic physics,” I grit out between frantic strikes, my numb fingers slipping.
Sparks burst wildly this time, nearly singing my eyebrows, but fail to catch the tinder.
“You need better tinder,” Harry says.
“I definitely think society needs a better version of Tinder. But I’m not sure now is the time for scouting for a hookup,” I reply.
He rolls his eyes. “Better tinder material,” he says as he reaches for the survival kit. “We can unravel the paracord and use it as tinder material.”
“Won’t we need it for something else?”
“There’s no point saving it if we die of hypothermia now.”
He has a point.
We unravel the strands of the paracord. Harry is proven correct that it makes better tinder material, as the paracord ignites on my first strike of the rod.
But in our excitement, we add too many twigs, and our baby fire quickly goes out.
My throat grows thick as I stare at the blackened paracord.
“Fuck,” I say.
“We’ll need to build it up more slowly, adding pine needles first,” Harry suggests.
“All right. Let’s try that.”
We unravel some more paracord, and my next strike ignites it again.
“Slowly, slowly,” Harry coaxes as we hunch over the fire, adding pine needles one by one.
“Come on, little fire,” I croon. “You want to grow up big and strong, don’t you? Eat those pine needles. That’s it. Good fire.”
A sudden gust of wind buffets our tiny flame.
Harry and I both hold our hands up instinctively to shield it.
My fingertips touch his fingertips, and a weird jolt goes through me. The spark that jumps between us has nothing to do with the fire we’re building.
But I’m not pulling back because nothing is more important than keeping this fire alive. Our fingertips brush against each other as we remain human wind shelters.
The fire twists in the wind and dies down, and my heart stutters.
But then it lurches back to life.
I tentatively reach to get another pine needle to place on the fire. And then another.
Then, I select the smallest twig possible and add that.
Has there ever been a more brilliant sight in the history of humankind than the bright flickering of flame?
Harry and I nurture that small fire more carefully than we would a newborn, tentatively adding more twigs, then larger sticks. The flame grows bigger, consuming the fuel we give it.
It’s now gone from a newborn to a hungry child, and we’re rushing around the clearing to find more food to keep up with its demands.
“It’s growing so big,” Harry says in an awed voice.
I can’t help grinning widely at him.