I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter One

A biting wind whipped the remains of the desert, spitting snowflakes in my eyes. My shoulders popped as I straightened up and shook snow off the mangy rabbit carcass in the last snare on my line. Its glassy eyes bugged at the sky, comical with the purple tongue lolling around yellowed teeth beneath them. I waggled it at an unassuming snowbank.

"Adi..." came a small, pained voice.

I flipped my catch upside-down so its leer was even more grotesque.

"Adi, put it away! I mean it!"

"Or what?" I walked forwards, rabbit outheld.

A fluffy-haired shape abandoned cover. Emma tripped and fell flat on her back, and her hat bounced from her head. She scuttled backwards. "Put it away! Or I'll drop a scorpion in your crickets!"

I froze mid-step. "You wouldn't."

Emma's jaw jutted defiantly. She would. "I did it to Jem when he left that spider skin in my bed."

I had helped my best friend plan that prank. He had found the shed exoskeleton of a tarantula on a hill where wind had exposed the shriveled remains of cacti and mesquite. I had seen a scorpion there too, sluggish as it wobbled its way to cover. Those things were tenacious, and Emma was the only one in the village who could catch them.

A scorpion would wipe out a week's breeders in my cricket basket. Triumph flashed in Emma's eyes as I lowered the rabbit. At fourteen, nine years my junior, she was the fourth-youngest in the village and the easiest to scare. I should have expected she would find ways to fight back.

Emma batted snow from her clothing while I added the rabbit to my strap of game. Tonight, nobody would have to bargain over who got meat and who got fish. Rodolfo and Elías, my uncles, had spent half of yesterday collecting bait to bring fishing today. And Jem's trapline always did almost as well as mine.

Emma shifted from boot to boot, her brown button nose wrinkled as she watched a nearby hill. Fluffy-feathered snow buntings hopped and poked among the rocks, covert in their camouflage. I finished resetting the snare and hefted the day's haul back over my shoulder. The motion startled the birds, who stopped moving and disappeared.

Emma frowned. "Don't scare them."

I ignored her and tramped back towards the trail that would take us to the village. Last year, I had made it my mission to upgrade my trapping skills until I could catch anything that lived in the desert. I had even bagged a raven, though we didn't eat scavengers. I had let it go again. But the buntings still eluded my best efforts.

My dog, Grifo, trotted from the hills just as I realized I couldn't hear Emma's footsteps behind me. I fixed my mother's stern look on my face and sent it over my shoulder. Emma was still standing where I had left her. She had removed her hat, and her cloud of soft black curls framed her face and hung above her shoulders. Perched on her outstretched hand was a bunting.

"Emma!" I shouted.

She startled, and the bird took flight. Emma jammed her hat back on and ran after me. She followed me at a distance all the way back to the village, cheeks flushed, tugging her hat in the perpetual battle to keep it in place over her hair.

If the people of the world before had seen Grillo Negro, they would probably have denied it even the title of "village". Antelope-skin tents made smears against a grey desert backdrop under the ever-grey sky. They were an eclectic assortment of shapes, some round like half a snowball, others conical, their poles drawn together in a bouquet of sticks. Still others clung to uprightness in some lopsided geometric form that was never the same way twice. The plume of smoke from the central cookfires rose thick enough today to be mistaken for Fuego, the burning disease.

We were just shy of the outermost tents when something grabbed my ankle, and I swear to every god of the Azteca stories, I screamed like a girl half my age. Jem probably wet his pants laughing. I dropped my burden and snatched a snowball from the thin snow. My best friend might have escaped had Grifo not gotten excited about a game with all three of his favourite people. Jem tripped on the dog, and my snowball disintegrated down his collar. I had another one ready. "Don't scare me like that, you—"

A hand whipped from behind Grifo's flailing tail. I couldn't duck in time. Emma grabbed my hunting spoils and fled to a safe distance. Jem's next shot knocked my hat off. My retaliation should have done the same, but his touque clung to his wiry cap of curls like static. The snow showered his face. I got his collar again. He lunged. I yanked my jacket tight and spun, and the shot meant for the back of my neck hit my shoulder instead. He ambushed me and squared the neck shot. Then we were both on the ground, scrabbling for snow. We stopped with balls of ammunition at the ready.

"Truce?" said Jem.

"Sure. Three, two, one."

On "one", we both cast aside our sandballs. Jem handed my hat back, and I plucked his glove from a nearby bush. We were both panting and damp, and there was a cute flush to his cheeks that I still had to fight to ignore. Both Emma and Grifo, meanwhile, had disappeared. I whistled for the dog, and got a bark.

We found Emma behind the hill, throwing snowballs for Grifo to catch. My hunting strap lay neglected behind her. I grabbed it. "You have to watch these. He'll get into them if you stop watching for two seconds."

"No, he won't." She threw a stick. Grifo caught it and stood wagging, watching the two of us. He came over and gave the stick to Emma.

"I raised you as a puppy, you traitor," I said. "Have you been giving him treats?"

"Nope." Emma looked smug. She threw the stick again. "You're just jealous."

When my dog returned the stick this time, I picked it up and tucked it under my arm. "Grifo, vení."

He came.

"Good boy. Junto." I hefted the hunting strap and clambered back to the trail. We didn't have to follow paths out here, but the cold-tolerant scorpions in the brush latched onto boots if you kicked them. I was both too scared to pick them off and too proud to show it. In my defense, I'd been stung before.

Jem was helping Emma up, so I paused at the top of the hill and scanned every direction but the one that held the ramshackle settlement we were returning to. The scouts had travelled to the horizon and back when we'd camped here for the season. They had brought no news of other villages. Not that we had expected any.

"See anything?" called Jem.

I shook my head.

He laughed. "Well, no Fuego!"

I would never complain about that, but there was no smoke of any kind. We were alone in the desert. I kept my face hidden so my friends wouldn't see my crushing disappointment.

A/N: Hello and welcome! As you may have noticed, this book uses a sprinkling of Spanish (and later Nahuatl) words throughout. A dictionary/glossary/pronunciation guide of all non-English vocabulary can be found in its last published chapter. It is there for your use, so if you see anything that isn't on it, let me know  :) 

Cheers, and happy reading!