I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Eight

I was exhausted from over-alertness by the time Jem and Emma returned, but the powers-that-be had at least heard my begging. Not even a raccoon had stirred in the village while my friends were away.

"Your parents sent you this," said Jem, slinging me a bag. I caught it with a grunt and opened it to find all my favourite party leftovers, wrapped in cooking leaves and neatly frozen. My mother had even found a way to send soup. Buried deeper were two pairs of socks and underwear, a bar of soap, and a small, wood-corked bottle of honey.

I repacked the bag and slung it over my shoulder. "Did people say anything?"

"We only told a few what actually happened. Your parents both said to tell you they love you. Your mom refused to say goodbye. Apparently you have to find a cure and come back to tell her yourself."

That was a sharp reminder of just how much I loved my mother. Somehow, her stubbornness made this feel a little more manageable. We'd find a cure. We had to.

I wasn't the only one with supplies. Emma's new pack was suspiciously large, and I suspected it held a lot more honey than mine did. Elías was notorious for tucking gifts into every hidden pocket you didn't know a bag could have. To be fair, Rodolfo usually supplied at least half of them. Jem had only the bag he had left with, restocked but not filled any further. His father believed in frugality, and in leaving for the village what his children did not need. For a scout as talented as his son, "need" was a high bar.

We stayed the night in the town and set out as soon as it was light enough to see the ground in front of us. I was tempted to pull out one of my many new snacks, but I knew I would enjoy them more when we'd been living on bushfood for a few days. Nobody spoke much as we found our collective rhythm and followed Emma's pendant south.

Walking gave me plenty of time to think, plan, and worry about wherever we were going. I would not have called myself a worrier, but I swung through every shade of anxiety so many times in our first hour, I was ready for a nap by lunchtime. If the circumstances of our trip had been less dire, I would have enjoyed it. We were going further from Grillo Negro than I'd been in my life, in pursuit of something I didn't understand and maybe never would. I knew only one thing for sure: it wouldn't be like the village.

I could handle it if it wasn't like the village. I pounded that thought into my mind until I could start to believe it again.

I took to walking with my gloves off. Any heat on my palms was enough to make my heart pound like a hand drum as the horizon reeled across my vision. We had no idea how long these tattoo seals would last, and the fact that we knew nothing about this new Emma only highlighted that.

Or maybe Emma's powers weren't so new after all? She had always shown strange affinities for things nobody had taught her, from the birds that flocked to her hand to the fires she could light in even the worst weather. She said she just asked the wood to burn. And then there was her knowledge of plants, her ability to identify any fungus as toxic or edible, and her unmatched understanding of animals. She'd been found playing with a coywolf pup, for gods' sakes. At two years old.

Collective anxiety drove us onwards at a steady pace, despite the sense of adventure that I forced, Emma reveled in, and only Jem didn't seem to share. Emma laughed and fed birds and dug up roots she somehow knew we could eat. Between that and my foraging, we usually had everything but game on our hands when a meal rolled around. By the third night, I missed my family's tent. It was cold out, but the latter half of winter eased its grip as we trekked south—five days, then ten. The plateau's eastern mountains advanced until we were scrambling through foothills.

Emma's pendant now glowed so brightly, the turquoise faded almost to white. It was warm all the time. We made camp on the rolling landscape for what felt like one last time. Jem disappeared to find firewood. I dropped my bag and started on dinner to distract myself from the feeling.