“Pretty sure,” Mara said. “What about a different kind of trap?”

“For fish?”

Mara thought quickly. “Yeah. A big one.”

There was a kind she had seen in pictures, and she tried to explain it. A series of concentric fences underwater, herding fish into smaller and smaller zones along the shallow edge of a lake or sea or stream. It was a massive project; the ones she had seen in photos could feed families, even villages. It would take a long time to build. But once fish swam in, they never got out again. They just stayed. If it worked, if conditions were right, you could have as many fish as you wanted, forever.

Mara had wanted to make a trap like that at home, but Ethan insisted on the basket instead. There was something traditional about basket traps, he said. They were pieces of art. Primitive. You could hang them on your wall when you were done. Besides, fish traps were illegal, so it was important to make something you could hide.

“Sounds perfect,” said Ashley. “I’m in. What do we need?”

Mara tried to remember. “About a million sticks to start with. As straight as possible, and maybe four feet long. We’ll use those to make the walls. And we need rocks to prop it all in place, and some kind of string to weave it together.”

The problem was that string was slow to make, about a foot an hour, and they probably needed a hundred feet in total. At least. But Mara wanted Ashley to feel that she’d been offered a solution, rather than a massive challenge that might not work. The question of string—Mara would solve that problem later. There was no need to mention it yet.

11

Just like that, they were partners. Mara and Ashley. Ashley and Mara, together.

Most of the sticks on the ground were brittle. So they wandered the woods, looking for trees with the straightest growth. Mara chopped down good branches, and Ashley gathered them in her arms, and when her arms were full they went back by the lake and dropped the load, and when they were tired from walking they sat to process them. Even the nicest branches had twigs and forks they needed to remove. The crew set up a tripod where the women worked, but mostly left them alone.

Shaving the branches straight was a tedious task, but Mara didn’t mind. She and Ashley took turns with the knife. Ashley was less dexterous; she angled the knife sharply, and sometimes slipped.

“Slowly,” said Mara. “Tilt it more.”

“Show me.”

So Mara put her hands over Ashley’s, and guided them, until they could both cut by feel.

Mara learned more about Ashley those first two days by the lake than she had since they arrived. It was like Ashley relaxed, working together. Or maybe she’d been lonely working alone, and Mara never thought to ask; or maybe Mara had wanted to ask but was nervous, and it was easier to gather plants.