Was she laying it on too thick? No. He loved this.

“You didn’t put me in any position,” Tom said. “I can see what you’re going through. I know you don’t always mean what you say. You’re a strong lady, Mara. You’re still learning, but you’re tough.”

This was close to working. Close to being over.

“Do you think?” she said. “I don’t feel like one.”

“I know you are. If you don’t believe it yourself, believe me.”

He was breathing heavily, and the smell on his breath thickened. Was that tomato, too? It was subtle but there.

Mara felt that the right move was to hug him, so she did. Leaned in and pressed her face to his flannel shoulder. He closed his arm around her and patted her back in a rhythmic, heavy way. “You’re going to get through this,” he said. “You’re tough, Mara. You’re an incredible person. It’s all going to be okay.”

“You think so?”

“Mara, of course. You’re amazing.”

Mara felt suddenly that she might cry. But that didn’t make sense. She knew that the reason her eyes stung wasn’t the reason Tom was comforting her. That whatever fear he thought he was speaking to, a different one had emerged. But for the moment, just the moment, she pretended that wasn’t true. She took his comfort and made it her own. Turned him into someone else. She leaned against the warm body, felt strong arms holding her together, and took a shuddering breath.

“I know,” Tom whispered, stroking her tangled hair. Gently, tracing his fingers on the knots. “I know.”

Finally she pulled away. She couldn’t meet his eyes. He tucked a hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to say anything,” he told her, slipping a bar into her hand. “You don’t have to say a word.”

She clenched the bar in her fist, making sure it was real. It was real; it was there. After Tom left, she hid the bar under a rock for later. Part two of the plan was complete. She wouldn’t need him again.

The light cast patterns on the forest, shifting. As Mara stood, she thought she saw a figure in the trees. But it must have been a shadow, because when she looked harder, all she saw were the bright and flickering leaves.

THE TUNIC STRING WORKED PERFECTLY. IN JUST A FEW HOURS, SHE AND ASHLEY wove the trimmed sticks into long, flexible mats. Walls. They propped the mats in place in the water, bolstering them with mud and rocks. Forming a series of pools, heart-shaped, that fed from one to the other, guiding the fish by their curved walls into smaller and smaller enclosures. The largest enclosure was the size of a hot tub; the smallest, closest to shore, was only the size of a sink. The tops of the walls broke the surface of the lake.

Ashley and Mara made a show, for the cameras, of explaining how the trap would work. How the walls curled in such a way that no matter how far a fish followed them, they could only swim deeper into the trap. The sides of the final trap, the smallest pool, were reinforced with thicker wood just in case.