Kyle was awake now, propped on his elbows and watching the sky through the smoke hole. Mara didn’t know what to say, so she just handed him the necklace.

“Here,” she said.

“Is this because you feel bad for me?”

“Yes,” she said. “But also, you’d be making cool shit if you could. Probably cooler than whatever we’re doing. Weaving a couch or something. And you got hurt climbing to help us, so it feels like . . .” She trailed off. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the climbing thing. Mara was second-guessing a lot of what she said now, which was new, and she didn’t like it. “We’re a team,” she finished unconvincingly. “So. I made it because we’re a team.”

Kyle looked closer at the necklace. “Nettle cordage. You soaked it?”

She nodded.

“Smart,” he said. He leaned forward for her to tie it behind his neck.

Mara lifted the back of his matted hair and found a patch of light skin beneath it. His skin was rough, half-peeled sunburn over zits that hadn’t fully surfaced. It looked painful. She tied a double knot in the cordage and pulled the knot tight.

“I should get more water,” Mara said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Before it’s dark.” As she ducked out, she saw Kyle turning the pendant over and over in his hands.

21

For dinner, Mara peeled the groundnuts and boiled them until they were soft, chopped them with the oyster mushrooms, and cooked them in the pot with the shredded filets of two pike. The stew cooked into a brown mash but tasted like a real meal, meat and potatoes of the northern forest: the starch of the roots and delicacy of the mushrooms, rich and filling from the fish. It pleased her, too, that they had not eaten ramen; with food like this, they could save their stores for another day. If they needed to.

In the middle of the night, Bullfrog tore from the shelter and puked his guts up in the grass. The sounds went on for an hour, for two. Coughing and groaning. Mara brought him water, but he wouldn’t drink. The others sat grimly in the firelight, waiting to be sick themselves, but apart from a flop in Mara’s stomach at the sound of vomiting, she was fine, and it seemed that Ashley and Kyle were, too. That didn’t stop Ashley from casting blame.

“What did you feed us, Mara?” she said.

“Nothing,” said Mara. “It’s fine. It’s stuff we’ve been eating all along.”

“Well, apparently it’s not fine.”

“I don’t see you foraging.”

“You also don’t see me poisoning us,” said Ashley.

“Maybe it was the water,” said Kyle. “Maybe he ate something on his own. We don’t know what made him sick. It could be anything out here.”

“Exactly,” said Ashley. “We don’t know.”

Mara refilled the water and boiled it extra long to be sure. After a while, Bullfrog crawled back in. “I’ve been thinking I should go for help,” he said. “Pick a direction and keep walking. But maybe not today.”