Then her eyes settled on the basket. It was big, made of willow. Sitting on the ground, it rose past her knees. It could hold a month’s worth of herbs, a week’s worth of chicken feed, an entire cloak with a tinderbox.

Her lower lip trembled. She caressed the handle with her forefinger. Mamá had woven this basket herself. They’d collected the willow shoots together along the creek. One of their bundles had dried a beautiful reddish brown, which Mamá had used to make a lovely stripe just under the basket lip.

You know how much I want you to live, yes?

She burned the basket.

Hours later, thirst drove her outside. The sun was high overhead. Melting water sheened down the walls of her crevice. She tried to lick the stone, but found it was easier to just grab handfuls of snow. The cold made her tongue itch, and each handful was barely a few drops in her mouth once it melted. Her lips and gums drank up the water almost before it could reach her throat.

She ate so much snow she thought she might burst.

She rummaged around the ground outside and found a few branches, which she took back inside her den. She brushed snow from them as best she could, but when she placed them over the flame they crackled and popped and hissed with melting water. The girl was grateful when they caught and burned.

Now, for food. Eating snow had at least given her tummy something to do for a while. She was still dizzy, still weak, and for some reason the thirst in her belly was worsening. She shivered. And then she shivered some more. Not even the fire was making her feel warmer.

She stared out the entrance to her den at the steep crevice walls. She’d have to climb out somehow. The walls were slick with meltwater, and her hip still hurt something awful. Still, she had to try.

The girl gave herself a little while longer, to drink more snowmelt water—which was not slaking her thirst at all—to absorb the warmth of the fire, to gather her courage.

She had no basket to carry the cloak, so she put it on, working the bone hook through the clasp. It was so huge that it would drag behind her, maybe even trip her if she wasn’t careful.

The girl shoved her tinderbox down her shirt and stepped into the cold sunshine. She stared at the granite walls.

There was no way up. No cracks, no ledges, absolutely nothing to hold on to. Just slick gray stone covered with water that would freeze into sheets as soon as the sun was no longer directly above.

A rustling sounded just ahead, where a stunted manzanita shrub clung to a bit of soil at the bottom of the crevice. Her eyes roved the shrub hungrily, but it was too early in winter for edible manzanita blooms to appear. Maybe she could chew on a branch, give her mouth something to do, trick it into thinking she was eating. She stepped forward.