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"I was able to grow wings and set my body on fire,” I tell her. “But I haven’t been able to do it since.”
“Being able to fly is a nice asset. Are you sure you couldn’t give it a go?”
“I don’t know if I’d be able to fly even if I could sprout wings on command,” I say, ducking under a tree branch with red berries hanging from it.
“What a pity,” she says under her breath. “You could fly ahead and tell us if we’re going the right way.”
“What?” I say, coming to a stop. “You’re saying we’re lost? How?”
“My dear, my mind is not working like it usually does,” she says in a measured voice, and I immediately feel guilty. She stops and turns to face me. “Perhaps it is best we stay here for the night. It will be dark very soon.”
I look around. We’re in a small clearing surrounded by trees with red berries. There’s no snow here like there was by the sea, which means we’re getting closer to the Hiisi Forest, but the ground looks cold and uncomfortable.
“Do you have anything to light a fire?” I ask her. “I’m rather wet.”
She looks me up and down. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what it’s like to be dry.”
I decide to leave her be and set up a little bed for myself, laying down the shield as protection from the ground and adding some fallen leaves and moss on top. Then, I curl up into a very wet, uncomfortable ball. I’m reminded of when I first came into the world, when Rasmus snuck me in. Where is he now? Carrying out murders for his mother? Did she bend and break him until he was hers?
While I think, I absently watch as Vellamo gathers sticks and logs and starts placing them near me, building a fire. Considering she’s the antithesis of fire, it’s rather nice of her to be doing this for me. Still, I don’t have any matches. All of that was left behind in the duffel bag.
Unless…
I start pulling out all my items from my coat pockets—a protein bar, some Haribo gummy bears that have come loose, a couple of wet and wrinkled euros, a hair scrunchie, and my cell phone.
Vellamo has been staring at all of them with interest. I toss the cell phone to her.
“It’s wet and it doesn’t work, but if you wanted to just look at it,” I explain as she catches it.
“You think I’m some sort of magpie?” she says, tossing the phone back after giving it a cursory glance. “What are those colorful blobs?”
“Gummy bears,” I tell her. “Have some. They’re the best brand.”
She comes closer and peers at them. “They look like tiny sea slugs.”
“I’d say they probably taste better, but with you, I don’t know.”
She takes one from me and puts it in her mouth. Her face immediately looks shocked. “Oh,” she says. “They are sweet. And chewy. Like sugary sea slugs.”
Way to ruin gummy bears for me.
“Have the rest,” I say, handing them to her. “Sorry about any pocket lint. Don’t mistake it for seasoning.”
She eagerly takes them and starts eating. I look back at my meager findings—nothing to light a fire with. Unless I took apart my phone? But even if I did suddenly turn into MacGyver, I don’t think anything could produce a spark wet. I know physics aren’t really a consistent thing down here, but still.
Vellamo goes to the other side of the pile of wood and crouches down, taking out her knife and scraping it against a rock. “This goes against all my instincts, but I’m fairly certain this is how you make a fire like the dry folk do.”
I sit up closer, watching her, waiting for a spark to appear.
And then suddenly—surprisingly—the logs all catch fire at once.
“You did it!” I cry out happily, already feeling the warmth. “I didn’t even see a spark.”
Vellamo stares at the blade and the rock. “I didn’t create a spark. I didn’t do anything. The logs, they just?—”
She looks up at me from across the fire, and then she looks above me, her mouth dropping wide open.
Her face starts to glow with an otherworldly light, just like the rest of the forest, the berries on the branches burning like little stars, as if the sun has just risen.
