Thunder rumbled in the distance, though I could still feel the sun on my face. “What’s the sky looking like?”
“Cloudy. There’s a storm rolling in,” Ava said. “We need to find shelter before it reaches us.”
“I’ll build it,” I offered. I was still riding the high of having successfully built a fire. Shelter seemed like nothing now.
“I want to help,” Ava offered. “You shouldn’t have to do all the work yourself. I’ll find us something to eat while you get to work on the shelter.”
“Sure. I’ll meet you back here.”
We were getting along surprisingly well right now. I worried how long it could last.
Ava wheeled her all-terrain chair down the beach, while I went for the tree line to see what I could find to build a shelter. If I had control of my magic, I’d command tree roots and branches to form into a small hut, but I didn’t, nor did I have any tools to cut up wood to use at my leisure. I was going to have to use whatever raw materials I could find.
I walked into the forest, following the shoreline as I explored. I could still feel the rocks and branches around me with the little magic Oberi had provided me, but I worried about my resourcefulness to do anything with it all. I’d do better with a cardboard box.
That thought halted me in my tracks. What was I thinking? I had years of experience being resourceful in environments that otherwise wanted me dead. There’d been so many nights I had to form a makeshift shelter out of whatever I found in the dumpster, or make a bed out of a park bench. This wasn’t the urban environment I was used to, but I’d done more with far less. I wasn’t able to give Ava a five-star resort, but I was going to make her the best damn shelter with whatever I could find out here.
I hiked the entire shoreline of the tiny island to assess what we had to work with. As I was circling back to the beach we’d started at, I came upon a fallen tree that had landed upon a tall boulder. There was a space underneath the trunk that could work to house us, and it was situated at the base of a hill that was nearly steep enough to act as a wall. All I had to do was wedge some sticks into the dirt and lay them over the log to make a ceiling, and we’d have ourselves a decent lean-to. I pressed my hands against the log and pushed on it to test its stability, but it didn’t budge. It was perfect.
“Did you find something?” Ava called from the beach.
I stepped away from the log and walked over to her. “Yeah. There’s a good spot to build a shelter up there. What’d you find?”
“There are tons of fruit trees all over the island, and I found a patch of wild strawberries that I gathered. You want one?”
“Sure.” I held out my hand, and Ava placed a berry in my palm. I popped it in my mouth, and sweet juice burst across my tongue.
“Excellent,” Ava said. “I’ll put what I’ve gathered here.”
“You don’t need to do anything else. I’ll handle the rest,” I told her.
I could hear the uncertainty in her voice. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Just relax. I… I want to do this for you.”
A long moment passed, before Ava hushed, “Okay.”
I knew it was hard for her to rely completely on my help, but I wanted to show her I could handle this. She didn’t need to keep doing everything all by herself. Not when she had me.
I returned to the forest to find fallen branches to use to build the shelter. I gathered as many sticks as I could find and got to work laying a roof over the fallen log. The sticks didn’t fit together as nicely as I wanted them to, so I went searching for long, broad leaves I could use to fill in the gaps. I managed to find low-hanging olive branches that I broke off the trees, along with a patch of ferns I gathered, and I piled them over the sticks to waterproof the ceiling. Then I went back to the fern patch and used the fresh bundles to line the floor of the shelter to create a soft bedding for us to lay on, leaving a space dug out in the dirt for a fire pit.
When I was finished, my shelter was made of a dirt back wall, a leafy overhang supported by a tree trunk on one end and a boulder on the other. The crawlspace was just large enough for us to sit in. It was deep, like the opening of a cave. Being half-Nivita, it nearly felt like home to me, being within the earth. I was proud of what I’d done. I’d never made something like this before, but it was nearly more miraculous than magic.
Ava came over just as the first of the raindrops began to fall. “Help me in?”
“Absolutely.” I lifted Ava from her chair and set her on the ground inside the shelter, curling her legs away from the opening. The opening was tall enough that her chair fit in right under the overhang.
Ava shivered next to me, and I asked, “You cold again?”
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t caving, but I could practically hear her teeth chattering. “You don’t have to be strong for me. Let me help you.”
“Okay, yes, I’m cold,” she admitted. “The rain isn’t making this any warmer.”
I was already getting up. “Wait here. I’ll get the fire inside.”
I ran to the beach and gathered what was left of the tinder and dry sticks I’d left there, then quickly got them under the shelter before the rain could get them too wet. The storm had picked up, and I could hear the fire I’d built earlier sizzling. I moved as quickly as I could, using a stick to gather embers onto a flat log. I sheltered it with my body and nearly tripped over a rock as I ran back to the lean-to. I ducked inside, praying my embers had survived. I was soaked, but thankfully, there was still heat coming off the embers I saved.
