I laugh and say, “Hey, I didn’t ask for this gift.” Zavy stands and interlocks her arm with mine, just like we used to do when we were little, and for a moment I forget where we are. It’s just Zavy and me in the woods. For a moment I can forget that Paylon is hunting me down, I can forget that we have no real shelter, equipment, or survival resources. I just let myself enjoy this moment and wish that it could truly be this simple. We make our way out of the woods and see that Albert and Andy are cooking the fish that Toby caught.
“We’re going to use these berries to make a sort of jam,” Cinder says and we follow her to a tan piece of fabric that has been laid out next to the fire.
“Just dump out the berries in here,” she instructs as she pulls out a wide wooden dish from one of the kitchen bags. I do and then she hands Zavy and I a pair of cloth gloves that are stained purple.
“Use your hands to smash and mix all of the berries,” Cinder says as she stands up. “I have to go find one more thing for the jam, so I’ll be right back.” Zavy and I kneed the berries into a runny purple jam. The aroma of the fresh berries instantly reminds me of my home where we lived out on the edge of Garth. My mother and I would pick berries together.
“Adaline, do you want to come out and pick some berries with me?” my mother had asked me many times. This time, in particular, I jumped up from the floor in the living room and ran out the door with my mother. I remember being barefoot and kicking up dirt with my little toes while swinging our basket that was too big for me to carry. I skipped circles around her as we walked to the edge of the forest. There were tons of large bushes with bright yellow berries on them. I would pluck one and place it in my mouth and my mother would pluck one and place it in the basket.
Then, when the basket was filled, we’d go back to the house and make a ray berry pie for my father. It was always his favorite. The happy memory seems to shatter in my mind. My mother loved him so much, and he just left her to die in prison. How could he have done that?
Cinder walks back over to us with a handful of green leaves and explains, “It’s called cental-straw. We’re going to rip it into tiny pieces, and it’ll act like a sugar in the jam,” Cinder hands Zavy and I some of the leaves and we shred it into our jam. I examine them a little closer and realize I recognize this plant. In the last days before we were arrested my mother had gathered a lot of this. Money was extremely tight and we didn’t have very much food. She and I would chew on the sweet grass to try and trick our stomachs into thinking we were eating. I don’t know if it worked. I think we were just so hungry we stopped feeling it.
“Where’d you get this?” I ask and twirl it in my fingers.
“Across the river, I can go get more if you’d like,1” Cinder says sweetly. She doesn’t wait for me to respond. I watch her walk through the shallow warm water to the bank on the other side to pick some more of the cental-straw. When we finish making the plant and berry mixture I stuff the extra cental-straw into my bag. I know we have rations and plenty of food to eat, but you just never know.
When we are finished Cinder goes over to the same bag she’d pulled the wooden dish out of, and pulls out a handful of small wooden bowl. She carefully starts ladling the jam into the bowls and asks, “Can you hand these out to everyone?”
“Sure,” I say. Zavy and I take off the gloves and pick up two of the bowls. “What exactly do we eat this with?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m sorry I never said,” Cinder says, clearing her throat. “We use it to spread on the fish. The fish in this area of the island has a very bitter taste.” I nod and pass out the bowls of jam, grateful that we have someone like Cinder with us. She has a lot of valuable information that others may think is useless. Yes, we need to be strong and be ready to fight and defend ourselves. Yes, we need to be able to hunt and gather food, but if you don’t know what you can and can’t eat, that will kill you just as easily as a sword.
Mio has everyone move to sit around the fire to eat dinner. He says after dinner we need to try to get some sleep and he will wake us when it’s time to move again. It feels kind of weird to have Mio and Cinder here playing the roles of parents after traveling with just Alexander and Zavy. More than that, I haven’t had a parent figure since my father left. It’s almost comforting, but I struggle with depending on others and warn myself not to get too comfortable.
Everyone moves to sit around the fire and Albert and Andy hand out the fish. We all sit in silence while we eat the fish with the berry jam. The flavors that spread across my tongue remind me of my mom’s cooking long before we were in prison, and before my father left us. I haven’t eaten anything with this much flavor in years. While we eat, late afternoon slowly shifts to night. The sun has sunk deep behind the trees and the
