The broken stone was right where it needed to be.
It was the first good thing about that morning. I recognized it before I saw the water and knew which way to turn. I didn't need to ask Thomas, or wait for him to lead the way.
I descended the last few steps too quickly. My wet boot folded against my heel, and a sharp sting shot through my foot.
I stopped at the bank.
— Your foot? — he asked.
— Just scraped it.
I drank before looking. Then I sat on a stone, took off my boot, and slowly pulled down my sock. There was a pinkish stain on the fabric. The skin behind my heel was scraped raw.
Thomas crouched beside me. When he rested his arm on his knee, he made a brief grimace.
I looked at his shoulder. He looked at my foot.
Neither of us said anything.
I left the sock spread out on the stone and kept my foot outside the boot while the light grew stronger between the trees. The air bit into my skin, but it was better than having wet fabric stuck against the wound.
Across the stream was a patch of almost level ground. I studied it while Thomas drank.
A house could fit there.
The idea appeared whole in my mind, with walls, a closed door, and somewhere I could take off my wet clothes without the wind cutting through me. For a few moments, I stared at a roof that didn't exist.
—I think I can bring a building here.
Thomas wiped his beard with one hand.
—How did you bring me?
—Maybe.
This time, I added the word before he had to ask.
I searched for the Peasant's portrait. The numbers appeared with it, unchanged from the night before. I looked away from the face and focused on the idea of building, trying to remember how it worked in the game.
The image was slow to give way to anything else. I squeezed my eyes shut. That only made me lose sight of the riverbank.
I tried again, without forcing it.
I recognized a small roof.
Farm.
I was so happy that I reached out to grab Thomas's arm. He pulled back slightly, protecting his shoulder, and I stopped before touching him.
—There's a farm.
I looked closer.
Eighty gold. Twenty wood.
I had both.
—We can do it.
Thomas looked across the stream.
—Here?
The question cut through the image of the finished house.
—I don't know. But we can.
I wanted that to be enough. We'd spent the night curled up beneath branches, and now there was a roof within reach of a single choice. I needed Thomas to look as relieved as I felt.
He was staring at the riverbank.
—And what comes with it?
I opened my mouth.
In the game, I built Farms so I could train more units. I never sent anyone to thresh wheat. I never waited for a harvest. I'd never needed to look inside one.
—I don't know.
Thomas ran his tongue over his cracked lip.
—Then let's choose the ground first.
The portrait remained in front of me. Eighty and twenty. None of those numbers told me whether there was bread behind the door.
I let the image disappear.
While we waited a little longer for the sock, I explained what I'd managed to see. I told him the two prices and how much I still had. Thomas listened without interrupting.
—Does the wood stay in that thing too?
—One hundred and fifty.
He pointed toward a branch wedged between two stones.
—Like that?
—I think it can be used for building. I don't know how to get it out.
He thought for a moment.
—It would be good to have planks.
I agreed. The night before, I would've accepted even a piece of dry cloth.
I put the sock back on before it had completely dried. If we waited any longer, we'd spend the entire morning beside the water. I adjusted the fabric so it wouldn't bunch over my heel and carefully slid my foot back into the boot.
Thomas handed me a fallen branch. I tested its weight, using it to support part of my body.
—Don't break it — he said. —I haven't checked whether there's another good one yet.
It took me a moment to realize that he might have been joking.
When I looked at him, he was already standing.
We followed the water in the opposite direction from the opening beneath the embankment.
I wanted to reach the sea. If there were boats, someone might see us. If there were people, perhaps they used the beach to travel. In my mind, getting out from beneath the trees was part of no longer being lost.
Thomas agreed to look, as long as we didn't descend along a path I couldn't climb back up.
I tested my footing with the branch. Sometimes it sank where I expected solid ground; other times it slipped against stone. Even so, it helped.
The water widened in some places and disappeared beneath roots in others. We had to move away from it to get around a tangled section. Thomas snapped the tip off a branch at chest height and showed me the pale wood underneath.
—For the way back.
I memorized the spot along with the broken stone and the forked branch we'd left the day before. They were still loose pieces, without any map connecting them.
The forest slowly began to open.
First came the smell. Then the wind changed, and I heard the long, continuous sound of water meeting the shore.
We emerged between low bushes, above a stretch of dark stones. The cove was more open from that angle. I saw a point of land on either side, trees covering the slopes, and a wide expanse of gray water that made me stop.
I looked for a sail.
I kept looking long enough for Thomas to descend a few steps and turn back toward me.
There wasn't one.
—Here — I said, mostly because I didn't want to remain silent. —If we built the house here, someone would see it.
The ground beside the rocks looked more open. There were fewer trees to clear. I took a few steps toward it.
Thomas pointed with the axe without raising it very far.
A dark line crossed the ground ahead. Dried seaweed, twigs, and other debris had been caught between the rocks, well above the water.
—The sea reaches that far.
I stopped before the line.
I knew tides existed. The word was so familiar that I grew angry with myself for not thinking of it before choosing the spot.
I looked higher up.
—Then that patch.
The wind pulled my clothes tight against my stomach as I pointed.
Thomas waited.
I lowered my hand.
The night inside the forest had been bad enough.
We went down only as far as we could easily climb back up. Shells clung to the rocks, and there were small pools of water. In one of them, something moved and disappeared beneath an edge.
I crouched quickly.
—A crab.
I stuck the branch into the water. The tip scraped against stone, stirred up dirt, and found nothing. I changed the angle. A cold drop splashed against my face.
Thomas crouched beside me and tried to see beneath the overhang.
We waited.
The water cleared again, but the crab didn't return.
My stomach growled loudly.
I looked at the shells. Some were too small to be worth the effort of prying loose. Others I didn't even know how to open.
—There could be food here — Thomas said.
—There is. I saw it.
The words came out harsher than they should have.
He stood, bracing a hand against his thigh.
—Then we know where to look.
I still wanted to catch something. Coming back empty-handed made the entire journey feel pointless. I stayed beside the pool a little longer, until my heel began to throb.
When I climbed back up, Thomas was waiting for me.
He didn't mention the crab.
On the way back, we stopped somewhere beyond the direct reach of the wind. I was sweating beneath my clothes and felt cold whenever I stopped. Thomas was breathing through his mouth.
We needed to make fewer trips.
I looked toward the slope. The path to the water we drank from lay on one side; the sea was on the other. Between them was ground we hadn't examined yet.
—We don't need to stay on the beach to reach it.
Thomas followed my gaze.
—No.
—And we don't need to sleep right beside the stream.
He nodded.
He pointed toward an opening farther ahead, where the slope seemed to round out before descending.
—We can look there.
We found a stretch of firm ground between the fold of the hill and a cluster of pine trees. It wasn't flat. There were roots, stones, and a fallen trunk occupying part of the space. But I didn't feel water rising around the sole of my boot when I stepped there.
The wind reached us over the trees, moving the crowns without striking me full in the chest.
I walked slowly from one side to the other.
The house I'd imagined could fit there.
This time, I tried to look at what was actually on the ground before putting walls over it.
Thomas examined the fallen trunk. He pressed the blade against a dark section and knocked off a piece that crumbled easily.
—This one's trouble.
—To cut?
—To remove. It's caught in the roots on that side.
I walked around the trunk. There was more space on the other side, but the ground sloped down into a depression filled with wet leaves.
I went back.
—What if we put it more this way?
Thomas looked at the area I was pointing to.
He didn't answer immediately. He walked over, raised his head, then looked again at the slope.
—Better.
The word gave me a ridiculous amount of satisfaction.
I helped remove the smaller branches. It wasn't really clearing the land; we were just discovering what was hidden underneath. I found a large stone where I'd expected soil. Thomas found another root crossing the space.
We shifted the idea of the house a little farther to the side.
It was while carrying a piece of wood that I saw the new prompt.
I was thinking about the one hundred and fifty units stored somewhere impossible, irritated because I had wood and still had to carry wood. A small sign appeared beside the branch in my arms.
I stopped.
Thomas, walking behind me, nearly bumped into me.
—What is it?
There were two choices.
Incorporate Wood.
Sell.
I hugged the branch against my chest.
—I think I can get more gold.
His expression changed. He didn't quite smile, but he paid attention in a different way.
I focused on the second option.
The value appeared: 0.04.
I read it again.
Below it was a confirmation I hadn't made yet.
—How much? — Thomas asked.
—Less than one.
I looked closer to make sure I hadn't missed a number.
—Much less.
The branch was heavy in my arms. It had a thick section, two ends weathered smooth by time, and rough bark scraping against the wound on my hand. I'd carried it only a few steps and already wanted to drop it.
Four hundredths.
I tried to calculate how much I'd need to summon another man. I lost my place somewhere among the zeros. Even without finishing, I understood that this wasn't something I could accumulate before we ate.
I turned my attention back to the first choice. The wood indicator showed 0.4.
I could hand it over to increase one of the balances.
I still didn't know what else the function accepted, or what all its limits were. I could only see the piece I was holding and those two possibilities.
—You haven't handed it over yet? — Thomas asked.
—No.
He pointed at a fork in the branch.
—That could work as a support. If it isn't worth much gold...
I lowered the wood.
The prompt disappeared when I stopped focusing on it. I checked the numbers once more: four hundred and twenty-five, one hundred and fifty.
Nothing had been spent or received.
Thomas dragged the branch over to the others.
I stared at the mark it left in the dirt.
I'd found a way to get money without finding anyone. For a few moments, it had seemed like the answer to almost everything.
Now the money was that weight in my arms, repeated so many times that I couldn't count the effort in my head.
I sat on a stone.
—Not today.
Thomas sat too, carefully. He rested the axe between his feet.
We remained silent.
From where we were, I couldn't see the sea. I knew which direction it was in because we'd just come from there. Drinking water required another walk, a short one, but one we'd have to repeat without a container.
It wasn't the perfect place I wanted to find.
It was a place I was beginning to understand.
—If someone passes by boat, they won't see us — I said.
Thomas rubbed a hand over his face.
—We can go look. We don't have to sleep waiting for the boat.
I watched the space between the trees.
I thought about the shelter from the night before, the branch catching my hair, and his hand closing around the axe when the roof cracked.
I didn't want to go back there when darkness fell.
—We'll stay here.
I spoke quietly, as if raising my voice might turn the decision into something too big.
Thomas looked up.
—To build the house?
—To try.
He looked over the ground once more.
—Then we need to clear the part you'll use.
I stood before my legs could get too comfortable against the stone.
We didn't cut down the larger pines. We removed loose branches, moved whatever we could, and left anything that would require more effort than either of us could afford to spend at that moment. Thomas stopped me from pulling a root with my bare hands. I warned him when I saw that he was straining his shoulder to drag a heavy piece.
He dropped the wood and changed position.
It was the first time one of my warnings seemed to actually help.
After a while, there was a visible space among the scattered debris. Small, uneven, with plenty left to do.
Thomas came to stand beside me.
I searched for the Farm's image.
The roof appeared. Eighty gold, twenty wood. I searched for some indication that would tell me what we'd find inside, but I couldn't get a clear answer. I couldn't count on food simply because I knew the name.
I looked at the balance and did the subtraction slowly.
Three hundred and forty-five. One hundred and thirty.
That was what would remain if it worked at the displayed price.
I still hadn't confirmed it.
—The door could go on this side — I said to Thomas.
He followed my gesture. From there, we'd head toward the water, protected by part of the slope.
—If you can choose, that's a good side.
I picked up a short branch from the ground and laid it where I imagined the entrance.
My hand was dirty, and the bark reopened the scrape slightly. I changed my grip and adjusted the branch with the toe of my boot.
Thomas waited beside me.
For the first time since I'd woken among the pines, I could point to a piece of that forest and say what I intended to do there.