Chapter 32
Elias plucked a stick from between two fallen branches. The stick was still soggy from the melting ice that was scattered throughout the wood in pyramidal piles beneath the bows of the trees overhead. A red moss grew on the peeling skin of the stick.
Elias carried a bundle of same such sticks piled into Mila’s boot to keep them nice and together, and he was glad to add another to the growing collection. He secured four more of the sticks as he walked through the rough tangle of trees to the one he had cut earlier. He looked for signs of animals passing as he went, but nothing looked to have disturbed the duff for a long while before Elias had made his way through.
The notch in the tree had bled a large amount of amber-colored sap down the side of the trunk by the time Elias f
