Beneath the needles was an unbroken carpet of pale green moss, clustered together in strands like small furry caterpillars. It came away easily when he pulled up a handful. He tilted his head back and squeezed it above his face, and water seemed to appear from nowhere, trickling out over his hand and dribbling down his face and into his mouth.
“This is sphagnum moss,” Beck explained, while Jonas stared. “It stores water in its cells, and it produces iodine so it’s naturally antiseptic.”
Jonas pulled a face, but his hand — as if it were acting under its own volition — crept down and pulled up a handful of its own.
“Um,” he said as he slurped up the drops. “Like smoke and earth.”
He had described the taste very accurately, Beck thought. It was very different to melted snow water, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
“Water on my uncle’s farm tasted like this — it came straight from a well.” Jonas wiped his mouth. “But I’ll stick to taking it from the flask, if I can—…” Suddenly his face lit up. “Oh, wow! Bilberries! And don’t you dare tell me they’re dangerous.”
He hurried over to a low bush that pushed itself out of the moss and needles. The branches were woody and grew across the ground, rather than rising up like most bushes would. When Jonas pushed the branches apart, Beck caught a glimpse of small specks of dark blue, almost purple.
“Good find, Jonas!” Beck followed him over. He had had bilberries before, and he knew they were a perennial fruit and a popular food here in Sweden.
Together they picked the bush clean. The berries were small spheres, almost like grapes but smaller and rounder. There were three or four growing on every branch of the flat bush, and they popped in the boys’ mouths with bursts of juice that was sharp and refreshing.
“I know these are good,” Jonas commented, “but I could also really do with something cooked right now.”
Beck nodded. They had been up since first light, burning energy, through exhaustion, fear and the cold. They couldn’t go on like this forever. And Beck knew that the best thing they could do before the next, and potentially more dangerous part of their journey began, would be to replenish their reserves.
Beck also knew just what a psychological boost a hot, cooked meal could be.
The key question was: would they end up blowing the lead they had on the woman?
No, he thought. It wouldn’t take long, and they had worked hard to gain that lead over her and throw her off their tracks. They could afford the break and they needed the calories. The key would be staying hidden, though.
“Okay,” he said equably. “Cooked food it is.”
“Yeah?” Jonas’s look of hope was immediately dashed by a frown. “I mean, great, but — won’t she see the smoke?”
“She won’t see anything because there’ll be nothing to see.” Beck rummaged through the pine needles at his feet and held up a twig no thicker than his finger. “Gather up as many small bits of wood like this that you can find — small, dry pieces of wood.”
While Jonas did that, Beck explored the piles of pine needles. Many had inevitably drifted into small mounds, blown at random by the sun. The ones at the top were slightly damp, but by delving down a few centimetres he found ones which were bone dry. He took a double handful over to a fallen log and made a pile on top of the bark. Jonas had assembled a clutch of pieces of wood as Beck had told him.
“And now go and get some cattails,” Beck said. “Dinner in five.”
He had to concentrate on what he was going to do now — build a fire, with no smoke to give them away.