Chapter 27

“Sorry, I left my watch on the dresser.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Are you okay? Aside from being cold and miserable, that is.”

“Except for a few scratches from those vines we ran into a few minutes ago, I think so,” he said. “I wonder what they were, anyway?”

“Blackberries, most likely.”

The terrain had gotten fairly rocky as we made our way gingerly down the slope, and my feet were beginning to hurt, so I said so. “My feet hurt.”

“Be grateful for that,” he said.

“Say what?”

“Your feet hurt, ergo you can feel pain, ergo you’re still alive.”

“Considering the alternative, you’re right, and I just remembered something.”

“What?” he said.

“When you get frostbite, you don’t feel it because the affected body part gets numb.”

“No numbness,” he said. “More cause for celebration.”