by Amy Plum
Without thinking, I reach for my crossbow and then remember that it’s gone. I dropped it during the scuffle with Whit’s men in Salt Lake City. I can make myself another one if I find some suitable wood. In the absence of my preferred weapon, I get out my bowie knife and set it beside the fire. Its steel will be my security tonight.
I glance up at the sky. It’s a couple of hours before sunset. Suddenly ravenous, I remember that I haven’t eaten since morning. I am too exhausted to make a fire, so I end up eating beef stew straight out of the can, and finish it off with a small stack of crackers.
The disappearing sun fills the sky with reds, oranges, and pinks that are almost as stunning as a borealis back home. Scanning the horizon one last time for cars or wandering travelers, I unfurl a sheet inside the tent and lie down. Miles still has hours to go before he will awake (because he will awake) and I need to rest while I can. Minutes pass as I stare at the top of the tent, immune to sleep. Finally I give in to what I want, scoop up my covering, and return to the truck.
Spreading my blanket by the sleeping bag, I lie down next to Miles. I scoot back until I feel him behind me, then close my eyes and sleep.
I awaken with a start. A noise just came from somewhere nearby. A whisper. I sit up and scan the sky until I find the North Star and the moon. Their positions tell me that it’s somewhere between ten and eleven. Miles should have awakened by now.
I place my hand over his mouth and nose. He’s not breathing.
My heart swells painfully. Becomes the size of a balloon. Threatens to pop.
I know I did the Rite correctly, but what if he had lost too much blood before it took effect? Tears scrape the back of my eyes, and I lower my head to rest it on his chest. And I hear something. A heartbeat.
I sit back up, and watch as Miles’s lips twitch and his mouth opens. He takes a sudden breath, filling his lungs with air before coughing it back out.
“Miles!” I yell.
“Juneau,” he whispers. “I can’t move.” His words are ragged. Forced. His eyes remain closed.
“It’s okay, Miles,” I urge. I’m so overcome with emotion, I can barely speak. I wipe a tear away. “You just woke from death-sleep. You won’t be able to move for a while.”
“I can’t see,” he says, and I reach over and open his eyes. The white film, though still there, is clearing up.
“It’s you,” he breathes.
I lean over and kiss him lightly. “You’re alive.”
“Thanks to you and your New Age juju,” he says through stiff lips. I laugh and flush with relief. Death has not changed Miles.
“You’re part of that juju now,” I respond. “You’re one with the Yara, Miles. You’re not going to die for a very long time.”
He closes his eyes and is able to open them again. After a long moment he says, “I had dreams about that, while I was . . . dead or whatever.”
I nod, and want to ask him about his Path. Every Rite-traveler comes back with different tales. The settings rarely vary, but their experiences on the Path are as different as the person traveling it. And with Miles’s past . . . with his situation . . . I can’t even imagine what he had to face. But I won’t ask now. He needs time to understand what all of it means. To accept what has happened to him.
He scans the night sky. “The last time I was conscious we were in my buddies’ old drinking shack outside L.A.,” he says.
“We’re a few hours away, in the Mojave, hiding from your dad and Whit.”
His eyes meet mine. “Have you seen them?”
“Yes,” I respond. “Your dad and his men drove past the cabin, but I camouflaged us. They didn’t see a thing.”
“Good party trick,” he says, and that old teasing smile spreads across his lips. He’s regaining control of his facial muscles. “What about Whit?” he asks.
“If he survived the crash and managed to get the jeep back on the road, he’ll be after us, too. But we’re well hidden, and you’re going to want to sleep pretty much nonstop for the next few days.”
Miles’s eyes move left and right. “Where am I lying?” he asks.
“In the back of a Chevrolet pickup truck.”
“Which you got by . . . ,” he prompts.
“. . . trading it for your car.”
A bemused smile forms on Miles’s mouth. “You traded my BMW for a Chevy pickup?”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Let’s just say that the other guy must be pretty damn happy.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I needed a car no one would recognize.”
“It’s okay,” Miles says. “My Beamer didn’t really suit you anyway. But this Chevy . . . yeah, I can see you driving one of these. I mean, if there are no available dogsleds.”
I smile and throw my arms around him, pulling him up off the truck bed. “You wouldn’t take advantage of a temporarily paralyzed guy, would you?” he asks, his voice muffled by my shoulder.
“Of course not!” I say, pulling away with mock horror.
“That wasn’t a question,” he says, his eyes shining with mischief. “It was a request.”
I smile. And leaning forward, I kiss him.
8
MILES
I’M BACK. AT LEAST I THINK I AM. MAYBE THIS IS hippy-dippy New Age me, and as soon as I can move again I’ll start craving tofu and Birkenstocks.
I’m just glad I’m here. Juneau saved me. Back there in the cabin I could literally feel my life flowing out of me. I know I passed out a couple of times, and each time I came to feeling less connected. Like I was becoming immune to gravity and might just float off into space.
And as I began to drift, one thought outweighed all the rest: I didn’t want to die. Not just because I was afraid of death. But because what was previously a pretty empty existence for me has finally begun to take on some meaning. And it’s all because of the girl lying next to me in the back of this pickup truck. Juneau.
I guess that means she’s saved me twice: from death and from myself. I’m in her debt. But this is one debt I’m going to enjoy repaying.
9
JUNEAU
WITHIN MINUTES, MILES DRIFTS OFF TO SLEEP. I wish I could lie back down, press myself close to him, and shut off all of my worry and fatigue for a few short hours. But I have a lot to do before he recovers. And once he does, we must be ready to leave.
Recovery from death-sleep varies from person to person. Everyone awakens paralyzed, but since I’ve helped Whit perform the Rite, I have seen people walking in as few as three days and as many as six. Which means I have no idea how long Miles will be incapacitated.
Although it would be pretty much impossible for Mr. Blackwell to find us here, Whit might be able to Read and Conjure his way straight to us. So my first step is to find out where he is, and in order to do that I’m going to need a fire.
I scan the bone-dry landscape, and spot a few lone trees against the moonlit horizon. I can’t tell how far away they are, and am hesitant to leave Miles here by himself. So I take him with me, driving a mile that would have been easy to walk. I make the ride as smooth as possible, even though I know I he won’t awake.
I worried that my bowie knife wouldn’t be sharp enough to cut through thick branches. But in the end, I don’t have to hack limbs off—I find a couple of smallish trees lying dead on the ground. They are brittle enough to break apart with my hands. Once I gather enough wood, I load it into the back of the truck, propping the branches across the truck bed from Miles so that he won’t get banged up in his sleep.
Back at the camp, I build a small fire—just big enough for my purpose. I sit down in front of it and slow my breathing, focusing on each heartbeat as I slip into the state I need to connect to the Yara.
My body actually shudders with the jolt of the connection, and energy fills me with what feels like a burning light. Now that I have stopped using totems to link to the Yara, my connections have been increasingly stronger. I try to ignore the power coursing through me and focus o
n the Reading. “Whittier Graves,” I say, and stare at the tip of the flames, just above the blaze. And, after a second or two, I see him.
Whit lies in a bed in a white room, his head and arms wrapped thick in bandages. Next to him is a rolling tray with a pitcher of water on it.
Whit was injured in the wreck, and is being kept in some type of medical clinic or hospital. Which means he’s not after me. For the moment.
My anger mounts as I watch him. He’s a traitor. Using me and my clan as a “field test” so that he could sell the drug—the powerful mix of herbs, powdered minerals, and blood that we use in the Rite—to the outside world.
I wonder how much the other elders knew of what Whit was doing. I am more convinced than ever that the elixir was the reason they hid us all in the Alaskan wilderness. It was because of the Amrit that they made up the story they told us about an apocalypse. They didn’t want us to leave. But why?
Maybe they wanted to hide the fact that they didn’t age from the outside world. But that could have gone undetected for years. Having studied clan history, I know the date that they gave us for the onset of World War III, 1984, coincided with the birth of the first child to clan elders. Did they hide because they discovered Amrit caused a visible mutation in their offspring? That seemed a little more plausible. But even so, isn’t it easier to hide a few children than entire families of well-connected scientists and theorists?
Maybe they needed the time to see how a second generation of Amrit users would fare. They wanted to make sure that the children’s mutations were limited to the gold starburst in our eyes. As for Whit, he must have decided that if the elixir didn’t prove to have more serious side effects, he would expose our secret . . . for a price.
I can’t imagine that my parents were in on Whit’s plans. I can’t imagine them bringing me into this world as a field test.
My parents loved me. And they loved the rest of the clan. They would never do something that would expose our people to harm. Especially if it was just to make a profit in the commercial world that they shunned.
As my thoughts return to the here and now, I see that Whit’s image has disappeared from the flames. I concentrate once more, picturing Miles’s father in my head. “Mr. Blackwell,” I say, and watch the flames. Nothing happens. I wonder if it only works with people I am close to. I never had to test this before—I knew all of my clan members as well as I knew myself.
I try my father, but only see the dark interior of an adobe hut. He must be asleep.
I try one more name. “Tallie,” I say, and up from the fire rises the image of a woman with long curly hair the same color as the flames. She sits with a book in her one-room cabin, before her own blazing hearth. And just beside her, peering into the flames as if he himself could Read, is a black raven, as big as a cat.
Poe. I can’t stop the smile that comes at the sight of him. I miss my huskies, Neruda and Beckett. They were such a fundamental part of my everyday life that I feel naked—exposed—without them. And although nothing can fill the hole that they left, I was a little less lonely the few days Poe was with me.
As I look closer, I notice something different about the room. A rectangle of white cloth hangs on the wall to the side of the kitchen, and in large letters across the top is written JUNEAU. Intrigued, I focus on the handwritten sign.
BEAUREGARD’S BONES SAID YOU’D BE CHECKING IN. BIRD MISSES YOU. SO DO I. TAKE CARE. A wide smile stretches across my face. How like Tallie to write me a note after reading her possum bones. She feels like an adopted aunt. A slightly crazy one: the best kind. She misses me. And so does Poe.
I wish I could call him back to me right now. And as that thought crosses my mind, the bird in the fire flaps his wings and squawks. Tallie glances up from her book, and then looks around the room as if she senses I am there. Which is impossible, I know. But for a second our connection is so strong that I can almost feel the warmth of her fire and smell the freshly cut pine branches. “You take care, too,” I whisper. I let my connection to the Yara fade until the image in the flames disappears and the night is silent once again.
The fire burns low before I finally rise to go to the tent. I lie down but can’t sleep. I want to be in the back of the truck, next to Miles, but am afraid of waking him. He needs sleep. Opening his eyes and talking as quickly as he did is a good sign. He’s already responding faster than most Rite-travelers. Although we need to get as far away from Whit, Mr. Blackwell, and their people as we can, Miles’s recovery will be faster if his rest is uninterrupted.
My body is tired, but in my mind ideas are hopping and spitting like beads of water on a hot skillet. I leave the tent and add a few sticks to the fire, blowing on the embers until flames lick upward. Taking a thick branch I had set aside, I get out my knife and begin stripping the bark. I sing as I carve—a post-Rite song that the children sing around the yurt—and hope the words and melody will reach Miles and comfort him.
10
MILES
I AM BACK IN THE DREAM I HAD WHEN I SLEPT IN my car in the desert near Vegas. Juneau stands before me in a snowy landscape, dressed head to toe in skins and furs. Her long black hair cascades over her shoulders halfway down her back. The small box she holds out toward me spills golden light that bonds with my skin, starting with my feet and inching up my body as the molten metal burns its way to my bones. I can’t move—I’m paralyzed.
“Juneau!” I cry, wanting her to close the box and turn off the lavalike liquid gold, but she just smiles at me. She is beautiful. Serene. “You are one with the Yara,” she says as the gold reaches my neck and begins strangling the life out of me.
I ignite. I am a burning effigy of myself, and the snow around me melts from the heat I send off. Juneau, cheeks flaring pink in the heat of my flames, leans in slowly until her lips meet mine. I disperse into a million tiny sparks and fly upward to join my light with those of the stars.
That’s where the dream ended last time. But now, the sparks stop and begin rushing back downward, fitting themselves together like a puzzle until I am standing there once again, whole, golden. And then the light fades and I regain my normal color and Juneau takes my hands and begins laughing. “You’re like us now,” she says. “Your life is the earth’s, and earth will preserve you. You’re Gaia’s own child—protected from illness.”
I look down at my hands—at my arms—and see the elements. I am made of water. Of earth and air and fire. I am no longer myself.
And upon that thought, I awake. I open my eyes and see a million stars scattered across the night sky above me. I try to lift my hand . . . to see if the dream was nightmare or reality . . . but can only move my fingers.
And then I remember. I died. And Juneau brought me back. I am struck by a wave of panic. What exactly have I become? Am I even human anymore? How do I know that Juneau’s Rite had the same effect on me that it did on her clan? I’m not a hippy. I’m not an environmentalist. I haven’t grown up talking to plants and seeing into the future.
It’s Juneau, my heart reminds me. The girl you gave up everything to run off with. The girl you . . . care for, more than you’ve ever cared for anyone else. If you can’t trust her, who can you trust?
And though I feel like I’m suffocating in fear and uncertainty, long fingers of sleep grab at me and begin pulling me under. I have one last thought before unconsciousness overtakes me. I am no longer what I was before.
11
JUNEAU
I AWAKE TO THE BUZZING OF BEES. SWATTING THE air around my head, I force open my sleepy eyes to a melon-colored sky. I sit up and see that it is dawn. The sun is barely visible behind the far-off horizon.
I have fallen asleep next to the now-cold fire. On the ground beside me is a pile of wood shavings and four smoothly carved pieces of wood, each gouged with a notch that will allow them to fit together to make two crossbows. They are almost as pretty as my last one, but have yet to be fitted with string, mirror, and spare parts carved out of bone, repair essentials that
I always carry with me. I have a small arsenal of wooden bolts in my backpack. We won’t be weaponless for long.
The buzzing sound is fading, but now it alternates with a mechanical puttering noise. Could it be a motorbike? Something like the desert-ready motorcycles owned by the man who traded cars with me? I turn in a circle, scanning the horizon. And then I see it. A small airplane heading north. Although too far to have spotted us, it’s close enough for me to see the symbol painted on its tail: a black circle enclosing the letters BP, and between them a stick with a serpent wrapped around it. Ice flows through my veins as I recognize the logo of Blackwell Pharmaceutical—the same one that marked the airplane I was kidnapped in, the car I was driven in, and the building I was brought to against my will.
I prop myself up to see over the side of the truck. Miles is asleep under the blanket I draped over him last night. I shake him gently. “Miles?” I ask.
His eyelids flutter and open. He rolls his head toward me, and his groggy expression turns to one of alarm when he sees my face. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“We need to move,” I say. “A Blackwell Pharmaceutical plane just flew past. They were headed northward. But if they’re combing the park for us, they’ll be back soon, and might spot us this time.”
Miles clenches his hands into fists and strains as he lifts his head slightly off the truck bed. He holds the position for a second and then, groaning, eases his head back down. “I still can’t move,” he says.
“I could camouflage us,” I say, “but if they’re focusing on this area, I’ll have to either keep it up for hours or turn it off and on every time we hear them coming. And what we really need is to get out of here.”
“Can’t you just cover me with a blanket and hide in the tent next time they fly by?” Miles asks.
