by Amy Plum
Suddenly, out of the silence comes the flapping sound again, closer and louder than before, confirming that I’m going in the right direction. But the source of the noise is still invisible. The mechanical rhythm of the eagle wings seems to hover and then becomes more distant. It’s got to be behind the mountain, I think, and my worry blooms into panic.
I pull hard on the dogs’ reins, and they come to an abrupt stop. Jumping off the sled, I use my mittened hand to clear the snow, scooping it away until I have a patch of wet ground. Jerking my pendant on its leather thong over my head, I pull my mitten off with my teeth and press my fire opal, still warm from my skin, between my palm and the sodden grass. I close my eyes and picture my father in my mind, and the earth speaks to me.
My mind is frozen by my father’s ice-cold panic. Petrified by his fear. As I feel his emotions, bile rises up my esophagus and burns my throat. I leap up, spitting and wiping my damp hand on my parka.
We must go faster, I think. Pulling my knife from my belt, I cut the caribou free. “Hike!” I yell. The dogs hear the fear in my voice and run like they never have before. The deer shifts and then slides off the back of the sled onto the ground, and, freed of its weight, we are off like an arrow across the snow.
Almost an hour later we finally pull over the hill into my village’s valley. My throat has been clenched so tightly that it’s been hard to breathe, but upon seeing the yurts safe and sound, smoke puffing out of the chimney holes, my breath spills out of me. I feel dizzy as oxygen floods my brain.
But as I survey the scene more carefully I see no movement in the camp. I lift my fingers to my lips and whistle the note that everyone knows is mine. The one that always wins me cries of “It’s Juneau! She’s back!” from the children who run to see what I have brought from a hunt. But this time I am greeted by silence. And then I notice the disorder of the camp.
Tools and weapons are scattered around the ground. The clothes drying on the line have all been blown to the mouth of the woods and are hanging in the trees, flapping around like flags. Baskets are overturned, grain and beans spilled over the hard-packed ground. The sides of the two closest yurts have been ripped from their posts, and the canvases are snapping back and forth in the breeze. It looks like a great wind has passed through.
Beckett and Neruda begin to growl, the fur on their backs bristling. I unclip them, and they race for our yurt. They disappear through the flaps and are back out a second later, puffing and barking frantically. As they begin sniffing around the empty camp, I plunge through our entrance to see my father’s desk knocked upside down and his books and papers scattered over the floor.
He’s gone. My heart stops, and then as I look down at the ground it slams hard against my ribs, forcing a cry from my throat. In the soft dirt floor, in my father’s careful block lettering, is written: JUNEAU, RUN!
4
JUNEAU
WELCOME TO WEEK TWO OF MY OWN PRIVATE hell.
As I push the mail cart through the swinging double doors, I move from fragranced air and mood music into the mail room’s sweat/glue combo stench and bad-eighties-hair rock.
“Hey, Junior,” says Steve, a fortysomething burnout with a ponytail. “What’s up with the uniform?”
I look down at the regulation company yellow short-sleeved shirt that I’m wearing over a pair of jeans and shrug.
“I gave you blue slacks,” he says. “You’re supposed to wear them.”
“Yeah, but you see, Steve, there’s this thing called a washing machine. And sometimes you’re supposed to put your clothes in there so you don’t smell bad. Since you only gave me one pair of ‘slacks’”—I can’t even say that word without flinching—“I don’t have a spare.”
“Dude, that’s what weekends are for. I wear my uniform during the week, and then wash it on the weekend.”
From the permanent sweat marks under his pits, I have my doubts as to the frequency of his laundry habits. But I just stand there and stare at him, unblinking, until he looks away and starts fiddling with the radio dial. “Your dad said I’m supposed to treat you like everyone else,” he says, not looking at me, “and that means wearing your uniform.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, avoiding sarcasm in my tone but meaning it with all my heart.
I should be in school getting ready for graduation. Partying my ass off like the rest of my classmates. If it weren’t for Ms. Cochran, I would be coasting through the last six weeks of high school and easily into my spot at Yale.
And if it weren’t for my dad, I’d be at home watching Comedy Central. “Working in the mail room, you’ll be getting to know the business from the ground up,” he said. “Prove you’re responsible and I’ll make sure they let you into Yale for second semester. But until then, you work forty hours a week, minimum wage, no screwing around.”
His motivation is as transparent as glass. He wants me to see what life will look like if I don’t “shape up.” That, unless I change, I will be doomed to become Steve, spending my days sorting envelopes and wallowing in self-importance from bossing around lowly mail-room staff.
There’s got to be another way to prove myself to Dad instead of being stuck here for the next nine months. Even a few more weeks in this hellhole and my brain will explode. Or I’ll kill Steve. I imagine wrapping his hair around his neck and pulling hard. Death by ponytail. It could happen.
5
JUNEAU
THE DOGS ARE HOWLING. I STUMBLE OUT OF OUR yurt and toward their sound. They are in Nome’s yurt, standing above a mass of fur and blood. Her huskies. They’ve been shot. I choke back tears: I knew these dogs as well as I know my own.
We have one rifle among the clan, and it is only used in the very rare occasion of a bear attack. Our few bullets are dispensed sparingly. But the casings scattered on the floor around me are not from our gun. Flying machines? Guns? These brigands are terrifyingly well-equipped.
I run out of Nome’s yurt and into Kenai’s. Empty. There is another heap of bloody fur behind that yurt, and at the mouth of the woods I see more dead huskies. But no people. I check all twenty yurts, saving Whit’s for last.
Our Sage’s fire is out, his hearth cold. I stand there, confused, until I remember that he left yesterday for his retreat. The cave on the far side of Denali where he goes a few times a year to “refresh his brain,” as he calls it. He has never taken me, but I know where it is. With all the exploring that Nome, Kenai, and I have done, there isn’t an inch of our territory that I haven’t seen.
My heart pinches as I think of my best friends and where they might be right now. What unknown danger are they, my father, and the rest of my clan facing? If they’re even still alive. I shake my head and refuse to allow that thought to fix itself in my mind.
I’ve got to get to Whit. Even though he didn’t foresee this attack, maybe he’ll know what happened. I take my big pack from my shelf in the back of Whit’s yurt. The one I use on our daylong lessons, when we travel into the woods to search for the plants and minerals used for the Rite.
Juneau, run! My father’s words shake me back into action, and I sweep bags of dried herbs, vials of plant extracts, powders, and precious stones off Whit’s shelves into my pack. I don’t know what he will need, so I take a bit of everything. I grab a stack of his treasured books off his desk and shove them in with the rest.
I whistle and the dogs come running. “Good boys,” I say as they sit in front of the sled, waiting for me to clip them on. I secure the pack to the sled, and then, glancing back at my home, I tell the dogs to wait and push my way through the flaps.
I see the fire and am tempted to Read it. But I can’t ignore the words on the ground and choose to wait until I reach Whit. And although I know that the fire will burn itself out, I take the pail of melted snow water and throw it onto the embers.
I pick up the framed photograph of my parents that sits on my nightstand. It was taken the month before our clan’s emigration. A month before the war. My mother and father stand in front
of their house in Seattle. Mother’s head rests on my father’s shoulder, and he has both arms around her.
In the picture she looks just like me. Long, straight black hair, courtesy of her Chinese mother, wide-set full-moon eyes and high cheekbones from her American dad. Dad said that if she hadn’t drowned when I was still a young child, we would look like twins now.
In this old photo, my father looks exactly the same as today, except for one difference: He is happier. More carefree. “The calm before the storm,” Father says when he refers to those days.
I slip the picture out of its frame and carefully slide it into my coat pocket. And before I leave the yurt, I bend down and brush out my father’s message, erasing everything but the letter “J.” If he comes back, he will know I have seen it.
I steer the dogs toward the woods. The moment we hit the trees, I hear the flying machine again. The chopping winglike noise coming from far away, barely audible but getting louder by the second. The brigands are returning, I realize with terror.
It takes great effort to push my fear aside. Stay calm, I think, and bring the huskies to a stop. I glance back at our camp and hesitate a second before leaping off the sled and running back toward the clearing. Breaking a low branch off a tree, I use it as a broom to sweep away the sled’s tracks, following my own footsteps well back into the trees. I look back at my handiwork—no one could see that we had been there or how we had left.
“Hike!” I yell, and we are off, streaking across the wooded path as fast as a hawk at hunt. And just in time. The noise is almost on top of us. Although I’m grateful for the thick tree cover, it prevents me from seeing what is flying overhead. All I get is a glimpse of metal shining through the branches.
We cover a distance that should have taken an hour in almost half the time. I don’t even have to tell the dogs how fast to go. They feel my fear and fly.
Whit’s cave is empty when we arrive. Not only is it empty, but from the cobwebs and the dank smell, it’s clear that there hasn’t been a fire here for months. I try to ignore the sharp sting of disappointment, the lump in my throat. Pulling the sled into the mouth of the cave to hide it from outside view, I stand trembling as the huskies clean themselves and scamper around.
I recall the mechanical chop chop chop of the flying machine’s wings, and it triggers a memory of reading an article in our school’s encyclopedia: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition, printed in 1983, the year before World War III. “The EB,” we call it while quoting it dozens of times a day. Like all the clan children, I am so wildly curious about the world outside ours—a world now extinct—that I’ve practically memorized the whole thirty-volume series.
But the specific memory about the flying machines stays out of reach. I gather a bunch of kindling from Whit’s stack and pile it in the middle of the cave floor, on a spot already black from a hundred former fires. I place only two logs on it. I won’t be staying here long enough to need a roaring fire for warmth.
Once the flames catch and the dogs drape themselves close to the fire, I empty my pack. Placing the books to one side, I fish through the bags and rocks and bundles of leaves until I find what I’m looking for—Whit’s firepowder—and pour some into my hand.
One of the first things Whit taught me was how to connect to the Yara. In order to Read—to make your will known to the Yara and receive an answer, if the Yara decides to grant you with one—you must go through nature. We use animal bones to locate prey. Firepowder helps provide a good visual connection with fires, since you can’t actually touch them. But I use my opal for most other things. Whit says these objects are conduits, helping the information move back and forth.
I settle myself on the floor in front of the blaze. Bowing my head, I exhale and try to relax. To let the panic and terror of the day fall away from me. I open my eyes and stare into the flames and feel my heart slow and my breath become shallow. I toss the powder onto the fire.
“Father.” My lips move. The word comes out. But I know it isn’t the sound that matters. It’s focusing on who he is that directs the elements. That communicates to the Yara my desire to see him.
As images of my father appear in my mind, I do as Whit has taught me—looking just above and to the right of the flames—and see something forming in the fire’s glowing aura. I’m inside a flying machine, members of my clan sitting all around with their hands attached behind their backs. My heart lurches as I see Nome sitting next to her mother, sobbing, but unable to wipe her tears. The view must be through my father’s eyes. Out the windows there are four other flying machines: two in front and one on either side.
As I study them, it comes back to me: “choppers” was the colloquial word listed in the EB; the chopping sound comes from their spinning blades cutting through the air. Helicopters, I remember. But the machines in the fire are much bigger than those in the picture I remember from the EB. And from the size of the vehicles in the flames, there would be plenty of room for the entire clan onboard. The image is right there in front of me, but my brain can’t accept what it is saying: that there is a brigand troop large and organized enough, with working vehicles and fuel, to sweep in and take my clan.
I wish the Yara would show me more. Give me an idea of where my father is headed or even show me his face. But as Whit often reminds me, the Yara doesn’t always give you what you want. You take what it offers you.
I try to think of what the brigands could be after. It doesn’t make sense. They took my people. Not our resources. Besides the slaughter of our dogs, who were probably defending their masters, the camp was left untouched. Whatever they wanted, it seemed like they hadn’t gotten it. Because they came back. And if all they wanted was my clan, then the only reason they would come back would be to find its missing members: Whit and me.
I close my eyes and change my focus to Whit. I speak his name and picture him in my mind. Boyish face with high cheekbones. Eyes staring off into space, as if he sees a whole world that others can’t.
And in the flames I see what he sees. Pressed against either side of him stand two massive men in camouflage, who hold him by the arms. They must be in league with the brigands who kidnapped my clan, I think, and then focus harder. Whit is being led somewhere by the men, and there is water beside them. A lake? No. My heart races. The ocean. Far from our territory. Three days’ journey by dogsled, my father has said. Three days away from everything I have ever known. But that’s where I am going. What other choice do I have?
6
MILES
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE’S DISAPPEARED?” MY dad roars into the phone.
I’m in front of the TV eating a massive plateful of homemade lasagna that Mrs. Kirby left in the oven. I lean back in my chair and look through the open door into Dad’s office. As usual, he’s eating his dinner at his desk in front of his laptop, both home phone and cell phone within easy reach.
“I thought we had a deal!” My dad is turning puce. Which is strange for him. As is the yelling. He’s usually one of those stone-faced guys who scares the shit out of everyone by acting so calm. I grab the remote and turn the sound down so that I can listen to his freak-out.
“I didn’t send you all the way from Los Angeles to Anchorage just to have this deal slip through my fingers. I knew I should have gone myself.” Dad runs his hand through his hair and stands up to pace around the room. Glancing my way, he sees me watching him. He stomps over to the door and slams it, shutting me out.
I feel my face burn, and lift the remote to up the sound, blocking out my dad’s now-muffled yelling. I don’t know why I let him get to me. I should be used to feeling shut out by now.
7
JUNEAU
WE RACE ACROSS THE FROZEN TUNDRA, CHASING the ghosts in the fire and listening for the danger from the sky. Now that we have left the woods, there is no cover. It is mid-April. In just a month the snow will be gone and the landscape will transform overnight from the brown and white of tundra and snow to the green and purple of thick grasses
and wildflowers. But for now, we are a moving target against the crystalline fields veined with frozen streams.
I don’t yet know which path we’ll take to the ocean, but it doesn’t matter. I have a stop to make before I leave clan territory.
Beckett and Neruda slow as we near the emergency shelter. They’ve been here before and sense where we are going. They stop at the boulder marking the edge of our clan’s boundary, and I leap off the sled to clear the snow from an indentation at the base of the boulder. Shoving my mittens into my pockets, I scrabble with my fingertips to dig out the edge of the loose sod. I feel the tarp and, grasping it with both hands, pull it back to expose the trapdoor.
Whit made the door spring-activated so even the smallest of the children could access the shelter if necessary. All it takes is a light pull on the ring and the heavy plank swings upward, revealing a wooden staircase descending into the dark. I walk down a few steps and then detach the lantern from its hook under the cave ceiling. Using my flint, I light the wick, although I don’t really need its glow: I know this place by heart. Nome, Kenai, and I check it once a month, year-round, to make sure that scavengers haven’t discovered our stores. We restock the dried meats and make sure the worms haven’t gotten the rest.
We are taught where this shelter is as soon as we can drive a dogsled. “Just in case,” our parents tell us. We all know what the unspoken “case” is. Attack by brigands. Discovery by survivors of the war. The shelter has hidden us the handful of times that Whit has Read brigands nearby. It’s been an integral part of our security since the beginning.
What we never planned on was an abduction of the entire clan. So there is no one here to meet me. No one to wait for. Only supplies to pick up before I flee.
