After the End ate-1

by Amy Plum

  I glance at Miles, and though it’s against my better judgment, I feel the overwhelming temptation to reach over and put my hand on his. Not out of anything romantic, I tell myself, just for reassurance. After what happened last night, I don’t want to give him any ideas. I can’t get close to him. I won’t be distracted from my quest. He is only here to help me get to my destination, I insist, but my gaze strays back to his hand.

  My face blazes as I remember our grappling match in the tent, and I suddenly realize that the boy who kissed me is sitting just a couple of feet away, watching me and… waiting for an answer. “I’m sorry, what?” I stammer.

  “So next stop is Idaho?” he asks.

  “I think so,” I say.

  Miles is silent for a moment and then says, carefully, “You’re asking me to drive more than two hundred miles east and you’re not sure?” He avoids looking at me. Stares straight ahead at the road.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay,” he says slowly. “Was it fire this time?”

  “Was what fire?” I ask, confused.

  “Did you read a fire? Or was it the raven? Or what?”

  I watch him to see if he’s being sarcastic. He’s not. He’s just trying to get me to talk. “I’d rather not discuss it,” I say finally.

  “Juneau, you can tell me. I’m not going to laugh at you,” he says.

  Frankie said I have to tell him the truth. But in this case, I just can’t. “You wouldn’t understand anyway,” I snap, hoping that will shut him up.

  It does. He bites his lip and reaches over to turn the radio up. Good. That conversation’s over.

  I turn my thoughts back to the three prophecies I received last night. The one about Whit was clear enough. But when my next step was revealed, it might as well have been spoken in Chinese. I didn’t understand a word of it.

  Prophecies are usually cryptic, but I don’t even know how to approach decrypting this one. I pick up Miles’s notebook, jot the words down from memory, and study them one by one.

  Finally, Miles turns down the radio and asks, “Do we have time to stop for lunch?” His voice is back to normal—he’s gotten over the insult I used to shut him up. Good.

  I close the notebook and tuck it under my seat. My head hurts from thinking so hard, and the puzzle remains unsolved. “Let’s just make sandwiches,” I suggest.

  We pull into a tiny town called Unity and dig Cokes, chips, and sandwich stuff out of the trunk. “We can eat in the car,” I say, but Miles frowns and gestures toward a lone picnic table sitting nearby under a tree. “Can we sit outside and eat? I’m getting sick of the car.”

  My instincts say to keep going. But Miles looks tired. Discouraged.

  “Hopefully they fell for our ruse in Spray and are headed toward the Pacific Ocean now,” I concede. “I don’t see why we can’t stop for fifteen minutes.”

  Relief floods his face. We spread the food out on a table, and he begins to eat standing up. “My butt fell asleep back near Canyon City,” he explains, brushing crumbs from his mouth as he bounces on his toes.

  “How long do we have until we hook up to the main highway?” I ask.

  Miles jogs to the car and comes back with the atlas and a pencil. “Another hour and a half and we meet back up with 84 at the border of Idaho,” he says, making a dot on where we are and tracing lightly to the edge of Oregon.

  We’re reconnecting with the road we started on. But Frankie’s directions were vague—go southeast—and I have no idea what comes next. Damn cryptic prophecy, I think.

  And then I’m struck by an idea. I touch Miles’s arm. “Will you try something with me? I’m going to say a sentence, and you tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.”

  Miles furrows his brow. “Okay,” he says hesitantly.

  I pronounce the words of the prophecy carefully: “Follow the serpent toward the city by the water that cannot be drunk.”

  Miles looks confused. “That means absolutely nothing to me,” he says. “What is it?”

  “It’s our directions,” I admit.

  “This was one of the signs you got last night?”

  “Yes,” I say uncomfortably. Don’t tell him any more, I think. I take a swig of root beer and let the bubbles fizz on my tongue before swallowing.

  “You heard those actual words?” He sounds incredulous.

  I nod. DON’T TELL HIM, my inner voice is now shouting. I have to tell him, I think. If I don’t follow the rules in the prophecies, I might as well give up now.

  He scratches his head and looks suspicious. “How’d you manage that?”

  “I used an oracle,” I say.

  He huffs in amusement. “Did you convince Poe to talk?”

  I take another sip of root beer and shake my head. I feel guilt rolling off me in waves and am surprised that Miles can’t sense it. I look away from him, and by the time I look back a dark cloud has stretched across his face.

  “You didn’t,” he says.

  I nod meekly, but reminding myself that rules don’t count in a state of war, I lift my chin and watch as he gathers together his memories of last night, flips through them, and then arrives at the answer. “What was in that tea you gave me in the tent?” His voice is flat. Dead.

  “Something we grow in Alaska that’s a bit like brugmansia.”

  “What the hell is brugmansia?” he says, and his face is crimson. His eyes dark.

  “Angel’s trumpets,” I respond, knowing full well he has no idea what that means either.

  “WHAT DOES IT DO?” Miles’s words are like four small daggers stabbing my skull. My hand rises to my forehead. Don’t think of him as a boy. He is your driver. Your oracle. That is all. I force my hand back down to my side and raise my chin. I had to use him—I had no other choice.

  “It’s a narcotic, but when diluted enough, like it was last night, it can be used as a sedative,” I say.

  “You drugged me.” Miles is breathless. As if someone has socked him in the stomach. Pain is scrawled across his face.

  I steel myself. I am in the right. “I did what needed to be done.”

  “Couldn’t you have asked me first?” Miles says. He looks like he’s still trying to make sense out of what I’ve just said. Like he doesn’t believe it. Like I’m playing a joke on him.

  “You wouldn’t have said yes,” I respond, crossing my arms. And making my voice as flat as I can, I say, “Why would you, when you haven’t believed a word I’ve said so far?”

  Miles stands there staring at me in disbelief, his hands shaking with emotion. “That is because YOU ARE DELUSIONAL!” he yells. “I’m not saying it’s your fault. You’ve been brainwashed. But Juneau, for God’s sake, there is no Yara. You don’t have special magical abilities.”

  His face is a lightning storm. “But what is your fault is the fact that last night you gave me some kind of homemade drug without my knowledge. All for your crazy fantasy. Was there an aphrodisiac in there too? Because I would rather have kissed that fleabag raven than a freak like you. I can’t go along with this any longer. That’s it!” he says, and with a swift motion, stabs the pencil into the atlas hard enough to break it in half. Then, turning, he stalks toward the car.

  His words sweep over me like an errant wind, hitting me square in the face before flowing over and around me and disappearing. Unimportant. Because I am staring at the map and the violent slash of graphite marking where the Snake River transects Idaho directly north of the Great Salt Lake.

  I scoop up the atlas and make a dash for the car.

  36

  MILES

  I AM ON AUTOPILOT. STANDING THERE IN FRONT of her as she told me how she drugged me and used me as her voodoo doll, I felt like I had been stabbed. But it only took one look at her self-righteous expression and I cauterized my wound with a blowtorch. Up until now, I still had a half-baked plan of talking Juneau into going to California with me. One that I had almost talked myself out of. What would Dad want with this delusional teenager?


  But now my mind is made up. I don’t care why he wants her. I’m going to deliver.

  I let her navigate us down every side road across lower Idaho in order to avoid the highway skirting the Snake River. She shouts out directions over the noise of the radio, which I crank up until it drowns out any other sound.

  Seven hours we drive, until the blue haze of dusk settles around us and the trees look like silhouettes cut from black construction paper. A neon sign ahead announces EL DORADO MOTEL AND BAR. I turn the radio off. “We’re staying here,” I say, and Juneau doesn’t argue.

  I pull into a parking lot empty except for two semis and a pickup truck and take a space in front of the office. A skinny man with a comb-over the color of squirt-jar mustard takes my credit card and gives me the keys for rooms 3 and 5. No way in hell am I sleeping in the same room as her.

  I pace back out to the car, where Juneau’s pulled her pack out of the trunk and stands watching a couple of truckers eating dinner in the adjacent building through the bar’s plate-glass windows. “Your room,” I say, and hand her one of the keys without looking her in the face.

  I pull my own suitcase out of the trunk and slam it shut, and ignore Juneau, who’s still standing there next to the car as if she doesn’t know how to find the hotel room with the big “3” on the door. I’m not about to offer my services. Letting myself into room 5, I toss my suitcase onto the flowered bedspread and pick up the telephone receiver, trying to ignore the overpowering smell of vanilla-scented room freshener. No dial tone. Of course.

  I stamp out, pulling the door closed behind me, and make my way back to the office, where Mustardhead is watching a rodeo on an ancient black-and-white TV. “The phone in my room doesn’t work,” I say.

  “Pay phone behind the bar,” he says, tipping his head slightly toward the far corner of the parking lot.

  I find the pay phone and look at it for a second, unsure what to do. I don’t even know how much a pay phone costs. I remember something I saw in an old TV show and, picking up the receiver, press 0. “Collect call to Murray Blackwell,” I say, and give the operator Dad’s number.

  “Blackwell,” comes my dad’s voice, and the operator tells him I’m on the line. Dad acts civil until she hangs up, and then comes the explosion. “Where the hell are you, Miles? I instructed you to come straight home. That was four days ago. If I wasn’t worried of getting you in worse trouble than you’re already in, I would have called the state troopers. What were you doing? Partying it up in Seattle?”

  “I’m in Idaho. And I’ve got her, Dad.” I look through the glass at the truckers seated at the counter. They’re both watching me, like I’m more interesting than the music videos blaring from the TV above the bar. I turn my back to them and hunch over to get some semblance of privacy.

  “You’ve got who, Miles?” my dad asks testily.

  “I’ve got the girl. The Alaskan. She broke my phone. That’s why I haven’t been able to call.”

  There is silence on the other end of the line, which is very atypical for my dad. He’s usually all freak-out and immediate action, so this throws me off. “I know it’s her, Dad. She’s got the star thing in her eye. Dark hair, although it’s cut short now. She’s around five foot five and says her name’s Juneau. She lived in this apocalyptic hippie cult out in the Alaskan wilderness.”

  Dad clears his throat. “Has she mentioned Amrit?”

  “What’s Amrit?”

  “Amrit’s a drug I’m trying to acquire,” he says impatiently.

  “No. See, that’s the thing. I know she matches your description, but she can’t be the one you want. If you’re looking for an industrial spy, she’s definitely not involved in something like that.”

  “What makes you think that?” Dad asks, but there’s something in his voice. It’s the tone of voice he uses when he’s teaching me a lesson. His crafty voice, making me figure a problem out for myself. Like… Of course she doesn’t work for a drug company, but tell me why.

  My dad is waiting for an answer. I want to tell him that she’s not a spy because she’s a brainwashed cult member, but I’m not going to go into the whole Yara crap. It’ll just provoke him. I sigh. “She’s not working with a pharm company, Dad. Or involved in any espionage. She’s like wilderness survival girl just trying to find her dad. If you want someone to kill and cook a rabbit for you, or tell you what time it is by looking at the sun, she’s your girl. Otherwise…”

  “Miles, tell me exactly where you are.” My father had put his business voice on. Succinct. To the point. No arguing.

  “The El Dorado Motel, somewhere in southern Idaho not far from Utah.”

  “Good. You stay right there. My men are still in Seattle. They can be there before sunrise. Make sure you keep her there. Don’t let her get away.”

  “Go ahead and send your guys, Dad. But she’s not going to get away. It’s not like I’m holding her hostage or anything. She can’t even drive. I swear she’ll be here in the morning.”

  “Okay, just hold on, Miles. I’m going to get my men on the other line. Don’t hang up.”

  It’s started to get chilly, and I wish I had worn my jacket. I look up at the moon, just beginning to emerge above the tree line. Juneau could probably look at that and not only tell me what time it is, but what the weather will be like tomorrow. The magic stuff is a load of shit, but it’s true that she could probably survive if she was stranded on the moon. She’s brave, determined and… fierce. I’d give anything to have even half her know-how. Why’d she have to go and ruin it all with the Yara crap? I feel a twinge of guilt twist in my gut but remind myself that last night she not only fed me some homemade drugs but diverted my attention from what she was doing by kissing me, and I push the feeling aside.

  I hear a rapping on the glass, and I swing around to see one of the truckers standing inches away from me on the other side of the window. He does a charades thing where he acts like he’s driving a car, manipulating an invisible steering wheel with his hands.

  I shrug at him and think, Stupid drunk redneck, and then notice that he’s pointing toward the parking lot. His buddy behind him is cracking up, pointing in the same direction.

  I look toward where they’re gesturing and see my car backing up slowly, as the brakes pump on, off, on, off. The automatic overhead light is still on inside the car, and I see Juneau’s face illuminated as she pops the headlights on and throws the gear into drive. For a split second our eyes meet, and her stricken expression tells me she must have overheard the entire phone conversation. She witnessed my betrayal.

  With motor revving, wheels spinning, and gravel spraying, she swerves wildly out of the parking lot onto the two-lane road and screeches off in a dust cloud of fury.

  37

  JUNEAU

  I AM NUMB WITH SHOCK. MILES BETRAYED ME. I shouldn’t be surprised. Frankie said he needed me. But I never imagined it was to hand me over to his father, who is for some reason searching for me. What’s that even mean, “working with a farm company”? That must be why Miles asked if I worked for anyone.

  I want to run over every conversation we’ve had in my memory. Pick them all apart. But I need to concentrate on driving. I’ve watched how Miles handles the car for the last four days, and, although backing up was a bit jerky, I’m going forward just fine. I test the pull of the steering wheel to see how much movement it takes to turn the wheels and then press the right-hand pedal down to the ground. I need to get as far away from here as fast as I can because now I am running from not just one pursuer but two. Miles’s father’s “guys” are apparently on their way, and Whit is still out there. And if Miles calls the police to report me stealing his car, there will be even more people for me to escape from.

  For a brief moment, I consider stopping and hiding somewhere close to the motel. It would be like hunting deer. As long as you’re motionless and downwind, the animal won’t see you even if you’re standing right in front of them. That might work for Miles’s father’s men, but if
I stay still, Whit will find me easily enough.

  Miles knows we were headed to Salt Lake City. He knows I’ll follow the prophecy. So I just need to get there before him.

  I am hungry and tired and boiling with anger, but there’s a thrill working its way through me as I realize that I am behind the wheel of a car, moving faster than I ever did on the sledge with the huskies. I imagine the car around me disappearing, and me seated in the air shooting forward at—I check the speed—eighty miles an hour.

  I let go of the wheel with one hand and ease it over toward the door. I touch the window control and immediately feel the rush of cold wind through my hair. Mountain-pure, cold wind whipping my face, blowing away that kicked-in-the-stomach feeling I had when I walked up behind Miles and heard what he was saying on the phone.

  Which must have been how he felt when he discovered how you used him. The thought comes unwelcome, but I ignore it. Let it flow with the wind. I don’t know what I believe anymore. What’s right and what’s wrong. For me, there are no more rules. I will do anything I need to rescue my clan, no matter who it hurts.

  I drive down the two-lane road over the border of Idaho into Utah. Though I’m tempted by every sign that points to junctions with the highway, I am determined to stay on the small roads. Miles-as-oracle told me that Whit knew where the clan was. And that he was on my tail. And that our paths would cross again at some point. I want to get as close to my clan as possible before that happens.

  I follow the dual yellow beam of my headlights, which from time to time reflect from eyes of animals on the side of the road. My thoughts flash back to Miles, and I feel a sharp sting of regret remembering the look on his face when he realized what I had done. I push that thought away, but another takes its place. The empty look on his face when he told me about his mother’s mental illness and abandonment.