After the End

by Amy Plum

  She balances her chin on her knees and pivots her head back and forth to say no. “That’s nothing new. We had already established the fact that you think I’m unbalanced. Which, coming from you, I consider as a compliment.” Her mouth turns up slightly on one side.

  Something about her expression makes my heart do a little surge of happiness. What’s wrong with me? I’m definitely catching her crazy.

  She sighs and looks serious again. “I’m staying here until I get a sign telling me where to go next. But I’m not keeping you captive, you know. You can leave at any time.”

  “Despite my threats, I wouldn’t leave you in the middle of the wilderness alone,” I protest.

  “Because I wouldn’t make it out alive without your advanced survival skills,” she says, trying not to laugh. “Okay. Thanks for saying you won’t leave me stranded. But you could drop me off in the next town,” she continues.

  I don’t say anything.

  “Frankie was right. You need me, don’t you?” she asks. I feel cornered and shrug. She doesn’t press me on it and looks back at the water.

  “If you didn’t like the lizards, why did you eat three of them?” she mumbles, and I can’t help but laugh. This wins me a small smile from her, and she rocks back and forth for a second before sighing and looking tired.

  “You haven’t eaten,” I say. “And though you’ve hardly said a word to me all day, I can’t help but notice you’ve been carrying on full-fledged conversations with all sorts of inanimate objects. And when they don’t talk back, you look like you want to kick the shit out of them.”

  “Sounds crazy, right?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “Sounds crazy . . . looks crazy. Why don’t you just settle for your insanity diagnosis and let me be?”

  “Because you look like you’re having a meltdown. And friends don’t let friends do meltdowns.” I say it even though I know she won’t get the reference. She never does.

  “So you’re my friend?” she says skeptically.

  Oh, crap. What have I done? I shrug and look out at the water. “Well, I wouldn’t say best buds, exactly, but I don’t hate your guts. At least not at this precise moment.”

  She almost cracks a smile, and there my heart goes again, turning a flip in my chest. No, Miles. Do not go there, I urge myself.

  She’s talking. “Tell me something about you. It doesn’t have to be important.”

  I lean over and pick up a stone from the ground beside the boulder. I roll it around in my fingers, feeling its smoothness, watching the colors change in its quartz-like interior as I turn it back and forth in the blue air of twilight. And then I throw it as far as I can into the water and wait for the plop before turning to her and saying, “I got kicked out of high school with just a couple months left until graduation.”

  “For what?” she asks.

  “Cheating on a test,” I say, “among other things.”

  “What other things?”

  “Bringing alcohol and pot to school.”

  “Pot?”

  “Drugs.”

  “Oh.” She hesitates and then asks, “So why’d you cheat? Didn’t you study?”

  “That’s the thing. I didn’t need to cheat. I had studied—I knew all the answers. I don’t know why I did it.” I try to remember and can’t. It was unimportant. Trivial. I’d done it a million times. “Probably just to see if I could get away with it. For the thrill.”

  “And you think I’m weird?” she says. I shrug and pick up another stone.

  Juneau rubs her hand over her spiky hair again. Then she exhales deeply, and her body looks like a balloon deflating. “I guess it doesn’t matter what I say, because you’re not going to believe it anyway.” She shuffles her body around so that she’s facing me. “In 1984, at the outset of World War III, my parents and some friends of theirs escaped from America to settle in the Alaskan wilderness.”

  “There was no World War III,” I interject.

  She gives me a frustrated look. “Are you going to listen or what?”

  I lean back on my elbows and listen.

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  29

  JUNEAU

  WHEN I FINISH, MILES SITS THERE STUNNED, HIS mouth hanging half-open and his eyebrows frozen in the up position. Finally he remembers how to talk. “And now?” he asks.

  “And now something’s happening to my skills. Since yesterday, I can barely Read. I certainly can’t Conjure. I can’t even get anything from Poe, and we’ve already had a connection.”

  “Can I see some of this stuff you use?” he asks, and it strikes me that while I was speaking he dropped his sarcastic, incredulous manner and is actually being sincere. He might not believe what I say is true, but he believes I’m telling him what I think is true. I don’t have to Read him to know that.

  Whit taught me to read body language—to be perceptive about the way people unconsciously show their feelings and thoughts through gestures and facial expressions. For the first time, Miles has let down his guard. He’s taken the first step to trusting me.

  So I reciprocate. I show him my pack. He watches as I pull out the firepowder, the stones, the herbs and animal furs and bones, and asks me what each one is used for. It’s strange—I have the feeling that in showing him, I’m betraying my people . . . disclosing their secrets. Just in case, I keep my explanations intentionally vague.

  And I don’t pull out the precious stones and gold nuggets. Whit specifically ordered that those always be hidden from outsiders. Though Whit is a traitor, his advice is sound. Frankie warned me not to trust Miles. All I need is City Boy to take off with the car, my money, and my gold, and I am well and truly stranded. I watch as he inspects a pouch of pounded hawthorn root, smelling it and wrinkling his nose.

  “You’re carrying quite a lot of . . . stuff with you,” Miles says finally.

  “I know,” I say. “Whit has a different use for all of these. I don’t really need most of them. I use my opal for almost everything except fire-Reading. But when Whit’s around, I use them just to make him happy.”

  “Why would that make him happy?” Miles asks.

  I squirm, not comfortable about what I’m going to say. “I Read better than Whit. He’s already taught me everything he can about Reading, and I’m picking up the Conjuring on my own. He’s the one who discovered the human connection with the Yara and has worked hard to find the different ways to connect for different reasons. I’m starting to feel like maybe he’s wrong, and that all these totems just complicate things, but I wouldn’t ever dare tell him that.” I fiddle with the rabbit feet and brush the soft amulet against my cheek.

  “Whit is the one who came up with all this?” he asks.

  “Yes, although a lot of what he found he says he gathered from traditions all over the world, especially eastern—like Buddhism and Hinduism. That was apparently all the rage in America back in the sixties. I read about Catholics using rosaries or icons to focus and Buddhists using prayer beads or mandalas or candles. I think these objects”—I gesture to the pile of stuff—“serve the same purpose for Whit. But I’ve begun to suspect that the objects themselves aren’t important. It seems more like the intent behind their use, the will of the user, makes the difference.”

  “Then why do you still use the firepowder and your opal?” Miles asks.

  “Just because I have my theory doesn’t mean I trust it to work,” I say. “Those are only things I’ve been thinking about. But my connection to the Yara seems to be getting weaker and weaker. I wouldn’t dare try to change the rules now.” I realize that I’ve been petting my opal comfortingly as I have been talking, and press it against my chest to reassure myself that it is still there, my link to the collective unconscious of the superorganism. The Yara.

  I feel the need to change the subject and, reaching back into the pack, pull out the Gai
a Movement book. Flipping to the back, I pull out the photo I’ve carried with me all the way from Denali. “These are my parents,” I say, handing it to him.

  “Old picture?” he asks, peering at it.

  “Before I was born,” I confirm.

  As he studies it, I notice something different about him. There’s a softness that I haven’t seen before. And I realize it’s because he’s let his guard down. He actually looks kind.

  Once again I see him through Nome’s eyes. “Checking him out,” she would say. He is handsome in a refined, pampered way, not earthy and rugged like Kenai. The lines of his face—his cheekbones, his chin, his aquiline nose—are as strong and defined as if they were carved from sculpting clay with a fettling knife.

  He glances back and forth between me and the picture, comparing my face to those of my parents. And as his lake-green eyes flit over my features, something in me stirs. It feels like the tug in my chest that happened every time I stepped out of my yurt in the morning and witnessed the beauty of Mount Denali towering over our village. Even though I had grown up there and had seen the same view every day, I never failed to be overwhelmed by its splendor.

  That’s it, I think. That’s the familiar tug inside me. Miles is beautiful. Without thinking, I raise my hand to my chest and press it with my palm like I did every morning, pushing the emotion back in so it wouldn’t spill out.

  A leader must be strong. Must not let emotion affect action, I remind myself. I was soon to become clan Sage. I had responsibilities.

  I have responsibilities. The realization startles me from my reverie. My goal is to find and save my people. I rise to my feet. I can’t allow myself to be sidetracked from the most important thing in my life.

  The safety of my clan depends on my doing everything I can to find them. Not spending time chatting with a teenage boy who was kicked out of school for something even he admits was idiotic.

  Miles takes my standing as a sign that the show-and-tell session is over and rises to his feet. He hands the photo back to me. “You look just like your mom,” he says.

  “Thanks. Everyone says that we’d look like twins—if she hadn’t died when I was five,” I reply evenly, tucking the photo back into the book.

  Miles hesitates, and then says, “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago. I don’t actually remember her that well. My dad raised me with the help of the clan, and Whit’s been my mentor ever since Mom died.”

  “So your dad must be what, in his fifties now? He looks pretty young here.” He points to the photo.

  I laugh. “He’s fifty-eight. And he looks the same now as he did in the picture.”

  “Except that he’s probably got gray hair and wrinkles,” Miles says.

  “No. My dad’s one with the Yara. He hasn’t aged a day since this picture was taken,” I insist.

  Miles narrows his eyes. “Yeah, right,” he says with a little twist of his lips. And just like that, his wall is back up and I can see that he hasn’t believed a word I have said. I’m supremely glad I stopped myself from going into more detail about the Yara. From trusting him with my beliefs.

  “Are we going to have dinner tonight?” he asks, while it’s clear that his real question is, “When are you going to cook for me?”

  “Not hungry,” I say, and then realize I’m famished. “If you want dinner, you cook. At least that’ll guarantee you won’t be forced to ingest lizard tonight.” I can’t help the frost in my voice.

  He shakes his head sourly, as if he regrets having listened to me for the last half hour. Grumbling, he heads to the car to rifle through the groceries in the trunk.

  It doesn’t matter if he thinks I’m lying. I know it’s true. Walking around in Seattle, seeing elderly and sick people, made me feel I had been living in a utopia in Alaska. After the Rite completes our union with the Yara, no one experiences aging. No one dies, unless it’s in an accident like my mother’s or the elder who was killed by the bear. Here in this outside world, everyone is disconnected from the Yara. They can become old, get sick, and die.

  I wonder if our special relationship with the Yara has anything to do with the disappearance of my clan. If someone wants what we have. But how would they have even known about us? We’ve been in hiding for decades.

  Whit, I think. Everything comes back to him. It’s still too hard to imagine that he engineered the capture of my clan. But maybe he talked about us when he was out in the world. Maybe he unwittingly betrayed us.

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  30

  MILES

  “SO TELL ME, WHAT’S THE LAST READING OR CONJURING or whatever that you successfully did?” I take a bite of the crispy potato that I, yes I, Miles Blackwell, cooked wrapped in aluminum foil in the campfire. In fact, I cooked tonight’s whole meal.

  All right, so the first can of beef stew exploded. How was I supposed to know you can’t cook food in the can? Luckily, we had a few backups, so I opened them and heated them up in a pan.

  “Why does it matter?” Juneau asks, blowing on the piece of steaming beef speared on her fork. “You won’t believe a word of it anyway.”

  “True,” I respond, holding my spoon up for emphasis. “However, in debate team, I was often tapped to play devil’s advocate. So I don’t mind suspending disbelief if it’s going to, one, get you out of your lethal mood and, two, let us leave this creepy waterfront. It’s starting to remind me of the Jason-infested lake in Friday the 13th.” I glance over the fire to see Juneau’s familiar expression of incomprehension, and my heart falls. “Why do I even try with the cultural references?” I moan.

  “I don’t know, why do you?” she snaps. And then says, “Reading Poe’s emotions in the car yesterday.”

  “That was the last time you felt like you read?” I clarify, making an effort to keep up with her conversation hopping.

  “Yes, although it took me a long time to connect,” she states. “I’m used to it being immediate.”

  “Then when was the last time it was immediate?” I ask.

  “When I Read the fire at Mount Rainier.”

  “Okay,” I say. “So what’s happened between then and now?”

  She looks at me blankly and shakes her head.

  I think. “How about Whit?” I ask. “When the bird didn’t come back to him, do you think he could have blocked you from connecting to the Yara?” I try my best not to let a sarcastic inflection creep into my words. If she thinks I’m making fun of her, she’ll clam right up and this conversation will be over. Along with my effort to soften her up so that we can leave.

  She sets her bowl on the ground and shakes her head pensively. “That would be like blocking me from breathing the air around me. ‘No one can come between human beings and the Yara except the disbelief of humans themselves.’ That’s a direct quote from Whit,” I say.

  I’m feeling sorry for her again. She really believes this crap. I have an overwhelming urge to hold her hand and tell her that it’s okay. That she’s been brainwashed, and the longer she’s away from the hippie cult the more normal she’ll get.

  “Well then, maybe you’re blocking your own connection to the Yara,” I offer, feeling slightly proud of myself for making sense out of her cult gibberish. “Maybe now that you’re away from the influence of Whit and your dad, you’re beginning to doubt the things they taught you. Which would totally make sense, seeing that they lied about World War III and all.” I am only trying to draw logical conclusions from her completely illogical beliefs, but she looks like I just slapped her.

  “Or maybe it’s not that at all,” I offer weakly. “Maybe the farther you get from your land, the less of a connection with the Yara you have?”

  She closes her eyes and shakes her head in a how-could-you-possibly-know-anything-about-it gesture. “The Yara isn’t just in Alaska. It’s everywhere.”

&nbs
p; She stands and, wrapping her arms around her waist, paces slowly back and forth beside the fire. “What you said about doubting,” she says finally. “That does make sense. It was after I found out that Whit was working with the people who abducted my clan that my Reading was affected. His blatant spying on me confirmed my suspicions of him . . . if I needed further confirmation.” She rubs her fingers distractedly across her forehead. “I guess I can pin it to that instant that I definitely lost all trust in him. And yes, I suppose I’m questioning what he taught me as well.”

  “Did they have children’s books in your commune?” I ask. Juneau looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “I swear this is relevant,” I promise.

  “Yes, we had a small collection of children’s books.”

  “Did you have Peter Pan?” I ask.

  She nods and furrows her brow, trying to guess what I’m getting at.

  “What you’re saying is kind of like Wendy and her brothers flying with fairy dust. They had to believe it or they couldn’t fly.”

  She nods pensively but still has that hurt look on her face. “You might be right,” she admits. She sighs loudly and turns to head for the woods. Looking back at me, she says, “Thanks for dinner. I’m going to go for a walk and think about things.” The bird sees her going and flaps over to land on her shoulder like a freaking trained monkey.

  As for me, I sit watching the fire and think about how she seems like a really nice person. How I’m actually starting to like her. Why else would I have put off calling Dad whenever I’ve had access to a phone? Because, for once, I feel like I’m enjoying myself. Having fun.

  It’s just sad how messed up Juneau was raised. Like a cult member. Totally brainwashed. Totally delusional. It almost makes me want to help her. If saving my own skin wasn’t of utmost importance, I would be tempted to try.

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