After the End

“Oh yeah,” she says, as if it hadn’t occurred to her. She leans over and slams the door shut, and we’re off.

I’m lying here in a tent, pretending to be asleep but actually fearing for my life as I watch a bu

Here’s how it went down. Halfway up Mt. Rainier, Juneau orders me to go off-road down this dirt track. Once we’re way past where anyone—say, rescuers—could actually find us, she tells me to stop. It’s getting dark, and it’s like we’re in a scene from one of those documentaries where oblivious backpackers set up camp near a bear cave or a wolf den or on top of a killer scorpion nest and are taught their lesson for thoughtlessly encroaching upon nature. And just when I’m thinking this, Juneau gets her pack out of the backseat, pulls a nylon bag out, and starts setting up a freaking tent.

“What are you doing?” My voice shoots up an octave, like I’ve been breathing helium.

She looks over at me and says simply, “What’s it look like?”

“We’re not sleeping here tonight! This isn’t even a legal campsite!” I squeak.

“We have to. I wasn’t able to Read nature in Seattle. The city made me too anxious. I saw a postcard of this mountain and knew it would be the perfect place to Read. It kind of looks like home,” she responds. And just like that, she goes back to unwrapping the nylon tent and sticking folding metal poles through it. I stand like an idiot while she brushes twigs and rocks away from a flat bit of ground and then pulls the tent over to it and starts banging pins into the earth to anchor it.

She turns to me. “If you want to help, you can get a fire going before it’s too dark to see.”

“A fire? I’m pretty sure that’s illegal in the middle of a national park. And why do we need a fire?” I ask. “It’s not even cold out.”

“For di

I don’t even try to make a fire. I go back to the car and for a half hour I fiddle with my iPhone, trying to turn it back on, but it’s completely shot. I’m wondering what she could have done to break it when I look up and see Juneau stride into the clearing, holding a dead rabbit by the hind legs.

Not even looking my way, she sits down and takes a huge bowie knife out of her pack and starts peeling the fur off. I can’t watch. I feel sick.

By the time I turn back around, she’s made a fire and has set up a kind of makeshift spit by driving two branches into the ground on either side of the flames. Then, ever so casually, as if she were tying her shoes or something, she shoves a third stick through the raw, red-ski

By the time I get back, the thing on the spit actually looks like meat and smells appetizing enough to make my mouth water. I stand there and watch her as she roasts some mushrooms and leaves in a little pan over the flames, using the juice dripping from the meat to cook them.

“I get it that foraging is the hip new thing for you back-to-nature types, but you do realize there is a McDonald’s about a half hour down the road?”

For a moment it looks like she doesn’t recognize me. Then she nonchalantly cuts a sliver of cooked leg off something that was cute and fluffy and hopping around about an hour ago. She holds it grimly up on the end of the knife, like a dare. I shudder, but pick the meat off the knifepoint and pop it in my mouth. Oh my God, it’s really good.

She sees my expression and smiles. “Saw the McDonald’s sign on the way. But I tried it in Seattle, and frankly, that stuff’s nasty.”

21

JUNEAU

HE IS QUITE LIKELY THE STUPIDEST BOY I HAVE ever met.

No, strike that. Not stupid. He actually seems smart enough. He has a good vocabulary when he makes an effort to use it. And I can tell he listens to every word I say and stores it away for later. Why?

Like Frankie said, he’s got an ulterior motive. Miles needs me as much as I need him. He’s got secrets. But so do I. Even though my oracle told me to be honest with him, that doesn’t mean I have to tell him my whole life story—not unless he asks. So I won’t expect him to do the same.

I change my assessment from stupid to naive. It’s clear he’s lived a sheltered life. And not just sheltered in the fact that he hasn’t been brought up in the wilderness like I have. He has lived what De

After wandering the streets of Seattle for a week, the difference between rich and poor is obvious to me. Compared to those I met who were living rough, Miles’s studiedly casual clothes, educated speech, and flippantly confident way he carries himself all point to money that he hasn’t had to earn himself.

I glance back at the flames and wonder if he didn’t know how to build a fire or if he was just too lazy to be bothered. I don’t understand why Frankie said he was necessary. He seems like the last person on earth I would actually need right now. If Miles couldn’t drive, he would be complete deadweight.

He actually insisted on sleeping in the car until I informed him that the scented skull and crossbones hanging from the rearview mirror and bags of chips and cookies stashed in the backseat were likely to attract bears, and that a bear could easily peel a car door off with its claws.

It’s the first time I’ve seen him move fast. He ripped the little fragrant skull off the mirror, scooped the bags out of the backseat, and set off at top speed into the woods with them, returning ten minutes later empty-handed. And although he left the windows down to air the car out, he didn’t hesitate to bunk down in the tent when I told him it was safer.

I wait impatiently for him to fall asleep. Finally, when I haven’t seen him move for a while, I fish the bag of firepowder out of my pack. Carefully measuring out a small silvery handful, I throw the powdered mica mixture onto the flames. “Dad,” I say, and visualizing my father’s face, stare just up and to the right of the licking flames.

Nothing happens, and a thread of worry pulls tight in my chest. Like I said to Miles, besides Reading my oracle, I couldn’t Read a thing in Seattle. And I don’t know if it had anything to do with being in a city. Thankfully, I was able to perform that minor Conjure and make fire in his cell phone. But it feels like something is changing, either in me, or in my co

I actually started feeling the change during those tortuous five days on the boat to Seattle. A black fog of doubt settling over everything I know. If the elders lied about the war, could the Yara just be another of their fictions? But something even deeper in me reassures me that the Yara exists. It’s just my co

I banish those thoughts from my mind and concentrate on the fire. It takes a while, but finally an image appears. It’s exactly as I saw it in the vision: an arid landscape with cacti in the foreground and rock formations in the distance. Although it is nighttime, the moon glows brightly, illuminating the scene.

I see a group of small buildings made of clay or dirt. I remember seeing something similar in the EB—in an article on Native Americans—and try to remember in which part of America they were located. Surrounding the group of buildings is a high fence topped with barbed wire. It stretches into the distance before hitting a corner and continuing on as far as I can see in another direction. A perimeter fence. My people are being kept in captivity.