After the End

I consider what she’s said. “You know what I’ve been thinking about, Tallie? How all the totems Whit uses for Reading and Conjuring, even though he claims they’re all necessary, they seem to detract from the pure co

“Doubt everything, Juneau. Doubt everything at least once. What you decide to keep, you’ll be able to be confident of. And what you decide to ditch, you will replace with what your instincts tell you is true. You’ve been living in a crystal tower that just had the foundations knocked out from under it. Which sucks. But now it’s up to you to decide whether you’re going to wallow around in the wreckage or rebuild something sturdier. Nothing better than making something with your own hands,” she says, gesturing around at the house she built. “Or, in your case, with your own mind.”

She smiled at me. “Now that I’m done with my lecture, here is your reward for listening.” She hands me the ball of clay, and suddenly I’m looking at a miniature version of myself. High cheekbones, full-moon eyes, and spiky hair made by pinching the clay dozens of times. She’s even made the starburst in my right eye.

“Hey, you’re really good,” I say.

She shrugs but looks pleased. “When I’m not building log cabins, I’m an amateur sculptor.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“No, thank you,” she responds. “I think we just now fulfilled Beauregard’s prophecy. You taught me something, or attempted to. . . . I’m going to keep working on the fire-Reading thing until I make it work. And in exchange, I gave you something to mull over, drawn from my own hard-earned life experience. I’d say we’re pretty even.”

44

MILES

I AWAKE TO THE SOUND OF THE CLEANING LADY unlocking my door. “Checkout was a half hour ago,” she says, and stands there with her fist on her hip like she’s kicking me out.

“Uh, could I have five minutes to get up and get dressed?” I ask. She makes a puffing noise and backs out, but leaves the door cracked open. I glance over at the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock on the bedside table. Eleven thirty a.m. My first night in what feels like forever in a real bed instead of on the hard ground, and I want to sleep all day.

And then I remember why I’m here and leap out of bed, pulling yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt on and ru

Okay, Miles, think. Redding and Portman will already be in Salt Lake City by now. Whit and his men . . . who knows where they are? And Juneau? She could be anywhere between that service station and Salt Lake City. It’s useless to try to search for her in between, when I know that the city is her goal. She’ll turn up there sooner or later.

I pop the trunk, fish out the cereal and a bottle of cranberry juice. Juneau had never seen it before, so of course she had to buy a six-pack, and I remember her excitement with a smile. For the next three hours I eat dry Cap’n Crunch out of the box and take swigs of Ocean Spray (which do not mix well) as I drive to Salt Lake City.

But once I’m in the city, I have no clue of where to even start looking for her. I try to think like she does. She had talked about that prophecy of the serpent and the city by the undrinkable water and seemed to think that she would find the next piece of the puzzle once she arrived. But what would she look for? Where would she go to look for a sign?

I drive around the downtown area, looking for anything that catches my eye. Temple Square. Capitol Hill. The shopping district. All I can think is that modernity freaks her out, so she would probably head to a park or the lakefront. My stomach’s growling, so I park the car and go into a sandwich shop and order some food. I’ll eat next to the waterfront. When I give the cashier my credit card, it comes back as declined.

“Try it again,” I say, and end up having to pay with cash. I’ve got twenty bucks left in my wallet, so I head to an ATM. It eats my card. When I go into the bank, the teller tells me that my card has been reported as stolen. And then I know.

“What the hell, Dad!” I yell into the pay phone.

“Watch your language, young man,” he growls. “I told you to come directly home. What are you doing in Salt Lake City?”

“How do you even know where I am?” I yell.

“My assistant, Sam, is tracking your card use.”

“He reported it as stolen!”

“I’ll have him rectify that as soon as you reassure me that you are on your way to L.A. and I will see you here tomorrow.”

“I’m not coming home. I’m staying here until I find the girl.”

“If you do, Miles Blackwell, you can forget about Yale. I have my men on this, and I don’t want you messing it up.”

“But Dad,” I begin. The phone line clicks as my dad hangs up.

I head back to the car, flipping through my wallet as I walk. Twenty bucks to my name and my dad’s Shell card, which can only buy me gas. I’m not leaving. I’m not going home, but where am I going to stay? I’m not Juneau—I can’t survive off the land. What am I going to do until I find her—snare pigeons with my phone charger and cook them over a campfire in the public park?

I press the button to unlock my car, accidentally popping the trunk open. Walking around to slam it shut, I see something I had completely forgotten was back there: the tent and camping supplies.

I glance around at the stu

45

JUNEAU

BY NIGHTTIME I’M DESPERATE TO LEAVE. BEING cut off from all communication with my clan makes me feel so out of control I can barely sit still.

Tallie helps me limp outside, draws a circle on the ground with a stick, and tells me to throw Beauregard’s bones while thinking about my father. This reminds me so much of contacting the Yara that it makes me wonder once again if there is more than one way—Whit’s way—to Read and Conjure. And that Tallie’s just using a different method and vocabulary to get the same results from the same source. Although the thought is destabilizing, it also appeals to me. I take the dried old bones in both hands and toss them inside the circle.

Tallie squats down and studies them. She runs her finger along a series of small bones lying perpendicular to one another. “I don’t know why, Juneau, but it looks like your quest ends here, right now, at my house.”

“What?” I ask, aghast.

“You’ve deviated from the path you’re supposed to take, here.” She points to a bone in the series. “This one is off-kilter, and if you don’t put it straight, you won’t go any further.”

She looks at me. “If you had to divide your journey into major steps, maybe into important Readings, how would it go?”

I think. “Well, first I fire-Read and saw Whit near the ocean. Then, once in Anchorage, my oracle directed me to Seattle. Which is where this old man told me how to find Miles, and said I had to be honest with him, but not to trust him. And . . . oh.”

“What?” Tallie asks, hand on her hip.

“He said that Miles was the one to take me far,” I say in a small voice.

“Looks like he hasn’t taken you far enough,” she says. “You’re going to have to tuck your tail and go find him. Convince him to keep going with you.”

“But his dad is out to get me for some strange reason.” Something strikes me for the first time. “What if Miles’s dad is actually working with Whit and his men? What if Miles’s dad is the one who kidnapped my clan?”