After the End

“Welcome to my campsite,” I say, gesturing with pride toward the pitched tent and fire-in-the-making. Juneau doesn’t even look at it. She’s staring directly into my eyes as she walks toward me, and for a second I’m afraid that she’s going to come right up and punch me. But she stops two steps away and stands, hands at her side, chin lifted in that proud way she does that usually precedes her saying something awful.

“I’m not here because I want to be,” she says. “I’m here because I have to be. I need you to keep traveling with me.”

“I thought maybe you had come to apologize,” I say.

“For what?” she asks, putting her hands on her hips indignantly.

“For drugging me and then forcing me to talk while I was in a drug-haze..”

“What about the fact that you were going to hand me over to your father?” she asks, and her voice is tinged with anger.

“I would like to explain that to you,” I say, and taking her hand, pull her closer. Her skin is warm, and I find my gaze pulled down to her mouth before skipping back up to her eyes. I lick my lips and try to focus. “Juneau . . . the reason I’m still here and not already back in L.A. is that I want to take you to my father so that he can see you’re not the person he’s looking for.”

“I’m not going anywhere that will keep me from finding my family,” she begins, slipping her hand out from mine. But then, seeing how earnest I am, she concedes. “Okay. Explain.”

“My dad owns a pharmaceutical company,” I begin. “There’s this new drug he wants to get his hands on—I mean, buy. But the guy he was doing business with disappeared. He heard that for some reason you were the key to getting the formula.”

“Me?” she asks, astonished.

“My description was a seventeen-year-old girl from Alaska, around five foot five, with long black hair and eye jewelry in the form of a star.”

“That sounds like me,” she admits. “But I don’t know anything about a drug. My people don’t even use medicine. All we had was a first-aid tent for cuts and broken bones.”

I know she’s telling the truth. Her confused reaction isn’t feigned. “I told him he had made a mistake, but he wouldn’t believe me. He sent some men to find you—the guys who were following you in Seattle. I saw them driving around yesterday. They’re here in Salt Lake City keeping a lookout for you now.”

“So if you know I’m not the one he’s looking for, why are you so eager to prove it to your dad?”

“I’ve been in his bad books since I got kicked out of school. I think the fact that I went to such lengths to find you, and prove that his sources were wrong about you, would redeem me. But I’m not going to force you to go with me if you don’t want to. And I’m not going to turn you over to his men, either.”

She waits, thinking before she answers. “Miles, I will go with you to see your father if you go first with me to find my parents. I can’t find them without you.”

“Why? What do I have to do with it? Did I say that while I was fortune-telling?” I can’t help a note of bitterness from creeping into my words.

“No,” she says, and her mouth quirks up in a smile. “What would you say if I told you it was revealed to me by some hundred-year-old possum bones?”

“I’d say it sounds just like you. And that’s fine: I’m ready to accept anything you tell me, as long as you don’t do anything to me without my knowledge. And as long as you don’t steal my car.”

Her grin is huge until she reins it in, opting for a closed-lipped smile. She holds out her hand.

“And that would be my cue,” comes a voice from the truck. A woman with a mane of red curly hair steps out of the cab and walks toward us. “I’m Tallie,” she says.

“Miles,” I respond, and she takes the hand that Juneau’s just let go of and shakes it heartily.

“Enchanted,” she says, and turns to Juneau. “So you’re good?” she asks, and something passes between them that tells me they’ve done some major talking over the last few days. Juneau nods at her. “Thanks for everything,” she says.

Tallie hands Juneau her pack. “If you ever need me, you know where to find me,” she says. “Just make sure you keep it a secret.”

Juneau smiles. “Of course.”

They hug briefly, and Tallie heads back to the pickup and drives off into the night. Juneau and I stand there, neither knowing what to say.

“You look . . . different,” I say.

She looks down. “These are Tallie’s clothes. She forced me to wear them.”

“She forced you?”

“She hid my boy clothes and said I could either wear hers or go naked,” Juneau says, looking embarrassed.

It’s not like she’s wearing a dress. She just has on a pair of black jeans and a red V-neck shirt. But for once they actually fit. Juneau’s not ski

“You look nice,” I say.

She grins. “You don’t look bad yourself,” she says, and her eyes stray to the fire I was building, “but that’s the worst-looking campfire I’ve ever seen.” I laugh and the tension is broken. Juneau goes over to rearrange the kindling while the bird flies over to the tent and makes himself at home.

Something is nagging at the edge of my consciousness. It’s a good feeling, but I can’t quite place it. And then suddenly I do. It’s a feeling of being where I’m supposed to be. A feeling of knowing that I’m in the right place at the right time. With the right person.

I watch Juneau light the fire, and the flames shine through her hair. It looks so soft that I want to go touch it. Run my fingers through the short tufts, that for once seem like she’s done something to them besides ru

“Do you want something to eat?” I ask.

“No, Tallie and I ate in the truck,” she responds.

“So how did you find me? Messenger raven?” Though I’m joking, I realize that until this moment, I hadn’t questioned the fact that this girl found me in the middle of nowhere. Probably because she took it for granted—it just seemed natural to her that (1) I was in Salt Lake City waiting for her, and (2) she could locate a lone boy in the middle of the mountains.

“We’re going to need to talk about that, Miles,” she says, sitting down next to the fire and rifling through her pack. “I know you don’t believe anything I have to say about the Yara, Reading, Conjuring, and all that, but—”

I hold my hands up. “Listen, I think it’s better if we avoid that whole subject.”

She doesn’t look at me. Just puts her face in her hands and squeezes her temples. “Okay,” she says finally. “What do you want to talk about then?”

“You were limping. Did you get hurt?” I ask.

She nods. “Whit and his men found me at the gas station—the place I left your car, which I’m glad to see that you found.”

I nod. I’m not even ready to talk about her grand theft auto adventure.

She continues. “I had to run off. Stepped in a hole in the ground and hurt my ankle.”

“And how’d you find . . . what’s her name, Tallie?”

Juneau nods. “Tallie actually found me. She has a house in the mountains, and I stayed there for the last couple of days.”

“How about the search for your parents?” I ask. “Do you know what you want to do next?”

“Well, I have a clue. Something else you told me when I Read you—I mean . . . when you were my oracle.”

I let my breath out all at once and feel tired.

“What?” Juneau insists, and there’s a challenge in her narrowed eyes.

“Maybe it would be better if we just made a plan. Besides the ‘Readings,’ do you have any solid indications of where your people could be? I mean, for example, is there a place they could have gone if they needed to leave your village urgently? Not suggesting that they would leave you on purpose, or anything.”