After the End

His motivation is as transparent as glass. He wants me to see what life will look like if I don’t “shape up.” That, unless I change, I will be doomed to become Steve, spending my days sorting envelopes and wallowing in self-importance from bossing around lowly mail-room staff.

There’s got to be another way to prove myself to Dad instead of being stuck here for the next nine months. Even a few more weeks in this hellhole and my brain will explode. Or I’ll kill Steve. I imagine wrapping his hair around his neck and pulling hard. Death by ponytail. It could happen.

5

JUNEAU

THE DOGS ARE HOWLING. I STUMBLE OUT OF OUR yurt and toward their sound. They are in Nome’s yurt, standing above a mass of fur and blood. Her huskies. They’ve been shot. I choke back tears: I knew these dogs as well as I know my own.

We have one rifle among the clan, and it is only used in the very rare occasion of a bear attack. Our few bullets are dispensed sparingly. But the casings scattered on the floor around me are not from our gun. Flying machines? Guns? These brigands are terrifyingly well-equipped.

I run out of Nome’s yurt and into Kenai’s. Empty. There is another heap of bloody fur behind that yurt, and at the mouth of the woods I see more dead huskies. But no people. I check all twenty yurts, saving Whit’s for last.

Our Sage’s fire is out, his hearth cold. I stand there, confused, until I remember that he left yesterday for his retreat. The cave on the far side of Denali where he goes a few times a year to “refresh his brain,” as he calls it. He has never taken me, but I know where it is. With all the exploring that Nome, Kenai, and I have done, there isn’t an inch of our territory that I haven’t seen.

My heart pinches as I think of my best friends and where they might be right now. What unknown danger are they, my father, and the rest of my clan facing? If they’re even still alive. I shake my head and refuse to allow that thought to fix itself in my mind.

I’ve got to get to Whit. Even though he didn’t foresee this attack, maybe he’ll know what happened. I take my big pack from my shelf in the back of Whit’s yurt. The one I use on our daylong lessons, when we travel into the woods to search for the plants and minerals used for the Rite.

Juneau, run! My father’s words shake me back into action, and I sweep bags of dried herbs, vials of plant extracts, powders, and precious stones off Whit’s shelves into my pack. I don’t know what he will need, so I take a bit of everything. I grab a stack of his treasured books off his desk and shove them in with the rest.

I whistle and the dogs come ru

I see the fire and am tempted to Read it. But I can’t ignore the words on the ground and choose to wait until I reach Whit. And although I know that the fire will burn itself out, I take the pail of melted snow water and throw it onto the embers.

I pick up the framed photograph of my parents that sits on my nightstand. It was taken the month before our clan’s emigration. A month before the war. My mother and father stand in front of their house in Seattle. Mother’s head rests on my father’s shoulder, and he has both arms around her.

In the picture she looks just like me. Long, straight black hair, courtesy of her Chinese mother, wide-set full-moon eyes and high cheekbones from her American dad. Dad said that if she hadn’t drowned when I was still a young child, we would look like twins now.

In this old photo, my father looks exactly the same as today, except for one difference: He is happier. More carefree. “The calm before the storm,” Father says when he refers to those days.

I slip the picture out of its frame and carefully slide it into my coat pocket. And before I leave the yurt, I bend down and brush out my father’s message, erasing everything but the letter “J.” If he comes back, he will know I have seen it.

I steer the dogs toward the woods. The moment we hit the trees, I hear the flying machine again. The chopping winglike noise coming from far away, barely audible but getting louder by the second. The brigands are returning, I realize with terror.

It takes great effort to push my fear aside. Stay calm, I think, and bring the huskies to a stop. I glance back at our camp and hesitate a second before leaping off the sled and ru

“Hike!” I yell, and we are off, streaking across the wooded path as fast as a hawk at hunt. And just in time. The noise is almost on top of us. Although I’m grateful for the thick tree cover, it prevents me from seeing what is flying overhead. All I get is a glimpse of metal shining through the branches.

We cover a distance that should have taken an hour in almost half the time. I don’t even have to tell the dogs how fast to go. They feel my fear and fly.

Whit’s cave is empty when we arrive. Not only is it empty, but from the cobwebs and the dank smell, it’s clear that there hasn’t been a fire here for months. I try to ignore the sharp sting of disappointment, the lump in my throat. Pulling the sled into the mouth of the cave to hide it from outside view, I stand trembling as the huskies clean themselves and scamper around.

I recall the mechanical chop chop chop of the flying machine’s wings, and it triggers a memory of reading an article in our school’s encyclopedia: Encyclopaedia Brita

But the specific memory about the flying machines stays out of reach. I gather a bunch of kindling from Whit’s stack and pile it in the middle of the cave floor, on a spot already black from a hundred former fires. I place only two logs on it. I won’t be staying here long enough to need a roaring fire for warmth.

Once the flames catch and the dogs drape themselves close to the fire, I empty my pack. Placing the books to one side, I fish through the bags and rocks and bundles of leaves until I find what I’m looking for—Whit’s firepowder—and pour some into my hand.

One of the first things Whit taught me was how to co

I settle myself on the floor in front of the blaze. Bowing my head, I exhale and try to relax. To let the panic and terror of the day fall away from me. I open my eyes and stare into the flames and feel my heart slow and my breath become shallow. I toss the powder onto the fire.

“Father.” My lips move. The word comes out. But I know it isn’t the sound that matters. It’s focusing on who he is that directs the elements. That communicates to the Yara my desire to see him.

As images of my father appear in my mind, I do as Whit has taught me—looking just above and to the right of the flames—and see something forming in the fire’s glowing aura. I’m inside a flying machine, members of my clan sitting all around with their hands attached behind their backs. My heart lurches as I see Nome sitting next to her mother, sobbing, but unable to wipe her tears. The view must be through my father’s eyes. Out the windows there are four other flying machines: two in front and one on either side.