After the End

Holding Miles’s wound open with my left hand, I insert the knife tip into the hole alongside the bullet and follow it down. Miles lets out a tortured scream, convulses, and then falls unconscious. His movement has made the knife slice slightly to the side. I straighten it and then quickly dig down, wedging the blade tip under the bullet, and pull upward. Once it is partially through the skin, I pull it out the rest of the way with my fingertips. Blood begins to pour out of the hole.

I pull off my long-sleeved shirt, leaving only my tank top, wad it up to press against the wound, and roll him back and forth to pass a shirtsleeve underneath his torso. I tie it off and sit back to inspect my work.

The bullet’s out, but he’s lost a lot of blood. And although my knife was clean, I know he could get an infection, unlike me and my clan, who heal quickly and cleanly from the occasional accident. His skin has become ashen, and if he wasn’t breathing, I would think he was already dead.

My heart beats so hard I feel it pattering in my throat. What else can I do? And then it occurs to me. There is something I can do. Although I’ve never performed it alone, I know that I am able. I have a moment of hesitation: will it even work on someone who has not grown up with the Yara? Then I remember—Mother and Father didn’t grow up with the Yara, and it worked for them. Whit was going to sell it to the outside world, so he must at least think it will work on anyone. Besides, I have no other choice but to sit and let Miles die. One look at his bloody form and my decision is made.

I carefully empty my pack until all its contents are spread across the floor, making sure I have everything I need. I begin picking up stones and bunches of herbs and lay them out in lines. I take a packet of mixed plants and minerals and place it next to Miles’s head, along with the agate cup and the ceremonial blade.

I put a large moonstone in each of Miles’s hands. I arrange the candles in a halo around his head. And I begin the Rite.

I think of what I am doing and wonder how much of it is necessary and how much just for show. Until Miles’s dad began going on about the ingestion of medicine before we stopped aging, I hadn’t questioned the Rite. No one questioned the Rite. Only Whit and I knew how to do it, I having taken the place of my mother before me. He told me that it had to be performed by a woman, that he was just there for show, but I wonder now why he wasn’t able to do it himself.

And although I know now that most of what I’ve been taught is in effect a smokescreen for the drug, it makes me feel better to perform the preparations for the Rite as I always have. Unfortunately, in Miles’s case, I don’t have all the time in the world, like I usually do.

Working quickly, I strip off the rest of Miles’s clothes, and then, taking two gold nuggets, I bind them to the underside of each foot using strips of cotton cloth. I sing as I work, the song the children sing outside Whit’s yurt, where the body will lie during the death-sleep. I sing about death and rebirth. I sing of sleeping and awakening; the winter hibernation of the animals and the renewal of life in spring.

It’s not the singing, it’s the drug, I remind myself, but Miles deserves this treatment. Even if it’s needless ritual, it’s meant to symbolically tie the spirit of the person to the Yara. To join their life to nature. To give it more meaning than just living for themselves—after the Rite, they are so integrally entwined with nature that they live for everything and everyone on the planet. I want that for Miles. I think that he would want it himself, if he understood. Even if it’s all a sham, it means something to me.

I feel myself descending into the trancelike state I fall into when performing the Rite. My body doesn’t matter anymore. I move outside it, watching myself circle Miles three times, crumbling dried herbs above his body and letting them fall like dust to his skin. I join it again to pick up the cup and empty the packet of herbs and minerals into it.

“Miles,” I say, and shake him gently. “Miles, are you still here with me?”

He takes a shallow breath and says, “I think so.” He tries to open his eyes, blinks a few times, and then stops trying. At least he’s conscious again. I must work fast.

Taking the small, curved ceremonial knife, I cut the palm of my hand and let my blood drip onto the greenish powder, and then stir it with the knife’s spoon-shaped hilt.

“You have to swallow this,” I say, and scoop the blood mixture into his mouth. I pick up the canteen of water and pour it down his throat, washing the concoction down with it. He sputters and coughs, but keeps the powder and liquid down.

“Miles Blackwell, do you hear me?” I say.

“Yes,” Miles responds.

“Do you agree to become one with the Yara? To dedicate your life to the earth and the force that binds every living thing to one another?”

“Juneau,” breathes Miles. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Miles, do you agree to trade your life of eighty years for one of many hundred?”

Miles pries one eye open and lets it rest on me. He speaks, but his voice has no force behind it, and I have to lean down to hear him. “If I don’t, do I die?” he breathes.

I touch my hand to his chest, and though my body is numb and my spirit calm from the trance, I feel my eyes cloud with tears. “You might die anyway. But this is my best try,” I confess.

“Then I do, Juneau,” he says, and his voice is a mere whisper.

I position myself near his head. With my other hand I begin combing his wavy hair with my fingers as I wait for the mixture to take effect—for the death-sleep to come. Miles’s breaths become increasingly shallower until he breathes his last breath and becomes still. Tears flood my eyes as I lean over and kiss his still-warm lips. And then I go to sit in the open door of the shack.

I close my eyes as my spirit disco

The only thing you could do, I tell myself. I open my eyes and look out upon the landscape before me—the flat, barren wasteland with rolling red hills far in the distance.

Besides the desert animals, I am the only living, breathing thing for miles around. I sit in the doorway and wait.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

EB ARTICLE FOR EDITOR: “EVERY PUBLISHING house has manufacturing, marketing, and accounts departments, but the heart of the business lies in the editorial function.” Tara Weikum, you have been the heart of my five books. Not only having the vision to imbue them with coherency and life but providing the love needed to make my projects grow.

EB article for agent: “The relationship that exists when one person engages another to act for him—e.g., to do his work, to sell his goods, to manage his business.” Stacey Glick, you are an agent extraordinaire, finding the perfect home for Juneau and her clan.

I will now switch to the E(ncyclopedia) P(lum), since the rest of the clan’s EB collection seems to have been destroyed by brigands.

EP for beta reader: Claudia Depkin. Also known as she-who-has-more-patience-than-the-gods. (Not that they’re renowned for their patience, but you get the idea.) Thank you for having the very first look at everything once again, for asking the right questions, and for prodding me into action.

EP for copyeditors: Valerie Shea and Melinda Weigel. Thank you for correcting the SAME errors book after book, for making sense of my French-addled English, (“This is not a word.”), and for finding the inconsistencies that my ADD brain flings left and right on the page.