After the End
Page 28
“So you’re my friend?” she says skeptically.
Oh, crap. What have I done? I shrug and look out at the water. “Well, I wouldn’t say best buds, exactly, but I don’t hate your guts. At least not at this precise moment.”
She almost cracks a smile, and there my heart goes again, turning a flip in my chest. No, Miles. Do not go there, I urge myself.
She’s talking. “Tell me something about you. It doesn’t have to be important.”
I lean over and pick up a stone from the ground beside the boulder. I roll it around in my fingers, feeling its smoothness, watching the colors change in its quartz-like interior as I turn it back and forth in the blue air of twilight. And then I throw it as far as I can into the water and wait for the plop before turning to her and saying, “I got kicked out of high school with just a couple months left until graduation.”
“For what?” she asks.
“Cheating on a test,” I say, “among other things.”
“What other things?”
“Bringing alcohol and pot to school.”
“Pot?”
“Drugs.”
“Oh.” She hesitates and then asks, “So why’d you cheat? Didn’t you study?”
“That’s the thing. I didn’t need to cheat. I had studied—I knew all the answers. I don’t know why I did it.” I try to remember and can’t. It was unimportant. Trivial. I’d done it a million times. “Probably just to see if I could get away with it. For the thrill.”
“And you think I’m weird?” she says. I shrug and pick up another stone.
Juneau rubs her hand over her spiky hair again. Then she exhales deeply, and her body looks like a balloon deflating. “I guess it doesn’t matter what I say, because you’re not going to believe it anyway.” She shuffles her body around so that she’s facing me. “In 1984, at the outset of World War III, my parents and some friends of theirs escaped from America to settle in the Alaskan wilderness.”
“There was no World War III,” I interject.
She gives me a frustrated look. “Are you going to listen or what?”
I lean back on my elbows and listen.
29
JUNEAU
WHEN I FINISH, MILES SITS THERE STUNNED, HIS mouth hanging half-open and his eyebrows frozen in the up position. Finally he remembers how to talk. “And now?” he asks.
“And now something’s happening to my skills. Since yesterday, I can barely Read. I certainly can’t Conjure. I can’t even get anything from Poe, and we’ve already had a connection.”
“Can I see some of this stuff you use?” he asks, and it strikes me that while I was speaking he dropped his sarcastic, incredulous manner and is actually being sincere. He might not believe what I say is true, but he believes I’m telling him what I think is true. I don’t have to Read him to know that.
Whit taught me to read body language—to be perceptive about the way people unconsciously show their feelings and thoughts through gestures and facial expressions. For the first time, Miles has let down his guard. He’s taken the first step to trusting me.
So I reciprocate. I show him my pack. He watches as I pull out the firepowder, the stones, the herbs and animal furs and bones, and asks me what each one is used for. It’s strange—I have the feeling that in showing him, I’m betraying my people . . . disclosing their secrets. Just in case, I keep my explanations intentionally vague.
And I don’t pull out the precious stones and gold nuggets. Whit specifically ordered that those always be hidden from outsiders. Though Whit is a traitor, his advice is sound. Frankie warned me not to trust Miles. All I need is City Boy to take off with the car, my money, and my gold, and I am well and truly stranded. I watch as he inspects a pouch of pounded hawthorn root, smelling it and wrinkling his nose.
“You’re carrying quite a lot of . . . stuff with you,” Miles says finally.
“I know,” I say. “Whit has a different use for all of these. I don’t really need most of them. I use my opal for almost everything except fire-Reading. But when Whit’s around, I use them just to make him happy.”
“Why would that make him happy?” Miles asks.
I squirm, not comfortable about what I’m going to say. “I Read better than Whit. He’s already taught me everything he can about Reading, and I’m picking up the Conjuring on my own. He’s the one who discovered the human connection with the Yara and has worked hard to find the different ways to connect for different reasons. I’m starting to feel like maybe he’s wrong, and that all these totems just complicate things, but I wouldn’t ever dare tell him that.” I fiddle with the rabbit feet and brush the soft amulet against my cheek.
“Whit is the one who came up with all this?” he asks.
“Yes, although a lot of what he found he says he gathered from traditions all over the world, especially eastern—like Buddhism and Hinduism. That was apparently all the rage in America back in the sixties. I read about Catholics using rosaries or icons to focus and Buddhists using prayer beads or mandalas or candles. I think these objects”—I gesture to the pile of stuff—“serve the same purpose for Whit. But I’ve begun to suspect that the objects themselves aren’t important. It seems more like the intent behind their use, the will of the user, makes the difference.”
“Then why do you still use the firepowder and your opal?” Miles asks.
“Just because I have my theory doesn’t mean I trust it to work,” I say. “Those are only things I’ve been thinking about. But my connection to the Yara seems to be getting weaker and weaker. I wouldn’t dare try to change the rules now.” I realize that I’ve been petting my opal comfortingly as I have been talking, and press it against my chest to reassure myself that it is still there, my link to the collective unconscious of the superorganism. The Yara.
I feel the need to change the subject and, reaching back into the pack, pull out the Gaia Movement book. Flipping to the back, I pull out the photo I’ve carried with me all the way from Denali. “These are my parents,” I say, handing it to him.
“Old picture?” he asks, peering at it.
“Before I was born,” I confirm.
As he studies it, I notice something different about him. There’s a softness that I haven’t seen before. And I realize it’s because he’s let his guard down. He actually looks kind.
Oh, crap. What have I done? I shrug and look out at the water. “Well, I wouldn’t say best buds, exactly, but I don’t hate your guts. At least not at this precise moment.”
She almost cracks a smile, and there my heart goes again, turning a flip in my chest. No, Miles. Do not go there, I urge myself.
She’s talking. “Tell me something about you. It doesn’t have to be important.”
I lean over and pick up a stone from the ground beside the boulder. I roll it around in my fingers, feeling its smoothness, watching the colors change in its quartz-like interior as I turn it back and forth in the blue air of twilight. And then I throw it as far as I can into the water and wait for the plop before turning to her and saying, “I got kicked out of high school with just a couple months left until graduation.”
“For what?” she asks.
“Cheating on a test,” I say, “among other things.”
“What other things?”
“Bringing alcohol and pot to school.”
“Pot?”
“Drugs.”
“Oh.” She hesitates and then asks, “So why’d you cheat? Didn’t you study?”
“That’s the thing. I didn’t need to cheat. I had studied—I knew all the answers. I don’t know why I did it.” I try to remember and can’t. It was unimportant. Trivial. I’d done it a million times. “Probably just to see if I could get away with it. For the thrill.”
“And you think I’m weird?” she says. I shrug and pick up another stone.
Juneau rubs her hand over her spiky hair again. Then she exhales deeply, and her body looks like a balloon deflating. “I guess it doesn’t matter what I say, because you’re not going to believe it anyway.” She shuffles her body around so that she’s facing me. “In 1984, at the outset of World War III, my parents and some friends of theirs escaped from America to settle in the Alaskan wilderness.”
“There was no World War III,” I interject.
She gives me a frustrated look. “Are you going to listen or what?”
I lean back on my elbows and listen.
29
JUNEAU
WHEN I FINISH, MILES SITS THERE STUNNED, HIS mouth hanging half-open and his eyebrows frozen in the up position. Finally he remembers how to talk. “And now?” he asks.
“And now something’s happening to my skills. Since yesterday, I can barely Read. I certainly can’t Conjure. I can’t even get anything from Poe, and we’ve already had a connection.”
“Can I see some of this stuff you use?” he asks, and it strikes me that while I was speaking he dropped his sarcastic, incredulous manner and is actually being sincere. He might not believe what I say is true, but he believes I’m telling him what I think is true. I don’t have to Read him to know that.
Whit taught me to read body language—to be perceptive about the way people unconsciously show their feelings and thoughts through gestures and facial expressions. For the first time, Miles has let down his guard. He’s taken the first step to trusting me.
So I reciprocate. I show him my pack. He watches as I pull out the firepowder, the stones, the herbs and animal furs and bones, and asks me what each one is used for. It’s strange—I have the feeling that in showing him, I’m betraying my people . . . disclosing their secrets. Just in case, I keep my explanations intentionally vague.
And I don’t pull out the precious stones and gold nuggets. Whit specifically ordered that those always be hidden from outsiders. Though Whit is a traitor, his advice is sound. Frankie warned me not to trust Miles. All I need is City Boy to take off with the car, my money, and my gold, and I am well and truly stranded. I watch as he inspects a pouch of pounded hawthorn root, smelling it and wrinkling his nose.
“You’re carrying quite a lot of . . . stuff with you,” Miles says finally.
“I know,” I say. “Whit has a different use for all of these. I don’t really need most of them. I use my opal for almost everything except fire-Reading. But when Whit’s around, I use them just to make him happy.”
“Why would that make him happy?” Miles asks.
I squirm, not comfortable about what I’m going to say. “I Read better than Whit. He’s already taught me everything he can about Reading, and I’m picking up the Conjuring on my own. He’s the one who discovered the human connection with the Yara and has worked hard to find the different ways to connect for different reasons. I’m starting to feel like maybe he’s wrong, and that all these totems just complicate things, but I wouldn’t ever dare tell him that.” I fiddle with the rabbit feet and brush the soft amulet against my cheek.
“Whit is the one who came up with all this?” he asks.
“Yes, although a lot of what he found he says he gathered from traditions all over the world, especially eastern—like Buddhism and Hinduism. That was apparently all the rage in America back in the sixties. I read about Catholics using rosaries or icons to focus and Buddhists using prayer beads or mandalas or candles. I think these objects”—I gesture to the pile of stuff—“serve the same purpose for Whit. But I’ve begun to suspect that the objects themselves aren’t important. It seems more like the intent behind their use, the will of the user, makes the difference.”
“Then why do you still use the firepowder and your opal?” Miles asks.
“Just because I have my theory doesn’t mean I trust it to work,” I say. “Those are only things I’ve been thinking about. But my connection to the Yara seems to be getting weaker and weaker. I wouldn’t dare try to change the rules now.” I realize that I’ve been petting my opal comfortingly as I have been talking, and press it against my chest to reassure myself that it is still there, my link to the collective unconscious of the superorganism. The Yara.
I feel the need to change the subject and, reaching back into the pack, pull out the Gaia Movement book. Flipping to the back, I pull out the photo I’ve carried with me all the way from Denali. “These are my parents,” I say, handing it to him.
“Old picture?” he asks, peering at it.
“Before I was born,” I confirm.
As he studies it, I notice something different about him. There’s a softness that I haven’t seen before. And I realize it’s because he’s let his guard down. He actually looks kind.
