This is Not the End

by Chandler Baker

  I nod, but don’t know how I will be able to tell the difference between a coping mechanism and a crutch.

  Before she leaves, I want to ask her one thing: Will you still love me if I don’t resurrect Matt? But I can’t bring myself to say it out loud and the question becomes just one more thing to die between us.

  When I check the calendar I discover that, as I suspected, the next full moon isn’t until the eve of my birthday. I check the mail and my inbox and my phone and even ChatterJaw for signs of an invitation even though I know I need to put it out of my mind until the day before my birthday, but it’s hard to shake the sickening feeling that one may not arrive at all.

  I sink my head into my knees. There’s a week until the full moon. When I find the wishes, I’ll probably have only hours left before I have to make my final choice and turn in my application for resurrection. Hours and then minutes and then nothing. And I have to pray the pieces fall together—snick-snick-snick.

  But worry is sinking in, pulsing in rhythm with my heart. What if my mom and Ringo are right? What if I’m holding on too tightly? Worse—what if the wishes don’t say anything important after all?

  There are questions that have been nagging me, questions that maybe it’s time to start getting answered. I feel for Penny’s journal resting underneath the comforter and pull it out. Finding the wishes has always been about trying to uncover what my two best friends would have wanted. I need to make sure I have all the information I need before the clock runs out.

  I send two texts, make a plan, and then turn out the lights on the beginning of the end of my countdown: seven days to go.

  The sun is so strong and bright, shining directly into my eyes, that it throws the figure standing by the side of the road up ahead into total silhouette. Seashell gravel crunches under the tires as we edge off the asphalt and pull over in front of it.

  “That him?” Ringo says from the driver’s seat. I’ve taken to letting Ringo drive me anytime he’s around. It’s easier on me this way, especially now that I’m seeing him more often. A couple of days ago, I listened to stories about his mother, about how she used to serve ice cream for breakfast on Fridays and rent foreign films with subtitles nearly every Sunday night before the school week began, and I think I understand something about him just a little bit better.

  Then there are things that I will never understand, like how so soon after Will’s and Penny’s deaths Ringo and I could have managed to create our own inside joke, something stupid about percentages and honesty and the back of my jeans, but still it makes us laugh. It makes me laugh. And when I see him, it makes the beginning of this day just bearable enough to keep going.

  I squint. The light shifts behind a row of palm trees and then I can make out the broad-shouldered figure of Harrison Vines.

  “Yep,” I say, feeling like I’ve unwittingly entered the Twilight Zone. I roll down my window. “You ready?” I ask him. I’m surprised to realize that the surfer-boy-haircut-and-board-shorts look that I’ve been completely used to because of Will and all the other beach-bum guys at school looks a bit silly to me now—like a caricature—so at odds with Ringo’s style of coffeehouse cool. I look over Harrison’s shoulder to where his house, a one-story home with lawn chairs set up in the front yard, stands set back from the street. I expected his family to be wealthier. Wrong again, I guess.

  “It’s been a couple of years since I last saw my uncle,” he says, climbing into the backseat and sliding over to the middle.

  “No time like the present for a family reunion,” Ringo remarks, startling Harrison. Ringo twists back and extends a hand. “Ringo Littlefield, moral support,” he says by way of introduction.

  Harrison returns the handshake, but he freezes when he sees the dark stain on the top quadrant of Ringo’s face. Harrison looks down and licks his lips and takes Ringo’s hand without looking him in the eye. “Harrison,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” Then to me, “I didn’t tell my uncle we were bringing anyone else.”

  “Yeah, well, Ringo’s my friend, and I need a friend right now. So your uncle’s just going to have to understand. And so are you,” I add. The idea of leaving Ringo behind twists a knife in my gut. “Plus, Ringo has some personal experience with resurrections,” I explain.

  Harrison glances into the rearview, where Ringo’s forehead is partially reflected. “You don’t look resurrected,” he says. It’s not exactly a compliment. If Ringo had been resurrected, the lifeblood would have slipped through the cells, including those discolored on his face, most likely leaving the skin smooth and undamaged.

  “Thanks,” Ringo says with an edge to his voice. “And you don’t look like a horse’s ass, and yet…”

  I flinch. With me, Ringo has always been self-deprecating, the first to point out his physical differences and embrace them. This is a different side of him. I turn and glare at Harrison.

  Harrison squares his shoulders and pins them to his seat back. “Sorry, sorry,” he says. “I only meant…Look, I was just making an observation.”

  Ringo grunts. “It’s my mom,” he says. “The one who’s resurrected.”

  Harrison nods. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Well, this trip is off to a great start, I think, though I don’t regret my decision to bring Ringo along. An hour-long car ride alone with Harrison would be too weird even for this month.

  “Maya couldn’t come?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.

  Harrison shrugs, stretching out his long suntanned legs. “I don’t know, I didn’t ask her. Why?”

  “I—I don’t know—” I get an embarrassed flush in my cheeks. Will, Penny, and I always asked each other everywhere. It was an unwritten rule. Sure, sometimes Will would have soccer practice, or Penny would have family dinner, but the separations were always involuntary.

  “It’s fine,” he says. “I think she and her friend were working on programming some crowd-sourcing game she likes where you get rated on, like, the outfits you put together or something.” He leans his head back on the headrest. “Glad to get out of hearing any more about that, if you know what I mean.”

  I try to laugh but can’t help feeling that something about what Harrison says has caught me and needled its way under my skin, where it itches like a small, bothersome tick. Nerves, I think. I’m just letting my nerves get the best of me. Because the truth is that I’m unsettled by the idea of visiting the commune.

  And so we drive in relative silence. We hug the coastline. Signs of our beach town, with its pastel condos and tourist shops, fade, replaced by a shoreline that grows more rugged with each mile. Patches of European beachgrass sprout from between rocks, and the brown tendrils of wrack that collect near the road help to form dunes along the upper beach. On the side of the road opposite the vast stretch of ocean, acres of farmland unfold. We pass groups of chocolate-and-white cows munching in the fields and the occasional spotted pony.

  Harrison watches his phone for directions, finally telling Ringo to turn left at a rickety road sign that reads Zyle Lane. Ringo sits up straighter.

  On either side of the dirt road on which we’ve turned are bunches of sticks standing together like totems. We pass them every thirty seconds or so. I twist my hands around the door handle and lean forward to see farther over the dash.

  “Have you been here before?” I ask Harrison quietly.

  “Once,” he says. “I was a lot younger. The last time I saw him, my uncle came to visit us at home. It’s better that way, I promise.”

  The first person we come upon is a man, walking barefoot with his back to us in the grass and dressed all in white, linen pants and a tunic. His gray hair is pulled back into a wiry ponytail. We slow down as we pass by. The man doesn’t look over at the lone car pulling up beside him, and then we pass and he continues wandering along the roadside seemingly without noticing our intrusion at all.

  “There’s a general store. You’ll see it. That’s where we go first,” Harrison says. “It has the only phone in the wh
ole commune.”

  Up ahead there are groups of dwellings. Doublewide trailers have tented canopies extended off the side. Around them are a few freestanding wooden cabins with lopsided shingles. Men and women mill around outside, each wearing a matching tunic and pants. Everyone seems to be moving at dream speed, slow and unhurried. A girl pumps water from a hand well into a bucket on the ground.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to just, like, book a weekend at a day spa?” Ringo asks, sneaking glances as he drives at the odd assortment of people gathered outside.

  Harrison snorts. I crack a smile. “Did your mom join a commune?” Harrison asks.

  “Not unless you count the cult of Big Gulps and soap operas,” Ringo answers, then adds more thoughtfully, “But yeah, she did change. After, I mean.”

  “Look, there it is.” I point up ahead. A classic pickup truck is parked in the dead grass outside a large aluminum shed in front of which is a hand-painted sign that reads GENERAL STORE.

  We pull off and park near the pickup. The first thing I notice is how quiet it is. The three pairs of our shoes sound like draft horses clomping through the dry dirt. We walk in. There isn’t much “general” about the store. There’s one bookshelf and on it a few items from a first aid kit—gauze, scissors, medical tape. Near it, on the floor, is an ice chest. Somebody has written Please replace the scoop on the top.

  Harrison greets the white-clad man who is sitting on a stool reading a book with no title on the cover. “Hi, we’re looking for Coyote Blue,” he says.

  “Coyote Blue?” Ringo repeats too loudly, and I jab an elbow into his ribs to get him to shut up.

  The man’s teeth are bright against his dark skin. He has beautiful almond-shaped eyes and tight curls of black hair springing from the top of his head. “Coyote?” He says this like he’s just waking up. “Coyote,” he repeats. “Yes, one moment. I’ll send a messenger. He’s expecting you?”

  “Yes, he should be,” Harrison says. “We called yesterday.” He points to the lone cell phone sitting atop a counter, plugged into a generator.

  The man slides from the stool soundlessly, bows slightly, and then disappears out a back door. The three of us are left to stare at one another.

  “It used to be Darrell Vines,” says Harrison. “Commune members change their names as part of their rebirth.”

  “And the best he could come up with was Coyote Blue?” I say.

  “He’s changed too,” Harrison explains while I wander to the bookshelf and turn over the small pair of scissors and wonder what anyone would do out here if there were a real accident.

  Shortly after, we see the long shadow of someone who is crossing behind us, without hearing the person who casts it. We turn to see a man in the uniform of the commune, again without shoes on, which must explain some of the members’ ability to move without making so much as a whisper of noise.

  “Hello, Harrison.” Coyote’s tone is cool, but not unfriendly. The man is strikingly handsome—eyes as blue as glaciers, hair a blond spun from golden thread. It’s easy to see the resemblance between him and his nephew, but unlike Harrison, who feels bulky and grounded, Coyote seems to hold himself lightly on the earth, as if he’s not subject to the full force of gravity.

  Harrison hesitates, like he’s not sure whether to hug him or bow or back away slowly.

  I step forward, saving him. “Mr.…Blue. I’m Lake Devereaux and this is my friend Ringo.” Coyote’s eyes dash over Ringo’s countenance but don’t linger over the deep-red shading there. “Harrison arranged this for me.”

  Coyote’s smile has that looking-down-from-heaven air to it that feels both condescending and comforting at once. “Yes, he provided a few of the details.” Though his eyes passed over Ringo, they are boring into me, scanning me over and over and not in a creepy-hitting-on-me way, more like he’s searching for something. He stops, smiles again. “Should I show you around?” he asks.

  We traipse after him, a herd of noisy tourists.

  “Get many visitors around here?” Ringo quips.

  I notice that Coyote’s arms don’t swing at his sides when he walks. “Not usually,” he replies matter-of-factly.

  Coyote leads us through a wide de facto boulevard between the rows of houses. “We make all of our food here on the compound.” He points to raised planters where green plants sprout in the dirt. Each residence appears to have at least one. “We parse out what each family will grow and we share the produce.”

  “What about meat?” Ringo asks, trotting behind us after pausing to peer into a square planter that has baby pumpkins growing inside. “And dairy?”

  “There are no animals on the commune,” Coyote says, evoking a chill on the back of my neck, like an icy hand.

  “You mentioned families…?” I venture. I can’t imagine that there are many wholly resurrected families—not even many parent-child pairs. The likelihood would be too small.

  “Ah, yes, well, you’ll see,” he says. “This is my home.” He gestures to a trailer on our right. Large sheets are tied to wooden poles propped up to create a canopy on one side. “Come in and you can meet my daughter.”

  I raise my eyebrows at Harrison. Daughter? I mouth as Coyote squeaks open the screen door.

  Harrison shakes his head. “My cousins are alive. I don’t know.”

  I swallow hard. We scale a step stool into the trailer. It’s crowded with us all inside. The decor is a wash of tan and brown. “Starshine,” he calls into the back. “We have guests.”

  I take a seat on a faux-leather bench. There is a watery stew boiling on a hotplate nearby. My arm presses into the sticky skin of Ringo’s beside me.

  A girl materializes from somewhere in the belly of the trailer. She is younger than I am, I would guess no more than fourteen. She has fiery-red hair and a pale face oddly free of freckles, given her complexion. Starshine has the posture of a ballerina, but it’s obvious at once that she has none of the confidence or presence of one.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Harrison grip his knees more tightly. “Your daughter’s name is Kate,” he says to Coyote, stiffly.

  “Darrell’s daughter’s name was Kate,” says Coyote Blue. “Coyote’s daughter is Starshine.” He looks at her proudly as she stands pressed into the corner with her hands folded at her waist. I offer an awkward wave, not sure what to do. My brain has started to scream, Cult! Cult! Cult! Yet my heart has started to sense the peeling shell of a creepy old man. “Starshine died when she was only eleven.” He says this like it’s a good thing and it turns my spit sour. “The best I can tell, she was killed by her stepfather, who found her sometime after she had run away, though she doesn’t remember so it’s really all just hearsay. She was homeless, begging on corners. A pimp thought she had promise and had one of his girls use her resurrection choice on Starshine and she was brought back to life to become one of his working girls when the time was right.” He raises his eyebrows disapprovingly. “I noticed her on one of my trips in,” he says, referring to life outside the compound. “And I brought her here to be my daughter.”

  I feel Harrison flinch again.

  “But…why not live with your real family?” I try.

  Coyote’s lips form a straight line. “Starshine, would you get our guests some soup?” She obeys like she’s someone used to obeying. For a second, I think that he’s going to avoid my question. “There’s no place for me with my family anymore. I’ve died and been reborn. My family doesn’t grasp that. Besides, my first-life wife—Harrison’s aunt—had already fallen in love by the time that my daughter, Kate, used her resurrection choice on me.”

  Harrison jolts, nearly knocking a bowl of soup from Starshine’s fragile hands. “She never did anything with that guy. She waited for you. We all did. She waited for you so long that he married someone else after you were resurrected. And you didn’t even want our family.”

  Starshine hands Ringo and me small bowls of the soup along with a pair of dented metal spoons.

  Coyote narro
ws his eyes at Harrison. “I don’t expect you to be able to understand.” But as he says this he switches his stare to me and I feel guilty that I’ve made Harrison go through this for me.

  I take a sip of the scalding soup and jerk back. The mixture tastes like dirt.

  “Do you feel different?” I ask him.

  “Stronger, smarter, more pure,” he replies.

  “Do you remember dying?” I say. Starshine turns her shoulders away to stand over the hotplate and stir.

  “It was a long process, dying of pancreatic cancer, so yes, I remember every excruciating detail up until the last day of my life. Then it’s blank. I was a part of the Other for two full years before I was reborn.” Again, I detect a hint of pride and I wonder if, here, the amount of time spent dead carries with it some twisted badge of honor.

  The quiet presses in on me from all sides. Coyote is able to go as still as Matt. And there is nothing natural about Starshine, though I feel a pulse of sympathy for her. By Coyote’s account she had no place else to go. I wonder what her name was before all this. I wonder whether she had anyone to love her. Most of all, I wonder if she’d be better off dead.

  Unease creeps up my back, onto my neck, until it reaches my scalp. Ringo has been strangely quiet beside me, but he never wavers or stands to leave and for that at least I’m grateful.

  When the conversation dies, we all tumble out of the trailer, nearly on top of one another, so eager are we to escape the muted chambers of Coyote Blue with his dreamy, thousand-mile stare and his daughter who’s not a daughter and the muffled peacefulness that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. Once out, I look up to a blank slate of blue sky and feel it confining us, like a ceiling.

  We drop Harrison off at his house, I thank him, and he says something like, “What are friends for?” and I’m pretty sure that I’ve accidentally become friends with Harrison Vines and that I don’t even hate it.

  After that it’s just me and Ringo in the car. I relish the return to civilization, with the seagulls squawking overhead and the boom-crash of the ocean and the tourist shops with their sidewalk sales that draw in women with white shopping bags. We drive down Pineapple Avenue, through the heart of the town, past a statue of a sailor kissing a flapper girl.