After the End

by Plum, Amy

  I think of her face when she’s angry and can’t help but smile. I wouldn’t want to be my dad before a wrathful Juneau. If Portman and Redding are taking her to L.A., like I imagine they are, she’s going to be majorly pissed off. Her goal right now is New Mexico, and the longer Dad keeps her from it, the angrier she’s going to get.

  But my frown returns when I think of my father and how cutthroat he is when he wants something he can’t get. He’s got a whole corporation, money, and manpower behind him. And what does she have? Her earth magic. I start the car and buckle in. There’s going to be a major face-off in L.A., and I need to be there to stop it.

  As I pull out of my parking space, something black lands on my car and blocks my view through the windshield. I hit the brakes and see that it’s Poe, wings spread wide as he flaps to get my attention. I unbuckle and jump out of the car. “What the hell are you doing here?” I say, and then realize. “You led Whit here, didn’t you? You . . . you traitor!” The bird squawks and struts across my hood to look me in the eye.

  I know Poe was just an unwitting tool, but I still want to strangle his little feathered neck.

  “Why don’t you make yourself useful and go find Juneau?” I say. He leans his head to one side, as if considering my question. Then he squawks loudly and flies off to the north—the direction opposite of where Juneau’s being taken. I’m obviously not “close enough to the Yara” to use him as a messenger raven.

  I climb back into the car. How did I ever get involved in this mess? Oh yeah. Dad. Dad’s greed. And a girl who may or may not be holding the secret to a drug for immortality.

  I shake my head and try to find a radio station. Country and oldies are all I’m picking up. It’s going to be a long drive to L.A.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  56

  JUNEAU

  I FLUSH THE MAP DOWN THE PLANE’S TOILET after memorizing exactly where the circle is drawn. I wash the grit off my scratched hands and pat my bloody knees with a wet wad of toilet paper. And then I make my way out to my chair and strap myself in. Necktie is watching my every move. I trade him a scowl for his leer, and he picks up a magazine so he doesn’t have to look at me.

  And then we’re moving. Baldy comes back and takes the seat across from me, strapping himself in as we begin to taxi down the runway. I want to throw up. I have never left terra firma. Be strong, I urge myself. Don’t show any weakness. I cross my arms over my chest and close my eyes, like I’m settling in for a nap. Squinting with one eye, I see that the men are both engrossed in sports magazines and no longer watching me.

  I have been thinking about what I could do to stop the plane. Does a plane have spark plugs? I think. But the fear that I would do something that would kill us all keeps me from trying a Conjure with the engine.

  I turn to look out the window just as we are lifting off the ground at a slow incline. Parting with earth. Joining the sky. When I think of airplanes, I think of bombs being dropped from them. Missiles travel by air. Nuclear weapons are delivered by air. The mushroom clouds and green haze of radiation that have populated my nightmares since I was a little child explode like an apocalyptic Fourth of July before my eyes, and I can’t help but shudder.

  I dig my fingernails into my palms and try to calm myself. And suddenly we’re in the midst of the clouds, traveling through a fog. No visibility. Just when I think I see something flickering to one side of us and wonder if brigands could have hijacked an army plane, we burst through the cloud and are floating above a sea of soft cotton. And I remember that there was no World War III. That this airplane that I am in right now, this destination I am hurtling toward, are all a part of a functioning, modern world.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  57

  MILES

  IT’S A LONG SIX HOURS FROM SALT LAKE CITY TO Vegas. I’ve given up on the radio and already sang all the songs I knew with the window down. (Somehow my voice doesn’t sound as bad that way . . . not that I would dare sing a note if anyone was within hearing distance.) So the only thing I have to do, after finishing my third rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama” (complete with instrumental guitar noises), is think.

  And man, my brain is racing around, trying to make sense of what has happened to me over the last week. I try to remember everything that Juneau told me about her past, about Yara, and about her “earth magic,” as I’ve come to think of it. But it’s hard to recall most of it, mainly because I was so sure she was spouting crap that I was only half listening.

  They don’t grow old. They don’t get sick. The kids all have those star things in their eyes. They cut themselves off from the rest of the world three decades ago. They believe in this thing called the Yara, which allows for transfer of knowledge between anything in nature. And which also allows nature to be manipulated.

  And . . . there’s something her clan’s got that powerful people want bad enough to kidnap them and hunt down Juneau.

  Everything makes sense now. Juneau’s sullenness, her self-protectiveness, her weird reaction to anything modern . . . anything created in the last thirty years. It’s got to be hard for her, knowing that the people she always respected have lied to her for her whole life. And now she’s risking her own safety to find them.

  I think about what I would do if my father were in trouble: how far I would go to rescue him. I can’t really imagine it. But with a pang the size of Texas, I know in an instant that if she let me, I would do anything to save my mom. And that certainty helps me understand Juneau’s fierceness in her will to reach her goal. She’s tough. Determined. But she’s just one girl up against at least two powerful factions, including my dad and his multibillion-dollar corporation.

  Although I try to stop it, my mind insists on wandering back to the night I kissed her in the tent. I feel my pulse pick up as I remember the softness of her mouth, the surprise and then acknowledgment in her eyes, the weight of her body on mine. I’ve probably kissed a dozen girls. But none of them were like that kiss.

  Juneau is different. She makes me want to be a better person. My heart falls when I remember the look on her face when I told her the reasons I was kicked out of school. I want to be someone she respects. Admires. But in order for that to happen, I’m going to have to change. To become stronger. As strong as her.

  It’s 9:00 p.m. when I reach the WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS sign. The only stop I made was for gas and supplies. I used Dad’s Shell card to stock up on a square meal of Cokes, Rolos, pretzels, and chips, which was all they had at the service station. And when I tried to collect-call Dad, he didn’t pick up the phone. I push aside the heavy feeling in my gut. There’s nothing I can do from this far away at night.

  I drive down Miracle Mile past all the flashing lights and continue on until I’m out of town. My eyes are closing by themselves when I decide I can’t go farther. I pull the car well off the road and am so exhausted that I just lie down in the front seat, draping my coat over myself, and within seconds I am dreaming.

  Juneau is walking toward me through a snowy winter landscape, an ice-capped mountain behind her. She is wearing furs, and thick black hair hangs halfway down her back. A small box is nestled in the palms of her hands, and out of the open top, light pours out. Golden light, as if daylight were transformed into liquid. It spills in pools around her feet as she walks, but does not touch her. My heart skips around like a mad cricket in my chest. Juneau is no longer angry, defensive, bitter. She is beautiful and serene. She smiles as she nears me and stretches her hands forward as if offering me the box.

  The liquid sunlight spills onto my feet and burns me as it slowly travels upward—up my legs—and climbs, inching toward my torso. The burning becomes severe, and I cry out, but I’m paralyzed and can’t move. Now the
gold has spread across my chest and has seized me by the neck. I sputter, but I can’t inhale: it is strangling me.

  Juneau’s expression has shifted from serenity to compassion. “Miles,” she says, though her lips don’t move. “You are one with the Yara.”

  I am on fire. A golden statue alight, flames licking around me, melting the snow into puddles at my feet, heating Juneau’s face and reddening her nose and cheeks. She leans in closer until her lips are touching mine. And as she kisses me I disperse into a million tiny flames, sparks flying up into the cold winter air and diffusing once they hit the starry night sky.

  I open my eyes and glance at the dashboard clock. Three a.m. I lie there stunned by dream hangover and fatigue until I finally sit up and buckle myself in. I start the car and continue toward Los Angeles, spending the remaining four hours thinking about Juneau.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  58

  JUNEAU

  LANDING IS TEN TIMES SCARIER THAN TAKEOFF. The ground grows closer and closer and we are going so fast, I am sure as soon as we touch ground the impact will rip off the bottom of the plane. Instead, with a sort of pulling tension, we land smoothly and taxi around large loops of runway as we slow. Finally we stop near a long black car that looks like it could easily fit twenty people inside.

  Baldy slaps the handcuffs back on me, and I am shuffled quickly from the recycled air of the plane through the stifling hot oven of the runway and into the pine-scented frigid air inside the car. Although I spent most of the plane trip coming up with escape plans, my curiosity has gotten the best of me. Somehow, Miles’s dad knows something about my clan that I don’t. Or at least he thinks he does. And I’m determined to find out what he knows.

  So I don’t give the men any trouble this time and climb willingly into the car. We spend most of the next hour sitting stationary on the road, with hundreds of other cars, inching forward from time to time. Again, I think of Dennis and his mournful tone when he talked about pollution.

  At last we reach a downtown area, which has the same forest of glass buildings as the other cities, all perched next to the sea. The car stops outside the tallest of these mirrored buildings. Baldy acts like he is helping me out of the car but actually uses the gesture to get a firm grip on my upper arm as he leads me over the simmering-hot sidewalk through the front doors.

  I have seen these skyscrapers from the outside but, besides the Salt Lake City Library, which was small in comparison, have never been in one. I wasn’t even tempted to in Seattle. The giant glass plinths look more like tombstones than a space where people would work and live.

  We walk through an immense cavern of an entryway into the tiny mirrored space of an elevator. I feel my stomach drop to my toes as we shoot to the highest levels of the building, moving as quickly upward as we would be if we were free-falling downward.

  Lights flicker on a wall panel until the very last button, 73, lights up. A bell rings, and the doors open. My head swims, and although a man stands directly in front of us, waiting for us with hands clasped behind his back, all I can focus on is the window behind him. We are so high that the world is a tiny toyscape laid out in miniature as far as the eye can see. My legs refuse to hold me any longer. I sink down to the ground, my hands still cuffed behind me, and use every remaining bit of willpower not to throw up.

  “What have you done to her?” the man says, and strong arms lift me and carry me through a door into an office. “She tried to run,” Baldy says as he deposits me onto a white leather couch and unlocks the handcuffs. Necktie runs to a shelf lined with bottles and pours one into a glass. I lift it to my mouth. Water. Just water. But it tastes so good, and is the only natural thing in the room besides a large treelike plant near the window. Oh gods, the window, I think, and my stomach churns.

  “Leave us,” the man says, and Baldy and Necktie make a quick exit, pulling the door softly behind them like it’s made of spun sugar. The man scoots a chair close to the couch, and when our eyes meet, I see Miles in thirty years: still-thick but graying hair cut short and carefully combed, aquiline nose, and dark-green eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Why did you bring me here?” My throat is clenched so tightly, my words come out in a croak.

  “I brought you here because you have some information that I need,” he says simply. His expression is solicitous. He doesn’t look like what I expected—I thought I’d find a tyrant. Someone willing to use torture to get what he wants. But this is just a middle-aged man in a business suit.

  I glance around the room and see, to my horror, that there are no actual walls: We are surrounded by windows. The granite floor is strewn with intricately woven rugs, and tasteful furniture is positioned around the room to make it appear more like a living space than a place of business.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t be this high up,” I say, clutching my stomach.

  “Let me close the blinds,” he responds, and walking to a desk, picks up a little black box and clicks a few buttons on it. The windows automatically begin darkening, while the lights of the room become brighter until we are in an enclosed space and I can no longer see the frightening view outside.

  I close my eyes and try to slow my breathing. After a moment, I open them and see that he’s sat back down in the chair in front of me. “My name is Murray Blackwell,” he says, leaning forward, his hands clasped together. He stares at my starburst. A muscle under his eye twitches, and his jaw clenches and unclenches. “And your name is . . . ,” he prods.

  “I’m Juneau,” I say, and take another sip of the water. I have to decide how much I’m going to talk. His movements are graceful. But the more I watch him, the more I notice something in his eyes—something cold—that doesn’t match his body’s lithe gestures. He’s like a snake, smooth but poisonous.

  He is dangerous, I think. I can’t trust him, but I’ll tell him as much as I need to find out what he’s after.

  “Juneau . . . ,” he says like a question, and waits.

  “Yes?” I ask. My brows knit in confusion. I don’t recognize his body language. He could be speaking Swahili for all I understand.

  “Juneau what?” he asks.

  I stare at him.

  “Your last name,” he says finally.

  I exhale. “Oh! Newhaven,” I respond. Everyone in the clan knows one another’s last names, but we never use them except in ceremonies, and I’ve never actually had someone ask mine.

  “Juneau Newhaven, you are from . . . ,” he asks, and this time I respond automatically.

  “Denali, Alaska.”

  He nods, acknowledging the fact that I’m playing along with his Q&A.

  “Good, good,” he says. And then leaning farther forward, so his elbows are on his knees, he asks softly, “That means, I suppose, that you know a man by the name of Whittier Graves?”

  I gasp, not even trying to hide my surprise.

  “Yes, you do know him,” he says with a jolly smile, like we’re sharing a joke. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. I’ve been wanting to talk to him for the last few weeks, but it seems like he has disappeared. Along with the rest of your—what did he call it?—your clan.”

  Facts start pinballing around in my head. This man knows of Whit. He knows about our clan, and where we live. He knows enough about me to have me followed.

  Instead of launching my own questions, I wait quietly to hear what other details this man will give away.

  “Mr. Graves approached me about a drug he and some colleagues developed some time ago. He called it Amrit. Does that sound familiar to you?”

  I shake my head no.

  “I expressed interest in purchasing the formula for Amrit. Even offered to come to Alaska to visit your clan and see how his field study had gone. Mr. Graves refused, insisting on personally bringing me the data. We made an appointment to meet here a month ago.
Mr. Graves did not show. As you can imagine, that had me worried.”

  Mr. Blackwell leans back in his chair and crosses his arms across his chest with a pained expression, like it’s difficult for him to tell me this story. But from my study of human facial expressions and body language, I see anger behind his careful words.

  And he is watching me as carefully as I watch him: studying my face for any change of expression. Seeking any clues he can gather from my reactions. I relax my facial muscles and, leaning back in the armchair, do the same with the rest of my body. I already gave away the fact that I know Whit. I don’t want to accidentally give him anything else.

  “I sent some men to Alaska to try to find him. We had a clue of where he was. Traced the calls he made by GPS to a cave near Denali, where they found residue from a recent fire.”

  I can’t help it—my eyes widen, and I suck my breath in. This man tracked us down to our territory. He knew where we were.

  Mr. Blackwell raises an eyebrow—he’s curious. In my surprise at hearing him describe Whit’s cave, I gave something away. The edges of his lips move upward just a millimeter, but he readjusts his poker face and continues.

  “A tracker I hired followed a path from the cave to an abandoned village some miles away. Twenty or so yurts. Lots of dead dogs killed by gunshot. A few farm animals, chickens, goats, and pigs, wandering wild in the ruined encampment and the woods nearby.”

  He comes to a stop and waits for me to say something. I formulate my question carefully.

  “Why would you come after me—one of the clan children—if Whit . . . Mr. Graves is the one with the information you need?”