Until the Beginning

by Amy Plum

  I crumple up the Pop-Tart package, glance over at Miles’s sleeping form, and press my foot to the gas pedal.

  14

  MILES

  I AWAKE TO THE SOUND OF FLOWING WATER AND the smell of grilled meat. My eyes scan the tree cover above me. Beyond the branches the stars are so bright they look fake—like I fell asleep in a planetarium. I brush back the blanket spread over me, lift my hand to rub the sleep from my eyes, and sit up to look around. And then it clicks: I’m moving. I’m no longer paralyzed!

  Juneau sits a few yards away, studying the atlas next to a fire over which a line of dead animals are strung on a spit. And this time, I don’t even care about the carnage. I’m so hungry I’d eat whatever it is raw. I test my legs, drawing them up to my chest and laugh from sheer joy when they actually work.

  Juneau glances over at me, and then does a double take. “You’re awake . . . and you’re moving!” she exclaims, and leaving the fire, jogs over to me. “Do you think you can stand?”

  “Only one way to find out,” I say, and taking her hand, let her haul me up to my feet.

  “After only two and a half days of death-sleep and you’re standing!” she says, and then as I slump back to the ground remarks, “make that were standing.”

  “My legs are on fire!” I gasp, rubbing my burning thighs.

  “That’s normal,” she says smiling as she expertly kneads my stinging calf muscles. “You’ve got poor circulation from not moving for so long. You’ll be fine in a few minutes. Hungry?”

  “I could eat a horse,” I say, and then glance cautiously at the mystery meat over the fire. “Um, I don’t mean that literally.”

  Juneau looks back at the spit and laughs. “They’re doves. Enough for both of us. Well, if you’re hungry, then your death-sleep is definitely over. Welcome back to the world of the living.”

  I look down and touch the bullet hole in my side. It’s already healed. All that’s left is an angry red scar. Juneau had abandoned her masseuse duties to tend the fire. “I sure am glad to be back. It’s thanks to you,” I say.

  She picks up the spit, turns it, and positions it back over the flames. “You wouldn’t have actually gotten shot in the first place if you hadn’t met me,” she remarks, avoiding my gaze.

  “That’s true,” I say, and she looks quickly up at me. “You’re a very dangerous person to be around, Juneau Newhaven. But do you see me running away?” I grin and wait for her to return my smile before changing the subject. I point to a brand-new crossbow lying on the ground next to the fire. “Did you just make that?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says proudly, and hands it to me so that I can admire it. “I started it while we were back in the Mojave. Finished it and strung it once we got here. These doves are its first kills.”

  I nod, trying to block out the word “kill” and the image it brings to mind of Juneau as a kind of teenage warrior.

  “Do you like it?” she asks.

  “It’s awesome,” I say, turning it over to inspect her handiwork: The wood is finely carved and a shard of mirror carefully inset in one side of the bow.

  “Good. Because it’s yours. Mine’s in the tent.”

  My jaw drops. “You made me a crossbow?” I ask.

  She smiles. “Yes. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to hunt for food. But since everyone we’ve come up against so far has been armed, I figure we might as well even the odds. Target practice starts tomorrow.”

  I still don’t know what to say. I hate weapons. I really do. But this seems different. Juneau made it herself. For me. I run my fingers across the surface of the wood. It’s perfectly smooth. “It’s beautiful,” I say.

  For the first time since I’ve known her, Juneau actually blushes. But before I can point out this historic moment, she grabs something from inside her pack and tosses it to me.

  “Got this for you, too. Picked it up at the gas station this morning.” She looks at my chest appreciatively and grins. “Not that I mind you walking around half naked. But I don’t want you to be cold.”

  I hold it up: a black Arizona Cardinals T-shirt. “I didn’t know you were a football fan!” I say, grinning, and throw it over my head.

  “I’ve never seen a football game,” she admits. “But it was the design with the smallest letters. There were no plain ones. I can’t imagine paying money to wear an advertisement for someone.”

  “It’s not that weird, once you’ve gotten used to it,” I say, wondering how long it’ll take Juneau to get used to the modern world . . . if she’ll ever take things like this for granted like I do. And, I have to admit, I sincerely hope she won’t.

  I push myself up once again, and this time succeed in standing. I pigeon-march in a circle past the truck, behind the tent, and back to the fire. Then I jump up and down a bit, and it feels so great to be able to move that I run a few laps around the clearing before flopping down next to Juneau.

  “I’m back from the grave,” I proclaim. Stretching my arms straight out in front of me, I groan, “It’s alive!”

  “And that would be a reference to . . . ,” Juneau asks, amused.

  “It’s what Dr. Frankenstein yells when his monster walks,” I say, dropping my arms in disappointment. “Haven’t you ever seen it?”

  She hands me one of the spits, and blows on her own, then picks a little piece of meat off with her fingers and pops it in her mouth. “We had the book. Mary Shelley. Read it but haven’t seen it. I’ve never been to a movie.” She frowns at me, like I should have known that.

  My hand stops halfway to my mouth. “You . . . have never seen a movie?” I don’t know why this throws me off. I knew she and her clan were off the grid out there in the tundra, but for some reason this strikes me as more extreme than her other deprivations. A life without movies? I can’t imagine it.

  “The elders talked about them,” she says. “They would sometimes tell us their stories around the feast fire. My favorite was when Nome’s dad would tell us Star Wars. He knows those films by heart.”

  “That would be episodes four, five, and six,” I say. “They did the prequels around fifteen years ago.” Juneau’s eyes light up. I shake my head. “Don’t get too excited. You’re not missing much. The originals are far better.”

  I pop a piece of dove into my mouth—Juneau’s cut the head and tail off so it looks like a miniature chicken, which is fine with me—and my stomach rumbles loudly as I chew. It’s been two days since I’ve eaten. “Oh my God, this is so good,” I say.

  Juneau smiles. “So you’re a movie expert?” she asks.

  “Now that you mention it,” I say, “I should have named that earlier as one of my skills. I’ve put in hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours watching movies. Besides video games, which is my hands-down forte, my film trivia knowledge is excellent, if I do say so myself. Go ahead ask me anything.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start,” Juneau says, and then changes her mind. “Wait. Best line from Star Wars. Not to prove that you’ve seen it. But to convince me of whether or not I should trust your taste.”

  “How would you know what the best line from Star Wars is?” I challenge.

  “Nome’s dad was constantly quoting them.”

  “That question’s too easy,” I counter. “I don’t even have to think about it. There’s one all-time jaw-dropper of a line in those films, and nothing else can top it.”

  “Let’s see if we agree. On the count of three, we both say it.” Juneau counts to three, and we both say in our deepest Darth Vader voices, “I am your father.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Juneau waves her dove around like a victory flag. “I knew there must be a reason I liked you!” she teases.

  I point at her with my spike. “Tell you what. As soon as we save your clan, we’re doing a movie marathon. All six Star Wars films in chronological order.”

  At the mention of her clan, Juneau loses her bubbliness, but not her smile. And cocking her head to one side, looks at me thoughtfully. “You got yourself a deal,�
� she says.

  Before the mood can drop any further, I change the subject. “So where are we?” I ask.

  “In New Mexico. I drove over eight hours while you slept. We’re about two hours south of Albuquerque, and according to the National Wildlife Refuge sign back there”—Juneau is all business now, pointing off into the distance—“we are camping in a bosque.” She pauses and, when I don’t say anything, she continues, “You want to know what a bosque is, don’t you?”

  “I figured you were going to tell me whether or not I asked, so go ahead,” I say, relishing her impatience.

  She holds her spiked bird up like a teacher’s pointer. “It’s an oasis-like ribbon of green vegetation, often canopied, that only exists near rivers, streams, or other water courses.”

  “What else did you memorize off the sign?” I ask.

  “That our particular bosque borders the Rio Grande, which ties for the fourth largest river in the United States,” she says, flourishing her dove.

  “So we’re camping out illegally again,” I say.

  She nods, unbothered, and takes another bite of meat. “It was the only place I saw to hide. For as far as you can see all around us it’s just treeless, dry land.”

  She leans back onto her elbows and peers at the moon, and I can tell from her expression that she’s calculated our location, the time, and God knows what else. I follow her gaze and see . . . an almost-full moon. That’s it. I need a crash course in just about everything that exists farther than a mile outside city limits.

  “The fact is,” she says, sticking her spike into the ground and reaching for the open atlas, “I’m not quite sure where to go next. We’re three hours from Roswell. And the spot that Whit marked on the map is a little bit northwest of it.” She puts her finger on the lower-right-hand section of the state.

  “Can’t you ask the Yara? Read, or whatever?” I ask, feeling awkward, like I’m speaking a language I haven’t yet learned.

  “Well, I have fire-Read it a few times, so I know what the place looks like. And I tried to Read the wind, but that . . .” She pauses. “Do you want me to explain how the Yara works?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” I say tentatively. “I mean, I’m going to be doing those kind of things, right?”

  Juneau bites her lip. “I think so. But probably not right away. I’m guessing it’s going to come with time—that it will arise in you gradually, now that you’ve chosen to be one with the Yara.”

  “So it’s not automatic?” I’m surprised by the pang of disappointment I feel. I guess I was looking forward to the superpower perks of my “condition.”

  Juneau clears her throat, and I can tell she’s deciding how to explain things, since she doesn’t seem too sure of herself. “If you had asked me two months ago if the Rite and being one with the Yara and hyper-long life were all one thing, I would have said yes. But now that I know that Whit was going to sell Amrit to the outside world as a ‘cure for aging,’ I’ve started to question the other ‘benefits’ I thought were connected to the Rite.

  “I’m wondering if being one with the Yara, and the capacity to Read, isn’t a completely separate thing,” she continues. “I mean, the children in our clan can Read, and they haven’t taken the elixir. Maybe it’s because we were raised to believe in Gaian principles—to be close to the Yara until the day we choose to be one with it—the day of our Rite.”

  “Or, it could be because you’ve already got Amrit flowing through your veins. You’re born with the starbursts in your eyes, and didn’t you say the children are better than the elders at Reading? Couldn’t it be from the Amrit your parents took, and not based on beliefs?”

  Juneau considers what I said, then shakes her head. “You saw what happened when I started doubting the Yara. I began to lose my gifts.”

  “So maybe it’s a mix of drugs and belief,” I say.

  Juneau crosses her arms. “I just don’t know.” She doesn’t look convinced. “What seems most likely to me is that you, having taken the Amrit, will now age at an imperceptible rate. You won’t ever get sick again. No illness . . . no disease. But that’s it. If you want to be one with the Yara—if you want to Read—then it will take a change of heart. A change of perception. A sensitivity toward the earth and the superorganism that we’re a part of.”

  As Juneau talks, my thoughts are spinning. I’m trying to remember everything she’s told me in the past, which isn’t easy since I thought she was talking utter crap up to a few days ago. I nod, and feel vaguely uncomfortable. It’s not nice to be the guinea pig. The one case that tests the variables in this life-and-death experiment. I’ve passed the lethal part of the test . . . now I have to find out what it means in real terms.

  It’s time to change the subject. “So how are you going to use the Yara to find your clan?” I ask.

  From the half smile on Juneau’s lips, I can tell she’s happy to leave the existential crisis behind. Picking the last piece of meat off her spike, she reaches over for a bottle of water, takes a sip, and hands it to me.

  “I can fire-Read to see where people are right now. Sometimes I see through the person’s eyes, and others it’s just an image taken from something outside them. I can Read the ground to know what people are feeling. Reading trees and rocks can help me know what the weather’s going to be like in the future or any important events that happened near them in the past. Water’s our best bet—it’s what Whit used to see if brigands were coming . . . I mean, people from the outside world. It isn’t focused on one person and their immediate surroundings.”

  “So we need water. Didn’t you say we’re near the Rio Grande?” I ask.

  “It’s just a couple minutes that way,” Juneau says, pointing into the trees. “But it’s dark now. I wouldn’t be able to see much. We’ll try that tomorrow morning.”

  “Is that the only option?” I ask.

  Juneau shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sure there are a lot of things I don’t know. Either intentionally or out of his own lack of knowledge, Whit’s kept me . . . kept all of us . . . in the dark about the limits of the Yara. Now that I’m sure he was mistaken about the totems, I wonder what else he was wrong about. What else he didn’t know. I’m just learning what I’m capable of. The possibilities could be endless . . .”

  I nod and take a swig from the bottle.

  “There is, of course, one option for Reading that I haven’t mentioned,” she says slowly. “An oracle.”

  I choke on my mouthful of water.

  “But I won’t ask you to do that again,” she adds quickly, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender.

  I feel the blood drain from my face. “Please don’t,” I squeak, and then hit myself on the chest to get the water out of my windpipe. When I can once again breathe, I reach over and put my hand on Juneau’s. “I’m sorry. I want to help. But I really, really don’t want to do that again. Spouting out prophecy while you’ve got me in a trance. I just . . . I can’t.”

  “I know,” she says, and pulls her hand away from mine. “That’s okay.”

  “Juneau—” I begin.

  She interrupts me. “I was wrong to do it like that the last time—without your consent. My manipulating you—”

  “Drugging me,” I interject.

  “Yes—drugging you—made it a traumatic experience instead of something that can be beautifully mystical. That was totally my fault.”

  “Well, thank you for the belated apology,” I say with a smile. “But I already forgave you.”

  “I know.” She stares at the fire.

  “But that doesn’t mean I want to do it again.”

  “I know,” she repeats, pushing her foot over to rest against mine.

  We sit in silence. The only sound is the rippling of nearby water and some very loud bugs chirping away in the dark.

  “Juneau,” I say finally.

  “Yes?”

  “Want to show me how to put bullets in my new rabbit killer?”

  Juneau laug
hs, and the heaviness lifts. “They’re called bolts,” she says. “And I think we can come up with a better name for your crossbow than that.”

  “What? Not Rabbit Killer?”

  “Lame,” Juneau says, grabbing her backpack and unzipping the top.

  “Bunny Slayer?” I offer.

  “Lamer,” she replies, hiding her grin as she pulls out a handful of sharp wooden pegs.

  “Well, what’s yours called?” I ask, taking a bolt from her and rolling it around in my fingers.

  “My last one was Windspeed. I’m not sure about this one, but I was thinking maybe Ravenflight.” She looks at me, gauging my reaction.

  “You’re naming your crossbow after Poe?” I’m incredulous.

  “What’s wrong with that?” she asks defensively.

  “Well, ‘deadly’ isn’t exactly the word that comes to mind when I think of that bird. ‘Bumbling,’ maybe. ‘Annoying,’ definitely.”

  Juneau’s jaw drops in feigned shock. “How dare you?” she says. “Poe is my noble messenger. My faithful companion. Besides, I think you’re jealous of him.”

  “How faithful can he be if he’s off playing house-raven with that mountain woman?” I ignore the jealous jab.

  “Poe is noble,” she insists. “And Ravenflight it is.”

  “Just to spite me,” I challenge.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. If we’re using avian nomenclature, I’m calling mine the Hoot of Hedwig.”

  Juneau is baffled. “What in the world is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s a reference that pretty much everyone would recognize.”

  “Besides me,” Juneau says slowly.

  “Exactly,” I respond. “Annoying, isn’t it?”

  “Not in the least,” she says, lifting her chin and glancing off into the night with an air of supreme disinterest. She sighs and, taking a bolt, fits it into a groove on the top of my crossbow.

  “Literary reference?” she asks, still concentrating on the weapon.