by Amy Plum
“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.
Once again I see him through Nome’s eyes. “Checking him out,” she would say. He is handsome in a refined, pampered way, not earthy and rugged like Kenai. The lines of his face—his cheekbones, his chin, his aquiline nose—are as strong and defined as if they were carved from sculpting clay with a fettling knife.
He glances back and forth between me and the picture, comparing my face to those of my parents. And as his lake-green eyes flit over my features, something in me stirs. It feels like the tug in my chest that happened every time I stepped out of my yurt in the morning and witnessed the beauty of Mount Denali towering over our village. Even though I had grown up there and had seen the same view every day, I never failed to be overwhelmed by its splendor.
That’s it, I think. That’s the familiar tug inside me. Miles is beautiful. Without thinking, I raise my hand to my chest and press it with my palm like I did every morning, pushing the emotion back in so it wouldn’t spill out.
A leader must be strong. Must not let emotion affect action, I remind myself. I was soon to become clan Sage. I had responsibilities.
I have responsibilities. The realization startles me from my reverie. My goal is to find and save my people. I rise to my feet. I can’t allow myself to be sidetracked from the most important thing in my life.
The safety of my clan depends on my doing everything I can to find them. Not spending time chatting with a teenage boy who was kicked out of school for something even he admits was idiotic.
Miles takes my standing as a sign that the show-and-tell session is over and rises to his feet. He hands the photo back to me. “You look just like your mom,” he says.
“Thanks. Everyone says that we’d look like twins—if she hadn’t died when I was five,” I reply evenly, tucking the photo back into the book.
Miles hesitates, and then says, “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. I don’t actually remember her that well. My dad raised me with the help of the clan, and Whit’s been my mentor ever since Mom died.”
“So your dad must be what, in his fifties now? He looks pretty young here.” He points to the photo.
I laugh. “He’s fifty-eight. And he looks the same now as he did in the picture.”
“Except that he’s probably got gray hair and wrinkles,” Miles says.
“No. My dad’s one with the Yara. He hasn’t aged a day since this picture was taken,” I insist.
Miles narrows his eyes. “Yeah, right,” he says with a little twist of his lips. And just like that, his wall is back up and I can see that he hasn’t believed a word I have said. I’m supremely glad I stopped myself from going into more detail about the Yara. From trusting him with my beliefs.
“Are we going to have dinner tonight?” he asks, while it’s clear that his real question is, “When are you going to cook for me?”
“Not hungry,” I say, and then realize I’m famished. “If you want dinner, you cook. At least that’ll guarantee you won’t be forced to ingest lizard tonight.” I can’t help the frost in my voice.
He shakes his head sourly, as if he regrets having listened to me for the last half hour. Grumbling, he heads to the car to rifle through the groceries in the trunk.
It doesn’t matter if he thinks I’m lying. I know it’s true. Walking around in Seattle, seeing elderly and sick people, made me feel I had been living in a utopia in Alaska. After the Rite completes our union with the Yara, no one experiences aging. No one dies, unless it’s in an accident like my mother’s or the elder who was killed by the bear. Here in this outside world, everyone is disconnected from the Yara. They can become old, get sick, and die.
I wonder if our special relationship with the Yara has anything to do with the disappearance of my clan. If someone wants what we have. But how would they have even known about us? We’ve been in hiding for decades.
Whit, I think. Everything comes back to him. It’s still too hard to imagine that he engineered the capture of my clan. But maybe he talked about us when he was out in the world. Maybe he unwittingly betrayed us.
30
MILES
“SO TELL ME, WHAT’S THE LAST READING OR CONJURING or whatever that you successfully did?” I take a bite of the crispy potato that I, yes I, Miles Blackwell, cooked wrapped in aluminum foil in the campfire. In fact, I cooked tonight’s whole meal.
All right, so the first can of beef stew exploded. How was I supposed to know you can’t cook food in the can? Luckily, we had a few backups, so I opened them and heated them up in a pan.
“Why does it matter?” Juneau asks, blowing on the piece of steaming beef speared on her fork. “You won’t believe a word of it anyway.”
“True,” I respond, holding my spoon up for emphasis. “However, in debate team, I was often tapped to play devil’s advocate. So I don’t mind suspending disbelief if it’s going to, one, get you out of your lethal mood and, two, let us leave this creepy waterfront. It’s starting to remind me of the Jason-infested lake in Friday the 13th.” I glance over the fire to see Juneau’s familiar expression of incomprehension, and my heart falls. “Why do I even try with the cultural references?” I moan.
“I don’t know, why do you?” she snaps. And then says, “Reading Poe’s emotions in the car yesterday.”
“That was the last time you felt like you read?” I clarify, making an effort to keep up with her conversation hopping.
“Yes, although it took me a long time to connect,” she states. “I
’m used to it being immediate.”
“Then when was the last time it was immediate?” I ask.
“When I Read the fire at Mount Rainier.”
“Okay,” I say. “So what’s happened between then and now?”
She looks at me blankly and shakes her head.
I think. “How about Whit?” I ask. “When the bird didn’t come back to him, do you think he could have blocked you from connecting to the Yara?” I try my best not to let a sarcastic inflection creep into my words. If she thinks I’m making fun of her, she’ll clam right up and this conversation will be over. Along with my effort to soften her up so that we can leave.
She sets her bowl on the ground and shakes her head pensively. “That would be like blocking me from breathing the air around me. ‘No one can come between human beings and the Yara except the disbelief of humans themselves.’ That’s a direct quote from Whit,” I say.
I’m feeling sorry for her again. She really believes this crap. I have an overwhelming urge to hold her hand and tell her that it’s okay. That she’s been brainwashed, and the longer she’s away from the hippie cult the more normal she’ll get.
“Well then, maybe you’re blocking your own connection to the Yara,” I offer, feeling slightly proud of myself for making sense out of her cult gibberish. “Maybe now that you’re away from the influence of Whit and your dad, you’re beginning to doubt the things they taught you. Which would totally make sense, seeing that they lied about World War III and all.” I am only trying to draw logical conclusions from her completely illogical beliefs, but she looks like I just slapped her.
“Or maybe it’s not that at all,” I offer weakly. “Maybe the farther you get from your land, the less of a connection with the Yara you have?”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head in a how-could-you-possibly-know-anything-about-it gesture. “The Yara isn’t just in Alaska. It’s everywhere.”
She stands and, wrapping her arms around her waist, paces slowly back and forth beside the fire. “What you said about doubting,” she says finally. “That does make sense. It was after I found out that Whit was working with the people who abducted my clan that my Reading was affected. His blatant spying on me confirmed my suspicions of him… if I needed further confirmation.” She rubs her fingers distractedly across her forehead. “I guess I can pin it to that instant that I definitely lost all trust in him. And yes, I suppose I’m questioning what he taught me as well.”
“Did they have children’s books in your commune?” I ask. Juneau looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “I swear this is relevant,” I promise.
“Yes, we had a small collection of children’s books.”
“Did you have Peter Pan?” I ask.
She nods and furrows her brow, trying to guess what I’m getting at.
“What you’re saying is kind of like Wendy and her brothers flying with fairy dust. They had to believe it or they couldn’t fly.”
She nods pensively but still has that hurt look on her face. “You might be right,” she admits. She sighs loudly and turns to head for the woods. Looking back at me, she says, “Thanks for dinner. I’m going to go for a walk and think about things.” The bird sees her going and flaps over to land on her shoulder like a freaking trained monkey.
As for me, I sit watching the fire and think about how she seems like a really nice person. How I’m actually starting to like her. Why else would I have put off calling Dad whenever I’ve had access to a phone? Because, for once, I feel like I’m enjoying myself. Having fun.
It’s just sad how messed up Juneau was raised. Like a cult member. Totally brainwashed. Totally delusional. It almost makes me want to help her. If saving my own skin wasn’t of utmost importance, I would be tempted to try.
31
JUNEAU
I WALK INTO THE WOODS HOLDING POE ON MY arm, feeling as disoriented as if I had stepped through a door into an alternate universe. For the second time in a month. I’m losing my faith, so I’m losing my skills—that must be the answer. And if that happens, there’s no way I’m going to be able to save my clan, much less find them. But with all the lies I’ve been fed, how can I believe anything I’ve been taught? How do I separate truth from fiction?
Poe flies off and perches far above in a tree as I head straight for a clump of giant holly bushes, letting them scratch my arms as I pass. The pricks from their spines reassure me that I’m not sleepwalking.
I get to the water’s edge and begin circling the lake.
I need to figure out what, if anything, I have left. I pull my opal from under my shirt, loop it over my head, and press it to the ground. “Dad,” I say, and focus on Reading his emotions. A chorus of crickets launches into their night song on the far side of the lake, and a thick fog levitates inches above the water’s surface. I wait. Somewhere out in the lake, a fish jumps, splashing as it breaks the water’s surface. I wait. Nothing happens.
I loop the cord back over my head and tuck my opal under my shirt. Then, squatting, I place my bare hand against the moist, cold earth and try again. I get nothing. Not even the slightest tingle of connection.
The sky is pitch black and the temperature has dropped. I continue my walk around the lake, rubbing my hands up and down my arms to warm myself, but I resolve not to return to camp until I figure this out.
I ran through my entire repertoire of Reading skills today, and none worked except the simplest stone-throw Readings. In which I confirmed things that I already knew: like my parents were still far away and Whit was still trying to reach me.
If Miles’s off-the-cuff theory has any bit of truth to it, then it’s a vicious cycle—the more I disbelieve in the Yara, the less it will work. I can’t just pick and choose what to believe.
Yes, you can! I reassure myself. Surely not everything my clan told me was lies. I have seen the Yara work. I have manipulated it myself.
But I also know that much of what I was taught was lies.
I feel my belief flicker like a flame in wind. I know the Yara exists, I insist, and imagine myself cupping my hands around the flame to protect it.
I whistle toward the woods and click my tongue, and Poe flaps down from a nearby tree to stand next to me on the pebble beach. Crouching, I comb my fingers over his ebony feathers, formulate what I’m going to do in my mind, touch my opal, and try to connect to the Yara.
I believe, I think, and I try my hardest to push all doubts, all feelings of betrayal, as far from me as possible. Nothing happens. Not even a tingle.
I exhale deeply and imagine my tiny flame of faith expanding to the size of a forest fire, and after a second I feel the slightest of buzzes in my fingertips. Yes! I think excitedly, and try to center myself.
I look at Poe and then picture my father in my mind. Poe, can you find my father for me? I think. I imagine the desert setting and try to pass the image to Poe.
Poe stares at me and then shuffles away and starts pecking at some pebbles as if to say he couldn’t care less. Okay, I’ll try something easier then. I grasp my opal and place my hand on Poe once more, this time picturing Miles in my mind. Where is he? I think. Take me to Miles.
Poe cocks his head to one side, as if saying, You know as well as I do where Miles is. But he fluffs his wings and takes off, heading toward the camp. Adrenaline percolates through my veins, and I set off at a run, following Poe through the woods. When we get to the clearing, Poe circles the car once and then lands on the roof. He squawks and, his job complete, begins picking something from his wing with his beak.
Panting, I lean over and, looking into the car window, see that Miles has fallen asleep in the passenger’s seat with a book on his chest and the overhead light on. I ignore the fluttering in my chest as I peer in at him: his lips are slightly parted and his chest rises and falls with his shallow breaths.
I need to focus. My Conjuring worked. My powers are linked to my faith—that much is clear. And I am progressively losing my faith, not in the Yara, but in Whit and w
hat he taught me. I have to start at square one and test what I think is true. And until I can figure out for myself what I really believe, I will need to gather every last thread of faith I still have in order to continue using my gift.
But what if my problem is much worse? What if my doubt slams down like iron bars and locks me out of my powers for good? If there’s even the slightest chance of that happening, I have a lot to do before it does.
32
MILES
I AWAKE WHEN THE COOL AIR OF THE EVENING smacks me in the face. Juneau is offering me her arm. “You’re going to have a crick in your neck and be no good for driving if you sleep like that,” she says. She shuffles me out of the car and over to the tent, where I groggily lie down on my side.
Juneau leaves and then returns with a mug of steaming liquid. “I made some tea. This will help you sleep better.” It tastes like licorice and marshmallow, and I drain the whole thing before lying back down.
“I’m sorry if it seemed like I didn’t believe you,” I say sleepily. “It’s just a lot to hear all at once. But I definitely wasn’t making fun of you. I’m only trying to help.”
Her lips curl up on the edges and she looks almost embarrassed. “I know. I could tell,” she says, and takes my hand in hers.
The touch of our skin sets off a reaction in me. I am immediately awake… 100 percent present. And it feels like a whirlwind of thorns is whipping around in my chest, stinging me all over from the inside. That makes it sound painful. It isn’t. It’s the kind of itching sensation that makes you want to do something crazy. That spurs you forward to act on an idea you didn’t even know was in your head.
Or maybe I did know it, but have pushed it away because Juneau was my ticket to redemption with my dad and I didn’t want to mess that up. Now that she’s told me her story, I’m certain there’s been some kind of mix-up. No matter what Dad says, she’s no spy. Okay, she’s been raised to believe some pretty weird things, but that’s clearly not her fault. And for her to have gone through what she has, Juneau must be incredibly strong. And brave.