Afterland

by Masha Leyfer

“Don’t think about that,” Nathan placates me. “Yes, we could have died, but we didn’t. That’s what’s important.”

  “It doesn’t change the fact that....”

  “It’s okay Molly,” he says, squeezing my hand. I’ll be honest with you, I’m scared too. I’m still scared. But think of it this way: if we can survive this, we can survive anything.”

  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

  The next day, training resumes. Everyone tries to pretend that yesterday’s raid went fine. And for all intents and purposes, it did. We got the cameras in, nobody got hurt. But everybody is still a little shaken. More than a little shaken. Tension hangs in the air like chalk dust. Mike and I are both distracted during combat training. We pause for a break and I find that I can’t keep silent any longer.

  “You lied, didn’t you?” I hiss quietly.

  “What?” Mike says and the odd inflection in his voice tells me that I’m right.

  “Yes, you did. You made that story up. The story about the man. He wasn’t waiting for the CGB, he was waiting for us. He was waiting for you.”

  “That’s not important…”

  “No? He shot at us and risked capture to get our attention. I’d say this is pretty important.” Mike crosses his arms. “I can tell that you’re lying, Mike. Maybe you can hide it from Nathan, but you can’t from me.

  Mike doesn’t respond for a very long time. He puts his fingers through his belt buckles and bites the corner of his lip. Finally, he says quietly, “So what?”

  “So what?”

  “So, what difference does it make if there really is more to know?”

  “It was important enough for you to lie about it. It’s important enough for me to know.”

  “It’s important enough for me to keep it a secret,” Mike shoots back.

  “This doesn’t just affect you, Mike!” I shout. “Do you realize that? That man wasn’t just shooting at you! He was shooting at all of us. We are in your line of fire, Mike. We are the casualties of you and your secrets. Is that how you want it to be?”

  “Obviously not,” Mike spits out quietly. “Why do you think I keep things secret?”

  His voice is filled with simmering rage. This is the first time I’ve seen him angry, and any other time, it would have terrified me, but I am filled with enough blind anger of my own to match every spark that comes out of Mike’s eyes.

  “You think you’re helping us,” I say, dropping to voice to match Mike’s, “but you’re just setting traps that the rest of us can’t see. Sooner or later, somebody’s going to fall in and that will be on you.”

  After that, I keep silent and just look at Mike. I can tell that there are words fighting to get off of his tongue and if I have to battle them out of him, I will. I’ve spent too much of my life lying and being told lies and slowly, gradually, wasting my life away. I came here to change that. I will not let my only chance at a worthy life go down the drain because Mike has secrets to keep.

  “Molly-” Mike says at last, but I cut him off before he can finish.

  “No. Don’t ask me for forgiveness, don’t try to explain things to me. Unless you’re planning to tell me the truth, I’m leaving. Because you’re wasting my time.”

  “If I tell you everything, you’re bearing the responsibility of it with me.”

  “I know.”

  “And that’s make it harder for both of us.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  Mike looks like he almost believes me.

  “For Christ’s sake,” he says, and I know that I have won. “Have you ever heard of the Sternmenschen?”

  “No.”

  “Sternmenschen. The star people. That’s what it means in German. They’re a group. More of a cult. They promised their recruits a lot. ‘Murderers, killers, criminals’ wasn’t an accusation, it was a...a reference to them.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And what aren’t you telling me, Mike? I asked for the truth, not some school-kid recitation of facts!”

  “If you want to know so much, why don’t you figure it out yourself?”

  That man was looking for him. They promised their recruits a lot.I look Mike in the eyes and see guilt swirling around in his irises. It all clicks.

  “You joined them, didn’t you?” I say softly. Mike doesn’t answer but bites down on his lip so hard it starts bleeding.

  “Drawing blood doesn’t make the truth any better,” I say. Mike rubs his wrists.

  “Neither does saying it out loud.”

  “No, you’re right. So why did you bring this up? What does some guy shooting at us have to do with some cult you joined once?”

  “They want me to come back. They need me for...something.”

  Mike sits down and leans against a board. I sit down against another board and soften a little. I’ve been shouting at him for several minutes now and I can see how much it’s drained him. He has never shown this much vulnerability. Even sitting down when someone else is standing is highly out of character for him.

  “I’m right here, Mike,” I say gently.

  “I know,” he says, and then, “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to go back,”

  “No, you don't understand,” he says heavily. “I swore an oath. It..It was a stupid oath, but it’s easier now to just respond to the call."

  "So you intend to honor your promise?"

  "I have no choice."

  "You always have a choice."

  "Well. That's what we like to think, isn't it? But we have to take the consequences as well, and that makes our choices seem a lot more limited, doesn't it?"

  "I guess you're right," I say.

  After that, neither of us say anything for a long time. Mike presses himself harder against the practice board and I can tell by the way he breathes that he is more nervous than he has been in a long time.

  "I was fourteen," he pronounces carefully “My mother was dead, and we were alone. She wanted me to lead a movement that I barely understood. Can you blame me for running away?"

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh.”

  “I ran away too. From Hopetown.”

  “You didn’t run away. You ran to.”

  “And yet I still left something behind.”

  “I just want to stop running.”

  “I do too, Mike. “

  I really do want to stop running. I want to lead a life that I am happy with. I want all of us to have those kinds of lives. But we chose a different life. We chose a life that can’t be static. We dedicated ourselves to the fight, and now, we’re bonded to it forever.

  “I had a teacher, before the Blast, that used to be really fond of this quote. I don’t remember exactly how it goes, but it was something about that once you’ve taken the first step, you’ve guaranteed the last.”

  “Mhhm.”

  “And I always thought that it was a bit blunt, because no matter what, you will always have a last step. Taking the first step doesn’t cause the last step. And besides, you never know if the last step will be on the same path as the first step. But now, I think I know what she meant. We’re spelling our fates out for ourselves every day. Every decision we make translates into a moment in our future. This is my first step coming back to haunt me.”

  “If you had never taken that first step, you wouldn’t be in the place you are now.”

  “I don’t think that would be such a bad thing.”

  “I think it would. Things happen for a reason.”

  “Do they?” Mike sighs. “Do you believe in fate?”

  “Not really.”

  “I do. Scientifically speaking, you can predict what any given person will do at any moment. But I don’t think fate is a process of reason. It’s just a chaotic mass of chemicals swirling around inside our heads that we can’t escape. So when you say that everything happens for a reason, what reason do you mean?”

  “Oh...I don’t know. It just seems that everything has to follow
some logical progression.”

  “In an ideal world it would, but….” He sigh, and then adds, “Don’t train with me tomorrow. Or with Emily. Do your own thing. You still have to train, but you don’t need either of us to help you all the time.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “You’ve outgrown us,” he says, and perhaps that was a smile on his lips, but maybe it was only a grimace.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “We’re going to make it, okay? I promise. We’re going to make it.”

  CHAPTER 19

  I sharpen my knife in the clearing. It’s early in the morning and nobody is up yet. The sun is creeping over the horizon. I hear a tent unzip and turn around.

  “Oh. Emily. Hey.” I thought it would be Big Sal. Emily is usually one of the last ones up.

  “Good morning,” she says and nods at my knife. “Always keep your weapons sharp. Good.”

  Another tent unzips. This time, it is Big Sal.

  “Emily, you’re already up? Up and ready to be a productive member of society?” she says in mock surprise.

  “I wake up half an hour later than you, don’t patronize me,” Emily raises her eyebrows in good nature.

  “But you don’t start being productive until maybe….oh wait.” Emily throws a stick. Big Sal dodges it with surprising dexterity.

  “Since both of you are up, you can both be productive. Molly, start a fire, Emily, go collect the eggs. Take all the ones that are there and don’t miss any.”

  “All right, sure,”

  We begin to exact Big Sal’s instructions while she pulls out the large pan from the storage tent. The noise of Emily harassing the chickens wakes the rest of the Rebellion and then slowly begin to crawl out of their tents, drawn to the smell of fresh food.

  “Breakfast’s ready! Get in line!” Big Sal shouts in several minutes. Everybody scrambles towards the giant pan, waiting for their share of breakfast. I am always amazed at how evenly Big Sal distributes the food.

  “Hey, Molly, you planning on doing anything today?” It’s Kristina’s voice.

  “Not really. I’m supposed to be training. Why?” I say, turning around to answer.

  “Me and Desmond are going hunting later today, wanna come?”

  “Oh, sure. I’ve never hunted before, though, so if you’re hoping for a good haul or anything-”

  “Technically, yes, we are, but that’s why Desmond’s coming. I’m just doing it for sport.”

  “Then sure, I’d love too.”

  After breakfast, Desmond, Kristina and I head out into the woods and begin searching for animal tracks. We don’t converse; that would scare the animals off. The damp ground is crisscrossed with animal footprints; the hard part is figuring out which ones are recent and which ones are worth following. Desmond seems to know what he’s doing, however. He points to a set of tracks made by four round feet—deer tracks. We begin to follow them. Our footprints and our sounds mix with those of the forest.

  We follow the tracks down a hill then lose them at a river.

  “Let’s just keep going forward,” I say. “Where else could it have gone?”

  We take off our boots and cross the stream. The water is cold and fast and rushes over my toes. The riverbed is littered with slippery rocks and the three of us cross carefully, lest we trip and submerge into the water.

  On the other side, sure enough, we rediscover the tracks and continue following them. For another half hour we walk on without saying or seeing anything and I wonder how far the deer could have gone and how far the woods extend. I’ve never been this far out, simply because I had no cause to. I look around. It seems to me that the trees are taller and denser here and the sounds are quieter. But that might just be my imagination. The wind seems more at home in the branches and we seem more out of place. It becomes increasingly clear that these woods aren’t ours.

  Somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter. Out here, the woods don’t belong to anybody. We are guests here as much as an animal who has spent its entire life in the same tree. The Earth belongs to itself. I find myself so certain of that fact and I feel comfort with it for some reason. I suppose it proves that we can’t destroy things as much as I thought we could. We’re hurting ourselves, yes, but the Earth will always come back. The Earth is so much bigger and so much greater than anything that we can create.

  I think that in order to understand what something means, we must first understand that we can never fully understand it.

  Desmond holds out his hand. Emily and I stop. He points to the ground. The tracks look a little different, more bunched up. I’m not sure what it means, but Emily nods. Desmond presses his fingers to his lips and pulls out his crossbow. Emily and I pull out ours and we begin to step forward. With his free hand, Desmond pushes aside a bush, revealing a small clearing. He nods towards the center and moves aside so that Emily and I can see. I look in.

  It is a small glade dotted with white flowers. The deer whose tracks we’ve been following is there, along with two fauns. The adult doe, whom I assume is the mother, is sitting in the center while two fauns skip unsteadily but enthusiastically around her. They must be really young, only several weeks old.

  Desmond lets the bush fall back into place and gestures for us to follow him. We walk around the glade and enter it from the opposite side. It takes a moment for the doe to notice us. When she does, she stands and appraises us. Seeing their mother standing still, the fauns stop running as well and stand, smaller copies of their mother. Desmond raises his crossbow. I think that the motion would startle her, but she doesn’t move. Have we come so deep into the woods that the animals don’t fear humans? Maybe they think that we are just another sight that the wind brought in and that we will disappear just as quickly and just as meaninglessly as a mirage.

  Desmond puts his fingers on the trigger but he doesn’t push it. The doe continues studying us. I look into her eyes. They hold more curiosity than anything else. They swirl with a type of quiet, determined calm. I realize that the doe doesn’t know that she might die. She must not know that we have the power to kill her at all.

  We continue looking at her and she at us.

  There are no sounds in the woods.

  We stand there for what must be at least five minutes. It might be longer. The entire time, none of us move. Desmond holds his finger on the trigger. Emily and I grip our crossbows. Finally, the doe turns around and walks away. The fawns follow. Desmond keeps the crossbow up but he still doesn’t pull the trigger. Before she disappears from sight, the doe turns around and looks at us one last time. Her gaze is filled with so much calm and so much certainty that it stuns us all into complete paralysis. We remain standing for several minutes more after the family of deer leaves. Finally, Desmond puts down his crossbow.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

  Smaller Sally catches me by the hand after dinner.

  “Molly,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “Come here. We must discuss.”

  “What? Where? What must we discuss?”

  “Shh. Come here, I’ll explain everything in a second.”

  “Um...Okay.” I let her pull me out by the sleeve all the way up to the Field of the Fallen.

  “All right. Sorry ‘bout that, I didn’t want to talk about it at camp.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “Right, right. So. You are aware about Mike’s dilemma.”

  “Yes, technically, yes,” I say leaning in. “I don’t know the details, only that he’s in some kind of crap because he made a promise to the Sternmenschen.”

  “Yes. His Sternmann pals need something from him. He’s not sure what exactly, but it must be pretty important since they went to such lengths to contact him.”

  “Right. He said he wanted to honor the promise...to help them?”

  “Pretty much. The Sternmenschen are a strange group. I don’t really understand their rules and whatnot, but that’s basically
it. Anyway, the point is tomorrow Mike’s going to go on a raid.” She puts her fingers out in air quotes around the word raid.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “He’s not actually going on a raid,” she clarifies.

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “The point is, he’s going to deal with this thing, whatever it is, that they want from him. He’s at least going to find out what it is they want from him and if it’s something short, then he might do it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t want him doing it alone, but I also don’t want to spread the information that he joined the Sternmenschen. But you already know and the more the merrier.”

  “Oh,” I say. “You want me to come with you guys.”

  “Yes. Will you do it?”

  “Oh, of course. How could I not?”

  “Good. Thank you, Molly. That really means a lot.”

  “No problem. And Mike is okay with the two of us coming along? I would think that he wouldn’t want anybody trailing him.”

  Smaller Sally laughs.

  “You would be right. He actually explicitly told me not to follow him.” She rolls her eyes. “As if. Who does he think he is? But yes, we’ll be carefully following him at a far enough distance so that he doesn’t know that we’re there but close enough so that if anything happens, we’ll be there.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

  “What do you say? You up for it?”

  I grin. “Stalking people. My favorite.”

  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

  The next day, Mike leaves in the morning right before everyone disperses to training Everyone says farewell and Smaller Sally kisses him goodbye, but I can see her wink subtly at me. Mike says that he won’t be gone long, only to check out the political activities of a nearby town and stop for supplies.

  “Bring beer!” Rebekah shouts in response to that.

  “Alright, I will,” Mike says. “Your alcoholic addictions must be fed.”

  “Our alcoholic addictions,” Hannah corrects him. “Don’t pretend you don’t like beer.”

  “Fair enough,” Mike admits. “All right, I’m going to go now, before the lot of you start judging me for liking beer.”