After the End

35 JUNEAU

TWO HOURS SOUTHWEST. NOW TWO HOURS southeast. A pretty big detour just to throw Whit off our trail. But I need him to think that I’m mis-Reading. That I don’t know where my clan is. Of course, there’s the chance he knows exactly what I’m doing.

I hesitated before sending the note with Poe. But even without it, Whit would still see me releasing Poe through the bird’s memory. See Miles and me getting back into the car. He would know I released Poe on purpose: he would already be suspicious. So the note only served the purpose of making me feel better. I can’t help a satisfied smile from possessing my face. The feelings of anger and betrayal are still on a low simmer inside me, but the fear has evaporated. It’s me against Whit, and I am ready to fight.

I glance at Miles, and though it’s against my better judgment, I feel the overwhelming temptation to reach over and put my hand on his. Not out of anything romantic, I tell myself, just for reassurance. After what happened last night, I don’t want to give him any ideas. I can’t get close to him. I won’t be distracted from my quest. He is only here to help me get to my destination, I insist, but my gaze strays back to his hand.

My face blazes as I remember our grappling match in the tent, and I suddenly realize that the boy who kissed me is sitting just a couple of feet away, watching me and… waiting for an answer. “I’m sorry, what?” I stammer.

“So next stop is Idaho?” he asks.

“I think so,” I say.

Miles is silent for a moment and then says, carefully, “You’re asking me to drive more than two hundred miles east and you’re not sure?” He avoids looking at me. Stares straight ahead at the road.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he says slowly. “Was it fire this time?”

“Was what fire?” I ask, confused.

“Did you read a fire? Or was it the raven? Or what?”

I watch him to see if he’s being sarcastic. He’s not. He’s just trying to get me to talk. “I’d rather not discuss it,” I say finally.

“Juneau, you can tell me. I’m not going to laugh at you,” he says.

Frankie said I have to tell him the truth. But in this case, I just can’t. “You wouldn’t understand anyway,” I snap, hoping that will shut him up.

It does. He bites his lip and reaches over to turn the radio up. Good. That conversation’s over.

I turn my thoughts back to the three prophecies I received last night. The one about Whit was clear enough. But when my next step was revealed, it might as well have been spoken in Chinese. I didn’t understand a word of it.

Prophecies are usually cryptic, but I don’t even know how to approach decrypting this one. I pick up Miles’s notebook, jot the words down from memory, and study them one by one.

Finally, Miles turns down the radio and asks, “Do we have time to stop for lunch?” His voice is back to normal—he’s gotten over the insult I used to shut him up. Good.

I close the notebook and tuck it under my seat. My head hurts from thinking so hard, and the puzzle remains unsolved. “Let’s just make sandwiches,” I suggest.

We pull into a tiny town called Unity and dig Cokes, chips, and sandwich stuff out of the trunk. “We can eat in the car,” I say, but Miles frowns and gestures toward a lone picnic table sitting nearby under a tree. “Can we sit outside and eat? I’m getting sick of the car.”

My instincts say to keep going. But Miles looks tired. Discouraged.

“Hopefully they fell for our ruse in Spray and are headed toward the Pacific Ocean now,” I concede. “I don’t see why we can’t stop for fifteen minutes.”

Relief floods his face. We spread the food out on a table, and he begins to eat standing up. “My butt fell asleep back near Canyon City,” he explains, brushing crumbs from his mouth as he bounces on his toes.

“How long do we have until we hook up to the main highway?” I ask.

Miles jogs to the car and comes back with the atlas and a pencil. “Another hour and a half and we meet back up with 84 at the border of Idaho,” he says, making a dot on where we are and tracing lightly to the edge of Oregon.

We’re reconnecting with the road we started on. But Frankie’s directions were vague—go southeast—and I have no idea what comes next. Damn cryptic prophecy, I think.

And then I’m struck by an idea. I touch Miles’s arm. “Will you try something with me? I’m going to say a sentence, and you tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.”

Miles furrows his brow. “Okay,” he says hesitantly.

I pronounce the words of the prophecy carefully: “Follow the serpent toward the city by the water that cannot be drunk.”

Miles looks confused. “That means absolutely nothing to me,” he says. “What is it?”

“It’s our directions,” I admit.

“This was one of the signs you got last night?”

“Yes,” I say uncomfortably. Don’t tell him any more, I think. I take a swig of root beer and let the bubbles fizz on my tongue before swallowing.

“You heard those actual words?” He sounds incredulous.

I nod. DON’T TELL HIM, my inner voice is now shouting. I have to tell him, I think. If I don’t follow the rules in the prophecies, I might as well give up now.

He scratches his head and looks suspicious. “How’d you manage that?”

“I used an oracle,” I say.

He huffs in amusement. “Did you convince Poe to talk?”

I take another sip of root beer and shake my head. I feel guilt rolling off me in waves and am surprised that Miles can’t sense it. I look away from him, and by the time I look back a dark cloud has stretched across his face.

“You didn’t,” he says.

I nod meekly, but reminding myself that rules don’t count in a state of war, I lift my chin and watch as he gathers together his memories of last night, flips through them, and then arrives at the answer. “What was in that tea you gave me in the tent?” His voice is flat. Dead.

“Something we grow in Alaska that’s a bit like brugmansia.”

“What the hell is brugmansia?” he says, and his face is crimson. His eyes dark.

“Angel’s trumpets,” I respond, knowing full well he has no idea what that means either.

“WHAT DOES IT DO?” Miles’s words are like four small daggers stabbing my skull. My hand rises to my forehead. Don’t think of him as a boy. He is your driver. Your oracle. That is all. I force my hand back down to my side and raise my chin. I had to use him—I had no other choice.

“It’s a narcotic, but when diluted enough, like it was last night, it can be used as a sedative,” I say.

“You drugged me.” Miles is breathless. As if someone has socked him in the stomach. Pain is scrawled across his face.

I steel myself. I am in the right. “I did what needed to be done.”

“Couldn’t you have asked me first?” Miles says. He looks like he’s still trying to make sense out of what I’ve just said. Like he doesn’t believe it. Like I’m playing a joke on him.

“You wouldn’t have said yes,” I respond, crossing my arms. And making my voice as flat as I can, I say, “Why would you, when you haven’t believed a word I’ve said so far?”

Miles stands there staring at me in disbelief, his hands shaking with emotion. “That is because YOU ARE DELUSIONAL!” he yells. “I’m not saying it’s your fault. You’ve been brainwashed. But Juneau, for God’s sake, there is no Yara. You don’t have special magical abilities.”

His face is a lightning storm. “But what is your fault is the fact that last night you gave me some kind of homemade drug without my knowledge. All for your crazy fantasy. Was there an aphrodisiac in there too? Because I would rather have kissed that fleabag raven than a freak like you. I can’t go along with this any longer. That’s it!” he says, and with a swift motion, stabs the pencil into the atlas hard enough to break it in half. Then, turning, he stalks toward the car.

His words sweep over me like an errant wind, hitting me square in the face before flowing over and around me and disappearing. Unimportant. Because I am staring at the map and the violent slash of graphite marking where the Snake River transects Idaho directly north of the Great Salt Lake.

I scoop up the atlas and make a dash for the car.