Until the Beginning
Page 15

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.”