Until the Beginning

Whit speaks up for the first time. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but I don’t think this display will help you plead your case with Juneau.” He looks worriedly at the box.

 

Avery narrows his eyes at me, his frostiness returning, but a mocking smile is planted on his lips. “Miss Newhaven doesn’t need me to plead with her. I think we’re playing for the same team at this point. We’re on little Badger’s team, aren’t we now, Juneau?”

 

I remain silent, and taking that as agreement, Avery pries open a door on the front of the metal box. There’s a hissing noise, and smoke rises in a cloud from inside. “Of course, before full-body cryonics were perfected, the best method was neuro-preservation,” he says.

 

Within the box, positioned side by side, are three bucket-sized clear canisters filled with ice. As the warm air hits them, they immediately cloud over. Avery takes a cloth from the top of the box and wipes the frost off the side of one of the canisters, and I can see something large and dark suspended inside the ice. “Meet Daisy, best friend a man could ever have,” he says fondly.

 

And then I notice the fur and the long snout, and the clean line where the neck was severed from the rest of the body.

 

Avery shakes his head sadly. “Never was a hunting dog like this ol’ girl. Hope to bring her back someday. Her and her kin,” he nods at the two other canisters. “Now ain’t that a noble cause to undertake?”

 

Daisy’s frozen eye stares out at me, and something inside me snaps. I twist out of Avery’s grip and make it halfway to the door before I’m on my knees, heaving up the scarce contents of my stomach onto the sterile white floor.

 

 

 

 

 

36

 

 

MILES

 

 

I BRACE MYSELF TO BE KNOCKED DOWN AND TORN to shreds. Instead, a loud squawking noise rips through the darkness and I am blinded by a face full of flapping wings. Finally able to move, I dive through the underbrush and run full speed through the woods until I reach the steep hillside, then slide down it on my butt.

 

I run for safety to the middle of the road, like it’s a no-man’s-land where nothing can hurt me. As if a huge man-eating tiger would stop for pavement. But nothing moves up on the hill, and I stand there for what seems like forever before I see a dark shape hurtle downward toward me. This time I recognize it and, crumpling over in relief, drag myself to the ditch at the side of the road.

 

“Poe!” I say, as the raven lands next to my hand.

 

He spreads his feathers and caws a hello.

 

“Man, you just saved my life up there!” I want to pet him, but he waddles backward out of my reach. “And now I’m talking to you,” I say, “but that’s okay, because no one’s around to hear.” I grin like a crazy person.

 

“How the hell did you find me here?” I ask. I know he has some kind of draw toward Juneau, but why would he come to me?

 

Poe eyes me as if weighing me up, and then takes a step toward me. I reach out, and he lets me pick him up. I set him on my lap and open the little leather pouch that’s on his harness. There’s a paper inside. I unfold it, to read in big, curly writing,

 

Your bird-child is driving me insane. Doesn’t want to stay with me. Send him back with instructions when you have something for me to do.

 

 

 

 

P.S. I’ve been trying to Read the fire, but can’t get a thing out of it. Either I’m not close enough to nature (as if), or your Yara is a bit more selective about who can use it than you thought.

 

 

I fold up the note and stick it in my pocket, rehashing what Tallie wrote. She’s figuring out what I’ve already discovered. Amrit is the key to connecting to the Yara.

 

That still doesn’t answer the question of why Poe came to me instead of Juneau. Maybe I can Read his memory like Juneau did.

 

Carefully, I cradle the bird in both hands, and feel its heartbeat patter against my fingers as I raise it to my chest. I close my eyes, and—here comes the Yara buzz—suddenly find myself flying up into the air, and over a city in a desert. I catch a glimpse of a woman with fiery red hair in a curly cloud around her head as the bird looks down at her. I recognize Tallie, and the town must be Roswell. Poe and I fly high over the desert until we slow and begin circling over a valley with a river running through it. In the distance we spot another river. It must be the one right down the hill from where I’m sitting.

 

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