She continues flipping the pages. Restaurants. Movies. Museums. She stops on an ad for the University of Michigan, and her smile fades.
“My mom grew up in that world.” She stares at lush photos of libraries and art studios, groups of friends laughing hysterically. “She wasn’t rich or anything, but it was pre-collapse America. She was working with a palette I can’t imagine.” She runs her fingers over the wrinkled paper, the faded ink. “Having that world and then losing it . . .” Her voice falls to a murmur. “It’d haunt you forever, wouldn’t it? How could you let go?”
She stuffs the magazine back into the seat pocket and closes her eyes for a moment. Then she opens them and turns to me. “What was in that cabin, R?”
I don’t answer.
“What are they trying to do?” She’s almost pleading. “How much more fucked is this place going to get?”
I should probably try to reassure her, squeeze her hand and recite some canned comforts, but I’m looking through her into the dark hole of the window and I’m seeing graves and fires, steel bars and brown teeth and—
“Hey.” Nora is leaning out of her seat, watching us from across the aisle while M snores softly against their window. “We might not have to find out.”
“What do you mean?” Julie says.
Nora shoots a glance at the cockpit, then gets up and jerks her chin toward the coach section. Julie nudges me out of the row and we follow Nora through the curtain.
“Take a look,” Nora says, pulling a thin yellow pamphlet out of her pocket and handing it to Julie.
Julie skims the first page. Her eyes dart up to Nora. “Where’d you find this?”
“We went looking for you in the airport lobby and they were taped up all over.”
“Why is DBC still posting in airports?” Julie wonders as she begins to read.
Nora shrugs. “I saw a lot of notes on the walls. A few fresh shits on the floor. Maybe airports are still traveler hubs.”
“Nineteen from BABL . . . that’s last year, right?”
“Yeah. Practically breaking news. Check the last page.”
Julie flips to the end, reads it, and grins. “I knew it. I fucking knew it!” She shoves the pamphlet into my hands. “Can you read this, R?”
The crudely photocopied mess resembles either an old-fashioned DIY “zine” or a madman’s manifesto.
The crazed handwriting is barely legible, but I can read it. Understanding it is another matter.
“What is this?” I ask, handing the pamphlet back to Julie.
“It’s the Almanac!” Julie says, aghast at my lack of savvy. “Even you should know the Almanac.”
“People . . . believe this info?” I brush a finger over the schizophrenic scrawl, the drawings of surreal monsters.
“Beggars can’t be choosers, R. Most people don’t know what’s happening a mile outside their shelters. DBC’s been combing the country up and down for like ten years and they leave a new report whenever they pass through. It’s sketchy news, but it’s news.”
“I got so excited the first time I found one,” Nora says wistfully. “Felt like my favorite band had come to town.”
Julie smiles. “Me and Mom had a secret pact that if we ever found them, we’d leave Dad and run away with them.” Her smile falters, begins to cool.
“But back to the point,” Nora says. “Iceland, right? Sounds promising, right?”
“Right.” Julie hands the zine to Nora. “You do the talking. I’ve pushed him far enough today.”
Nora nods and heads for the cockpit.
“Iceland?” I ask Julie, lowering my voice. “You’re sure that’s the answer?”
She looks at me like I’ve asked if water is wet. “Of course I’m not sure. I just . . .” She turns and looks out a window, her face tinting red in the dying light. “I have a good feeling.”
“Why?”
“Because my mom . . .” She watches the clouds, a flock of little cumuli grazing beneath us. “My mom was half-Icelandic. She spent a couple years in Reykjavík, before she met Dad. The way she talked about it . . . the culture and the politics . . . it sounded like things just made sense there. I could never figure out why she came back.”
“Maybe because it wasn’t her home.”
She glances back at me with surprise and a little annoyance, but I push ahead.
“Leaving now . . . feels like giving up.”
“On what?” she says sharply. “What do we have here? That shitty house?”
I flinch. I can tell she feels the sting too, perhaps sharper than she expected. But she fights it.
“What do we have?” she persists. “The fucking stadium? Cascadian pride?”
“The people.” I hold her gaze, trying to tether her fluttering thoughts. “Ella, David, Marie, Wally, Taylor, Britney, Zane—”
“I know their names, R.”
“So are we going to leave them all with Axiom? Are we going to run away?”