Amy Plum - After the End

She crosses the park and, seeing me, approaches. Beckett and Neruda glue themselves to either leg but don’t growl. She stops at the other end of my bench and slowly lowers herself to sit. Stowing her cart next to her, she pats it lovingly, like it is a baby in a carriage instead of a mountain of garbage. Then, turning, she looks vaguely in my direction. Her expression is glazed-over. Opaque.

“The men—they put a movie camera inside my television and watched everything I did,” she says matter-of-factly. “They even put a camera in my shower.”

I ignore her disheveled appearance and paranoid speech and see her for what she is. A gift from the Yara. “Can I hold your hand?” I ask. She hesitates, and suspicion flashes across her face. Leaning forward, she holds my gaze in hers. Then, finding what she is looking for, she gives a satisfied nod and pulls her right glove off. Removing my mittens, I take her gnarled, chapped hand in my own and hold my opal in the other.

“Thank you,” I say, “for being my connection to the Yara. I need to ask you some questions. Very important questions. Are you willing to answer them for me?”

“Of course, dear.” The woman’s eyes begin to look more focused, and a serene expression settles upon her face.

“I am looking for a friend. His name is Whittier Graves. I am picturing him in my mind right now. Can you see him?”

The old lady closes her eyes abruptly and then, opening them slowly, focuses on a spot in midair to the left of my head. “I see your friend,” she says.

“Where is he?”

“He is on a boat. Leaving our harbor.” She lifts her free hand and gives a distracted wave toward the invisible boat floating over my shoulder.

“What!” I exclaim, and then quickly control my emotions before I pass the shock on to my oracle. “When did he get on the boat?” I ask, my heart pounding painfully, but my voice as steady as I can manage.

“Moments ago.”

“Was he alone?” I ask, my already-cold face turning numb with fear.

“No, he was with a group of big men. Bad men. Two went with him and the others stayed.”

I fight to stay calm. “Do you know where his boat is going?” I ask. This is asking a lot of the woman. Using her to see the present and recent past is well within the bounds of realistic expectations. But from the oracle-reading exercises that Whit used to practice with me, I know this question verges on divination. The woman has to see into the future or even tap into Whit’s subconscious to give me an answer. The response I get will be cryptic at best. I focus on her, ready to catch every vital word.

The woman’s face crinkles in concentration. “Say it another way,” she responds after a few seconds.

I consider that, and finally ask, “Where must I go to find Whit and my clan?”

“You must go to your source,” she answers immediately.

“My source?” I ask, confused. “Denali?”

“No.” She shakes her head, frustrated by my incomprehension. “No, before that.”

“But I was born in Denali,” I respond.

Her frown deepens. “Aren’t you listening? You have to take a boat.” She is getting upset, and I know that her link with the Yara is fading if not already gone. I have so many questions I still want to ask. I flail around for the most important.

“Can you see my father? Do you know if he’s okay?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” she says stubbornly, and tugs back the hand I am holding.

Disappointed, I take her glove and fit it carefully back over her fingers. She has returned to the mad world in her mind. She blinks, as if surprised, and I clasp her gloved hand until she is oriented.

“Thank you for your help,” I say, standing. The dogs are at my side in a flash.

“They’re watching me. They know everything I’m thinking,” the lady says.

“Tell them to go away, and maybe they’ll leave you alone,” I respond.

“Now that’s an idea,” she says, her lips forming a surprised smile. Her smile broadens as her mind recedes into some pleasant memory, so that when the dogs and I leave her, she looks almost happy.

IT LIES THERE ON HIS DESK LIKE AN INVITATION: The notepad with my dad’s writing:

The girl is the key. No drug without her. Possibly still in Alaska, but coming by boat to the continent. Around 17. Shortish: 5’5”. Long black hair. Two huskies. Gold starburst in one eye.

What’s a gold starburst? I wonder.

I push the notebook back to where it was when I found it. And then I get the hell out of there before Dad comes back.

IF I HAVE TO TAKE A BOAT, I WILL NEED MONEY. Currency. “The root of all evil,” Dennis called it in our history class. He claimed that it was the cause of World War III. That capitalism and greed set the whole thing off, beginning with a war over oil and ending with the destruction of the environment. Although he was wrong about the war, everything I have read and heard about the world confirmed that money has always caused corruption. Now I have to find some money of my own. Just the thought of it makes me feel compromised.

I consider stowing away on a boat for about a second, like a character in one of our old books. Then I realize that’s way too eighteenth century. What am I going to do—hide in an empty ale keg? No, there’s no way around it. I’m going to have to buy a ticket. I saw something on the way into town that may prove useful: a sign in a shop window.

I have to turn toward the harbor to remember which direction to go in. The buildings are confusing me. If I were standing in the middle of a mountain field, I could find my way. But with glass buildings reflecting one another every way I turn, I have to concentrate. I glance at the sun and then the water, and head north-northwest.

In ten minutes we are there. CA$H FOR GOLD, the sign reads. The window display holds a treasure trove of fragile-looking rings and necklaces. I swallow my fear and stare at the door for a moment. There is no handle. But there is a small sign on one side that reads PUSH. I push, and with a whoosh of warm air, the dogs and I are inside the building and blinking in the artificial light.

“How can you help me?” comes a voice from the far side of the room. I blink again, and then focus on a small man standing behind a cupboard made of glass. His eyebrows are gray, but his hair is raven black and looks strangely crooked. He is wearing a pelt on his head, I realize, and try not to stare. He rubs his hands together and plasters on a large smile.

I walk forward and force myself to speak to this stranger. “I saw the sign. Cash for gold.”

“That’s right, young lady,” he says, looking me up and down.

My buckskin trousers and fur-lined parka are very different from his clothing, which is made of shiny woven material. I push my hood back and sweep my long hair out of the back of my coat to fall around my face, using it as a curtain between us.

He stares oddly at my eyes and clears his throat. “What can I do you for?” he asks, with a joking smile.

I am having a hard time understanding him—both from his strange expressions and the fact that he speaks through his nose—so instead of talking, I lay my pack on the floor and crouch to dig inside. My fingers find the bag holding my brigand insurance. The objects I was told to use if I needed to negotiate with them.

I pull it out and, after opening the drawstrings, choose carefully and set a stone on the glass in front of the man. I watch his face attentively as he flinches in surprise and then draws a blank expression over his features. A term my father used when we played cards pops into my mind: he is using a “poker face.”