Until the Beginning

For Gretchen, for survival,
and for closing the book on our own Alaska

“I’M A SCIENTIST, NOT A THEOLOGIAN. I DON’T
know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty. Revere and respect Gaia. Have trust in Gaia. But not faith.”

—James Lovelock, author of the Gaia hypothesis

MILES HAS BEEN DEAD FOR ONE HOUR. I DO NOT
know if it is true death—if he died of blood loss after I dug the bullet out of him—or if this is the death-sleep that I summoned by giving him the Rite. There is only one way to find out, and that is to wait seven more hours and see if he starts breathing again.

I rise and leave my post at the door. Turning away from the blazing red of the sunbaked desert, I enter the cool darkness of the one-room shack. My vision swims as my eyes adjust, and it is a few seconds before I can see him. Not him. His shell.

The vacuum left by his spirit’s departure pulls me across the room, and I stand over him, looking down at his naked body. He is a study in white and red: The little bit of skin that isn’t smeared
with clotted blood is the shade of curdled milk. Honey-colored curls brush his paste-white forehead. His lips are parted, his jaw loose. Blood is smudged across his cheek, but whether it is his or mine I don’t know.

I hold up my palm and see that blood still oozes from where I cut myself with the ceremonial knife. The contents of my bag are strewn across the floor. I squat down, and from the pile of stones, dried herbs, and feathers, I pull a strip of cotton and wrap it tightly around my hand to bind my wound.

And with that small, final act of caring for myself, I am suddenly drained of my adrenaline-fueled vigilance. My defenses finally down, the full force of what I have done strikes me. I sit down on the floor, resting my head in my hands.

I may have killed this boy. I may have sent him away forever.

I performed a ritual on him—gave him a powerful drug—that has only been used on members of my clan. On people who were ready for it, whose spirits already embraced the Yara. Who looked to Gaia for strength.

And Miles . . . he is not strong. He wants to be. There is much in him that is good. But he hasn’t even started thinking about his place on earth . . . his part in the superorganism that makes up Gaia.

Never mind spiritual strength; all of my previous Rite-travelers were in perfect physical condition when I led them into death-sleep. They weren’t like Miles, barely conscious with a bullet freshly dug out of his side. He had lost a lot of blood. Was already dying.

What have I done?

Miles could be lost in death, unable to find his way back. Unable to recognize the signposts along his path. That is . . . if he is actually in death-sleep and didn’t undergo true death before the Rite took effect.

I push myself to my feet. I can’t lose hope. I must treat Miles as if he were any other Rite-traveler. He
did
take the vow. He agreed to become one with the Yara. To dedicate his life to the earth and the force that binds every living thing together. And to trade his short human life for one that could last hundreds of years, if not more.

He agreed to it all. But it was a spontaneous decision, made in a desperate moment. What would happen to him if it wasn’t truly sincere?

“He chose it,” I say to reassure myself. In the dead quiet my words sound hollow. Meaningless.

I walk across the room to him and begin humming the Song of the Path. And as I do, I am pulled back into the trancelike state that cocoons me when I perform the Rite. I leave my fear behind and immerse myself in what I am supposed to do. What I was taught to do.

The candles forming a halo around his head flicker their last, casting an eerie light on his marble face. I blow them out one by one as I walk in a circular path around his body. One candle for each turn.

My breath slows as the last candle goes dark and I begin singing the words, willing Miles to move toward death’s gate. To
approach it, to brush it with his fingertips, and then to turn and come back to land of the living. To me.

I untie the cloths binding the gold nuggets to the soles of his feet as the words drop from my lips. I replace the stones to their leather bag and stow them carefully in my backpack. And still I sing.

Like my clan members who I accompanied, I am Miles’s companion in this Rite. Someone who knows him and cares about him. Who will ease his passage to the hinterlands of death and back to life—a different life—one without aging or disease.

I take his cold, bloody fingers and unwrap them from the moonstones they clasp. I tuck the gems into my bag, and continue working methodically, packing everything away: all of the herbs and minerals, the agate cup and blade, the leftover candles and matches. All the while, my words take Miles down the Stony Path toward the River.

When I’m done, I continue caring for Miles, peeling back the bandage I made by wrapping my shirt around his chest. Blood no longer flows from the bullet hole. I wonder if he will start bleeding again if I move him, and if he does, if it will make any difference.

I smooth back his hair, feeling his cold forehead under my fingertips. I brush his eyelids closed as I sing of what he will see on the Path, and touch his chin to shut his mouth. And then I do something I never did to my other Rite-travelers. I kiss him. I touch my warm mouth to his cold one and, closing my eyes, wish that I could transfer my life to him. That my spirit could slip out
from between my lips and reignite his extinguished flame.

I have never known love—at least, nothing other than a child’s love for her parents or the fierce love of friendship. So I don’t know how to label what I feel for Miles. There is something there. An unopened bud. And I hope with all my heart that it won’t die before it’s able to start blooming. Before I can even tell what kind of flower it will be.

More emotion than I have let myself feel for a long time threatens to overwhelm me. For once, I allow it to come. My tears fall onto Miles’s cheeks. Crying is a foreign thing to me, but I let it happen. Until finally, something shifts inside me and the tears stop. I feel empty but strong.

I take a deep breath and rise to my feet. It’s time to go. I have to get him—us—away from here. I’ve done everything I can do to help him begin his path. I can continue the Song later.

I lean over the lifeless corpse of this boy who made me cry. And, though I know he can’t hear me, I fold my arms across my chest and speak loudly and clearly. I speak to the Miles I know—the rebel, the boy who loves to break the rules. I dare him to take his wild, unfocused defiance and direct it toward the task he faces.

“Miles Blackwell,” I challenge. “You better the hell live.”