The New Wild Read online

  I sit on a boulder by the slowly moving water, which is swirling on its way to the Atlantic. I put my feet in without taking off my boots. It’s hot as hell and I’ve never been so thirsty. Thank God I found the glass mason jar; I gingerly scoop up a cup of river water and bring it to my lips.

  “Hey!”

  Chapter 4

  I gasp, startled, and crane my neck toward the speaker. My heart pounds. “Over here!” I cry. I’m so relieved, my knees feel weak.

  “Stop that! Wait!”

  The voice is a female’s, loud and firm. I whirl around to see a sixty-something woman emerging from the brush, her eyelids pulled back in concern. I’m so surprised to see her, I drop the jar on the ground. It lands with a thud and the water seeps into the grass. I get so dizzy and numb in an instant that the earth starts spinning, and I fall back against the dirt. Everything fades to black, and I pass out.

  * * *

  When I come to after God knows how long, I’m strapped under my arms to something soft, something furry. It’s moving slowly, ambling along the earth. Above me, the tree canopy glimmers in the sun. Birds flit from branch to branch, chirping sweetly.

  The woman I saw earlier is tugging whatever is holding me by its collar.

  “Come on, girl, nice and easy,” she says to it, as she stares up ahead. “Slow. Slow.”

  She’s wearing retro clothes from the 1960s: loose cotton dress, brown-fringed leather vest, turquoise earrings dangling from her ears. Her hair hangs over her shoulder in a long braid of shining silver and her skin has a deep tan.

  “What…where am I?” I manage to croak.

  She whirls around and bends down to look at me, halting my furry transport from moving another step.

  “You’re awake again!” She says, smiling. “You fainted, honey. My dogs are carrying you back to my house.”

  “What… Who are you?”

  “You just rest now. You’re very weak, and we’re almost there. Don’t worry. I’ll get you fixed up,” she says.

  Something in her voice calms me, like my own mother’s would. My body seems unwilling to move anyway, so I just lay there and let them carry me, like a leaf drifting down a slow-moving river.

  * * *

  When we get to her house, she unties the straps and helps me up on my feet. I feel woozy, but looking at her house perks me up. It’s set away in a clearing of white oaks: a low-slung, brick cottage that must have been built in the 1800s. I’m amazed to see it isn’t burnt at all. Chickens roam in a pen to the right, clucking and pecking the ground. The pathways are made of crumbled pink shells that crunch under our feet as we walk. Sunflowers, purple basil, and gooseberries grow in neat little patches in the garden out front, and peas dangle off their vines, twisting in the breeze. One of the dogs that carried me—a fluffy Bernese—won’t leave my side. It licks my hand and nudges my leg, and I’ve never felt more grateful.

  “I’m Deb, by the way,” she says. “That’s Whitman,” she says, pointing to the one that stays by me. “And that’s Abraham.” When he hears his name, Abraham jumps up and puts his front paws over her shoulders, like they’re dancing. “Abraham, get down, girl!” she shouts.

  “Girl?” I mutter.

  “Yes, they’re both girls. Why is everyone always so surprised by that? A rose by any other name.”

  The interior of Deb’s house is oddly bare, especially compared to the riot of color out front. She leads me to the living room and tells me to lie down on the sofa. It’s not a sofa, really, but a Victorian-looking fainting couch covered in purple velvet. I’m so weary and it looks so inviting that I do what I’m told. The room is interesting—no television, no computers, just antique prints and paintings lining the walls. I notice the ceiling is painted blue with tiny puffs of clouds. There’s a glass pie stand on the side table to my left, and its ball lid is covering a bird’s nest complete with little broken eggshells.

  I hear her rustling in the kitchen. Shelf doors open and close, silverware tinkles against ceramic. I’m about to pass out when she strides in with a plate full of food.

  “I’m sure glad I came across you,” she says. “Fridge burned up pretty bad last night, so Elmira would’ve gone sour before I could finish her.”

  “El—?”

  “The turkey,” she says as if I should have known. “Sit up, child. I’ll not have you choking to death on top of everything else.”

  Once again, I do as I’m told. All I want is my mom to take care of me, and this is a welcome substitute. Especially when everything’s literally crumbling around me.

  The plate is piled with dark turkey meat, skin glistening, and Swiss chard cooked up in oil and nuts. It’s all room temperature—“stove melted to cinders,” she says—and a fly is circling over it, vulture-like.

  “Eat it slow,” she orders, and I realize I’m digging in like a mongrel dog at a steak buffet. “Chew,” she says again, sternly.

  When I come up for air, she hands me a mug of water. “Down the hatch.”

  “Thank you,” I say, with a huge exhale, “so much.”

  “Like I said, you did me a favor. Though, I guess my dogs’ll hate you for it.”

  The evening sun shines through her leaded-glass windows, throwing little rainbows across the walls.

  When I’m finished eating, I instantly feel better. I can think again. She watches me solemnly.

  “Thank you so much.” I repeat. “I’m Jackie, by the way. I was at Camp Astor when…it happened.”

  Deb nods.

  “What do you think is going on?” I say. My stomach is in knots. “Did you get carried up into the sky last night? Did you feel the fire?” I ask, more than a little afraid of her answer. “What the hell is happening to us?”

  “Yes, I did,” Deb says calmly, which doesn’t make me feel better. “Look at the back of my legs. The hair got singed right off!” She sticks one out to show me almost proudly.

  The front of Deb’s legs look like they haven’t been shaved in, well, ever. But she’s right: the backs are hairless, and the skin is pink, like it’s sunburned.

  “Well? What happened? What do you think is going on?” I plead, looking straight in her eyes. “I heard some of my favorite people in the world burn to their deaths last night, but today the forest seems to be healthier and more alive than it’s ever been.”

  Deb sits back in her chair, a faint smile spreading across her lips.

  “Well, I’ve got a good hunch it’s Mother Earth,” she says plainly.

  “What?”

  “I always thought we would destroy ourselves with terrorism or nuclear war. But nope, I think it was her. She’s had enough. She gave us this life, and she can take it back, lickety-split.”

  I can’t believe my ears. She’s really not thinking this through. I have a sinking feeling that the only other living soul left is bat-shit crazy, and I feel alone again. “Let me get this straight,” I say, nice and slow. “You think Mother Earth started a fire that burned up all the Camp Astor kids and all the buildings and cars? You think Mother Earth scooped us up into the sky and scared us out of our wits? You think…” I stop for a second, for emphasis, “You think Mother Earth did that? You think Mother Earth is real?” The concept is so stupid and silly it makes me want to laugh out loud.

  She raises her eyebrows. “Yes,” she says, emphatic.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I say, because this is finally clicking in my head. “Why would she do that? Is this it? Are you saying that we’re going through an—?”

  “Apocalypse? Yes, I guess I am. But I don’t know why you’d want to call it that. The world isn’t ending; it’s getting better,” she says.

  “Right, better,” I scoff. “That’s why I’ve been in tears all day.”

  “You know what I mean. It will get better,” she proceeds calmly. “This is the next generation of Earth. First there were the dinosaurs, then the Stone Age, then the people age, and now it’s evolving into something different entirely. Something without so much waste,
where the earth can flourish as it was meant to.”

  I snicker. Deb really is crazy. She acts like she has it all figured out.

  “So, why the hell are we here then?” I ask, incredulous.

  “You know, I’m not sure. But there’s something special about us, I suppose. I’ve always been ‘eco,’ even before that word existed. I think she knew I was on her side and would remain on her side, no matter what happened. I was always doing my part to protect her and everything she gave us: the water, air, all the gifts of the earth. My guess is you have, too, in your own way. Honest to Pete—I know it seems terrible now, but in many ways, this is a gift! Mother Earth is giving us a chance to help her get this planet back on the right track, before it’s too late for all of us.”

  I shake my head. This lady’s a nut job. I want to tell her to put down the peyote and step away from the pipe.

  “This morning I went out walking to find survivors, but you’re the only thing on two legs I’ve seen, besides the birds,” Deb says. “Listen, Jackie. You notice anything strange about what’s happened?”

  Are you fucking kidding me? “What? All of it.”

  “Everything modern and full of bad chemicals dissolved in the fire. I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and what’s interesting—and what makes me know in my bones it’s the great Mother Earth doing all this—is that there are a lot of things that aren’t burnt. Natural things, things you maybe made yourself. Things that wouldn’t harm the planet.”

  I don’t know if I can believe her, but she sounds so sure in her convictions that she might as well be a preacher. I think back to my plastic tent and my chemically made sunglasses. And then I look down at my perfectly new-looking cotton shirt. Huh.

  “Yes, there’s a rhyme or reason to it all, I suspect,” she says softly.

  “If what you think is true—and that’s a big ‘if’—why is she doing it? I just don’t get why she’d burn her creations to shreds.”

  Deb gasps. “Listen, kiddo,” she says, her hands on her hips. “It wasn’t her creations she burned up. Aren’t you hearing me? It was all the junk we made, all the useless crap we were ruining the globe with.”

  “She killed people,” I say angrily. “People who had every right to live.”

  “Yes, maybe they did. But maybe those same people were eating and buying and shitting their way through life, not doing a damn thing for anybody or anything. I mean, the whole world was getting so screwed up, so unjust. Some folks were living high on the hog while others couldn’t even eat, and we were sabotaging the whole earth and everything on it with our business. You ask me, the whole globe was becoming one big giant ball of inequity.”

  Holy crap. I can’t believe she’s talking this way. People are dead and she doesn’t seem to care. She’s friggin’ nuts, and what’s more, I was one of those people. I am one of those people. I love Camp Astor. And sure, I recycle. I even pick up trash when we go to the beach. But I’m not some hippy-dippy, green living pioneer the way Deb seems to be. If Deb is right about all this, then why am I still here while my best friends are smoldering where they slept?

  If what she’s suggesting is true, people and things could be burnt up all over America. My mom. Bernard. I start to feel my heart quaking in my chest.

  “Do you think…?” I’m scared to ask her this, but I just say it, rip it off like a bandage, quick and dirty. “Do you think this happened all across the country?” I can’t stop picturing my mother and Bernard. Oh God—what if they were burned to death? What the hell will I do?

  “No,” she says, and I let the breath I’ve held baited out with a whoosh. But then she says, “I think it happened all across the globe.”

  For a second, I feel like I’m going to pass out. Wait… How could she know? I’m supposed to believe her crackpot explanation just because?

  My fear and despair combine in a more pressing issue.

  “Do you have a bathroom?”

  “Well, I did yesterday. This morning, I found my toilet melted clear down to China. Been going off the back deck, with the gals,” she says, pointing to the Abraham, who’s now stretched out on the wooden floor in the kitchen. “Don’t worry, nobody’s going to see you out there. Just throw some dirt over your doings,” she says.

  The last time I went in a hole was at a concert in the Columbia River Gorge, and the Portaloos were so backed up I peed behind some bushes. Even Camp Astor had little stations along the trails.

  I’m about to head outside when something out the kitchen window catches my eye, and I get distracted. It’s a flower four times bigger than my head and so white it looks bleached, its center yellow and furry as a cat. The scent wafting from it—a mixture of daphne and lily—is stronger than any mega mall perfume counter. I approach the window for a better look. Deb catches me staring at it.

  “Oh, that’s a jee-bow,” she says. “They used to grow here in this valley decades ago, but went extinct the year the power plant broke ground upstream.”

  “Jee-sus,” I sputter. “I took botany, and I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t. It’s been a long time since they were around. My great-gran used to press them in books and frame them for us kids. I hadn’t ever seen a live one until I found this one blooming when I woke up this morning like it’s been here forever!” she exclaims, throwing her hands into the air.

  “Wow.”

  “See? This is just what I’m trying to tell you, girl. The return of the jee-bows, to me, is further proof. Mother Nature’s starting over. And, for some reason, she’s giving us another chance.” She starts brushing out the dog, and I look back at the flower. My breath catches in my throat. Now it’s aqua blue. “What the—”

  “Oooh, yes,” she says. “It changes to suit your mood.”

  “Crazy.”

  “My great-gran told me if you cut it it’ll stay that color ‘til it wilts, but I don’t want to test it. I’m worried it wouldn’t grow back.”

  I can’t believe what I’m staring at. Now the petals are blood red with saffron polka dots leading to the stamen. I can’t believe what’s happening. I’m amazed, and more than a little bit scared.

  * * *

  Later that night, I’m totally zonked but too freaked out to sleep. A part of me wonders if Deb is right. Yes, she’s obviously crazy, but seeing that jee-bow got me all kinds of worried. I’m so scared for my mom, for Bernard, and for everybody else I even halfway liked back home. What if they’re gone? I can’t picture my life without them. And if Deb’s right and Mother Nature has taken everything modern technology has afforded us—planes, trains, automobiles, etc.—aren’t I kind of, well, fucked? How the hell am I ever going to get back to Oregon?

  I go out to the back porch to think. Whitman comes waddling out, too. She slinks down next to me, putting her warm head on my knee. I wrap my arms around her and start to cry.

  I can’t get my mom out of my head. I keep thinking about the last time I saw her, when she hugged me good-bye at the Portland airport so hard it seemed like she would never let go. If what Deb says is true, she’s almost three-thousand miles away and totally freaked out, if she’s even alive at all. I have a feeling she is, though. She’s an environmental lawyer and always hollers at me to take shorter showers, turn the light off, blah-blah-blah. But if she lived, could she survive? Those are two different things to me now.

  I’m a little less worried about Bernard. His dad’s a big hunter, and as much as he hates the outdoors, I’m sure Bernard will do what he has to, even if it means getting his Oxfords dirty. He used to help his grandmother in the vegetable garden every spring. As long as he doesn’t see a spider, he’s good. But like me, Mom doesn’t know shit about surviving in the wild. I’d probably be in the process of starving to death right now if Deb hadn’t found me.

  I have no idea what to do. Deb said she walked as far as the local train station, and all the roads were burned up, the train tracks melted. Her cellphone is like the ones I saw at Camp Astor—t
oast. I know I want to get home, but what am I gonna do, walk there? I’d probably get eaten by a pack of wolves in the first week. And what if I did get there, after months and months of fighting my way west, only to find her and everyone I love gone?

  I lean my head back against a post, letting my eyelids droop. Whitman’s tail is thumping wildly, her nose pointed high in the air. She barks—a low, guttural sound—but there’s nothing out there, just trees whistling in the wind. “Shhh, baby girl,” I say, comforting her. The moon is full, or seems to be, because the whole garden is cast in surreal white light. I look down at my compass, and the tiny, shimmering diamonds imbedded in the lid seem to wink at me. It’s like they’re telling me it’s okay—that it’s all going to be okay. The Oregon state motto engraved in it, “She Flies With Her Own Wings,” bolsters me. It makes me feel like I could actually do this.

  I have to go west. I have to go home to Oregon. I have to find my mother.

  Chapter 5

  I tell Deb my plan to head home as we’re sitting on the front porch the next morning, and she doesn’t ask me to stay, but she also doesn’t offer to come along. “I prefer my lonely little utopia,” she says. She does, however, tell me she won’t let me leave until she’s taught me all the wilderness survival skills I’ll need to make the trip.

  Turns out Deb knows nearly everything you need to know to survive in this world, and I mean survive. She grew up in the mountains of Appalachia, in the eastern arm of the shotgun that is Tennessee. Her dad came home from coal mining one day and said, “No more, never again.” Her mother left right then, but young Deb stayed with him, living off the fat of the land, eating wild “varmints” and vegetables they grew themselves. She knows how to live in the wild—and can do it without waterproof, featherweight, Plasticine camping gear.