MILY THE MILLENNIAL - Chapter 6

MILY THE MILLENNIAL | VI. Inside Last. Copyright 2021 by Kailey Ann. All rights reserved. This is the fifth chapter of a #metafiction novel by Kailey Ann, read aloud by the author. Discover more about this story at HEDERAREADS.COM.

VI. Inside Last

The Stranger’s name was Keeper Bigly-Tate, and he made sure Mily remembered September the Eleventh as the worst day that had ever happened.

Evidently, the order came straight from the Top Trump Office and the matter was out of the Left Bower’s hands: the Yoder family was going into LOCKDOWN at once.

It was nearly nightfall on the Day Of. Mily was standing at the mouth of a monstrous sand dune called Devil’s Slide, biding time. For all the trouble Bigly-Tate’d made over Mily not packing fast enough, she sure felt like they’d been waiting around awhile.

Her eyes traced the outline of a big building that’d always been there, a pillared hunk of three-storied brick, smack on the beachfront alongside the spillway. Mily’d been there a bunch of times over the years. Dune Park Depot was prime location for class trips since it was only a few-minutes’ drive from most places in the Region. Mily guessed it was also a Secret Base of some kind because that’s where they had to wait to be taken into LOCKDOWN.

But none of the kids knew more than that.

Overpassed the tossing waves, Mily spotted tops of skyscrapers breaking the surface of Great Lake – Second City flooded more than a decade ago. Dog, Bird, Earn, and Elaeagnus remembered what it’d been like back then, they said: they’d gone to concerts at The Silver Theater a time or two, where Mily knew there was nothing now but rotting seats and paint chips floating like snow globe confetti…

She’d seen it in a documentary on TV late one night when she should’of been asleep already.

Mily watched the sun sink below the horizon line. Shadows of half-drowned towers crept out over the lake until their silhouettes stretched to lengths that outranked the heights of Second City’s sunken spires.

Mily looked on the Deep and felt queasy. The Great Lake was covered with thick black algae and particulate muck, a freshwater sea of sloshing waves and noxious plumes. Giant snakefish prowled beneath the surface eating anything living that ventured into their domain.

Bird said Second City used to be beautiful; Dog always said the same of the Lake. Mily wished she’d seen it before the Hundred Year Flood happened.

Why don’t you think about something happier?

I’ll try, Mily thought, not really meaning it.

She looked over, and both Twins were smiling at her. Mily didn’t understand how they could be so cheery when they knew they were about to leave it all behind: the Great Lake, the rushes, the trees, the birds and singing sand and helicopter seeds…

And they didn’t even know how long it’d be till they might see the Sun again.

Mily couldn’t wrap her head around it. As the Sun began sinking beneath the skyscrapers, it almost looked like they were on fire. And the image made her think of the buildings that were still probly on fire in East Atlantia, and then her brain hopped on the crazy train again, like she had been all day.

It wasn’t Mily’s fault that the Clairs were such eavesdroppers (at least that’s what she told herself when she felt guilty)! Plus, it was thanks to the bugs that Mily knew she wasn’t told the whole truth about What Happened earlier that day. She knew why they had to go into Lockdown, and Mily didn’t blame her Dad even though it was because of Dog that they had no choice in the matter.

Mily turned away from the Great Lake and looked up at Devil’s Slide, letting her eyes prize the woods just one last time...

At least she guessed it might be –

Just then Bigly-Tate grumbled from across the parking lot – He’d stationed himself and stood stock-still since they’d arrived, and now the Keeper complained that Intake was, “…bound’a take longer since none’a your kids ‘cept the older boy’s got their Estate Eye-D cards issued.”

“School pictures would’of been the Fourteenth,” Mily scoffed without thinking. She was far enough away that the adults didn’t hear her, but her big brother did; Will raised his eyebrows and frowned.

Mily turned around and fixed her eyes up at Devil’s Slide and pretended Will was hearing things.

Bigly-Tate’s a real bug-brain

Hey – some of us’of got that, E...

“Wanna race me to the top Mil?” Will asked.

Mily turned to her brother with her eyebrows drawn together in the middle. “Mom said we had to wait here.”

“But I don’t think Mom can catch us, do you?”

Mily looked at the Twins. They were both still smiling, though now there was a mixture of good humor and mischief in their upturned lips…

They were egging her on.

What would it hurt, after all? Mily wanted to see what it looked like from the top of the dune before she went underground for who-knows how long. When Keeper Bigly-Tate’s truck had carried them into the dense trees that marked the end of the moraines, Mily’d fought crying the whole ride so she wouldn’t miss a single detail in-passing by. Standing on the beach, watching the light of day fade steadily into the murk, her stomach knotted till it felt like it was full of rocks.

She had to fight that feeling; without another moment’s thought, Mily took off – tearing to the top of Devil’s Slide.

She heard Will laugh and take off sprinting to catch up with her. But she was ahead – “Mildred!” Bird hollered from below, but it didn’t slow Mily’s climb. Climbing sand dunes was tricky business if you didn’t know how – it took a lot of energy when every step got swallowed up to your ankles, or slid you backwards by half-steps in the fine, loose earth.

But that’s why Mily just kept marching. As soon as her foot hit the sand, she leapt – climbing the dune in leaps and bounds, winning.

Before Mily knew it, she was at the top – huffing and puffing – and seconds later Will had won his way to the crest of Devil’s Slide too.

“You’d – think the ground was – solid, the way – you run up it like – like it’s noth’n,” Will wheezed.

“Sorry for taking a head start,” Mily breathed. “I just needed to run, I guess.”

In the few seconds the siblings took catching their breath, Mily overheard Dog down below…

“She’s alright. Will’ll make sure she’s alright…”

“I’m fine!” Mily barked at Will.

Her brother made a face. Then, mid-shrug, his eyes went big’n wide – Will lifted one finger and pointed – Something was behind her – Mily got the feeling of being Watched and saw Will’s gaze shift away from Whatever it was… and locked eyes with his sister.

And Mily saw what Will saw.

“It’s…” he whispered.

“Ariel Doe!” Mily spun, and there she was:

Wish You May_

You’re here! Mily was fit to burst. You came back!

May I Might_

Mily giggled. Ariel Doe sure had a funny way of speech – Mily understood the words even though there was no way to say exactly what the Doe meant in plain old English. That was okay though – Mily was enjoying the fact that her brother was stunned speechless.

He gawked. Will’s hands dangled at his sides as if he’d forgotten he had limbs. “Did that deer just talk?” Will asked Mily.

Well Heard_ Now

Listen Well_ When

Rises Winter Spring_ Then

Call My Name_ Again

Let Them Hear_ Well

Spring In Winter_ Said

Wish I May_ END

“Um…” Mily didn’t know why, but suddenly she felt embarrassed that Will was standing there. She didn’t want to be rude, but why couldn’t Ariel Doe just talk normal? She hadn’t understood a lick of what the Deer’d said, and she would’of asked but all’a sudden – all sorts of Unknowns started twisting, tangling Mily’s threads of thought – every string got knotted up, stuck on unanswers, unintelligible.

Time had not altogether frozen, but it had slowed… Mily thought the Doe must’of known that she and Will needed to stretch the seconds to process. Her big brother blinked several times and then finally turned just his eyeballs her way.

“What’s she doing?” Will wondered.

“She’s making her mark,” Mily answered.

Grabbing her brother’s hand, Mily drew Will closer to Ariel Doe, so he could see. Will let Mily lead, though it seemed like he might’of dared go himself regardless.

When the two of them were near enough to reach out and touch her bronze coat, Mily looked Ariel right in her emerald eyes and said, “Will you please tell me again before you leave, so I don’t forget?” Mily squeezed Will’s hand for courage to add, “And can you say it, um, differently so I understand?”

The Doe inclined her head, pointing her coal-black nose to a soft impression in the sand where she’d stamped her right hoof.

Then Will said, “Mil would’ja lookit that!”

As to what the siblings witnessed exactly, Mily would be hard-pressed to even begin to tell… but she remembered the Orchestra of the moment when she’d seen the sand glow and heard the bleating song of Ariel Doe’s miraculous Reappearance.

Her brother’d been there too, so he saw what Mily saw – but Will was of another mind, so he remembered some things differently.

“You weren’t kidding Mildred,” Will said, standing still at the top of Devil’s Slide beside his sister.

Ariel Doe was long-gone.

Mily scoffed and stared into the southeast trees spreading down around the dune, spying between trunks and limbs for one last glimpse – Is She Invisible? Now, Mily was completely convinced:

Ariel Doe must be somekind of Magic Creature.

Mily gave up knowing where her Magic Deer went, and she scanned the whole horizon line from left to right, till she landed on Will. “I’m not a liar,” Mily said. Mily was never dishonest, well hardly ever – and that’s why it perturbed her when even her big brother wouldn’t take Mily at her Word.

“I never said you were a liar, Mil. It’s just – you’re right! The deer, shuhh she? Just showed up!”

“So you believe me now?”

“Of course I do! I said I just saw – didn’t you?”

Mily dug her toes into the sand, stalling. She needed to be sure of a few things before she told the Twins she had Sure Proof of Ariel Doe’s powers. She fixed her eyes on that black stamp where the Sun was setting: Second City, fixed in that spot across the Lake where the sky was always changing, sitting on a blinding streak of highlighter pink.

There were almost no clouds.

“Wasn’t She Huge?” Mily asked rather bluntly.

Will rolled his eyes and made Mily feel like she was being melodramatic. “It’s important to know the facts, Mil…” He shook his head once like Dog and Will both did when they were trying to make Sense of something. “That was the biggest deer I’ve ever seen.”

Mily made a face. Why do you always hafta be so stubborn? “Well how tall would you say she was? Just your best guess.”

Will exhaled audibly through his nose, then laughed and scratched the crown of his head. “Well, she was taller than me… I’d bet her back was at least… as tall as Dad.”

Mily beamed. “Biggest I’ve ever heard of!”

“And she did seem… to just, well I mean…” Will turned his back on the Lake and considered the trees sweeping the steep southeast side of Devil’s Slide.

Mily resisted the urge to lead Will to the thing she wanted to hear – biting her cheek, seconds lagging, she wondered, Did you see dune glow too?

“…as far as I could tell,” Will said, “that deer appeared completely out of thin air.”

Mily beamed again. “Right out of Nowhere, just like I said! Just like the first time at Home – ”

Mily blinked.

She’d been about finish the sentence, ‘–in the sideyard on the Twins’ Birthday,’ but her throat caught on sudden Full Realization that she was being uprooted. Because Mily’d known but hadn’t till Then thought about the fact that she may never see the four and a’quarter acres, two marshy cattail’d ponds, the overgrown grass by the treeline and under the massive Red Oak the pink granite rock where Mily lost half her marbles when she tripped straight into that patch of Pitcher’s thistle, still popsicle-sticked, where magic bugs crawled inside her brain on July Fourteenth, 2001 and changed absolutely everything…

The sweeping wind carried Bird’s voice to the very top of Devil’s Slide, and Mily didn’t even need to use the Clairs’ powers to hear her Mom clearly –

“Miiily! Wiiilliamm! It’s TIME to Go!”

Bird, Dog, Elaeagnus, Earn, and both Twins were waving their arms over their heads, hearkening the siblings back to Dune Park Depot. Mily thwacked Will’s upper arm and pointed at their parents and relatives collected near the basement entrance stairwell.

“I’ll race you,” Will said –

And tore straight down-dune into the headwind,

and Mily took off after him –

She gave her all to that series of instants: Growing in stride, speeding to the very End of Devil’s Slide for probly the last time I’ll ever, Mily leapt into Open Air –

And dared to keep on running on Nothing –

Soaring on a swoosh of rising wind –

Till her fifth leg met Singing Sand, and –

Mily landed somewhere near the End –

She leveled the breadth of each of her steps,

in line with natural Motion –

Placed each foot heel-toe as it landed –

Lifted the balls of her feet to get more distance

while still at fast speed –

Why did this seem like the last time

Mily Junegrass Womack-Yoder

might ever sprint downhill,

No Fear At All

Of falling?

Or failing?

When Mily ran out of momentum and slowed to a stop near a minute’s walk from the stairwell where their family waited to descend into the Dune Park Depot secret underground waystation, a thing Mily’d only just learned existed because Keeper Bigly-Tate explained he would escort them all to the train taking the Yoders to the waystation at the Circle Center Depot all the way in Dianapolis. It wasn’t just that she was sour about leaving – Mily could tell the Keeper didn’t like her, even though Bird kept on saying Bigly-Tate must not have ever spent time around kids…

Mily didn’t like being Wise to Bigly-Tate’s present company – Eyani heard all kinds of wayward thoughts people had, and E said Keeper Bigly-Tate was a busy-body and ‘a real Tough Guy.’ Mily just thought Bigly-Tate was rude. And she didn’t like how the Clairs growled when he was close by: it gave her the distinct feeling of being scrutinized, but Keeper Bigly-Tate was never looking her way when she checked to see. And it was Strange how two different times, the Keeper was There the day Ariel Doe decided to turn up.

The Full Realization of that last thought wouldn’t come for quite some time; Mily blinked and was back in the present when Will finished his run too, and the two of them brushed silica-rich sand dust off their shins. In that moment Mily whispered with hope that only the Clairs would hear: *Listen Well Now*

“Beat you,” Mily told Will.

“You run like the Wind,” Will said.

It was just what Mily needed to hear. Reaching for her brother’s hand, she asked one of those questions she would’of never asked anyone else: “Will there still be any Wind underground d’you think?”

“I bet we’re going to find out,” Will said. Then he clucked his tongue and tagged on, “Dad says the tunnels down there have Circulated Air, which means there should be a breeze, at least I think.”

Will squeezed her hand and led them across the swath of beach to the Dune Park Depot stairwell steps; Mily saw their parents’ faces and hated the way they were pretending to be excited, but really looked tired and tense. Dog didn’t seem scared, but Mily could see he was uncomfortable in his skin, like he trying to be a few kinds of ways all at the same time – Dad and Jack and just plain old Dog.

Mily didn’t even have a chance to greet her family before Bigly-Tate started ordering her around again:

“Bout time, train’s leaving in nine minutes…” The Keeper checked his watch which was strapped overtop his black fatigues sleeve. Bigly-Tate tapped the face of it with his middle finger, as if to drive the point home. “We’d best get on. Don’t worry about your belongings; one of the other Fours will load them when the luggage car arrives.”

What’s a Four? Mily wondered. She looked at the Twins but neither Esa nor E returned her gaze – She decided to Sightsee through E (who was standing nearest to the steel railing and had a better vantage for peering Downstairs) and watched Keeper Bigly-Tate march inside the cemented passage. The Keeper disappeared inside its shadowy depths, and Mily imagined that maybe the steps never ended, or that they just dropped off suddenly, that she may verywell be following this uniformed Stranger to the face edge of a chute, that Bigly-Tate may be leading Mily and the others straight into a TRAP.

Beyond Reason, Mily loitered on the top step and kept on watching through Eyani’s eyes – He didn’t mind – and saw Uncle Earn, Aunt Elaeagnus, Will, and Dog descend, their forms fading into the Dark like curls of smoke. The Twins were stuck in Idle too – Mily wondered if E even knew she was Seeing as he did –

Then suddenly Bird said Something –

Mily double-blinked and snapped back into her own View. And, surprised find herself staring straight into her Mom’s eyes, Mily lost track of What Bird Said… There was a moment when Mily’d been Sure she heard wrong – But that next instant, Mily completely forgot how to give a proper verbal response.

“Uh…” Mily said, double blinking again.

She asked You, What’s six-times-seven?

“Forty-Two?”

“You’re Right, and Good Job on your Fast Facts, Mily,” Mom said. Then her Mom looked at the Twins and told them Good Job too – Bird said she knew it must feel like it didn’t matter that they all did their very best, that they practiced, that they studied together at the dinner table and scribbled numbers in shaving cream with their pointer-fingers, and Bird herself had been Just Waiting until the End of the Day so she could ask how They All did… *Well*

Bird didn’t so much Say all of this, but Mily felt it: There was of course no way to say How Bird found out that was exact Six Mily had in fact tripped over, or if it’d been Bird’s ‘Principal Intuition’ she often spoke of, but Somehow, her Mom Addressed all the kids hadn’t said and more, in this one, special Praise she offered, the very thing her daughter’d craved all day long, without even knowing

Because September Eleventh, 2001 was a Tuesday, and Mily and the Twins had been in class doing Fast Facts Practice and even though their Performance on the ‘Multiply by Sixes’ worksheet wasn’t ultimately Graded, they never even got to brag once to One Another about ‘How Many They Got Right!’

And there was no way for Mily or the Twins to know it Yet: They had Witnessed a Coming of Age, and Each of Them were Emblazoned with their own Unique Impression, Their Own Version of ‘The Moment When I First Heard What Happened’ that Marked Them From Now-On, and Together They were Entering the Start of an Entirely New Era – A Great State of Change.

“That’s how many days we’ll be Down There,” Bird broke through. “I Promise you, no more than Forty-Two.” Bird took All Three of their hands in her two somehow. “We’ve got to go now.”

Mily withdrew her hand and leaned back on her heels, then said, “I’ll go last,” nodding at both Twins to Go Ahead – “I’m right behind you.”

Fixing her grip around the safety rail, Mily trailed three steps behind as they, The Rest, descended. Somewhere about halfway down the stairs (Mily guessed based on the sound of her Uncle’s humming down below, how it echoed), she decided to turn back, just to see the Sun One Last –

Mily blinked and blinked, but she couldn’t see.

It seemed she was already beyond the bend, so

Mily Turned About-Face and Got Going.