Even now, with the Midwestern desert tightening its grip, with the sun searing our skin, with Nana’s mules dry-eyed and weary and nothing but burnt soybean fields and abandoned farmhouses all around us and anemic buzzards circling, my little sister and I pause to drink our tea.
         The radiation sickness has eaten its way into my belly and I’m horribly thirsty, but I sip the oolong slowly, like Nana taught me. I sit still, the wagon’s driver’s seat uncomfortably hard beneath me, and concentrate on all the questions we need answers to. 
         I try to believe the tea leaves will speak to me.
      Beside the wagon, my sister, Uma, paces through the strip of shadow beside the wheel, looking younger than all of her eight years with her face swollen and pinched. The radiation has nibbled the meat from her bones. The layers of her now-too-big clothing swallow her up. 
         “These stupid leaves aren’t going to tell us anything, Em.” She scratches at a patch of ruined skin high on her temple and scowls into her teacup. For a moment I’m half afraid she’s going to toss it in frustration, spilling our precious water, but after two months in the wasteland that used to be Illinois, even Uma knows better than that. “That Raggedy Man said the caravan’s by The Lake. Let’s just go already.”
         I take a deep breath. I promised I’d take care of her, and I’m the closest thing to a grown-up either of us has now, but Uma’s always been impossible. “We don’t know if the caravan’s safe.” I take another sip. I concentrate on the questions. I try to believe. Is it worth the risk? Should we still push north? Is Lake Michigan sour now too? “Remember what happened last time?”  
         Uma huffs, tonguing the scar on her lower lip that trio of bandits gave her when we first left Nana’s trailer all those weeks ago. Finally, Uma slumps beside the wagon wheel in a plume of dust, her skirt puddling around her, porcelain cup between her hands. She sips her tea sullenly. One of the mules snorts.
      Uma’s been getting more and more restless. She’s sick. She needs medicine. She needs a doctor. We both do. But I’m only thirteen and the world’s a dangerous place now and, even though I’m the big sister, on my own I don’t know what to do.
         I take a sip drink of tea and try to believe the Old Ways will guide me.

❋ 

A year ago, when our farm finally dried up despite the violent storms dumping rain on our land once or twice a season, Papa left us with Nana so he could go into the city to look for work. The whole world was already spiraling out of control, but the bombs hadn’t dropped their radiation on us yet, and there was still a glimmer of hope in Nana’s eyes when she ushered Uma and me into her trailer that first night. The living room was dim with mauve shag carpet and tattered window shades. It smelled like stale cigarettes. A collection of ceramic frogs peered at us from the windowsill. 
         In the corner loomed a curio cabinet and Nana opened it to reveal row upon row of mismatched teacups.
         “You’re both old enough now, I reckon, times being what they are.” Nana stepped back and took a long draw from her cigarette. “So. Choose whichever teacup speaks to you loudest, my dears. It’ll be yours.” 
         Uma and I looked at each other. Years of squabbles and hair pulling and shoving each other into the dirt over kickballs and barnyard kittens and a million other things passed between us.
         Finally, Uma, always impatient, pushed past me. “This one’s mine!” She snatched the biggest, brightest cup from the cabinet. It was painted with butter yellow stripes with red tulips racing along the sides. A riot of bluebells clustered near the thick handle. 
         I fumed for a moment, annoyed at Uma’s obnoxiousness and the fact that she’d gotten first pick. But since I was older and more mature, I took my time. I counted to ten, as Nana congratulated Uma about her cup. Carefully, I stepped forward, prepared to find the fanciest teacup, the one that would make Nana proud of me, and Uma jealous, but as I reached into the curio, I felt an unnatural tug deep inside. My eyes were pulled toward the center shelf’s back corner. The teacup was nothing special, just a plain powder blue with worn, white filigree spilling onto the base. The lip was chipped.
         I knew it was mine.
         When I picked it up, Nana nodded with a faint, approving smile.
         As she ushered us into the cluttered kitchen, Uma chattering, me quiet and thoughtful, the kettle was already whistling.
         Then, as if awakened by the sound, a siren started its low, distant wail. For a moment, the two sounds collided, dissonant and terrible. Uma craned her neck to look outside, eyes wide, her free hand clutching Nana’s arm.
         “It’s just a test, Uma,” I said. “They always test the siren on Wednesdays.” I set my cup down on the counter and tried not to seem as uneasy as I felt.
         “Nu-uh! Two weeks ago there was a big plane! Right out there!” Uma flung her arm wide, pointing toward the window. Her teacup swung wildly on her finger.
         “Careful now.” Nana took Uma’s cup and set it beside mine. “It’s probably just a test.”
         I smiled smugly.
         “Or…” Nana opened a canister and pinched dried tea leaves into our cups. “Might be one of those air raids.” 
         Uma stuck her tongue out at me. 
         Nana shrugged. “Only one way to know for sure.” Picking up the kettle, she poured the boiling water onto the leaves and handed our teacups back to us carefully. 
         “It’s hot, so sip it slowly,” Nana said. “Don’t slurp, Uma. That’s it. You don’t like the taste? Well, it’s not supposed to be sweet. The future rarely is, these days. Just close your eyes. Take your time. Sip and think of a question you want answered. Think hard.”
         When there was nothing left but leaves in the bottom of our cups, Nana leaned forward eagerly, her eyes bright, and asked, “Well, loves, what do you see?”
         It was the same every time we had tea with her: “Well, loves, what do you see?” 
         And every time, Uma would fidget, point to the slurry in the bottom of her cup and proclaim, “A puppy!” Or “A daisy!” Or “A cherry pie!” 
         Nana would exclaim, “Goodness! How wonderful, Uma!” 
         But when I looked into the bottom of my cup, with all my dark questions still circling in my head—Will the air raids ever stop? Will the fighting ever end? When will it rain?—I saw clouds sprouting from the earth like mushrooms. I saw a two-headed serpent. I saw a tadpole, swaddled in bones.
         Nana would only nod carefully. 
         It was only after she sent Uma outside to play ‘pioneer girl’ in the barn with her old mules and ancient wagon, that Nana would lay her wrinkled hand on mine and say, “The Old Ways are gifting you answers to your questions, Em. It’s up to you to figure out exactly what they mean.”
         Every time Nana served us tea, I tried to understand, to piece together what those images meant. It wasn’t until Papa never came back that I understood the image of a severed rope. It wasn’t until the air raids intensified and Nana’s crackly radio started shouting about bombs and the air made all of us sick, that I understood why my tea leaves were shaped into a bottle of poison.
         It wasn’t until Nana died, coughing blood and cussing, that I understood a broken heart.
         None of what I saw ever told me what to do or where to go, though.
         Weeks later, all alone except for the bandits who came in the night and tried to steal everything we had, I packed up Nana’s wagon and hitched her mules. I gathered up my little sister and all the food and clean water we could carry, a camp stove and a tin of Nana’s oolong tea, and set out across the desert, hoping to find someone to take care of us, hoping the Old Ways would help get us where we needed to be.

❋ 

Now, here we are, my little sister and I, surrounded by parched earth and ruined farmland, and I still don’t know what to do.
         I take a sip of tea.
         It tastes bitter.
         A fetid wind kicks the sour earth over our mules’ mangy backs and I wonder in spite of myself, What if the leaves don’t speak at all this time? What if they never really did to begin with? What if we run out of water? What if we do find that caravan and they take our mules and our wagon and leave us all alone in the desert?
         What if they hurt Uma again?
         What if Uma starts coughing? What if she dies and leaves me like Papa and Nana did? 
         My hand is unsteady when I take the final swallow.
        What if—
         “Hey!” 
         I startle and look down at Uma, sitting in the wagon’s shadow. She is peering into her cup, that gaudy thing with all those ridiculous flowers that, in the real world, will probably never bloom again. 
         I sigh. “What is it?” 
         Uma shakes her head and looks a little closer until her nose is practically in the teacup. “It’s a hand.”
         “A hand?”
         “The leaves look like a hand.”
         It’s so unlike anything my little sister has ever seen before, and she sounds so confused, that I clamor out of the driver’s seat in spite of the way my belly aches, and crouch beside her to see.
         Uma’s tea leaves, gray/brown and damp, are clustered into the shape of a palm, upturned, with slender fingers extended, as if reaching out and waiting to be held.
         Uma looks at me, her unwashed hair obscuring her dirt-smudged face. “It looks like a hand, right?” 
         I nod, the oolong still heavy on my tongue and, hesitantly, I look into my own cup. The leaves there, gray/brown and damp, have clustered into the shape of a hand as well, downturned, with slender fingers extended, as if reaching for something to hold.
         I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I tip my teacup so Uma can see.
         Both of our hands are pointing north.
         For a long moment, we sit in silence, our shoulders pressed together, a quiet understanding passing between us that neither of us has felt before. 
         Finally, Uma stands, her skirt tangling around her thin, thin legs. She looks painfully young, but her eyes are like Nana’s when she extends her hand toward me. 
         I take it. 
         I hold it tight as we help each other back onto the wagon.
         I do not know if the Old Ways are really mine or Uma’s to claim. I do not know if the tea leaves will ever really show us the future. All I know for sure is that whatever happens, my sister and I will move through it all together.