Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (10 page)

"You know who the Pinyon Maiden is?" I asked.  I tried to throw the ball to Sky, but it sailed yards away to his left.  He chased after it.  "A long, long time ago, she saved us from a famine by giving us pine nuts.  We honor her every September."

Sky jogged back to me with the ball, smiling like he was fascinated.  I felt stupid, though.

"You wanna keep playing?" I asked.

Sky shook his head, merciful.  He tugged the glove off my hand and started back to his house, checking over his shoulder to make sure I followed.

We took a quick trip to Sky's house to drop off the ball and the weird gloves and his grandma eyed us warily from her lawn, twisting the rods on a giant, standing loom.  Sky waved warmly at her, but she only nodded curtly.  Yeah, that's Catherine Looks Over for you.  Sky's light gave her an aura and it was silver, conservative, but rippling and alert.  In a Native community it's the women who are the real warriors.

"You want lunch?" I asked Sky.  Uncle Gabriel wasn't home right now.  "I'm gonna make lunch."

Sky looked doubtful.

"I'm not gonna screw up
that
badly," I said rashly.  "You look like you don't eat.  I just don't want you dropping dead is all."

He winced with one eye, like he wasn't sure I'd used the best descriptor.  I'd already warned him I sucked at expressing myself.  I grabbed his hand--he smelled like lavender--and hauled him across the reservation, back to my house.

Uncle Gabriel had left a note for me in our kitchen, something about his bringing kinnikinnick to Reverend Silver Wolf.  Sky didn't follow me into the kitchen, but sat on a cushioned window seat in the sitting room, gazing adamantly at the breathy view of the badlands.  I wasn't dumb enough to try my hand at the stove, but I figured Sky wouldn't mind raw herring eggs.  You cover 'em in butter and garlic and only fry 'em if you're feeling adventurous.  I rummaged around in the refrigerator, swearing when I banged my head.  My dove's feather came dislodged.

You okay?
Sky asked from the other room.  He didn't need to ask, because I felt it.

I shuffled back to Sky and put the eggs on his lap, and iced juniper tea, altogether on a scrubbed wooden tray.  Sky took one look at the herring eggs and turned green.  Herring eggs are transparent.  You can see the dead fish larvae right through the sac.

"Your dad never made you herring eggs?" I asked.

Sky shook his head very quickly.  He downed the tea.

"You're a vegetarian," I realized.

He opened his mouth, like he'd forgotten he couldn't protest.  He cringed in on himself, apologizing.

"Shit," I said.  "Shit, I'm sorry--"

Sky waved his hands, trying to assuage me.  I crashed back into the kitchen.  I tore open the cabinets, cursing, searching for quinoa.  I took a mortar and pestle out of the drawer.

It's okay
, Sky kept saying.

"Shut up," I said.  I went back to him with the quinoa and thrust it on his knees.

We ate quickly, neither of us touching the herring eggs; I didn't want to upset Sky by eating them, although he kept telling me he wouldn't mind one way or the other.  Only five minutes indoors and already I was feeling antsy, like my spirit was trapped inside the walls of my house.  I told Sky I wanted to go to the lake and bring a book with me.

"You like Edward Eager?" I asked.

Sky's head tilted without recognition.

"That guy is boss," I said.

I went back to my room and grabbed a couple of books:
Half Magic, Seven-Day Magic, Magic by the Lake
.  Okay, I grabbed six.  I went back to Sky and he was carrying the tray and the dishes to the kitchen door, all stacked up and neat, like he was ready to wash them himself.  I put my books down and grabbed the tray from him.

"Nope," I said.

He looked like he considered fighting me, but decided against it.  He was scrawny, after all; I had height and weight on my side.

After I'd washed the dishes we loaded our arms up with books--Sky carried two for me--and left the house for the lane out east.  We walked past the wishing well and into the beech woods.  I could hear children laughing distantly, which I didn't mind all that much, except I preferred when the lake was empty.  I guessed we could always sit by the mudflat instead.  We came up on the lake but it wasn't that crowded:  Most of the kids were sitting on the west shore, by the tree swings.  Red damselflies skimmed low over the shallow lakeshore, tadpoles jumping in and out of the clear water.  A swan glided farther out between the fishing boats, the sun glistening off her white feathers.

"Which one you wanna read?" I asked Sky.  I sat down heavily on the heady black silt.

I could tell Sky wasn't much for reading, but he tried to be polite about it.  He picked up
Half Magic
and thumbed through it, which made me self-conscious, but pleased at the same time.  He peeked at me when the book lost his interest--exactly three pages in.  He handed me the book and pointed at the tiny lettering.  He pointed at me.

"You want me to read it to you?" I asked, faltering.

He smiled and settled down.

I like reading probably more than I like anything.  I'm not very good at it, though.  I flipped back to the first page and squinted at the typeface.  I practically had to sit on top of the book just to make out the blurry letters.  Staying up late and reading in the dark had finally come back to bite me in the ass.  The words stalled inside my head, too, like I knew what they wanted to spell, but they didn't want to spell it.  Uncle Gabe had had me tested for learning disabilities when I was ten.  I didn't have any.  I was just stupid.

"Okay," I said; because I'd read the book a million times anyway.  "It starts in Toledo, during the 50s.  You've got these four little kids, two brothers and two sisters."

Sky lay on his stomach on the dry, hot soil.  His chin on his hands, he watched the snapping turtles poke their heads out of the mud, the damselflies taunting them.  He laughed soundlessly, his whole face radiant with happiness.  I told him if he wanted to be a damselfly so badly all he had to do was jump in the lake, because he already smelled like a girl.  He scooped up a handful of mud and tossed it at my shoulder.

Half Magic
's characters came to life around me while I read slowly, haltingly to Sky.  Mr. Smith skidded past us in his tiny buggy.  Bratty Martha fought with Achmed the merchant, his wife looking on angrily.  I was stranded in Arthurian England, Sir Launcelot jousting with a masked rider.  These characters were my family, and none of them had murdered innocent women.  They were ink-and-paper beings; they stopped existing when I closed the book.

Sky put his hand on my knee.  His emotions danced inside me, placid, conciliatory.  He smiled at me like he was thanking me, but I didn't know what for.  I wanted to thank him.  I wanted to protect him.  I wondered if he could see the fictional characters around us, or if he was aware of the light that decorated him like a Nordic prince.

"Do you see the green dragonflies?" I asked, lowering my book.

Sky sat up, his jacket dirty.  He looked out at the water and nodded.

"I don't know what they're called in English," I said.  "In Shoshone we call them Tontoo.  There's a legend that says they sing at night, but only when no one is listening."

Sky's mouth stilled.  He touched his covered throat, but came to his senses.  His hand dropped on his lap and curled closed, as if stung.

Just then I learned something about Sky that he didn't want me to know.  He wanted to sing.  Did he want to sing jazz?  Jazz was his favorite genre.  He'd told me so the other day, miming a saxophone.  I'd teased him about that, because I preferred power metal.  I wouldn't have teased him if I'd known what his secret was.  His secret pinned me to the earth and made me feel weak.  No matter how much time I spent with him, I could never give him his voice back.  If doctors couldn't do it, some dumb kid with the reading level of a second grader was out of the question.

"Do you," I began.  I cleared my throat hoarsely.  "Do you know the story about the Whippoorwill?"

Sky shook his head.  He smiled harder, artificial.

"We call him To'ovego," I said.  "He's the one who gave us winter, spring, summer, and autumn.  When you hear him sing, it sounds like he's saying 'Watsa mu'a, watsa mu'a.'  Right?  'Watsa mu'a' is how you say 'four seasons' in Shoshone."

I pointed out the whippoorwill sitting on the signpost to the tribal council building, his brown plumage speckled, his belly fat.  Sky's face was sunny, like he wanted to jump up and run to the thing.  I couldn't believe something so small, something I'd grown up with my entire life could make Sky so happy.  I couldn't believe I had that power.  Suddenly I knew why I was allowed to live when my father wasn't.  Maybe regular people woke up one day and realized, "I'm going to be a poet."  "I'm going to be a baker."  That day I woke up and realized:  I was going to make Sky happy.

The realization was a strong one.  It followed me to dinner that night when Cyrus At Dawn was handing out pamphlets--something to do with lending tribal funds to the Paiute in Nevada.  I was sitting at one of the picnic tables, attacking a dish of candied wojapi while I watched Sky from afar.  He sat close to the bonfire, washing Joseph Little Hawk's face with a damp dish cloth.  His hands were gentle, his face unassuming.  My heart went crazy in my chest.  This was my friend.  This friend belonged to me.  He wasn't ink and paper, but flesh and blood.  But at the same time, nobody else could interact with him the way I could.  In that regard, he was just as magic as my magical family.  Except he was more magical; he was real.

I pushed aside my empty plate.  Aubrey Takes Flight sat down across from me at the table.  He didn't notice me until it was too late, and he jumped, like he wanted to run away.  I leveled him with a glower.  He sank down, defeated.

"Erm," Aubrey said, strained.  "Hello, Rafael," Aubrey said politely.

This guy wasn't one of my favorite people.  He was in the school year below mine, and people were always confusing our families on the census: Gives Light, Takes Flight.  The error wouldn't have happened in Shoshone, where Gives Light is Makan Imaa and Takes Flight is Yutsummi'a.  Whatever.  Aubrey's hair was the shortest on the rez, probably because he didn't want it getting in the way of his farmwork.  He was as tall as I was, as skinny as Sky was, and bedecked in the thickest, most sinful eyeglasses known to humanity.  And Uncle Gabe wondered why I didn't want a pair.

"Looking forward to the pauwau coming up?" Aubrey asked kindly.

"No," I said.

I shouldn't have been so short with him.  It wasn't his fault he didn't know how to talk to me.  Most people didn't.  Aubrey had extra reason to fear me if he wanted to:  My dad had killed his aunt, Rebecca Takes Flight.

"Well," Aubrey said.  "I should--"

"Wait," I said.

Maybe Sky was right.  Maybe people didn't hate me the way I thought they did.  If I judged people prematurely, they had every right to distrust and avoid me.  Sleeping Fox and Zeke looked at me and saw my father; but they didn't speak for the rest of the community.  Even if Rosa Gray Rain and Aubrey Takes Flight saw my father's face in the place of mine, it didn't mean they hated me.  Had I ever done anything to make them like me?

"Uh," I said.  "What crops are you planting right now?"

It was the difference between night and day.  Aubrey sat up straight and pushed back his eyeglasses and jabbered at me like he'd been waiting all his life for someone to ask him that question.

"Well!" Aubrey said.  "Actually, we just put some soybeans in the ground--late June's the best season for them, really--and the snapbeans ripen soon, and the okra, do you like okra?  After the monsoon we'll plant beets and carrots, some winter squash, shame they take so long to grow but what can you do--"

"Do you like books?" I asked.  I was afraid if I didn't interrupt him, he'd forget to take a breath.

"Yes," Aubrey said, breathless anyway.  His aura was yellow.  "Do you like cyberpunk?"

"Whozzat?" I asked.

"Oh, no, well, it's--it's a genre, really."

"Oh."

"Twenty minutes into the future, desolate alienation, cyberspace and mega conglomerates--"

"Mega what?"

"Well.  Um, what do you like to read?"

"Fairy tales and stuff," I said.

"Ah, fascinating!"

I felt better now that Aubrey and I were treating one another like human beings.  Friendliness might have been a bad idea, though, because he stayed with me--and rambled at me--for the rest of the night, right up until Solomon Knows the Woods extinguished the bonfire.  By the time I stood up and excused myself I felt like my ears were falling off.  Undeterred, Aubrey promised we'd hang out together at the pauwau in a couple of weeks.

"Raf, let's go!" Uncle Gabriel called out.

Relieved, I jogged after him with my trash in hand.  I followed him down the poorly lit dirt road.

"Do you have any shirts you need mended?" Uncle Gabriel asked me.  His big hand swallowed up my square shoulder.  "Rosa offered to do some tailoring for us.  She's a pleasant woman, isn't she?"