Gives Light(Gives Light Series) (11 page)

"Fine," he said gruffly, and picked out a promising-looking slasher flick about King Tut.  I guess if I'd been dead for thousands of years, and then some dummy archaeologist woke me from my peaceful sleep, I'd be pretty cranky, too.  I don't know that I'd go around killing people, though.

I made Rafael get the tickets for us, partly because of the obvious and partly because it was hilarious to listen to him bungle his way through conversation with the poor, bewildered woman behind the glass partition.  My amusement didn't elude his notice; he scowled at me and stuffed the tickets in my hands.  We had shown up in the middle of the first showing, though, and were way too early for the next one.  I pointed out the movie schedule and he frowned, confused.  "Now what?"

I grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street to a convenience shop.  I abandoned him once inside and went down the stationery aisle.  I'd already known I wanted to get him some colored pencils, but now I finally had the occasion to do it.  Not long after I'd picked out a big box of them, I heard Rafael call out from another part of the store, "Trojans?  Like
The Iliad
?"

I didn't waste a second finding him and pulling him out of that aisle.

The girl at the cash register spent more time looking at Rafael than ringing me up.  I couldn't really blame her, though; apart from the sycamores, he was probably the best-looking thing in town.

We went outside the store and I gave him the colored pencil set.

"This is for me?"

Why would I give them to him if they were for somebody else?  I made up my mind not to tease him, though, and smiled instead.  He looked at the box; then at me.  I couldn't read the look on his face.

He didn't say anything, in the end, but swung his arm around me, and we walked side-by-side back to the cinema, warmth and dizziness addling my senses.

It was still too early for the movie.  We sat outside on the pavement, our backs to the tan stucco wall.  "Do something," Rafael insisted.  I walked on my hands, but he wasn't very interested in that--until he tried to replicate it and crashed into the wall.  Except for a scrape on the side of his face, he was fine.  We had another laugh.  I liked Rafael's laugh, the way his eyes disappeared beneath his lashes, the way his dimples swallowed up his face.

We sat on the pavement again and Rafael put his new pencils to work.  I tried to see what he was drawing, but he kept shoving his hand in my face.  I played him a couple of pieces from Greensleeves and he said, "Too late, buddy."

The sun was bright and overwhelming; I was glad, for once, that I'd left my jacket behind, but starting to wish that I had brought some more lavender oil with me.  I checked my wristwatch.  Still too soon for the movie.

I felt something heavy fall across my knees.  I glanced down, startled.  Rafael's head was on my lap, his knees raised to prop up his notebook.  It was like he'd wanted any old place to lay his head and had decided arbitrarily that I'd suffice.  He went on sketching, as comfortable as could be.  I thought, surprised, that I was pretty comfortable, too, except for the odd tingling in the pit of my stomach.  I watched the dark muscles pull taut in Rafael's left arm, the elegant vein prominent on the underside.  His right arm was curled against his chest; I counted the blue chain links again and found thirty-seven this time.   His hair took on a blue-black sheen under the sun.  I wondered what it felt like...  Before I could talk myself out of it, I ghosted my fingers across his hair.  Rafael didn't seem to mind.  His hair was surprisingly coarse beneath my fingertips, but I couldn't think of anything comparable to the texture.  I brushed my fingers across his braids--five of them in total, most of his hair left loose--and traced them to his scalp.  He seemed to like that, leaning unconsciously into my touch.  Only when I tried to untangle the knots in his hair did he bat my hand away.  I'm not sure he was even aware of that, because he never once looked up from his artwork.

I think I could have gone on like that for ages, touching him, watching him; nothing had ever made me feel so relaxed in my entire life.  But then I looked up just as a guy walking down the street shot us a dirty look.  He made me feel like I'd done something terribly wrong.  Suddenly I didn't want to be on that sidewalk anymore.  I checked my wristwatch again.  About twenty minutes to go before the movie began.  I figured that was cutting it close enough.  I shoved my wrist in front of Rafael's face and tapped the watch.  He got up, collecting his notebook and his pencils, and we went inside the cinema.

Going to the movies has always been one of my favorite experiences, not least of all because it's something that doesn't require any vocalization on the moviegoer's part.  Popcorn, of course, is the most important part of the moviegoing experience.  I tried to articulate that to Rafael by pointing to the concession stand.  He wasn't interested in the popcorn, it turned out, but he sure had an eye for the candy.  He loaded himself up with mint creams and malted milk balls and chocolate bars and I tried, I really tried, not to stare at him.  His stomach was the approximate size and shape of a garbage disposal, I thought, and even a shark's teeth weren't as big as his sweet tooth. 

We went into the theater and spent a good five minutes arguing about where to sit--Rafael wanted the front row, I preferred the back.  We came to a compromise and found seats in the middle of the theater.  Rafael jumped when the lights went out.  I snickered at him and he shoved my shoulder, annoyed.  He seemed to think that the coming attractions were the actual movie, at first, and got doubly annoyed when he figured out otherwise. 

As far as the actual movie went--it could have been better.  For a murderous undead pharaoh, there wasn't nearly enough blood.  I had kind of expected there to be giant replicas of the actors oozing with fake guts, like the female combatants in Gladiator, but Tut's crazy massacres looked mostly CG.  I've always picked movies apart like that; I think analyzing the cinematics is my favorite aspect.  Or that's what I thought before going to the movies with Rafael.  My new favorite part, it turned out, was analyzing Rafael's facial expressions.  He gaped at the flying heads and limbs and even looked a little sick during a suspiciously bloodless evisceration scene.   I felt bad for him--but not for long.  The movie wasn't even halfway over before it lost the battle for his attention to the giant mound of candy on his lap.  Ah, well.  A guy's gotta have his priorities.

It was maybe five o'clock by the time we left the cinema, and King Tut reigned victorious over all things living and otherwise.  I wasn't at all sure that Rafael had paid attention to the movie beyond the first twenty minutes.  But then he offered me this gem:

"Don't ever mummify me if I drop dead in front of you."

I promised him with a raised hand and a straight face that I would never even consider it.

The bus was a little more crowded when we boarded it for the return trip to Nettlebush.  We sat on the opposite side this time, so I could watch the desert again.  The sun was getting ready for its daily descent; I liked the way its glow stretched and illuminated the sand dunes like hidden treasure, the hackberries and orange caltrops cast in ominous shadows.  I nudged Rafael, pointing west, and he nodded, distracted.  He was sketching again.

The bus was stuffy and warm and I felt my eyes sliding closed despite my will.  I leaned against the scratched window.  The top pane was ajar, a breeze trickling through the glass manufactured by the squeal of rushing tires on asphalt.  I got to experience Rafael's earlier annoyance firsthand; my floppy hair kept blowing in my eyes.  I guessed it was time for a haircut.

I realized I couldn't hear Rafael's pencil scratching on paper anymore.  Maybe he was finished with his sketch.  I turned toward him, hoping to get a look at the finished result.  His notebook was closed.  His eyes were on me.

I smiled, bemused.  By now I was well-accustomed with Rafael's frequent bouts of contemplative silence, but I couldn't think of a good reason for him to stare at me, unless there was something he badly wanted to say but didn't know how to put into words.  The sun hanging low and full to the west was a welcome luminary; its scattered rays crept through the window and lit Rafael's eyes like a needed beacon at sea, stormy and tossing and endlessly blue.  I wondered vaguely where his eyes had come from.  Maybe a couple of his ancestors had married Vikings a thousand years ago.

I was still on that thought when he reached out and caught my curls on his fingers, tucking them behind my ears.

My skin, where his fingers grazed, felt on fire.  I had been ready to fall asleep only minutes ago; now, I couldn't have been more awake.  I had that weird feeling again, that something was wrong with me, but I couldn't begin to figure out what it was.  Then Rafael smiled, just a little, and looked the other way.  The feeling, mercifully, was gone, replaced with a swooping sensation of giddiness.  Getting Rafael to smile always felt like a personal victory.

It was almost dinnertime when we made it back to the reservation, but I didn't know how Rafael could possibly eat anything after all the candy he'd downed.  He waved goodbye and went back to his uncle's house while I went back to Granny's.  Granny was waiting for me to carry her loom inside for the evening--I did--and then she pulled me over to the hearth to talk to me.

"If you know anything about your father's business, you had better tell me," she said sharply.  "Those cops are gone for the day, but I don't doubt we'll be seeing them again."

My heart sank.  Maybe I was upset with Dad for leaving me behind, but I still didn't want him getting into trouble.

I shook my head.

" 'No'?  No, you won't tell me, or no, you don't know?"

I'd meant the second option.  I held up two fingers.

Granny sighed and pressed her lips together in a thin line.  "Why Paul couldn't take up a legitimate enterprise, I'll never..."

I squeezed Granny's shoulder.  She waved dismissively, but not unkindly.  "Next time," she said, "you ought to take
me
to the movies."

With my hand to my heart, I vowed that I would.  I was willing to bet she'd find something to be commended about King Tut's steely resolve.

11

Starfield

I hate when I'm having a really awesome dream about dragons in space or fire-breathing armadillos and something happens to interrupt it.

That's exactly what happened one morning when a loud tapping outside my window jerked me out of a deep sleep.  In my half-dead disorientation, I even managed to fall out of bed.

The tapping sound continued.  I wondered if some kooky bird had got its signals mixed up and was dive-bombing at my window.  I groped in the dark until I found the oil lamp next to my closet and flicked it on.  It was a little after four in the morning, if my alarm clock was to be believed.  And the tapping at my window wasn't a drunken bird after all, but a series of well-aimed rocks.

I knew who the culprit was even before I climbed up onto my bed and stuck my head out the window, narrowly missing another projectile that flew into my room and skittered across the floor.

Rafael stood on the ground below, a rock in his raised hand.  I think it was the first time since I'd met him that I felt irritated with him.  Why'd he have to wake me up at four in the morning? 

He dropped the rock and gestured for me to come downstairs to him.  I shook my head.

"Get down here!" he hissed, like that would change my mind.

I showed him a rude hand gesture I'd very seldom had reason to use in the past.

"Come on already," he said.  "I want to show you something.  And no, it can't wait.  If we don't hurry, we'll miss it."

I didn't want to admit it, but I was intrigued.  Maybe Rafael had caught wind of an upcoming meteor shower or something equally as rare.  I rested my elbows on the windowsill, my chin on my hands, thinking it over.

Rafael started hopping up and down, impatient.  He reminded me so much of a volcano about to blow its top that I laughed, my ire melting away.  And when he stopped his frantic leaping and looked up at me in the moonlight, he had such a wonderful, unexpected smile on his face that I laughed a second time, marveling at how quickly his moods vacillated, how completely unpredictable he was.  The situation was so absurd, it made me think of Romeo calling to Juliet from below her balcony, except Romeo was an irascible Plains boy and Juliet was--

Well, there wasn't a Juliet.  Just Romeo and his long-suffering best friend.

I closed the window, extinguished the lamp, dressed quickly, and went downstairs.  I had this odd and inexplicable feeling of unease following me around; but the moment I slipped out the door and met Rafael on the grass, the discomfort dissipated.  He grabbed my hand and stalked hurriedly through the reservation.  I nudged him, hoping he'd tell me where we were headed, but he very stubbornly refused.

Next thing I knew, we were in the woods.

I really hoped Rafael wasn't showing me the wolves again, because although I'd liked that, it wasn't much fun to wake up at an ungodly hour for something I'd already seen.  Aside from that, I had heard Aubrey talking to Annie once about the black bears that lived deep in the forest.  That was one crowd I wasn't eager to mingle with very soon. 

I heard the whispering and gurgling of a brook, and then I saw the brook itself, winding and skinny, and Rafael let go of my hand and jumped across.  I followed.  I hadn't seen this part of the woods before.  Was this where the bears lived?  Wary, I snatched Rafael's hand again as soon as we had cleared the water.  If he really was leading me to a hungry family of bears--and I hated to admit that he was nutty enough to do it--I'd rather he be eaten first.  He grasped my hand tightly, though, and the feel of his fingers wrapped around mine, hard and warm, was reassuring.