Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (23 page)

Mine.  He was mine.  I knew it then.  He knew it.  I could see it in the kindling-colored warmth of his brown eyes, pinched and consternate with defeat.  He didn't want to be a boy who liked boys.  I didn't know what he was so afraid of.  He knew I would take care of him; he knew it better than I did.  I was the one who feared the blood I'd inherited.

You are your mother's son
, Sky said.

He said so when he traced routes around my eyes with the fingers from his free hand.  My eyes were my mother's eyes, dark blue with ancient heritage.  He said so when he pressed his fingertips in the dents my dimples made on my cheeks.  My dimples were my mother's dimples, creases that used to swallow up her face when she threw her head back and laughed.

My name was my mother's name.  Makan Imaa.  Gives Light.

"I let her die," I said.

Sky shook his head soberly.  Sky tilted his head back, baring his throat.  Two red scars crossed the soft white expanse of his neck.

You didn't put these here
, Sky said.

I knew what he was really saying.  The same person who put those scars there had put my mother in her death bed.  To some extent, I felt the same.  Mom only started wasting away once she found out exactly who she'd married.

"Do you think people are born evil?" I asked.  "Or do they turn evil over time?"

Because if Dad was born evil, and I never noticed it, that made me an idiot.  And if Dad was born good, but slowly grew evil, that made me an even bigger idiot, that I'd never picked up on the clues.

Sky ran his fingers through my hair again.  Sky ran his fingers down the hard, square shape of my jaw.  I didn't know what he was doing at first until he touched my nose, my eyebrows, all traits handed down to me by my father.  He admired my father's attributes alongside my mother's.  He knocked the breath out of me.  How?  How could he admire anything that came from my father?

Because it's you
, Sky said.

I was never going to understand that.  But I understood something else.  When Sky admired what my father had given me, he was telling me I was free to admire it, too.  He was telling me it was possible to derive something wholesome out of something foul.

You don't have to stop loving your father
, Sky said. 
He's still your father.

This was my father's last victim, the only one who survived.  I'd wondered about that--about why Sky had lived.  Had Dad hesitated when he'd pressed the blade to Sky's throat?  Had he finally realized how low he'd sunk?  Dad's last shred of humanity might have fought his greater evil and lost that night.  Sky might have been the last and only person to see him human.

This was my father's last victim, and he was telling me not to hate my father for it.  This was my father's last victim, and I wore my father's face; and he wanted me anyway.

"You don't think I'm like him?" I asked.

Sky's Plains flute swung when he shook his head.  Sky touched the dove's feather knotted in my hair.

Mom was my spirit guide.  I had Dad in me, but I had Mom in me.  Uncle Gabriel, even Prairie Rose In Winter had said that my actions were a choice.  I didn't know whether I still had that choice, whether I wasn't already an uncontrollable monster.  When I was with Sky I felt like I had a choice.  Sky looked at me like I was some kind of minor miracle.  There was no way to stand on the receiving end of that gaze without feeling like the world's conqueror.

"I missed you," I grumbled.

I turned my face into Sky's stomach, huffing.  His belly flexed with relieved laughter, my breath tickling him.  He buried his fingers knuckle-deep in my hair.  I sat up, spitting out sand.

"Play Greensleeves," I commanded.

It was impossible to wallow in darkness when Sky was as good as a night light.  He picked up his flute and surprised me by playing a real song on it, but it was nothing I recognized; it sounded stylized and flashy, like something from a carnival.  I questioned Sky and he grabbed my notebook, stole the pencil from behind my ear, opened the book to a new page, and wrote, "Aeris dies."  Weirdo.  His presence alone animated the midnight landscape.  I pulled him against me and tousled his hair.  He sighed contentedly, which I guess you don't need vocal cords for.  I loved to hear him sigh.  I loved it because it was proof he hadn't been completely silenced.  Nothing could silence him, least of all our past.

"I'm gonna camp out here for a few more days," I said.  "You don't have to.  I'll walk you home when you wanna go."

He put his chin on my shoulder and looked at me, questioning.

"I hate being indoors," I said brashly.  "I spent two weeks trapped inside that house.  Houses are ridiculous.  When I'm on my own I'm just gonna live in the coal seams or something."

Sky raised his eyebrows, doubtful.

"Yeah, real nice, buddy," I said.

Sky knocked my shoulder.

I grabbed Sky's hand.  His fingers went between mine again, like he was anticipating it, hoping for it.  Pulse against pulse, mine fast, his comforting, we fitted together.  He was mine and he knew it.  I knew it.  I was scared to inherit so much of his faith.  I had to make sure I was my mother's son, I told myself.  I had to be the kind of person Sky--everyone else--could depend on.  Only Sky made me feel capable of that.  On my own, I devolved into the kind of person who knocked down shelves and cried on basement floors.

Sky came back to the badlands to visit me the next day, when I practiced falcon calls and carved arrowheads out of wood chips.  He came back the day after that and I showed him a type of red rock we called Timbisha; if you cracked it open you could make a decent face paint with it.  I told him about a pine beetle infestation out in the woods, and he told me the feds were acting tight-lipped about his dad's whereabouts, and he was getting sicker by the moment just worrying about it.

"What are they keeping from you?" I asked.  "It's not like you're a little kid."

Sky shrugged, sitting at my side.  It was sunset, and the sun to the west was giant and red, scattering gold all over the wide horizon.  A thin white mist, humid, reached for our knees, our legs dangling over the edge of the promontory.

You don't worry about coyotes out here?
Sky asked me.  He cupped his hands around his mouth, pretending to howl.

"Nah," I said.  "Coyotes are timid.  Give them their own habitat and they'll leave you alone.  You only gotta worry about the coral snakes, but they prefer flat terrain.  And badgers, I guess, but they're mostly asleep during the day."

Sky gave me a dubious look.

"Oh, yeah, there's mountain lions out here.  They're pretty dangerous, but you stay away from the prickly pears and you'll never run into one.  You ever had a vulture throw up on you?  They do it when they're scared."

Sky laughed so hard I wondered whether I ought to have taken offense.  On the other hand, it was Sky.  I would gladly have made an idiot of myself to see him smile.  I shoved him lightly.  He hooked his ankle around mine.

"I wish you could stay in Nettlebush," I said.

He swung his leg and mine, his hand on my thigh, subtly proprietary.  My skin burned tantalizingly where he touched me.  He looked up at me and flashed me a silly smile.

"Can't you tell your dad you wanna stay with your grandma?" I asked.  I knew Sky wanted to stay; he'd already told me as much.  "Or if your dad's in legal trouble, can't he hide out here?  Feds can't arrest anyone on an Indian reservation unless they committed one of the Seven Major Crimes out here.  People smuggling ain't one of the Major Crimes."

Sky searched the sepia clouds, lost in thought.  I felt his sadness for my own.  I clutched his hand and he squeezed back, hard.  It had to be torture for him, not knowing whether his father was okay, not even being able to contact him.

"Maybe Uncle Gabe could look for your dad," I offered.  "No idea why, but he knows pretty much every Native in the southwest.  I mean, their tribal offices, anyway.  He could make phonecalls, find out if anyone's seen anything."

Would he do that?
Sky asked, hesitant, hopeful.

" 'Course he will," I said, suddenly certain.  "You're a good guy.  Anyone would want to help you."

Sky peeked at me from under his eyebrows, uncommonly shy.  Our legs, our hands were still joined together.

"You don't think so?" I said, more intently.

He shrugged his shoulders, noncommittal.

"Don't do that," I said quietly.

I brushed his curls with my fingers.  He shivered like the pleasure was unprecedented.  He shook his head slowly, afraid.

This is not normal
, he said.

I had no frame of reference for that.  I grew up in a culture that said this was normal.  I was a hunter, and I'd seen the does that coupled with does in heat, the rams that mated with rams for life.  It was nature.  I didn't understand why humans were so afraid of nature.

It's late
, Sky said, his eyes on the sunset.

"Yeah," I conceded, reluctant.  I let go of him, standing, shouldering my duffel.  I had to head home and work on the shelves.  "C'mon," I said.  "Don't want your granny kicking down my uncle's door."

Sky stood with me, his hands in his pockets, soaking in the sight of the tameless land.  I loved the badlands.  I hoped he could see why.  I staggered down the incline, but stopped to say something to him--I don't even remember what.  I turned and looked over my shoulder.  It was lucky that I did.  His sneaker caught a weird way on the clay ground.  He vaulted forward clumsily.

It was easy work to grapple Sky's forearms, to right him again.  He weighed almost nothing, which only reinforced my suspicions that he was some kind of aerial nymph.  He met my eyes with fright; the only thing keeping me from laughing was that I felt sorry for him, and that I worried he'd hurt himself.

I don't like the badlands anymore
, Sky decided.

"You okay?" I asked.

He nodded just once.  The wind picked up, biting my ears. Sky followed my braids with his eyes.  I saw the want in his eyes, clear as day, and wondered why he wouldn't let me give.  I would have given him anything.  I just wished I had more to give.

Sky slid his hands down my arms.  I felt it when his fingertips lingered on my chain tattoo.  His emotions came on so strong just then I had to swallow and shut my eyes, overwhelmed by raw want, by longing and dread.  I opened my eyes and Sky hadn't moved at all.  I had to do something.  I had to.

I snatched Sky's hand in mine.  I rubbed my thumb across his knuckles, words failing me.  He was so beautiful.  He was the best thing I'd ever seen.  He watched me closely, hopeful, apprehensive.  His tongue darted out and wet his lips.  I made up my mind that I was going to kiss him.  If he wanted it--if it was okay--I was going to kiss him.

My free hand found the small of Sky's back.  His energy jumped, piercing my palm.  He shuffled closer, careful, under the pretense that the ground was still slippery.  I knew better.  I folded him into me where he belonged.  He had to tilt his head back to look at me.  I wanted to feel his freckles, to learn them all over again, but I didn't dare let go of his hand.  I was afraid that if I released him, he'd slip through my fingers, like the wind spirit that he was.

I pressed our foreheads together.  My neck hurt at this angle, but I didn't care.  I could feel Sky's breath when it passed over my lips.  I could smell the lavender on him, sleepy and sweet.  His eyes were so close I couldn't see anything else; they usurped our environment.  He never looked away.  I tried to make out the dots around his pupils, but he was too close even for that.  I didn't mind.  His breath came faster, his hand tightening on my stomach.

Do it
, he said.

Don't do it
, he said.

I couldn't do it if I thought it was going to make him feel uncomfortable, or unsafe.  I mean, I wanted to do it.  I wanted it more than anything.  It didn't matter what I wanted; except that I wanted to keep him happy.

A red-tailed hawk circled the breathy, burnt clouds.  His high shriek jolted the both of us awake.  We stepped apart.  For a moment all I could do was stare at the ground, trying to gather my racing thoughts.  Sky broke into a quick laugh, hard and forced.  I laughed with him, because I didn't want to be left out.

"Dumbass," I muttered.

I didn't mean Sky; I meant me.

I went home before nightfall, the reservation glowing, cabin windows lit with oil and tallow.  I shouldered open the door to Uncle Gabriel's house, the fireplace ignited.  Desert climates are weird.  I went down to the basement, pulled on the overhead light, and sat down amid pieces of sawed lumber.  I fumbled on the floor for my measuring tape.  I'd almost finished the shelves the night before, except the panel width had wound up too big for the wall mounts.  Yeah, I wasn't making that mistake again.

Uncle Gabriel came into the basement when I was drilling the strips between the panels.  I saw his tawny, blurry frame in the doorway and shut the noisy power drill off.  He came right over to me.

"You should really wear safety glasses for that," Uncle Gabriel said.

"I'm mostly done, anyway," I said, except I needed to borrow his sander.