Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (25 page)

"I lived here until I was eight," I said.  I pulled an old gray
cocoon off the dry bird bath.  "You can't live in a house where a person died.  It's impure."

I didn't feel anywhere near as upset to see my old house as I might have thought I would.  The sadness was still there; but it was muted, faded.  When you bring a bright light into a dark room, the shadows are going to disperse.  Sky was the kind of light that grew stronger the more it burned, like the Vestal Flame of Ancient Rome.

Sky sat down on the front porch, low and wide, a few of the wood panels eaten away by termites.  He put his hands on his knees and smiled, the edges of his mouth crumpling.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He jerked his head over his shoulder.  I thought he was talking about my mom; in which case, I was ready to tell him that the pain was starting to lessen.  Unconsciously, he touched the birthmark on his cheek, something he'd inherited from his own mom.

"Do you remember much about her?" I asked, tentative.

I sat down next to Sky.  He shook his head No.

"How much do you remember?" I asked.

He shook his head again. 
Nothing.

I took Sky's hand, engulfing it in mine.  "I remember her," I said, resolve rushing inside my chest.  "She used to run a daycare out by the Threefold farm."

I saw the transformation in his eyes: shock, desperation, sickness again.  I wanted to give him back his mother.

"I went there a lot," I said.  "Because Dad worked with the tribal council, and Mom--"  Mom was a hunter.  I was a hunter.  "When my parents were busy, they left me and Mary at the daycare.  I was little, but I still remember.  I remember your mom."

I dug back through my memories, grasping at the weak, tenuous images.  I told Sky, "She used to tie her hair back in a rubber band.  She wore an apron with a carrot on it.  She smelled like dirt all the time, because of that big garden she kept out front.  She let us take home crayons and toys.  One day she taught us about the heartbeat drum.  When everyone plays the drum together, their hearts speed up or slow down to match the rhythm.  She had us put our hands on the drum, and she said, 'Now you're all one.' "

There were parts about Christine I couldn't remember.  What her voice had sounded like, for starters, or whether her ears had been pierced.  I didn't remember everything; but Sky was content with what I did.  He bent his head over his hands, pretending to watch the red sunlight on the grass.  I'd said before that his face was an open book, and that was true; but he wasn't fond of big, emotional displays.

"I know she loved you," I told the top of his head.  "Because--"

Because it was impossible not to, I thought.  Everything inside of me stilled at once.  I remembered a pauwau on the Fort Hall Reservation three, four years ago.  A drum group, Northern Cree, had come down from the High Plains to perform their traditional songs for us.  At one point they sang a Round Dance song.  There were only two lines.  "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.  Is that okay?"

Sky looked at me sideways, his curiosity laced with suspicion.  I did everything I could not to meet his stare.  I pointed out a couple of geese waddling toward us, picking at the quinoa.  Sky smiled kindly, glancing away.

Thank you
, Sky said.

He said it by touching his chin.  It was one of those sign language things, I realized.  Maybe he was teaching it to me without my knowing.  I liked the idea of that.

"I'm gonna teach you Shoshone," I announced.

Sky laughed into his hand, but followed me down to the shore of the mudflat.  I taught him the words for Hello--Behne--and Goodbye--Tsawin, which really means Be Good, because we don't believe in Goodbye in Indian Country.  After that I taught Sky the word for Owl, Mumbichi, and told him they were bad luck in our culture, especially if you heard one during the day.

"We go to school with a guy named Calling Owl," I grunted.  "He lives up to it, too."

We lay between the cattails and I drew pilot whales on Sky's arm with a pencil stub.  I played connect-the-dots with his freckles.  He laughed like sunlight and air and reached over and brushed the hair out of my eyes.  He tried to braid it for me, too, but the longer he held the strands between his fingers, the more knots and tangles he found.  I batted his hand lightly, feigning annoyance.  He flopped down on top of me as if he were a pilot whale himself, lazy and beached.  I trapped him in my arms, his legs between my legs.  I thought I had the edge over him, but then he rolled us over, me on top of him, and tickled my sides until I couldn't breathe.  There was no way I could fight that.

Later, when we quieted down, when I splayed my hand on Sky's chest, I could feel the jittery unrest palpitating in his pulse.  No matter how he might have laughed and smiled, I realized he was still afraid of all this.  I didn't understand why, but it didn't matter that I didn't understand why.  When you're raised a certain way, it's hard to unlearn your upbringing.  I guessed it was the same for me.  In my culture it's a rite of passage to teach your kids how to butcher their own meat.  Even now I can't fathom that non-Natives actually visit a grocery store for that.

"I would take care of you," I said quietly.  "If you let me."

I couldn't be sure he'd heard me.  I couldn't even hear myself, my voice immaterial.  I figured we were both afraid, but for different reasons.

That night when I went home Uncle Gabriel and Rosa were sitting in the kitchen, sharing a pitcher of cold spicewood tea.  I dug around like an animal in the pantry, searching for sprigs of yaupon.

"Behind the anise," Uncle Gabriel said mildly.

I dug out a handful of dark green leaves, the stems black.  I didn't actually know how to make yaupon tea.  Every year it was the same routine:  I tried to brew the stuff, I destroyed a utensil, Uncle Gabriel leapt to my rescue and destroyed another utensil.

"Let me help you, Rafael," Rosa said.

Her sweetness was tucked away in the shy flickers of her mouth, her eyes.  She got up from her chair and dug around under the kitchen island with a familiarity that ought to have startled me.  Uncle Gabriel watched her when she put a pot on the wood-coal stove, his eyes appraising and mirthful and invested--and flirtatious.  I didn't know whether to sputter over how gross that was, or hide in my room in indignation and embarrassment.  I realized there probably weren't going to be any more destroyed utensils in our future.

"Going to the Nuwinuwi, then?" Uncle Gabriel asked me.

I shot him a scathing, accusing look.  He put his hands up, but didn't deny it.

"Yeah," I said.  "I want Sky to see it."

Rosa made a soft sound, and Uncle Gabriel said, "You're not attending, Rosa?"

Rosa turned around with a flushed, subdued smile.  "It's too late for me," she explained.  The Nuwinuwi started at two AM.

"I hadn't considered that," Uncle Gabriel said.  He checked his wristwatch, his wrist hairy.  "You know, it's already pretty late.  You could just stay here for the night--"

I ducked out of the kitchen, gagging.  The last thing I wanted on my mind tonight was Uncle Gabe's romantic escapades.  Just thinking the word "escapade" wracked my body with violent shudders.

Later that night I downed as much candy as I could in the hopes that the sugar would keep me awake.  I filled a drinking glass with cold yaupon tea and snagged a flashlight off the mantel in the sitting room.  When I went outside the reservation was pitch black; the few houses with electric had turned their lights off for the night.  I followed the dirt road clumsily to Sky's house.  He was already waiting on his front lawn.  So was Annie Little Hawk, her hair in a loose, sideways braid.

"Hello, Rafael," Annie said calmly.

My arch-nemesis.  "Hullo," I said miserably--through my teeth.

Sky waved his flashlight playfully at me. 
She's my friend
, he said. 
Knock it off.

Aubrey staggered along next, managing to look excitedly flummoxed.  "Rafael!" he said.  "I wasn't sure you were coming tonight!"

"Are you certain you won't get tired?" Annie asked Aubrey.  She sounded genuinely concerned, but I didn't like her, so I decided she was faking it.  "You have to wake up so early on that farm of yours."

Aubrey puffed up like a proud peacock, babbling about this new meditative technique he was trying, how it was more rejuvenating than a long night's sleep and he was going to make the most out of his twenty-four hours.  Annie listened to him closely.  Again, I decided she was faking.  Sky whirled his flashlight around until he got all of our attention.  He tapped on his light-up wristwatch.

"Shall we go, then?" Annie said.

I would rather it have been just Sky and me, or even Sky and Aubrey and me.  Sky looked excited, though, and I didn't want to interfere with that.  We set off down the road together, joining the families on their way to the windmill field.

The windmill field was already alight with candles.  I spotted Immaculata Quick unfolding a picnic blanket, Jack Nabako and Nathan Wind Comes Home running over to lie down on it.  The six-year-olds ought to have been in bed, I thought.  The Nuwinuwi was an annual event, so it wasn't like they couldn't wait until they were older to enjoy it.  Aubrey jumped to attention and waved hello to his brother and niece, as if he didn't see them every other freaking day of the year.  The three-year-old ought to have been in bed, too.  Sky cupped Aubrey's shoulder with a kind smile.

"Lila wanted very much to come," Annie commented, "but I know how terrible she gets when she hasn't had enough sleep.  I feel a little bad for making her stay home--"

"
You
made her stay home?" I cut in.  "Did your dad have no say or something?"

At the time I was only thinking about how Annie made herself out like a martyr.  I thought I was doing a good thing, pointing out her hypocrisy.  But then her face colored; she exchanged a secretive look with Aubrey; and something nasty and sinking settled in my stomach.

"Your dad
does
take care of you guys," I said less certainly.  "Right?"

Both Annie and Aubrey stared at me, as if to say I'd crossed a line.  And I had.  In our culture you mind your own business, especially when it comes to somebody else's family.

"Oh, Rafael," Aubrey said.  "Thank you for the cassette you made me!  I'm becoming quite the power metal fan, I think!"

Bullshit.  "I should worry about the rest of your household," Annie returned seamlessly.  "Your father's generation wasn't exactly raised on electric guitars."

Sky gave me a weird look.  Good to see I wasn't the only one not buying this charade.  We sat down on the grass together, he and I, Sky knocking his knee into mine.  I returned the gesture.  We went on that way for some time until Sky shoved my shoulder, toppling me sideways, and I almost dropped my yaupon tea.

What's the tea for?
Sky asked, gesturing with his own glass.

"You'll see," I huffed, and snagged him closer by his shoulders.

The sky was rich and dark tonight, on account of we'd just come out of a new moon.  Stars shone off a black velvet backdrop like cut pieces of glass and driftwood fire, white with a phantasmic blue sheen.  Sky yawned widely and leaned against me, making himself comfortable.  His hair tickled my chin.  I shook him a few times to make sure he didn't fall asleep and he stared at me, cross, but amused.

"There!" Annie cried to the left of us, pointing at the sky.

The first of the meteors blossomed in a burst of light.  They unraveled like ribbons, rocketing in every direction imaginable until the whole sky seared with glittering white trails.  The black velvet backdrop took on undertones of hidden violet, smoked blue-gray, and the rare streak or two of emerald.  The murky clouds flashed silver with the meteors' reflections.  I put my head back as far as my neck would let me.  There wasn't an inch of sky that didn't crinkle and glimmer with the glow of glowworms.  I imagined the meteors were speeding toward me; if I opened my arms, I could catch them.

Sky stilled at my side.  I was aware of it, the way I was aware of all of him; I was always aware of all of him.  I righted my head to look at him, squinting, and saw the curiosity in his small brown eyes.  He looked to me like a scientist from another realm, poised and erudite and infinitely knowing, avidly inspecting the fare this planet had to offer.

"This is the Delta Aquarid meteor shower," Aubrey informed him politely.  "Every year they fall down from the Aquarius constellation.  If we lived any farther north we wouldn't be able to see them like this!"

"Of course," Annie added mildly, "we simply call it Nuwinuwi in Shoshone.  Our ancestors believed they were the souls of past generations, stopping by for a quick hello."

I still believed they were souls, shimmering and alive.  I believed it so strongly I couldn't see anything else.  The meteors bursting in the sky swarmed together, forming the oldest of our ancestors.  Chief Pocatello stood above the clouds, his body made of stardust; feathered warbonnet tumbling down his back, long hair tied in two severe braids.  The meteors comprising his solid form fell down to earth, then reassembled in recognizable ghost lights.  He walked among us, milky and transparent, probably wondering where the hell his prized horse had gone.  The next shower saw the formation of his gentler counterpart, Chief Washakie of the Eastern band, elderly and kind with a big, broad nose and thin hair.  Washakie turned and waved at Sacajawea, our Lost Woman, short and stout and laughing, a baby on her back.  Bear Hunter the Daigwani was young, thin, and beautiful, the way he must have looked before the Mormons and their volunteer cavalry got to him, torturing him to death over a crime he hadn't committed.  I saw Tenupah Dome-Up, our first ever shaman, solemn and proud.  I saw Tendoy, famed peacemaker, and Eddie Drink, fastest sharpshooter in the west; and Mary Wilson, who married the legendary Wovoka and brought the Ghost Dance back to our tribe.