Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (9 page)

I'm not much for swimming.

"You don't like the water?" I asked.  "Not like we've got a whole lot of it out here."

Sky looked at me carefully.  I saw in his eyes everything he couldn't say. 
You can hear me.  How come you can hear me?
  Nobody was supposed to see invisible Ariel when he performed Prospero's bidding.  But then nobody was supposed to smile at Caliban, who couldn't control his own nature, who might have grown up to be a murderer because he couldn't help it, after all, he was Sycorax's son.

Sky smiled at me that first night.  I thought about it sometimes: when I woke up in the morning, or when I hung my clothes out to dry on the branches of the southern oak.

"What were you baking?" I asked.

I finally handed Sky the water bucket.  I cleared my throat, my eyes flocking back to his springy curls.  He noticed.  He drank a gulp of water and handed the bucket to me, his smile taking a turn for the silly.  I drank from one side of the bucket, watching him closely, cold water stinging my throat.

Flatbread
, Sky said.  He mimicked rising yeast with the palms of his hands, then slapped them together flat.

"Yeah?" I said.  "I like samosas," I muttered.

An idea reflected in Sky's grin. 
I'll make some for you.

I felt shy about that, for whatever reason.  I hooked the bucket back on the well.  I scraped the ground with my heel.  Sky turned his head over his shoulder, curious.

Where are you going?
he asked.

I glanced at my house.  If Uncle Gabriel saw me talking with Christine's kid he was going to get pissed about it.  "Don't know," I said.  "Was thinking I'd visit the farms."

The backs of Sky's hands were raw and pink.  "You sunburned?" I asked.

Sky halted, embarrassed.

"Nah," I said.  "It's okay.  Can I show you something?  You can get rid of that with lavender."

Sky's eyes were soft with curiosity.

"C'mon," I said.  I took his hand gingerly, careful not to press too hard.  I started the walk west, careful to hide him from Uncle Gabe.

We passed the windmill field, the blades standing still on dead air, and the open door to a weathered old gristmill, which I wasn't even sure still operated.  The country lane was soft and bright by sun, and the farms were endless, big rolling hills with summery green shoots peeking over the tops of clumsy wooden fences.  Out here it felt like standing on open air because there wasn't a horizon; unless you counted the sky, blue at the bottom, yellow at the top.  I glanced sideways at Sky.  His head was somewhere down by my shoulder, his curls wriggly and sleek, like fine-spun gold.  I thought of Rumpelstiltskin sewing straw into gold, the miller's daughter locked in the king's tower.  I felt Sky's feelings in his
palm lines, in his fingers.  He was happy, for some reason, but meditatively calm.  It made me feel at peace, like nothing could harm me.  I didn't know how Sky could smile all the time.  His mom was dead and his voice was missing.  My mom was dead and my dad was missing and I was the grumpiest jackass I'd ever met.

We stopped by the farming commons, a giant stretch of loose dirt with a smoke tree, branches stooped, leaves grayish-white, almost blue.  The bird bath next to the yellow ochre sundial was bone dry.  Lavender stalks grew in the sundial's shade, so purple they hurt my eyes, the spikes shaped like hardy daggers.  I wore a dagger earring in my right ear.

"Keeps bugs away, too," I said to Sky, crouching down.  My pants were already dirty.  I snapped a few lavender sprigs off by their stems.  "Don't know why.  I guess it doesn't need pollinating."

Sky bent over with me, his hands on his knees.  I rubbed the lavender spikes between my palms until they flaked, oozing with moisture.  I reached for Sky's hands and he gave them to me.  I rubbed the oil into the backs of his hands and he winced, but smiled quickly, like he didn't want to hurt my feelings.  The backs of his hands were red, but his palms were milk white.  I'd never seen hands so damn pale.  My skin looked dark as firewood on top of his.  My skin was calloused, but his was crazy soft, reminding me of talc.  I rubbed the oil between his long fingers.  I rubbed against the feelings in his skin, his uncertainty giving way to tranquility.  Already his burns looked a little less angry.  I wiped my palms on my trousers when I was done.

"C'mon," I said.  I pulled him up with me by his hand.  "You wanna see the sinkhole?"

He raised one eyebrow, then the other, then smiled his puppy dog smile.  If he didn't knock it off, I thought, someone was gonna have to outlaw it.

We walked farther west, the farmlands rolling away, and a flat plain of minerals opened up in front of us.  The ground ran red with ochre sand, pockmarked with white swirls.  Pieces of petrified wood poked out of the soil, mottled and ancient brown and frozen in drops of bright gold amber.  Every now and again a flash of scarlet light shot out from the ground, blinding me.  There was zircon buried in the sand, a blood-colored crystal, mostly useless, except you could light it on fire without wasting kindling.

Sky's hand tightened on my wrist.  I patted him on the back and straggled on.  He tripped after me.  Past the petrified wood the ground caved in in a messy, gaping crevice.  Sky leaned over to peek into the bottom.  Brackish water frothed deep inside the sinkhole, acidic and white-green.

"Dunno what's wrong with it," I grunted.  "Don't try and drink it.  Stu Stout's cat died that way."

Sky was leaning way too close to the edge for my liking.  I held his arm so he wouldn't fall.  He smiled in a flash, thanking me.  His smile wavered.

You okay?

I hesitated, taken aback.  "What?  Did I do something wrong?"

Sky shook his head.  He stretched his mouth with his fingers until his grin looked deranged.

"Stop that," I said, bewildered.  He laughed, good-natured.

"You telling me to smile?" I asked.  "I can't help the way my face looks.  It just looks that way."

Sky wrinkled his forehead, like he believed me, but had his doubts anyway.  I kicked at the ancient sand on the ground.

"It's my sister," I said.  "She's running around off-reserve.  I just miss her is all."

Sky's eyes lightened with understanding.

"You got any siblings?" I asked.

Sky shook his head.  Sky mimed writing on the palm of his hand.

"Yeah," I murmured.  "I write to her sometimes.  It's not the same.  Anyway, I'm no good at putting my feelings on paper.  I'd only screw it up."

Sky smiled a little too quickly, like he already knew I wasn't any good at expressing myself.

"Anyway," I repeated.  "What about you?  Uncle Gabe says the cops are here for your dad."

Sky's face went grave, his eyebrows knitting together.

"He's in trouble," I guessed.

Sky sat down on a piece of petrified wood.  He put his hands around his mouth like he was howling.

"Wolf?" I asked.  I sat down.  "Coyote," I realized, when he didn't respond.

I'd heard of coyotes before.  I don't mean the animal; I mean the professionals who sneak immigrants into the US.  When you're Native, you're kind of skeptical of all immigrants.  It didn't work out so well for us the first time foreigners came here and wouldn't learn our languages and laws.  For Sky to tell me his dad was a coyote explained a lot of things--like why the FBI was really searching for Paul, and why he might have disappeared in the first place.  It opened up a bunch of other questions, though.  The hell kind of Native helped immigrants into his country?  Maybe I was the wrong kind of Native.  I didn't like sweats or '49s.  I liked horses, though.

Sky looked disconsolate just then, scratching the sun rash between his fingers, even though I knew damn well it didn't itch anymore.  I didn't want him bleeding, so I batted his working hand away.  He looked up at me, nonplussed.

"You know the Coyote's a big part of our legends," I said.  "Right?"

Sky shook his head, earnest.

"The hell did your dad teach you growing up?  Coyote's a Trickster," I said.  "He's always pulling crazy shit.  Like the time he faked his own death so he could marry a younger woman, but his wife and daughters found out and beat the crap out of him.  He's funny," I said.  "But he's not a good guy.  He shows us how not to live our lives."

Sky's eyes glimmered, making me feel shy again.

"We have something called a Coyote Ceremony," I said.  "If you've done something really wrong, something you want to redeem yourself from, you can become Coyote for a day.  You take on his persona.  Everyone expects Coyote to fail, so that's less of a problem than your own transgressions.  At the end of the day, when you go back to being yourself, you're forgiven for whatever you've done in the past."

The lights around Sky wavered and reached for me.  They bleached the sands white, and the sinkhole, and the backs of my dark hands.  His eyes looked pleading and penitent.

You didn't do anything wrong.

"Yeah, right," I mumbled.  "I want to know why you don't hate me.  Everybody does.  You've got more reason to hate me than most of these people do and you don't.  What are you doing?  Why aren't you afraid I'll hurt you?"

Sky leveled me with a blunt gaze.  He held up his hands, the lavender oil dry and tight around his burns.

"You smell like a girl," I said, feeling stupid.

He kicked an amber pebble at me, his whole face happy.  I couldn't help feeling a little happy myself.

"I guess," I said, "it's 'cause you were raised off the rez.  You don't know any better than--"

A single, sad glance from Sky shut me up.  His eyes wrinkled dubiously.

Maybe you're wrong.

"What do you think I'm wrong about?" I asked.  "Everyone hates me."

Maybe they don't.

Sky's voice sounded like daylight and picnics and that feeling of contentedness I'd never known.  I wanted to stopper his voice in a glass bottle so everyone else could hear it, too.  He was wrong about me.  Everybody hated me.  William Sleeping Fox definitely hated me.  Rosa Gray Rain hated me.  Rosa Gray Rain's eyes had filled with tears the last time she'd touched my hand.

I think you assume the worst
, Sky said, his gaze faltering.

Every time someone talked to me, it felt like they were yelling at me.  Every time someone talked down to me, it felt like I was small.  I knew a lot of it was inside my head.  My imagination didn't know when to shut up.  But Rosa Gray Rain's tears--I couldn't have made those up.

Sky could have been right, though.  I could have been wrong about what her tears really meant.

Sky leaned over and poked me in the chest.

"Ow," I said, startled.

You're the one who hates you
, Sky said.

"Am not," I insisted.

Yes, you are.

"What're you always smiling for, smartass?" I asked.  "You can't possibly be happy all the time."

Why can't I be?
Sky asked, hesitant.

I didn't know how to answer that.

Sky sat up straight, his shoulders back.  Sky gestured between the two of us, then mimed throwing a ball.

"Uh," I said.  "I don't know how to play."

Opportunity took root in Sky's pleased eyes. 
I'll teach you
, he said.

"Okay," I said, just to see him go on smiling.

Sports.  I couldn't think of anything that sounded less appealing.

Night Singer

On Wednesday afternoon I went out to the windmill field with Sky.  He tossed me some kind of giant brown glove.  I dropped it.

Put it on
, Sky said, his grin teasing.

I picked up the glove and crammed my hand into it.  The inside felt scratchy and sweaty and gross.  Sky was wearing a glove, too.  He gestured to me and I stood up.  He swung his arm back and flung a ball at me from across the field.  In the back of my head I realized I was supposed to catch it.  I ducked, hitting the ground.

Sky straggled over to me, looking worried. 
Are you okay
? he asked.  I wished he would take off his jacket.

"Uh," I said.  I climbed to my knees.  "Maybe you could throw it lighter the next time?"

Sky rubbed the back of his neck, his mouth stretching in an apologetic smile, like he didn't want to tell me he was throwing as lightly as he could.  He chased the ball across the field before it could roll down the decline to Zeke's house.  He bounded back to me, reminding me again of a puppy: same exuberance, same innocence.  He even had the long, gangly limbs, the rest of his body not yet grown into them.

We played catch a little while longer; by which I mean Sky kept throwing and I kept missing and his patience never faltered with me.  I couldn't shut up.  I ranted to Sky about my sister, about my uncle, about how hard it was to hunt bighorns and how I wanted the end of summer for the Pine Nut Festival, but I didn't want the end of summer because I didn't want to go back to school.  I was trying to make up for Sky's silence.  I think he appreciated it.  His light-lending aura rippled around the edges, appeased.