Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (17 page)

I thought about Sky's curls, about his bony shoulders and skinny legs.  I thought about him in green Plains regalia and my senses lit on fire.  I wanted to touch the dips in his waist, the depression in the small of his back.  I wanted to feel the soft skin of his stomach beneath the pads of my fingers, the bumps in his spine molding against my heavy palms.  What I wanted most of all was to talk to Sky without end.  I wanted to know his ideas about everything.  About poetry.  About dry farming.  I wanted to watch people make him smile, and come to love those people for it.  Even the Navajo girl in the braggart regalia.  Even Annie Little Hawk.

I didn't know that Sky was gay.  He was mild-mannered, and soft-hearted, yeah; but that didn't make a person gay.  He'd danced pretty willingly with that Navajo girl, after all.  Even if he was gay, I doubted he'd reciprocate a fraction of the infatuation I felt for him.  For starters, it was me.  I wasn't all that great.  But that aside, I didn't know that anyone could suffer such an infatuation as I did.  Suffer wasn't the right word for it.  It was like having a lantern inside of me, and it blazed to life when Sky was near, without him even knowing:  It oozed melted light throughout my veins; it made me happier than I'd known humanly possible.

If I really liked Sky, I thought, a little shaky, then I had to be careful about it.  Sky was the first friend I'd ever made.  I didn't want to do anything that forced him to stop being my friend.  It wasn't like I was ungrateful or anything.  I mean that.  I thanked Creator every day that he'd given me Sky.  I thanked Creator that there finally existed someone who made me a more tolerable person by virtue of his existence alone.  Having a friend mattered more than having someone to touch, to tuck into my body and crush against my chest.

Something on the ground caught my eye.  It was pale and silvery-gray, shimmering in the moonlight, but blurry; I'd turned my flashlight off, and my eyesight still sucked.  I stretched a bare arm out from under the blanket and scooped up the mystery item.  I turned it over in front of my eyes.  I wasn't at all surprised to find that it was a dove's feather.

"Mom," I said.

Crickets whispered hoarsely at the tops of the pine trees.  Half of the chalky white moon hid behind the cutting canyons of the badlands, the clay blue like Mom's eyes.

Mom's phantom arms wrapped around my shoulders.  I pushed aside
Dial-a-Ghost
, leaning into her embrace.

9

Louis the Pilot Whale

A few days after the pauwau, Sky showed up at my house, looking frantic.

"What?" I asked, bewildered.  I was sitting outside the front door, the sweltering heat unbearable.  My hair was in a sweaty ponytail, my sleeveless shirt covered in sheep's blood.  I was glad Sky had shown up when he had, or he would have had to watch me splitting apart the lamb's haunches minutes earlier.

Cops
, Sky told me, miming handcuffs. 
They won't leave me alone--

"They're still looking for your dad?" I asked.

Sky nodded solemnly, trying not to show me when he rolled his eyes.  Yeah, I didn't think much of a bunch of taipo'o, either.

"You don't gotta talk to them," I told Sky, washing my hands at the water pump on the ground.  "You know that, right?  Uncle Gabe said they can't force us because we're minors."

I might have been remembering that incorrectly.  Sky scuffed at the ground with his dirty sneaker.  His hair shone sinfully bright in the sun.

I turned off the water.  I shook my hands dry and stood up.  "You just won't be here," I said.  "When they wanna question you."

Sky tilted his head.

I grinned, hoping I didn't look as ugly as I thought I did.  "We'll leave the rez until they're forced to go home."

Sky looked guilty, too damn soft for his own good.  I wore him down over the next couple of days, though.  On one occasion we went to the cinema in Paldones and watched this really weird slasher flick about King Tut.  Don't ask me to describe it, because it sucked, and definitely turned me off of movies for life.  On another occasion I had the idea that we should visit the aquarium.  I really liked marine animals, for one, and anyway, Sky told me he'd never been to the aquarium before.  Considering it was just off the turnpike, in Ute Grove, I thought this a travesty.

"Mom used to take Mary and me," I said.  "Mary tried to climb into the walrus enclosure all the time.  Come on, you're gonna like it."

I had to borrow money from Uncle Gabriel; I didn't keep my own.  Matter of fact, a lot of adults in Nettlebush didn't keep their own.  Sky waited in my sitting room while I counted change.  I approached him and he stood up, ready to leave.  I shook my head.

"Jacket off," I said.  "It's in the nineties.  I'm not gonna let you die on me."

Sky wavered.  Sky grabbed the zipper on his jacket and pulled it all the way down.  He folded up the jacket; he laid it aside.  A lump caught in my throat.  His pale throat gleamed with the most pitiful red scars I'd ever seen, messy, crooked, stretching from ear to ear.  Eleven years later, the ridges looked raised and fresh.

I know
, Sky said.  He ground his left elbow in the heel of his right hand.

"No one's gonna look," I muttered.  "They're not gonna stare."

You're staring right now
, Sky said, his smile wry.

"I'm looking at your freckles," I said.  "Not your neck."

Thousands and thousands of freckles decorated Sky's arms.  I might have stared at them for hours, because each one had a different personality.  The one on his right wrist was my favorite: blobby and lopsided, like it just came back from a really late rooftop party and misplaced its house keys.  The one inside his elbow was a good contender.  It could have been a star, except it was missing one of its points.  Orange wing tips from his atlas moth tattoo peeked out from under his left sleeve.  His Plains flute was wrapped around his neck.

Rafael?

I really was staring.  "You wanna go?" I asked.  I raked a nervous hand through my knotted hair.

We left the house together, Sky's hands swinging calmly at his sides.  I was tempted to grab one just to feel what he was feeling.  That gave me an idea, but I decided I'd test the idea later.  Sky broke away from my side and cartwheeled down the dirt road, goofing off.  For all his concerns about baring his throat, either he was getting comfortable pretty quickly, or he was an expert faker.  I shouted after him, pretending to complain.  No way I could have mimicked his acrobatics.  I was big and cumbersome; gravity didn't work in my favor.

We left the rez through the hospital parking lot and walked the ramps beside the turnpike, cars hissing past us.  It was hot and dry outside, about eleven in the morning, a tall sun casting black shadows on the asphalt to our left.  The bus arrived shortly at the stop and we climbed on board.  I made Sky count the fare for me, because if I'd done it myself it would have taken years.  The inside of the bus was humid, the air pungent with body heat.  An unnerving array of colors slapped my eyes, auras blaring off the backs of the passengers.  The guy driving the bus was muddy brown.  The kid sitting alone at the back was hard and peachy.  Stupid imagination.  I wished I could have shut it off, at least some of the time.

Can I sit by the window
? Sky asked, pointing.

I swallowed.  "Sure."

We sat down together.  The bus rolled on the asphalt, Sky leaning against the window, eyes locked on the Sonoran Desert outside.  My stomach turned.  I hated that desert.  I remembered driving out there with Dad one time.  I remembered the caustic laughter on his face, his eyes like black blood.  The sand dunes had reached for us like lazy orange ocean waves, the ground as hot as hellfire.

You okay?

Sky twisted in his seat, scanning me with soft brown eyes.  I shrank under his gaze.

Here
, Sky said.

He reached over and covered my eyes with his hand.

"What are you," I began, bewildered.

Don't look
, Sky said.  He must have realized what was bothering me.

Ute Grove was two stops over from Nettlebush.  We got off the bus on the pale, scratchy gray concrete, sunlight spattered on the street corner.  The sidewalk was covered with Anacacho orchid trees, white flowers like snowflakes on the ends of blue-green boughs.  I led the way and Sky jogged after me, grinning, touching my hand.  The nerves under my skin jolted.

"Seriously," I said.  "How do you get so many freckles?"

Sky made a muscle.  Considering his arms were about the weight and consistency of toothpicks, the effect was lost on me.  I marveled over his freckles anyway.  I wanted to count them; I wanted to draw them.  If I weren't so dull-witted, I would have tried to memorize them.  I mean, you have no idea how freaking amazing these freckles were.  None of them were shaped exactly the same.  A couple even overlapped.  Did the skin underneath them feel any different?  Rougher?  Softer?  I could see myself running my fingers across them.  I didn't know whether he'd be alright with that.  My throat tightened at the sudden want.  This was crazy.  I was crazy.

"C'mon," I said.

The aquarium was flanked by a cyan-colored fence.  An animatronic polar bear waved at the kids dropping their fare in the toll box.  Sky counted the change for me again and the box beeped and flashed, scanning us.  Yeah, creepy.  We went through the revolving metal gates, my hair getting caught in my mouth.  I spat it out.  We crossed the brief concrete courtyard, screaming kids whizzing past us.  I stumbled, dizzy.  Sky anchored me safely, grabbing my arm.

I can't believe I've never come here before
, Sky said.  We weren't even in the aquarium proper, but his eyes blazed with excitement.  He stared at the clownfish mural outside the inner entrance.

"You know there are real fish here," I said skeptically.  "Right?"

He picked up his flute and blew air in my face.

We went through the building's inner entrance and the room got all dark, except for one wall, pure glass, glowing and blue.  A snowy beluga whale swam behind the display case, keening at us.  The first time I'd visited this place, with Mom and Mary, I hadn't liked the animals being captive; but then Mom had explained that they were all rescue specimens.  I nudged Sky and pointed at the engraved plaque next to the beluga display.  He barely even looked at it.  He pressed his hands against the glass, eyes wide, watching the whale's every move.  The funny part was that three kids to our right were doing the exact same thing.  I couldn't take my eyes off Sky.  I couldn't stop smiling.  I stuffed my hands in my pockets, hunched over.

Hey
, Sky said.  He jabbed me, then pointed at the whale.

"What?" I asked.

I wasn't exactly certain what he was trying to say.  Normally I could make a good guess.  Sky watched the whale drift toward the far back of the display case, disappearing from sight.  Sky stepped closer to me, but I don't think he was aware he was doing it.

"Don't be worried about him," I said.  "He's got people looking after him."

Sky flashed me a sunny smile.  I knocked his shoulder with mine.

We followed the neon signs hanging from the ceiling.  The next room we emerged in was purple.  Big, bloated jellyfish bobbed up and down behind the glass on the wall, glowing and ghostly.  Sky cringed, probably remembering a bad encounter on the beach.  I told him about my hornet stings to try and cheer him up.  Instead he grabbed my hands, worried, inspecting them for scars.  I felt like I'd won some kind of contest I hadn't even known I'd entered.

"Over here!" said an aquarium employee.

The employee was dressed in beige dungarees, a pirate's hat low over his ruddy red face.  Weird.  He stood in front of a starfish tank; and, in fact, he had a live one in his hands.  Little kids crowded around him, oohing and aahing.  Sky dragged me over to the tank, our fingers locking together.

"Come pick up a starfish!" the employee bellowed.

Sky elbowed me, his eyebrows jumping like crazy.  I shook my head.  Sky got in line anyway, and I trudged after him, just in case the starfish decided to go rogue and assassinate him.  The pirate-slash-marine-biologist stared openly at the scars on Sky's neck.  Yeah, real professional, buddy.  When it was Sky's turn at the tank, the pirate guy handed him the starfish, smiling thinly.

"Careful not to bend the rays," Pirate Guy said.

Sky held that damn fish in his hands like it was a living treasure.  To him, I guess it was.  His humbled smile encompassed the entirety of his face, his aura lighting up the dark room.  He stroked the star with his index finger--not that it seemed to notice.  When he was finished, he offered the star to me.

"No, that's okay," I said quickly.

Pirate Guy clucked like a chicken.  The kids nearest him laughed.  Mortified, heat flooded my face.  Sky stared at Pirate Guy in disbelief, his forehead creasing with annoyance.  I felt small again, and like everyone was yelling at me, which I knew they weren't.  I snatched the starfish out of Sky's hands just to shut them up.

Bad mistake.  Bad, bad,
bad
mistake.  All sound in my ears went muffled, like when somebody grabs your head and dunks it underwater and you aren't prepared.  I'd been on the receiving end of that maneuver before, usually at my sister's discretion.  The starfish felt like crunchy rocks in my hands.  I could see his eyes whirring around underneath his feet.  I'm saying "he" now because at that moment, he and I were the same.  His feelings shot through me like needles, only they weren't human feelings; my very human brain didn't know what to make of them. 
Water-Not-Dry-See-Eaten-Big-Alone-Good-Bad-Thing-Dry-Water-Water-Water
.  I laid him gently back in his tank.  I stuffed my clammy hands in my pockets to hide that they were shaking.  The sound in the room trickled on again, sweat trickling down the back of my neck.