Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (26 page)

It wasn't just the oldest of our ancestors who came back to life that night.  My grandmother on my dad's side shook hands with my grandfather on my mom's side, who had the same blue eyes as me.  Rebecca Takes Flight looked remarkably like Aubrey, her hair squared off under her chin, her eyeglasses thick.  It hit me with a ton of bricks when I realized Aubrey's aunt had been the first woman my father killed all those years ago.  I stole a glance at Aubrey, but he was fast asleep on Annie's shoulder, his mouth open, his glasses askew.  So much for that meditation technique.  Annie covered him in a thin, protective arm, brushing his hair with her fingers.  Watching them made me feel like an intruder, so I looked away.

I looked at Sky, named for the heavens and all their attractions.  His fingers splayed out in the grass, his mouth was unsteady, belying his unwavering eyes.

Minuscule bits of meteor rushed at the ground, rustling, glowing.  They snapped together in the form of a woman, curly-haired, her teeth poking out of her mouth in an underbite.  She knelt on the ground, her hands on her son's cheeks.  I thought Sky might have been able to feel it, at least a little.  I watched the gooseflesh
rise on his arms.  He could have been cold.  He could have.  But the way his fingers twitched--maybe he knew, but he didn't know he knew.  That's always the way it is with humans.  We're born knowing everything we'll ever need to know, but through our faults and errors, through the derision of the people around us, we convince ourselves we're in the dark: small and stupid and insignificant.

I'd lived my whole life in the dark until I met the boy who blanketed the earth in his name.

"Close your eyes," I whispered.  I put my mouth next to Sky's ear, so he could hear me over the excited din of our neighbors.  "You see more when they're closed."

He closed his eyes.  His mother's mouth moved, but I couldn't hear what she was saying.  It wasn't meant for me.  Could Sky hear her?  He had to have.  Maybe he could see her on the backs of his eyes, those ubiquitous, spotty colors that visit us even when our lids are sealed shut.  My mom had told me once that the lights behind our eyelids were reflections of the lights in outer space.  If you concentrated hard enough, you could change the way the lights looked--the colors, the shapes--both inside your eyes and in the deeper universe.

"Oh my God!" I heard Prairie Rose In Winter shriek.  "It's an Earthgrazer!"

Sky's eyes snapped open.  I nudged him gently and pointed southwest.  Long, slow, and luscious, the Earthgrazer was a meteor like no other.  It chugged across the sky, blazing, sparkling white at the head, its long train quivering in blues, oranges, and reds.  I held my breath and imagined I could hear it, hissing, fizzing in my ears, burning everything it touched.

"Sarah, look!  Look!" Prairie Rose went on shrieking.

Annie turned to say something to Sky.  I told them I'd be right back.  I picked up my yaupon glass, stumbling across the grass until I found Prairie Rose with Sarah Two Eagles, the both of them sitting on lawn chairs like little princesses.

"Rafael," Sarah said, lighting up.  She swung her feet, her legs wrapped up in plastic blue rain boots.  Now that I thought about it, I'd never seen her without those boots, not even at the Creek hoyyoy.

"This is my girly," Prairie Rose said emphatically, tossing her arm around Sarah's shoulders.

"Tyke," I grunted.  I said hello to Prairie Rose, too.

"I don't like the Ghost Dance," Sarah said, "but I like the Nuwinuwi.  It's so pretty."

"How can you not like the Ghost Dance?" Prairie Rose said, screwing up her face.

"S'alright if she doesn't," I insisted.  "Dancing's not for everyone."

Prairie Rose giggled impertinently.  "You mean you suck at it, right?"

The hell was with brats these days, talking disrespectfully to older kids?  When I was little we used to fear teenagers.  I started to give Prairie Rose a stern look, but I remembered what Siobhan Stout had said about me scaring people all the time.  Grudgingly, I relaxed my face.

"Do you like the Ghost Dance, Rafael?" Sarah asked.

I sat down on the grass next to their lawn chairs.  "Sorta," I said.  It sounded nice in practice--you got to dance with your departed loved ones, a reminder that they never left you for good, no matter how far away they went.  This year I didn't know if I was up to it; and anyway, I didn't like to dance.  "You gonna skip?"

"I don't know," Sarah said, pointing her toes together.

"I want to skip, but I can't," Prairie Rose said, rolling her eyes.  "Mom makes a big stink about it every year.  My cousin Marcia's coming over this year, too.  And she's so mean!"

I wondered if Prairie Rose realized one of Dad's victims--Mercy In Winter--had shared her last name.  I didn't know how closely they were related.  Everyone in Prairie Rose's line tended to follow the same naming pattern, which Mercy hadn't.

"Don't stay out too late," I warned the kids.

"Like you're the boss of us!" Prairie Rose said, bouncing in her seat, raring to go.

"I won't," Sarah said, perking up.  "Let's play together soon, Rafael."

I was about to rejoin Sky, Annie, and Aubrey when I saw William Sleeping Fox pestering Allen Calling Owl, an albino kid who didn't come out much during the day on account of how easily his skin burned.  Reluctant, I drew near the pair of them.  They were having a conversation that went like this:

"Away with you!  Away!"

"Why is your hair so white?  I think that means you're old."

Allen waved his arms, screaming about devils in disguise and the end of days.  He stomped his foot and ran off before anyone knew what the hell he was getting at; least of all me.  Sleeping Fox cleaned his glasses on his sleeve and turned toward me, trapping me in place.

"Uh," I began.

"You look stupid," Sleeping Fox said.

It was almost difficult to be angry with him, because his voice was vague and stupefied, like he'd just woken up and he was only making an observation.  I knew from experience, though, that his insults could get hideously specific if he wanted them to.

"Sleeping Fox," I said, my jaw tight.  "I need to ask you something."

He didn't seem to know how to react.  His eyes clouded over absently behind his glasses. 
William Sleeping Fox can't come to the phone right now
.  I'd put those glasses there.

"Are you okay?" I asked stupidly.

Freaking Little Hawk's voice resounded in my head, nattering.  I couldn't forget what she'd said to me at the pauwau in July. 
Did you ever ask him how he feels?

If I wanted to be a better person, now was a good place to start.  No one else could make the effort for me.

"Mostly hungry," Sleeping Fox said.

"Did you drink your yaupon tea?" I asked, suspicious.

"No," Sleeping Fox said.

"You're lying," I said.

"You can't prove that.  Anyway, that's libel."

"What?"

"I'm hungry," Sleeping Fox repeated.

Aggravated, I said, "You want I should get you something to eat?"

He surprised me by saying yes.  My house was twenty minutes away; I didn't feel like making the trip just to give him some damn food.  But I'd already offered, and it wouldn't have been right to break my word.

"You're coming with me," I grumbled.

Sleeping Fox followed me when I backtracked and told Sky and Annie where we were going, just in case one of us turned up dead.  I promised we'd be back soon.  Sky smiled, but Annie shot me a sharp look.  I could feel her distrust seeping into me and it made me sick.  Sleeping Fox and I hiked our way out of the windmill field, the grass giving way to hard mud.  Imaginary mountain lions growled in my head; which wasn't all that intimidating, since they make the same sounds as domesticated house cats.

"Uh," I began again.

"I've got a swan," Sleeping Fox said.

I stared at him.  Tried to, anyway; the roads were unlit.

"The one on the lake," Sleeping Fox said.  "That's mine."

"There's more than one swan on the lake, dumbass," I said.

"No, there isn't," Sleeping Fox said.

I couldn't believe him.  Swans were born in clutches of six or seven babies at a time.  Where did he think his lone swan came from, spontaneous generation?

"I'm hungry," Sleeping Fox repeated, for the umpteenth time.

"Alright, alright, I got the memo!" I told him, and hastened down the road.

We went into my house, the hearth lit, but not the sitting room lights.  We went into the kitchen and Uncle Gabriel was sitting at the island with Rosa, Andrew Nabako, Beth Bright, and George Black Day.  The lamps on the counter were turned on low.  The grownups were laughing over something I hadn't heard when Uncle Gabriel spotted me, alarmed.

"Rafael," he said.

His real alarm, I knew, was over the doofus standing at my side, staring into space with one eye turned in.  I cringed under the weight of Uncle Gabriel's horror.

"Sleep--William wants something to eat," I said.  "Is that okay?"

Rosa stood up peaceably.  "Would you like sesame bread, William?"

"Okay," Sleeping Fox said.

Rosa rooted around in the pantry.  George Black Day stared miserably at us over the top of a bowl of cold potato soup.  His brown hair was dirty, resting on a pair of square shoulders.  He'd lost his wife Dolores eleven years ago to my father.

"Hullo, sir," I said.  I tried and remembered that people didn't hate me.  Sky said people didn't hate me.

" 'Lo," George replied.  "I think I've hit my limit."

"Your," I fumbled.  "Your, uh, soup limit, sir?"

"Aye."

Beth Bright stared shrewdly at me with one eye.  She did that to everyone, though, so I decided not to worry.  Rosa shuffled over to Sleeping Fox with a loaf of braided sesame bread, which we usually bake around rosemary and red onion.  Sleeping Fox picked it up and started eating without preamble.

"Everything alright, William?" Uncle Gabriel said tightly.

"I just wanted to talk to him," I muttered.  "But he wanted food first."

"You can talk to him indoors," Uncle Gabriel said.  "Okay?"

That hurt.  He expected me to hit Sleeping Fox again, and he wanted to be around when it happened.  It hurt; but it wasn't undeserved.  I'd already hit Sleeping Fox once.

"Would you like some candy, Rafael?" Rosa asked.

I could easily love that woman.  "Okay."

Sleeping Fox and I went into the sitting room, him with his sesame bread, me with a bag of almond candy.  I turned on the overhead lights and Sleeping Fox sat on the big cushion by the windows.  I put my yaupon cup on the floor.

"I wanted to say something," I went on, my voice low, unconfident.

Sleeping Fox chewed his bread with his mouth open.  He stared at me and didn't look away.

"I shouldn't have hit you back in March," I said.

Sleeping Fox swallowed.  "Okay."

It wasn't good enough.  "Are you okay now?  Are you still hurt?"

Sleeping Fox looked at me like he was contemplating spontaneous generation.  "I wear glasses now."

I'd done that.  I hadn't just hurt him; I'd hurt him irreversibly.  That scared me.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"You're just like your dad," Sleeping Fox said.

"Yeah," I said.  I was my mother's son.  I was my father's son.

"My mom moved away because of you," Sleeping Fox said.  "Because of your dad, I mean."

I didn't know what he meant.

"It wasn't safe here for women," Sleeping Fox said.  "So Mom moved away.  But she didn't take me with her."

I'd never heard about this.  I wanted to cry.  Uncle Gabriel was right all along.  Sleeping Fox had every reason to disparage my father.

"I swear to God," I told him, "I didn't know I was going to put you in the hospital.  I didn't know I was hitting you that hard.  You have to know that.  You have to know that I--that even if I hated you, I never wanted to take something away from you.  You have to believe me."

Sleeping Fox had a sickly green aura, dull with a vomit-yellow undertone.  I understood why now.

"Why do I have to believe that?" Sleeping Fox said.

I hadn't given him any reason to.

"I always knew you were like him," Sleeping Fox said.  "When you grow up, you're going to kill people, too.  I'll get married and you'll take my wife away.  Maybe you'll kill her, or maybe she'll move away to be safe from you.  All I know is I'll keep losing people.  It'll never stop."

"You can stop it," I said.  I didn't want him losing anybody, anything else.  "Because you'll know it's me.  If something strange starts happening to women--or men--you'll know I'm doing it.  You can stop it.  You can save everybody.  You don't have to be alone."

I'd punched Sleeping Fox in the head so hard he'd wound up in the hospital.  I hadn't meant to hit that hard.  I hadn't even known I could hit that hard.  I kept telling him that I hadn't wanted to take something away from him; but I'd done it anyway.  Maybe Dad had been the same way.  Maybe Dad hadn't
wanted
to be an evil person, except he wasn't able to change his nature.  He might have tried, I remembered, thinking about the hesitant scars on Sky's neck.  I couldn't change my love of sweets, or my aversion to hot weather, or my thirst for the outdoors.  Suppose evil was the same principle, a part of your personality you didn't get to decide on.  If evil was something none of us had any control over, I didn't know for sure that I wasn't evil already.