Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (28 page)

I crouched on the ground.  The sketchbook had fallen open to the middle section, the pages blank.  All the pages were blank, I realized, flipping through them.  The paper was a texture I'd never felt before, translucent, soft and dreamlike under my fingers.  I turned the book over to read the back cover.  I squinted at the small print, pulling the book closer to my face.  Rice paper, the tiny print read.  Made in Tucson.

"You got me a book?" I asked Sky.

I was afraid to look at him on account of my face burning up, my stomach revolving like crazy.  He took the book from my hands and flipped open to a random blank page.  He pointed at it until I caught on.

No lines
, he said.

All my other notebooks were the marble variety you used for schoolwork, the pages inked with obtrusive red margins and blue lines.  I'd never owned a real sketchbook before, the kind you were supposed to draw in, the kind that welcomed experimentation and mistakes.  Real sketchbooks were for real artists, which I wasn't.  I wasn't good enough.  But Sky thought I was.

"You didn't have to do that," I said.  I was so hot, I thought I was going to die.

Is it okay?
Sky asked.  His forehead wrinkled, his smile faltering.

"It's better than okay," I said, feeling stupid.  "It's--I don't why you did this.  You didn't have to do this.  I--"

Sky put his fingers on my mouth.  Out of the frying pan, into the fire.  My heart pounded treacherously.  My lips parted of their own accord.  Sky's eyes fluttered closed and I didn't know why.  It took me a while to realize I was kissing his fingertips.  I hadn't meant to.  I hadn't even thought about it.  Even when I wasn't thinking about Sky, I was thinking about Sky.

"I'm," I said, the apology lost in my throat.

Sky stood up on wobbly legs.  He nodded over his shoulder at the church, never once looking at me.  He couldn't hide the way his throat bobbed when he swallowed.  I watched the skin stretch across his red scars.  I wanted to take his scars away.

We went into the church early.  The doors were open and inviting, but no one stood at the white altar or sat on the brown pews.  We sat on a pew at the back of the nave, sunlight from the doors and windows coasting across our heads.  Sky practiced his Plains flute and I shook my hair until a pencil fell out.  I opened my new sketchbook and drew Sky's freckles.  Sky was all I wanted to draw anymore.  I'd already memorized the freckle pattern inside his upper left arm, a lopsided semi-circle, a drunken crescent moon.  I committed it to paper, indomitable happiness curling open in my gut.  I made Sky give me his arm and I turned it over, just to make sure I didn't miss a single freckle, each one as important as the one before it.  He tickled me when I wasn't paying attention.  I closed the book and wrestled him down to the pew.  He laughed like a forest spirit, a conqueror of boys' hearts.  He locked his leg around my waist, holding me in place on top of him.

My heart was so loud I wondered whether Sky could hear it.  I imagined it echoed off the white church walls, the plain glass windows.  He brushed my hair out of my face carefully, delicately, like he'd never touched anything so precious.  Too bad for him it kept falling forward, curtaining the both of us in a protective black barrier.  His eyes roamed my face, drinking me in.  I'd never felt so small and so big at once.  I felt bigger still when the corners of Sky's mouth tilted in a smile for me.  He was close enough to taste, close enough to kiss.  I didn't know whether I was allowed to.  I didn't know whether he wanted me to.  I had to hear him say it.  I heard his voice every waking moment.  I heard it in my sleep, too.

I tucked my head into the crook between Sky's neck and shoulder.  I breathed him in, his skin, his light.  His hands found every bump and curve in my back.  I shuddered underneath them.  His light warmed me and surrounded me, barraging me with memories.  I saw myself at five years old, sitting on a floating raft.  I saw Sky at seven, kicking his legs under a chrome top table, his father feeding him ice cream.

I didn't know whether I was allowed to kiss Sky.  I found out for sure the next day, at the community dinner.  We were sitting at a picnic table when he grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the door of his house.  I stumbled after him, noting silently that he'd picked up one of my more unfortunate habits.  We went inside his house, into the sitting room, and he lit an oil lamp and shoved a sticky note in my hand.  He told me his grandma had volunteered him to play a couple of songs at the upcoming Ghost Dance.

"That sucks," I said.  "What songs?"

He took his note back and scribbled at the bottom: 
I don't know any!!!

Sure he did, I thought.  He knew the Song of the Fallen Warrior, didn't he?  I said, "I think you have to play Land of Enchantment.  We wind up dancing to that every year.  And Place of Great Mystery."

Sky put his notepad on top of the hearth.  He smiled slowly.  Suddenly I knew what was about to happen next.

"I'm not singing for you!" I said, horrified.  "Get your grandma to do it."

Sky turned his puppy dog eyes on me, the same ones that didn't get us kicked out of that ice cream parlor in Paldones.  I knew then that I was a goner.

"You have to turn your back," I said through my teeth, mortified.  "Don't look at me."

Sky spun around, accommodating.  I swallowed nausea.

Ghost Dance songs sound about the same as peyote songs, even though the dance itself more closely resembles the Round Dance's red-headed stepchild.  I guess the main difference between Ghost and peyote songs is that the latter use water drums.  Whatever.  I stared at the back of Sky's head, mustering up courage.  I tapped my fingers nervously against my thigh.  As much as I hated dancing, I hated singing even more.  I thought:  You'd better appreciate this, smartass.  You'd better realize exactly who you are to me.

I started singing Land of Enchantment:

Haaiyuh waihna,

Haaiyuh waihn.

Totsantsii, totsantsi, nanasokopenttsi.

Dahai'danai, dahai'danai, nanasokopenttsi.

Tsaan napuni taai sokopii?

Oyom paam paa kematuu.

Sokotontsiyam, ma paan, kematuu.

Which means:

Cleaning the blessed earth,

Cleansing the blessed earth.

Blessing, blessed by, beautiful earth.

Giving life to, given life by, beautiful earth.

How sacred is this land?

Forever near the dawn.

Life blooms in earth, in water, in light.

It was a nice song, I guess; magical, almost playful in its reverence.  I hated my voice.  It cracked over all the wrong notes--not that there was a right note to crack over--and when I was supposed to sing high, it went mute altogether.  For a brief moment I wondered if this was what Sky felt like whenever he wanted to speak his mind, but couldn't.  It hurt me.  I didn't know why I could hear Sky when other people couldn't.  Probably it was because I found his face open, expressive; it was enough for me to glean a voice.  But then why couldn't everybody else?  I told myself they just didn't care to.  Resentment bit me.

After Land of Enchantment I sang Place of Great Mystery--quickly, because I wanted to get this over with.  The song went like this:

Ta'pai to'inna nai,

Yanna ho.

Ta'pai to'inna nai,

Yanna ho.

Piyotittsi, yanna ho.

Piyotittsi, yanna ho.

Tam Apo tai kimmayu.

Tam Apo tai kimmayu.

Dosa'isa tai suntehaikinna.

Dosa'isa tai suntehaikinna.

Which means:

The sun is rising,

Behold.

The sun is rising,

Behold.

Sacred peyote, behold.

Sacred peyote, behold.

The Great Mystery is within us.

The Great Mystery is within us.

The White Wolf blesses us.

The White Wolf blesses us.

In summer, Wolf--Bia'isa--becomes White Wolf--Dosa'isa.  It's a metamorphosis thing, I think.  Not only is Wolf's power heightened when his fur is white, but if you look at actual wolves in nature, they shed their gray pelts in the summer, too.  All our beliefs, even the more outrageous ones, have a basis in nature, in reality.  And we sing about peyote--and burn it sometimes--but we don't get high off it; because you can't get high off it.  Pisses me off when taipo'o make it out like we're all stoners.

When I finished singing, my throat ached, my ears ringing with poor melodies.  Sky turned around and I shifted, just slightly, so my hair covered part of my face, a suit of armor.  To describe the look on Sky's face would be impossible, because the words haven't been invented yet.  I'll try, though.  His eyes were soft and lax around the corners, like he hadn't expected me to sing for him, even though he'd asked me to.  That bothered me.  Didn't he know I would have done anything for him?  He saw me looking at him and made sure to smile.  It was a heartfelt smile, breathless and sweet and humble.  He'd figured something out that he couldn't share with me.  I wanted him to share it with me.  I think he realized that, because he scooped his notepad off the mantelpiece.  He seemed to have misplaced his pen.

"What are you doing?" I asked.  "You don't need to write."

His mouth opened.  His mouth closed.

I don't
, he realized, maybe for the first time.

I could see the transformation behind his eyes.  You know when the sky's been overcast all day, and the first few raindrops finally fall, and the pavement's so dry they shoot right back up into the air, like they've been scalded?  That's what his eyes looked like.  Bright.  Sentient.  The sight of them almost terrified me, but in a good way, the way rollercoasters terrify you, or carousels.  Alright, fine.  Carousels only terrify me.

Kiss me
, Sky said.

He had a voice.  I don't care who says otherwise.  His voice sounded the same way that comfortable silences sound, especially the ones spent in the presence of your closest friends.  His voice sounded like waking up in your parents' trailer to hear the ocean outside, because your mom's scared of the water, but she still wanted to surprise you with a trip to the beach.  It was familiar in the way of family and friends, but far more.  Remember the first time you closed your eyes to discover lights behind them?  That's how familiar.

Kiss me.

I crossed the room and grabbed Sky's waist.  I crushed him into me and brought our mouths together.  He reacted so fast I didn't have time to worry that I was doing this wrong, that I'd never kissed anyone before.  He dropped his notepad and dug his fingers in my hair and dragged me closer--but I was already close, as close as I could get.  His mouth moved on mine until my lips parted.  Who had he kissed before, and why?  A jealousy, a proprietary anger coursed through me, but it was short-lived.  He wanted me this
time, only me.  His hands moved from my hair to my shirt, like he wasn't ready to let me go.  I wasn't going anywhere; I couldn't.

Stars burst behind my eyes in every color, in every texture.  I'd never thought that colors had a texture before.  Sky showed me otherwise.  Green felt soft and fuzzy.  Blue felt fleeting and sleek.  White was everything, overwhelming, a sensory overload.  Sky was everything; Sky was sensory overload.  He kissed wetly inside my mouth, and it was new and frightening, but in the best way possible.  I pressed my hands against the small of his back.  I pressed him into me until I ached, his hips on my hips, our legs knotted together.  I ached, and I didn't care; because I only liked the parts of me that were touching him.

I'd always thought that kissing was something you did with your lips.  I didn't know it was something you did with your fingers, your tongue, your whole body, your whole spirit.  I was me when I dragged Sky up the length of my body until he nearly left the floor, when I anchored my hands under his hips and discovered that to graze his lip with my teeth sent sweet shivers down his spine, a breathy little gasp I breathed in for my own.  I wasn't quite me when he wound his arms around my neck, when his hands on the back of my head pushed our mouths together even closer, so that no matter which way I moved, even when I didn't move, I was kissing him.  I wasn't quite me, because maybe I was him; because I felt his want, his elation, his resignation like they were my own.  He might have been afraid before, but he was too addled with craving to fear anything now.  Somebody craved me.  Somebody wanted me.  The realization brought me back to myself.  I could have cried.

Sky broke away from my lips, breathing harshly.  I locked my arms tight around his back, afraid he'd changed his mind.  I couldn't bear to let him go.  I couldn't take my eyes off of his lips, which looked like magic to me, red and kiss-swollen, calling my name.  It struck me as insane that the simple act of touching somebody's mouth with your own could be as enticing, as all-encompassing as this was.  It struck me as even more insane that this was a form of communication all its own, more effective even than words.

Sky touched my mouth, sore, with soft fingertips.  I just about unraveled.  He was the Little Mermaid, he was a siren, and I was a sailor; I didn't mind falling into the oceanic abyss, provided that it meant falling into him.  I cupped his face in my hands, reverent, adoring, and kissed him until I couldn't string two thoughts together.  I held him tenderly, because I wanted him to know he was important.  I wanted him to know he was loved.