Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) (33 page)

She eased a thick Bible off of the bookshelf.  I followed her, stupefied, while she carried it to the Speculative Fiction section, reshelving it.

"You're nuts," I gaped.

"Are we going to get more books?" Sarah asked.

We went back to our table and I gathered the Sweet Valley books in my arms, six total.  I didn't know whether Sarah's library card was ready yet, but I told her she could use mine.  We climbed the staircase down to the first floor.  I took the steps slowly, on account of I was big, and clumsy, and if I'd managed to trip or drop something it would have meant death for the both of us.

We went back to the room with the big fireplace, children gathering around a red-haired librarian on an armchair.  We got in line at checkout, Sarah telling me about a guinea pig she used to keep until it had to go away to the "guinea pig farm."  I thought it wasn't fair that guinea pigs got farms all to themselves, but I didn't say anything.  I recognized the head in front of ours, hair partially shaven, long locks swept to one side.

"Zeke?" I said.

Zeke whipped around, comic books in his arms.  He flinched, eyes bouncing around the room.  Guilt crested over me.  I noticed there weren't any marks on his face, which made me think I hadn't hit him that hard after all.  For that, I felt glad.

"Hello, Mr. Owns Forty," Sarah chimed.  "What comic books are you reading?"

"Uh?"  Zeke laughed nervously.  "These are for my dad!" Zeke lied.

I glimpsed one of the covers, girls with technicolor hair wearing Japanese sailor suits.  I gave Zeke a disbelieving look.

"We're reading Sweet Valley," Sarah told Zeke.

"Cool!" Zeke said, which made me think he didn't know what Sweet Valley was.

"Zeke," I said, faltering.  I sucked at eating crow.  "I'm sorry."

Zeke looked me straight in the eye.  Zeke glanced away, murmuring.

"Young man," said the librarian behind the desk, eyeing Zeke in bemusement.

Zeke whirled around in a hurry to check out his library books.  He babbled to her, laughing frantically, then tucked his card into his pocket so hastily it fell out.  I debated picking it up myself, but didn't wanna make any sudden moves.  Luckily he cottoned on and swiped it off the floor.

"I shouldn't have hit you," I muttered.

Zeke gave me a bald look.  He stood up straight.  "Yeah, well," he said, "you did it anyway."

I had.

"Young man," the librarian said again, frustrated.  This time she was staring at me.

Sarah and I tipped our books onto the desk.  We used my card to check them out, and the librarian was nice enough to lend us a brown burlap bag to carry our spoils.  I felt like a real Plains huntsman after a successful buffalo run.  Sarah and I made ready to leave the library, but to my surprise Zeke was waiting for us by the glass doors.  I gave Sarah a quick glance.  She held my wrist and I skulked over to him.

"I thought you were gonna hurt Sky," I explained, continuing the conversation.

"I wasn't!" Zeke protested.  Indignant, his voice went squeaky and high.  "I just wanted to see his flute!"

Yeah, now I felt even worse.

"I won't do it again," I said quietly.  Every word out of me felt like a pulled tooth, not because I was annoyed, but because I was tired, afraid.  "I'm trying to stop."

"Well, try harder, man!"

"I am!" I said, louder than I meant to be.  I knew it wasn't true, but I always felt like people were yelling at me.

"Do you want to come with us for ice cream?" Sarah asked Zeke suddenly.

Zeke's face performed some kind of bizarre twitching ritual.  His mouth never quite closed.  "Uh, no," he stammered, laughing awkwardly.  "I was gonna grab an early bus, see if I can't catch the last leg of the Ghost Dance.  I don't really wanna go, but--"

"We don't want to go, either," Sarah said.

It was dark outside the glass doors.  The street lamps were on, hazy orange light spilling on the cracked asphalt.

"Rafael," Zeke blurted out suddenly.  "Was there anything you could have done to save Naomi?"

Naomi was Dad's fifth victim.  Zeke was her brother.

Briefly I had the thought that I was drowning.  Only you can't drown without water; or at least I don't think you can.  The feeling subsided when I recalled Sarah's hand on my wrist, small and placid as the ocean at dawn.  The ocean's always calmest first thing in the morning.

"I didn't know," I said, sagging with exhaustion.  "None of us knew."

Zeke's aura tossed and turned, the same blue shade as contusions.  "There's nothing you could have done?" he pressed, anxious, voice strained.  "Like, if you'd distracted your dad that day--if you'd asked to go to the city or something--"

Maybe I could have saved a life.  Maybe if I'd asked Dad to listen to music with me on the day he killed Naomi, he would have stayed in the house with me, and she would have lived.  I didn't know.  That was the hardest part.  I just didn't know.

"Never mind," Zeke said, with a quick laugh.

"I'm sorry," I said again.  Stupidly.

"I'm gonna go back to the Ghost Dance," Zeke announced.  He stepped out of the way when a trio of kids came in through the glass doors.  "Uh, but--if you were serious about ice cream--"

"I am always serious about ice cream," Sarah said.

"How about tomorrow?" Zeke asked.

"That sounds very reasonable."

I remembered what Siobhan Stout had said about smiling at people.  I tried to smile at Zeke; but my face must have conspired against me.  He took one look at me and yelped.  He stumbled out the doors.

"I give up," I scowled.

Two ice cream cones later and Sarah and I waited at the bus stop ourselves, a lopsided bench beside a graffitied mailbox.  I carried our book bag over my shoulder and Sarah fished another pouch of pop rocks out of her jacket.  And I was supposed to believe they weren't drugs.  Cars squealed past the curb, disquieting.  I'd always thought they looked beastly and cruel, tiny prisons on wheels.

"But you don't blame yourself," Sarah said.  "Do you?"

The headlights from the cars blinded me.  I squinted at Sarah's eccentric face.

"No," I said.  It was almost true.  It was true when I was with Sky.  "And you shouldn't, either."

Kids always found a way to blame themselves when their parents screwed up.  I remembered when Aisling and Kevin Stout divorced, and Stuart spent the whole year afterward thinking it was his fault.  Like his parents hadn't loved him enough to stick it out.  Like he could have done something to be a better son.  I didn't want Sarah getting any funny ideas.  Her father wasn't in prison for anything she'd done wrong.

I remembered my father in black trousers and a brown belt.  I remembered the Sonoran Desert.

"Parents should talk about these things with their children," Sarah said.  Her serene, crooked mouth was a touch forlorn.

"You'll talk to your kids about it," I said.  "And I'll talk to my kids about it."

I checked at that.  Only months ago I'd sworn I'd never have children.  I'd felt too afraid that I couldn't escape my father's example, that I'd wind up hurting them.

"What kind of children will you have?" Sarah asked.  She peeped up at me from the ground.  She was so tiny, I could have smushed her with my thumb.

I ruffled her hair instead.  Her emotions felt tranquil under my hand.  "Daughters might be nice."

15

Decoy

The farther August drew on, the closer September loomed.  I didn't mind September for the Pine Nut Festival, but I'd be damned if I was ready to go back to school.  Mr. Red Clay, the schoolteacher, came over to my house one afternoon to give Uncle Gabriel a required reading list for the eleventh grade.  I threw myself on the hardwood floor and groaned.

Mr. Red Clay gave me a cool, swift look.  "I'm sure you'll live."

Mr. Red Clay was one of those hardass types.  A Neo-Nazi with an assault rifle could have trained crosshairs on him and he wouldn't have flinched.  Between his stoicism and his profile, his tall cheeks and his eagle's nose, I'd always thought of him as belonging to a different time period.  I wished he'd go back to that time period, too, so I wouldn't have to study math.

"Uncle Gabe," I complained.  "Can't you homeschool me?"

Uncle Gabe laughed apologetically.  "Your confidence in me is flattering, kiddo, but..."

"I trust that there will be no more schoolyard brawls this term?" Mr. Red Clay prompted me.  The insinuation was clear: 
There won't be, because I said there won't be.

"I'm not gonna hit anyone anymore," I mumbled.

"Good," said Mr. Red Clay.  "Then I'm off.  Take care, Gabriel."

Mr. Red Clay slapped the door shut behind him.  I groaned into my hands.

"School isn't so bad, is it?" Uncle Gabriel said genially.

"I suck at it," I said.

Uncle Gabriel sat on the floor with me.  "It's just a little bit harder for you, that's all," he said.  "I know you have difficulties in school, but I want you to know that you're still intelligent.  There are different kinds of intelligence."

"Like what?" I said dully.

"Emotional intelligence, for one," Uncle Gabriel said.

Yeah, something told me that wasn't my area of expertise, either.

"I'll try and help you study this time," Uncle Gabriel said.  "You want to go to a good college--"

"I'm not going to college."

"I didn't just hear that," Uncle Gabriel said.

"Why do I have to go to college?" I said irritably.  "College is where you go when you want more money.  Nobody uses money for anything in Nettlebush."

"You like going out for ice cream, don't you?" Uncle Gabriel said, to the point.  "And the aquarium?"

I did like the pilot whales.

"Why can't I just work for a rodeo circuit?" I asked.  "You did that when you were my age."

"Yes," said Uncle Gabriel, "but I was reckless, and I had nothing to lose.  I didn't have half the potential you do.  I'd prefer that you think about this seriously, Rafael."

"I am."

Once Uncle Gabriel gave up, I decided to visit Sky's house to see if he'd been pestered by Mr. Red Clay, too.  He hadn't.  He came outside his house to sit with me on the lawn and shook his head, at a loss.

"But you
are
going to school on the rez," I said, anxious.  "Right?"

Sky closed his mouth, looking worried.  Sky glanced away.  My stomach plummeted, the sky cracking with stormy winds.  It took me a moment to realize I was imagining them.

"I want you to stay," I said.  I felt small.  I felt worthless.  "If it means anything," I said.

Sky looked at me, eyes round, mouth parting. 
It means everything
, he told me. 
Don't think otherwise.

"Do you want to stay here?"

Do you have to ask?

"Then I'll protect you," I decided.  "I won't let them take you away from me."

I hadn't meant to say "from me."  It came out anyway.  Sky looked down at his knees; and when he looked at me again, his face was bright, his smile elated.  My heart and my stomach climbed into my throat.  My head must have left my shoulders.  He reached for my hand and took it.  Colors and lights and soft sounds exploded between my temples.

Oh
, Sky said suddenly.

"What?" I asked.

He ran his thumb across the chipped blue polish on my nails.  I tried to tell myself I didn't have reason for embarrassment.

It's peeling
, he said.

"I've got more at home," I said, face hot.

Can I see?

Swallowing, I folded his hand in mine.  I took him back to my house and we went into my bedroom.  I showed him the little blue jar on top of my desk, the white label faded on the side.

Sky pointed at the nail polish jar.  Initially I didn't know what he was saying, until he alternated between the jar and the whale lamp, both a similar shade of blue.

"Yeah," I said.  "What about it?"

His brows wrinkled. 
Why blue?

" 'Cause it's my favorite color," I said.

Sky shook his head very slightly. 
No, it's not.

I couldn't begin to fathom how he'd guessed that.  My skin prickled; not with discomfort, but with attention.  In the back of my mind I wondered why we weren't kissing yet.  It seemed like a waste not to kiss him.

It was the next day when Sky showed up at my house with a brand new jar of purple nail polish.  I almost choked at the sight of it.  He dragged me into my bedroom without allowing me to wash off the sweat and dirt from the morning's hunt.  He sat me down on my unmade bed and placed the purple polish next to the blue.

That's
your favorite color
, Sky said.

"How did you know?" I asked dumbly, squinting.

He shook his head and smiled. 
I just know you.