I faltered. I'd grown up in a culture that revered Napaka and Tainna Wa'ippu, the sacred Two-Spirit who loved their own gender, or transitioned to the other. I'd read every single fairy tale I could get my hands on, especially the ones with mermaids. But I'd never read a book about gay protagonists. I'd always thought they didn't exist. The guy and the girl were supposed to hook up in the end. Didn't matter whether they'd shown any interest in each other for the first fifteen chapters.
Carmilla wasn't the first gift Sky bought me. A couple months back he gifted me with colored pencils. After that he gave me my first real sketchbook. My face warmed with embarrassment at the memories.
"Are you blowing your summer allowance on me?" I asked.
Sky's flashed a silly smile at me, all white teeth and youth and sylvan innocence. Just read the book.
"Stop wasting money on me," I said.
Sky flopped exaggeratedly across my lap. I didn't have it in me to get annoyed, because I loved him, because I loved everything he did or didn't do and God, was I pathetic. God, was he small. He must have been nine or ten inches shorter than me. I knew he weighed some eighty pounds less. He was my freaking elf, the perfect size for me to toss him over my shoulder whenever we disagreed; which was surprisingly often, considering only one of us had a voice.
"You gotta get sleep," I said, jostling Sky.
He'd already scooped his Plains flute off the nighttable. He started to play it--softly; probably his dad and his grandma were sleeping. I recognized the song he piped, a cheerful Shoshone tune we called What Our Mothers Have Made. It amazed me that Sky could create real music with that thing. Whatever hard work he'd put into learning the flute, I knew it was compensation for his lack of a voice. I thought he should get a better model, though: The one I'd made for him was pretty crummy.
"I said sleep," I said roughly.
Sky dropped his flute. Sky's fingers reached treacherously for my ribs, where he knew I was the most ticklish. I wrestled his hands away, pinning them to the mattress. I pinned him to the mattress, hovering over him, my knees on either side of his. His flute and Carmilla lay forgotten at our side. He hunched his shoulders underneath me, laughing and bright, his small eyes disappearing on his face. I kissed his cheeks and his temples and his curls to show him what an awful thing he'd done. He melted under my lips, his ragged little sigh crunching my heart in useless pieces. I loved that he didn't need a voice to sigh. I loved him. My cheeky wench. All mine.
No matter the fight he put up--or maybe because of it--Sky was pretty tired. I was halfway through telling him my ideas about time-traveling stars when he drifted off to sleep, his head on my arm. You don't even know how amazing that felt, that someone I loved was so comfortable in my presence, he forgot his head belonged on a pillow. I stretched across him and turned off the oil lamp on his nighttable. I inspected Sky in the moonlight. His eyelashes were long and brown, reposing on tall, delicate cheeks. His mouth was wide; but then it had to be if it wanted to accommodate his smiles. My throat tightened, my chest tightened, until it physically hurt. I slid my arm out from under him, although I almost couldn't bear to, aching all the more for it. I touched Sky's cheek with stubby fingertips. I didn't want to wake him, but when I wasn't touching him I made no sense. I wondered if maybe we were supposed to be one person, he and I. Maybe the cosmos got their order screwed up, and the result was two separate bodies, two separate minds; but inside of me I knew where I really belonged. I belonged in this person. I knew this person. I knew him.
I remembered suffering through the Christmas pageant with him when I was four or five years old. I remembered visiting him in the hospital not long later, when his throat was cut.
I was six years old. My father had disappeared without a trace, the whole reservation in a frenzy to find him. The boys from school kept whispering to each other between classes: about how my dad must have been responsible for the recent murders; about how I must have helped him bury the bodies. I'd nearly gotten into a fistfight with John Seth Grace until I saw the look on Zeke Owns Forty's face: petrified. His sister had been one of Dad's victims.
Only three days into my father's absence I started to feel like everything was my fault. I'd heard that Dad had tried to kill the St. Clair kid, practically a baby, at least in the way that five-year-olds look like babies to six-year-olds. And at the same time, Mom kept shivering something awful back home. It couldn't be the flu, her doctor said, because everyone in Nettlebush incorporated elderberries in their diet, a better flu combatant than the actual vaccine. So Uncle Gabe sent me to the hospital to pick up Mom's antibiotics--which, in hindsight, makes me wonder what the hell was wrong with that staff. I trundled my way up the wheelchair ramp, through the hospital's swinging doors, and into the waiting room, the walls decorated with cheerful blue fish.
The longer I waited for Dr. Long Way, the more agitated I got. At some point I figured she must have forgotten me. I stood up, aggravated, storming into the skinny hallway. I marched across the narrow, tiled floor.
I didn't know where I was going. The individual doors looked the same to me, slimy and gray, a couple of them ajar. I stuck my head through the first door on my left. The exam room on the other side was empty. I tried the door after that, but it was locked; and so was the door after that. The fourth door was the one that swung open at my insistence. Smiling orange giraffes roamed luridly on the wallpaper inside. A tiny boy lay sound asleep on the thin bed, his blankets papery, his head propped up with pillows.
I didn't need to be told I was staring at the St. Clair kid. For starters, apart from his hippie of a mom, he was the only Nettlebush resident with curly blond hair. A stab of anger took root in my chest. I didn't exactly understand what had happened three days ago, but I knew that the St. Clair kid was involved, and whatever he'd done had sent my father away, maybe for good. I hated that kid. I hated that he'd gotten my dad in trouble.
The more I watched the kid, the more my anger gave way to dread. His throat was wrapped in dirty-looking bandages, wires weaving through his frail arm. His wan skin was tinted green-gray. My dread came to a grinding halt. I stood beside the bed and listened to the tube hissing in the kid's mouth, the machine beeping at his side. I touched the back of his hand, just to see whether white skin felt the same as brown.
It felt the same. It felt the same; and it felt horrible. Emotions, muted, sleepy, rolled through me like dull thunder. Fear of the unknown, raw disbelief that there existed people who hurt other people. Pain. You couldn't feel such heights of fear without the complement of pain: physical, ripping across my throat. The worst part was the guilt curling around my ears, around the nape of my neck, inclining my head with shame. Was this Sky's guilt? Was it mine? When something bad happens, kids always find a way to blame themselves.
Eyebrows furrowing, I let go of Sky's hand. That was about the same time the door creaked open, and his father stepped inside, a disconsolate man with a thick belly.
"I think you should leave now, Rafael," Paul Looks Over said.
I snapped free from my memories. I raised my head. Paul stood halfway through the door to Sky's bedroom, his bear paw hand wrapped around the brass knob. A faint light from the hall outside illuminated the crown of his head, or tried to: His hair was so lackluster it preferred to attract shadows. His face was at once melancholy and unreadable, his eyes heavy, his mouth expressionless.
What was the matter with this guy? A normal father would flip his shit if he found his kid's boyfriend climbing through the bedroom window. Paul looked detached. He even pulled the door shut gently, disappearing, bathing Sky's bedroom in darkness. I stared at the spot where he'd stood seconds ago. I didn't know what to think of him. All I could think was that he was the last man to see my father alive.
I pulled Sky's blanket up over his bony chest. He huffed in his sleep. It was enough that I wanted to stay, against my better judgment, and see whether he did it again. I didn't. I put his flute on the nighttable and Carmilla in my mouth, my sharp teeth pun
cturing the spine. I pushed open Sky's window, swung my legs outside, and climbed down.
On the walk back to my house I cringed, wondering whether Uncle Gabe was gonna chew me out when I stepped through the front door. It wasn't often that Uncle Gabe chewed me out, but when he did I felt subhuman, unworthy to share his home. It wasn't Uncle Gabe's fault. Uncle Gabe was such a pleasant guy, it hurt to disappoint him. Kids never want to disappoint their parents.
My hand clenched around the front doorknob. I practically jumped out of my skin. "He's not my dad," I muttered through my teeth.
Sure he isn't.
I looked at the top of the southern oak tree, shining, green-gold in white moonlight. I watched shadowy owls flitting across invisible clouds.
"Mary?" I said warily.
I tried to remind myself that this was my imagination, that people didn't really talk to one another inside their heads. Except I swear I used to be able to feel what Mary was feeling, even without touching her, even without looking at her. When I was a kid I could quiet my mind and ask myself: "Is Mary okay?" And I'd know if she was okay. I'd feel it in the back of my head, the base of my skull, a comforting heaviness. The day Mary left the reservation, I stopped feeling her.
Mary wasn't home when I went inside the house. Sure enough, Uncle Gabe was upset that I'd stayed out so long--it was past midnight--but he told me so long as I didn't leave the reservation proper there was nothing he could do. I was growing up, he said; he had to get used to it. I didn't feel like I was growing up. I don't think anyone ever feels like they've grown up.
Thoughts of Mary followed me to sleep that night. They followed me to my first day of school the next morning, when I shouldered my way into the old colonial schoolhouse, red brick, and sat on the second-to-last row of seats with Aubrey Takes Flight. Sky and Annie hadn't shown up yet. Aubrey arranged all his pencils in a neat row on the long, wooden desk. He beamed at me.
"We match!" Aubrey said excitedly, gesturing between his glasses and mine.
I scowled, although I meant it kindly. "Yeah, alright." His were thicker.
Once the rest of the students showed up Mr. Red Clay lectured us on Carlisle Indian School, which I guess he thought was an appropriate way to rein in the new school year. I don't know, though; hearing about our ancestors getting beaten to death in boarding schools sure didn't make me appreciate the establishment any. Mostly I sat staring at Sky, because I was useless and stupid like that. His shirt was red and short-sleeved, a stark contrast with all the freckles on his arms. His hair looked like someone had come along and run their hands all over it and run away and left him yelping in protest. What I liked best was that he didn't cover the scars on his neck anymore. He didn't feel the need to apologize for his past. He caught me watching him and turned my way, his eyebrows quirking curiously. Before I could avert my gaze he broke into a delighted grin. My face burned. He didn't allow me to feel humiliated, not even for a single second. He grasped my hand underneath the desk, where no one could see it; no one could know it but us. He held my hand for the rest of the lesson, stroking my knuckles with long fingers. If only he'd sat on my right we could have taken notes at the same time. Just goes to show you the attitude he had toward his classes.
Most days after school me and Sky went with Aubrey and Annie to Aubrey's house, the four of us working on our homework together. I hated being indoors for so many hours; I wanted to rip my hair out. The only part I didn't mind was that I had friends now. I had Annie, who was smarter than all three of us put together but intolerant of our idiocy, and Aubrey, so tolerant of our idiocy you almost felt like you were being mothered by him, especially when he spent every other minute asking you if you wanted tea or orange juice or melba toast. I never said no to food; it was unethical. My favorite part about doing our homework together was the way Sky liked to lean all over his friends, but never seemed to notice he was doing it. Normally he started the afternoon with his back against Annie's, his head bent, his legs folded. Gradually he worked his way over to Aubrey, his elbow on Aubrey's shoulder, his book on his lap. By the end of the afternoon he was pressed against my side, his arm on my arm, his leg hooked over mine. Yeah, I liked that. I liked that so much I unraveled like a ball of yarn; I flopped sideways and laid my head on his lap. Given Sky's position, I'm sure you can see the problem with that. We crashed to the floor like a pair of idiots, at which point Annie usually reminded herself, loudly, that she needed more girl friends.
One day the four of us were finishing homework at my house when a crash of a different nature resounded outside my bedroom door. All four of us raised our heads, Aubrey looking afraid. I think I was afraid, too, because my pulse beat so fast I could hear it in my ears. And then I heard something else, but not with my ears; with the back of my skull.
Opa, baby!
The four of us raced into the sitting room. The big windows glowed blue with the reflection of the badlands outside. Uncle Gabriel stood with arms crossed, his eyebrows raised. I thought his face looked stony and tense. Rosa advanced toward him with a broom and a dustpan; Uncle Gabriel stopped her, his hand on her shoulder.
"Mary will clean it," Uncle Gabriel announced.
My heart banged loudly. Sky must have been aware of it, because he touched my arm with his fingers, calming me down. Mary turned around at the fireplace, a broken picture frame lying at her feet.
I knew just then that I was a time-traveler. Mary looked exactly the way I remembered, except she was nineteen now: a little older, a lot skinnier. By skinnier, I mean she couldn't have weighed more than ninety-five pounds. It scared me. In the place of a shirt and pants she wore a miniskirt and a leathery black corset, which made about as much sense as a shark wearing an inner tube. Her arms and legs were covered in those creepy black fishnets I thought belonged at the bottom of a river, clunky zip-up boots rising to the bottoms of her knees. Her hair was unkempt and unbrushed and teased so viciously it fanned out like a rat's nest. She stank of stale hairspray, of cheap beer and time away from home.
Mary's mouth parted around her cigarette, around her teeth, sharp like mine. Her lips were painted neon purple, her eyelids smoky violet. She grinned, and it was a foul grin, a troublemaker's grin. I'd counted twenty-seven times she'd gotten me in trouble in our youth.
"My bad," she had the nerve to say.
I was so angry, my vision blurred. At some point Annie wrangled Sky and Aubrey and dragged them from the house; I guess she knew something bad was about to happen. Mary put out her cigarette on the mantelpiece. Rosa swept up the broken glass on the floor and I picked up the picture frame, just to see whose photograph Mary had defiled. It was our mother's.
"You think this is funny?" I said through gritted teeth.
"Aw, Raffy," Mary said unctuously. "It was an accident. Cross my heart and hope to puke."
"What happened to your rock band?" I bit at her. "What do you want with us all of a sudden?"
"Rafael, stop," Uncle Gabriel said. "Mary's going to live with us again."
I'd missed my sister. I'd missed her since the moment she left me, but that's the thing. She left me. One year ago she hopped the first train out of dodge and never looked back.
I laid Mom's broken portrait on the mantel. My hands were cold, my eyes hot.
Mary broke into the second of her grins, dark and unrepentant. "Eyeglasses!" she said.
"Mary," Uncle Gabe said. "Don't tease your brother."
"Are you the guy from T&R?" Mary teased anyway. "Are you here to do my taxes?"
"Mary," Uncle Gabriel warned.
"Relax, Uncle Gay, he knows I'm joking." Mary stretched her arms in a long yawn. She bared her menacing, lupine teeth. "Come give me a hug!" she ordered me.
I started toward Mary without meaning to. I stopped myself. I was very much a little brother, I thought, irritated. And I wasn't the only one with new ornamentation. Mary's nose and left eyebrow were pierced. A series of misshapen studs circled her left ear from cartilage to lobe. Her tongue was pierced, too, bu
t her tongue had always been pierced, or as far back as I could remember.
Mary whistled lewdly. A second later I realized she'd spotted Rosa, who bustled around the sitting room in her hospital scrubs, tying up black trash bags.
"Mary," Uncle Gabriel said, too damn patient for his own good. "This is Rosa Gray Rain. Rosa, my niece, Mary."
"Wait a minute," Mary said. "Y'mean you're knocking boots?"
"Mary!" I snapped, humiliated. Poor Rosa dropped the garbage bags.
"Do I have to stop calling you Uncle Gay?" Mary asked. "Aw, hell, like I'm gonna stop now."
Rosa didn't know where to look. Her eyes bounced from the floor to the wall to the window, nervous. I followed her gaze, my imagination seizing the best of me. The canyons outside the windows weren't canyons, but the watery depths of a glowing, living ocean. The ceiling fan revolved above my head, slow, heavy; it transformed into propeller blades, a fighter-bomber swooping down for war.
"My hunting rifle still around?" Mary asked.
"Yes," Uncle Gabriel said. "Sit down, Mary. I think we need to have a talk about a few of your habits."
Mary dumped herself unceremoniously on the sofa. She crossed her right leg over her left, ankle to knee. Uncle Gabe perched on the pendleton armchair. Rosa and I remained standing, awkward.
"Roll your sleeves up, Mary," Uncle Gabe said.
She did; but I could tell she didn't want to. Underneath her fishnets her arms were pockmarked with minuscule blue bruises. One of her veins had collapsed beneath the skin, bulging and prominent. I flinched, my skin crawling, the back of my neck cold. Mary covered herself in fishnets while I covered myself in tattoos, a chain for my arm, a chain for my leg. Neither one of us wanted people seeing what lay underneath.
Uncle Gabriel inhaled slowly. He nodded stiffly. He said, "There's a new clinician at the hospital. You'll start drug rehab tomorrow morning."