Mary bent down, her face in front of Annie's. "Who's in mourning?" she asked. She touched Annie's shorn hair.
"Leave her alone, Mary," I barked.
Mary stepped back with a Hell-rending laugh. Annie composed herself in slow breaths, face splotched indiscriminately pink.
It's nice to meet you, Sky said.
He let go of my hands, dipping them in cold. He stuck his hand in front of Mary. Her laughter came to an abrupt stop, her face bemused for once in her life. She eyed Sky's hand with intrigue. His smile was so soft and so conciliatory it could have righted capsized ships.
"Chrissy's kid's all grown up," Mary said.
Mary grasped Sky's hand roughly, more like a high-five than a handshake. If Sky was bothered, he didn't let it show, his smile unwavering, as kind for Mary as it was for his own grandmother.
"You don't talk, huh?" Mary asked, letting go of Sky's hand.
Sky shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly, his smile taking a turn for the bashful. Mary reciprocated the smile with a sillier one. That was when I had the idea that these two could get along, and even be friends.
"I hear your dad offed our dad."
And Mary ruined it.
Sky's smile flicked at the corners. He reached up and touched the back of Mary's head. She stiffened, because there wasn't any way she could have anticipated that, that Sky didn't know malice, or personal boundaries, for that matter. But there he was. There he was, this person who shared light with everything around him. The spindly trees were transparent until his light bled scarlet and crimson and saffron all over them. The farm canals were colorless until he lent them a pale, silvery blue. Annie had a red aura, and Aubrey had a yellow aura, and I didn't know what mine looked like; but I knew I must have had one, too. Everything did.
Mary had no aura. I found out why. The nothingness around her powered on like a vacuum, sucking Sky's lights into its radius. Sky went rigid all of a sudden, which made me wonder whether he was aware of it like I was. The soft browns drained out of the tree trunks. The buttery yellows drained out of the clouds. The lights left Mary's arms and shoulders. Shadows blanketed her skin. The landscape cooled gray around us and I shivered, my teeth clicking together.
Mary took a step back. Her mouth twisted unkindly, a crude imitation of a laugh.
"Save your pity, kiddo," Mary told Sky, just before she stalked away.
Sky rubbed warmth into his hands. He watched Mary long after she had gone, sickness on his face. Annie and Aubrey and I stood around him awkwardly, Aubrey's eyes pointed at the clouds, Annie's lips pursed in frustration.
"Sorry," I muttered.
"What for?" Annie asked pointedly. "You didn't do anything wrong."
I used to blame myself for everything. My father's murders. My mother's death. I used to think everyone hated me. I can't put into words what it felt like to have Annie take my side after so many years of nobody taking my side. I really thought I loved her. I loved her and I loved Aubrey and I loved Sky. And when I loved somebody, I loved every part of them, unconditionally; nothing could change it, not even my feelings.
My feelings couldn't change that I'd loved Mary since the moment I was born. Later that day I followed her home and watched her watch Rosa carve a pumpkin on the kitchen island. Rosa smiled at me and offered me the raw seeds, my favorite part of the vegetable. I split 'em with Mary and downed my half whole.
Mary grinned impishly at me, wiggling her eyebrows. "You and your four stomachs."
I couldn't help it if I was always hungry. "Do you even have a stomach?" I pointed out. I could see her ribs through her shirt, the concave of her chest.
"Rosie," Mary said, ignoring me. "How did you and Uncle Gay hook up?"
Rosa scooped out the pumpkin innards, or whatever they were called. "We met in church."
Mary whistled. "But you like him, for some crazy reason."
"He's kind," Rosa said. I reached over hastily, digging the pumpkin guts out of Rosa's hair. "People sometimes forget to be kind. That is when they stop being people."
"What a smart gal," Mary said. "You're good for him. I'm glad he found ya."
"Anybody home?" said a voice outside the kitchen.
The three of us left the kitchen, filing into the sitting room. Isaac Takes Flight stood in the open doorway, peering about with his mean, dark eyes. He hadn't bothered knocking, but then no one did in Nettlebush. I murmured a quick hello.
"Oh my God," Mary said, goggling at Isaac's workman pants, at Isaac's short hair.
Isaac's face tinted sickly red. "Mary--"
"Oh my God, Izzie! Where are your boobs?"
Mary circled Isaac like a shark on high water. Isaac's face turned redder and redder. I wondered if his head was about to fly off his shoulders. He was a short guy, stocky, his eyes perpetually blazing. His arms were too long for the rest of his body.
"I thought you were a dyke," Mary said.
Isaac cringed. "Clearly not."
"Damn," Mary said. "How am I supposed to be friends with you if you're a dude?"
"I--stop it," Isaac said sharply. "I knew this was a waste of time! I'm leaving!"
"He's always been a dude," I said stupidly.
Mary revolved on the spot. I knew what it looked like when she was ready to tease me. I hastened to continue, "He's Tainna Wa'ippu is all."
Tainna Wa'ippu is what you call a man who becomes a woman, or a woman who becomes a man, or whatever. They've got a different kind of soul from the rest of us. They're allowed to be whatever gender they want; their changing ways are good medicine for the tribe.
"You were hotter as a chick, but hell," Mary said. "Can't argue with a Tainna Wa'ippu. Wanna listen to the radio?"
"Can't," Isaac sulked. "I only came by to see how you were doing."
"I'm still alive, aren't I?" Mary pointed out.
"I'm not too sure about that," Isaac returned.
Neither was I, I thought. I watched Isaac walk out the door with a cardboard box full of kale. He hadn't thought to leave us any. Rosa wiped stray pumpkin guts off her cheek.
"Everything's different in Nettlebush," Mary said, mystified.
"Wouldn't be different if you'd stayed here in the first place," I said bitterly.
"I'm home!" Uncle Gabe sang, waltzing through the door after Isaac. "Nice crop we had this harvest, wasn't it?"
Mary went into her bedroom to listen to Lullacry. Rosa went back to the kitchen to bake pumpkin pies. I swear to God, that chick was boss. Uncle Gabe sat down on the sofa and twisted the dial on the standing radio, looking for the oldies station. Uncle Gabe was not boss.
"Uncle Gabe," I said.
I sat down nervously at his side. He smiled at me, inquisitive and encouraging.
"I think Mary's gonna try and hurt Paul," I said.
"Mr. Looks Over," Uncle Gabriel corrected.
"Mr. Looks Over," I said. "I think Mary wants to hurt him."
"I'm aware of that, Rafael."
I sat back. I stared at him. No matter how long I'd known him, I never got used to him being two steps ahead of everybody else, me most of all.
"What are we gonna do?" I asked.
"Heal her," Uncle Gabriel said. "Both of you kids need of healing. What Mary doesn't understand is that she doesn't really want to hurt Paul. She only wants a father who wasn't a serial killer."
We had one of those. He was sitting on the couch with me. My throat tightened, my eyes stinging behind my glasses. I didn't mean to think of Uncle Gabriel as my father. It just kept happening lately, when I remembered all the things he'd done for me throughout my life. Raising me was a pretty good start. Loving me when he didn't have to was the most generous gift of all. There was only one other person who loved me when he didn't have to. I still didn't believe that he was real.
"You just let me handle it," Uncle Gabriel said. "I've already discussed this with Paul, and once Mary's rehabilitated she'll start seeing sense. You have nothing to be afraid of."
That's the kind of per
son Uncle Gabriel was. He made you feel like your worries were unfounded. He made you feel as safe as if you'd never left the comfort of your mother's womb.
"I miss Mom," I said below my breath.
Uncle Gabriel heard me anyway. "She's still with you."
She was in the soil: the nutrients, the shifting plates. She was in the autumn yield that filled our bellies, the groundwater that crawled up the roots of the pine trees and oak trees and emerged in a sigh of clean air; the air I breathed when I sucked in a shaky breath, stupid enough to believe that I was alone.
"You missed Mary," Uncle Gabe said. "Didn't you?"
More than I cared to admit.
"You should tell her," Uncle Gabe said. "You know she's too proud to admit she missed you back."
I heard the stereo shut off in Mary's room. I decided it was as good an opportunity as any. I excused myself and slinked down the hall, shoulders hunched.
When I shouldered my way into Mary's room I found her sitting cross-legged on the floor, plucking away at her bass guitar. I watched her warily from the door. She looked up, grinned devilishly, and thrust her bass aside. She leapt up and crushed me in her bony arms.
"Ow!" I complained.
"I got you a present!" Mary sang.
I sat skeptically on the floor, rubbing my sore ribs. She dug around in her suitcase--why the hell hadn't she unpacked yet?--and pulled out a CD. She decided to throw it at me instead of handing it to me. I've never been very good at catching things midair. It sailed left of my shoulder and hit the wall.
"If it's broken," Mary said, "I'm not buying you a new one."
I scooped up the plastic CD case, staring at the cover. An ethereal lady with long hair emerged from a deep blue ocean. At Sixes and Sevens, the album title read. The band was called Sirenia.
"Is it power metal?" I asked cautiously.
"Nah, symphonic," Mary said. "You'll like it anyway."
She snatched the CD from me, opened the case, and tucked the disc into her stereo. Crunchy, ominous guitars roared off her bedroom walls. The plinking of piano keys sounded like rainfall on ocean waves. The chick started singing and it was a siren's song, soft and breathy, the kind of voice that drove hapless sailors headfirst into the abyss to hear more. I thought of Sky.
"See?" Mary said, nudging me. "They sing about the ocean. I know you like shit like that."
"I love you," I decided.
"Wanna windmill?" Mary asked.
I nodded. She said, "On three." The drums kicked in and we went crazy, our heads banging, our hair flying. My glasses catapulted off my face. My neck hurt, but in a good way, the orchestra haunting the hollows of my bones, the earring jangling in my right ear.
By the time we'd finished banging the both of us were dizzy. Our heads knocked together. I laughed so hard I didn't even realize the laughter was coming from me. Mary wiped her eyes and turned the stereo off. She found my glasses for me and hooked them over my ears. We sat together on the hardwood and I felt like no time had passed since our childhood. She was my best friend, and she annoyed the crap out of me, and I idolized her, but couldn't say so to her face.
"D'you think people who die at sea become mermaids?" I asked.
Mary cackled. "You are so gay."
"So are you," I retorted.
"Hell yeah. Weird, huh? You think there's a gay gene in our family?"
"Mom and Dad weren't gay."
"You don't know that."
"Now you're just being dumb."
Mary lapsed into silence. She smiled; which worried me. Mary almost never smiled for nice reasons.
"You like Chrissy's kid," she said.
My stomach flipped. "Yeah."
"That's messed up."
"Yeah."
"I mean, have you even talked to him?" Mary asked. "About our family and his? Forget that," Mary said. "Forgot he can't talk back."
"He can," I said. "I can hear him."
Mary looked at me.
"I can," I insisted. "It's like when you touch people and you feel their feelings. Only I don't gotta touch him to feel them. He's different. He's--"
He's mine, I didn't say.
"You've gotta shut up about that feeling stuff," Mary said. "People would think we're crazy if we told them we did that."
"I told Uncle Gabe," I said.
"You did what now?"
"He was nice about it," I said. "He's nice, Mary."
"I know that."
Mary surveyed me suspiciously. I knew she knew what I was thinking.
"Uncle Gabriel's not our father," Mary said.
"I know," I said, a little too fast.
"Our father's dead," Mary said. "He gave us life, he brought us up, and now he's gone."
"He didn't do it on his own," I reminded her. Man can't create on his own. That's how you wind up with Delgeth.
"Does it matter?" Mary asked. "Dad belonged in a prison. Not murdered."
"You know damn well the feds weren't gonna put him in jail," I said. "The FBI never even came out here when the bodies turned up."
"And you think killing him was the right way to resolve that?" Mary asked.
"Gee, I dunno," I said acidly. "Dad thought killing women was the right way to deal with his impulses, so yeah. Maybe."
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, Raffy," Mary said.
I stared. "You feel that way, and you still wanna kill Paul?"
And then I realized. "You're making a point."
Mary spread her mouth in an uncanny Cheshire Cat impression. "Golly," she said. "It's like you think I'm a revolutionary or something."
The walls of my stomach felt shredded. "You're sick," I whispered.
"You know what's sick?" Mary said, standing up. "This whole goddamn society. I hate being Shoshone. Absolutely hate it."
"Then run away again," I said, ill, and angry, and half wishing I'd never been born.
"Oh, no," Mary said, nonchalant. "I'm a daddy's girl. I'm here to collect my dues."
"You're not gonna bring Dad back," I blurted out, scrambling to stand. "You're just gonna make Sky and his grandma feel as miserable as we do. Don't you care? Dad took so much from Sky already. He took Sky's mom. He took Sky's voice. Don't you care, Mary? Why do you have to take more from him?"
Mary rounded on me. For a brief moment I was afraid of her, because she managed to look taller than me when she wasn't. Her painted mouth seemed cruel to me, like maybe without the lipstick she didn't remember what direction a smile went in. She wasn't smiling.
"Paul should have thought of that, don't you think?" Mary said. "If he didn't want to make his kid an orphan, he shouldn't have killed another man."
"Mar--"
"Dad should have thought of that," Mary said. "He should have thought about us."
Sky's lights always followed me: pale dawns and pastel dusks, the merry blonds and corals that drenched the clouds whenever the sun hung too close to the sea. Sky's lights always followed me; and when they saw Mary, her aura of shadows, they recoiled. They hid behind me, and I felt powerless to protect them. I knew I was going to try anyway.
"I'm not gonna let you hurt Sky," I said.
Mary smiled humorlessly. "You're not the first person to pick me last, kid."
I didn't know what she was talking about. It sure bothered me, though. It bothered me so much that it followed me to bed that night, a dreamless sleep; to school the next morning, when Mr. Red Clay scribbled assignments on the blackboard with a long stick of chalk. It was still on my mind when a drowsy William Sleeping Fox slid into the seat next to mine, staring at me through dizzy eyes.
"What?" I asked miserably.
"You have glasses," he said.
Trust Sleeping Fox to literally be the last person on the rez to notice.
"I had them first," Sleeping Fox said. "You're copying me."
"Yeah," I said hotly. "Because I got glasses just to look like you. Piss off."
"No," Sleeping Fox said, "I already went."
; "What?"
Sleeping Fox put his head on the desk and went to sleep. I rolled my eyes, but frowned in spite of myself. I was the one who gave Sleeping Fox his glasses. Now I wore glasses, too. Maybe an eye for an eye worked out sometimes, because I finally didn't feel so guilty about punching this guy anymore. I felt like I could bear the stigma with him, and subvert it, and lock up all my anger and put it away for good.
After school I went with Sky back to my house, and we sat outside and watched the foliage flaking off the giant mossy oak. Sky picked up a dried brown leaf, blowing on it playfully. It flared with color at his touch, tinting a vivid shade of salmon. The dead brown grass rippled green under our legs. I wished I could have shown Sky how he made the world look to me. I guess no one can ever really know how they make another person feel.
Clean, Sky signed, swiping his hands together.
"You wanna wash your hands?" I asked.
Sky shook his head. He pointed at the Black Day house down the road.
"You wanna clean George's house?" I asked, puzzled.
I mean already did, Sky said, wiping his hands off on his jeans.
"What're you cleaning people's houses for?" I asked.
Sky palmed the back of his neck sheepishly. Immediately after he signed the word for "cook." His cooking was pretty lousy, even after a whole summer of contributing dishes to the nightly bonfire. All at once I understood.
"Dumbass," I said softly. "Summer work's for the summer. You don't have to make up for it just because you're in school now."
I feel funny about it, though, Sky said, scratching his cheek.
"That's because you're too damn soft."
I grabbed Sky's hand and made him walk with me to the woods. Good-natured and good-hearted, he didn't complain. His hand curved into mine, small and loving, his skinny piano fingers wrapped around my stubby ones. The warmth of him warmed me. His feelings tapped into me. I'm with you, they said. Like that was enough. Like that made everything right. He was everything, and I was enough for him. I wanted to do something to deserve the prominence he gave to me. I wanted to love everyone the way he did, to make the world as kind for them as he made it for me.
We hiked northeast through the woods and came up on a series of smooth hillocks. A rope bridge stretched across a deep, dry arroyo, which filled with water sometimes after the July monsoon. Sky pointed at the bridge with his free hand, asking where it led.