Lending Light (Gives Light Series Book 5) by Rose Christo

Author:Rose Christo [Christo, Rose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

11

Coming Home

In early August there's an event we call Nuwinuwi, which means Coming Home. It's sort of like the prelude to the Ghost Dance festivities. I went out to Aubrey's farm one morning to pick up crabapples. The Nuwinuwi was all he wanted to talk about.

"I've got plenty of yaupon already--I'm so excited!" he said, his thick glasses nearly flying off his eyes. "It's the first time Serafine's going to be old enough to understand what's going on. I think I'll ask Annie to come with me, I wonder if I can get her alone for a little bit--"

He invited me into his house, an ancient, sprawling farm manor. We sat together under the sloping ceiling in his bedroom, the paneled walls made of dark wood. A wide, clear window looked out on the hilled crops out back. In this weather nothing was growing except the sugarcane, tall and reedy and grayish-brown, covered in knots the size of my fist.

I grunted. "I brought music for you," I said.

"Oh--you did?" Aubrey said, politely interested.

I tossed a Luca Turilli's Rhapsody cassette down on his neatly made bed. He scooped it up, cautious.

"This isn't power metal," he said awkwardly. "Is it?"

I gave him a dark look. "Why?"

"No, no, thank you," he said quickly, stumbling all over himself.

"You want I should bring you Phantom of the Opera next time?"

"Please don't do that," he said.

He sent me home with a bag of crabapples, smaller and sweeter than the domesticated kind, except if you let them ripen, in which case they're sour as hell. I might have eaten a couple on the way back to Uncle Gabriel's house. I dropped off the rest in the kitchen--why was Rosa cutting carrots at the island?--and went back outside, following the road to Sky's house.

Sky was already outside his house, setting up his absent grandmother's loom on the lawn. He turned around, saw me, and beamed. He made me feel as shy as a five-year-old.

"C'mon," I said, snatching up his hand.

I dragged him off the lawn and north through the reservation. He'd finally gotten used to being lugged around so much, because he kept up easily with me. In fact, I got the feeling he had to keep himself from outstripping me. It was hot outside, and I wanted to visit the lake, but when we arrived there were a bunch of kids on it yet again. The landscape turned black and white around me. The trees, the lake folded up in checkers squares, then stacked themselves one on top of the other, a dizzying maze.

Sky touched my hand. Do you want to go somewhere else?

The maze unfolded itself, color returning. "You ever been to the mudflat?" I asked.

We held hands when we followed the lake east. I almost wanted someone to see us, because then they would know he was mine, even if he pretended otherwise. Sky swung our hands while we talked. I asked him whether he'd heard anything from his father and his smile went tight, which I took as a bad sign.

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