Flower Moon

by Gina Linko

  “Tally,” Seth said, touching my elbow, but I yanked it away.

  Bradley smirked. “And what if I don’t?”

  I was so close I could see the dandruff in his hair, the little pimples above his lip, and I caught a whiff of his breath: always and forever smelling like onions.

  He narrowed his eyes, daring me. “Your sister is nothing but a stupid moron.”

  Everything went red. Everything except the greasy shimmer of sweat on Bradley’s upper lip. It felt like when my asthma kicked in and I couldn’t breathe, and everything focused down into a point. Air, it was all I needed then. One thought. One goal.

  Except now, looking at Bradley, all I could see was that sneer. One thought. One goal.

  I balled my hand into a fist. I cocked my arm back, ready to knock his teeth in. God, it was going to feel so good.

  But something slowed me down. Something pressed in on my brain. This weird pressure on my skull, nagging, niggling. It made me pause.

  And I could not throw that punch.

  I wanted to punch Bradley Ballard. I needed to punch Bradley Ballard.

  But all of a sudden, I couldn’t let go. Was it my conscience?

  Whatever it was, I couldn’t throw that punch. And, holy granola, I wanted to.

  “You chicken or something?” Bradley said, right up in my face. I wiped his spittle from my forehead with the back of my hand, and I struggled for a deep breath, hearing that asthma-whistle in my chest.

  Then I reached out, cool as a pickled cucumber. And I flicked him on his forehead.

  Just my middle finger and my thumb, right there. Flick. Dismissing him. And it made such a sharp little sound.

  It kind of took me by surprise, so I laughed. And that was more than Bradley Ballard could take. He pushed me, both hands on my shoulders, shoving me hard. I fell backward onto the asphalt and landed, with a thud, on my butt.

  I scrambled to get up, but Bradley and Evan were already taking off, running away like the cowards they were. Mr. Umberto’s voice rang out from behind me. “What’s going on out here?”

  “Nothing,” I heard Marisol respond sweetly. “You want a frog?”

  “Tally, you all right?” Mr. Umberto asked.

  “Yes sir,” I said, taking the hand Seth Bowers was holding out and pulling myself up.

  “Those boys giving you trouble?” Mr. Umberto asked.

  “Don’t worry about it, sir,” I said. “You have to pick your battles. Plus, it’s summer now.”

  Mr. Umberto let out a low question of a laugh, and he turned back to Marisol. “Yes, I will take that frog. Tempest is going to show me how the thing was supposed to go.” He took the frog and headed toward the school. “You got yourself one genius of a sister, Tally,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Yes sir,” I said.

  As Marisol and Seth started toward home, I paused to look toward the steps of the school.

  I knew she was there. I could feel it.

  Tempest stood at the open door, waiting for Mr. Umberto. She looked right at me, her round owl eyes boring into me. She was angry. No, furious. Had she seen the whole exchange?

  “She’ll get over it,” Marisol said, seeing my focus on Tempest.

  “Get over what?” I said, rolling my eyes. I fell into step with her, walking toward the corner.

  “You know, how you always … like—” Seth stammered, and then he caught my eye. “Nothing. I don’t know what I’m talking about.” He smiled at me. “Flicking his head, Tally. That was a great move.”

  “Yeah.” I grinned without meaning to.

  Marisol look at me and then, her voice quiet, said, “For a second there, I thought you were going to punch him.”

  “So did I,” I answered. And I realized something then. Something big. Something forceful. Something scary.

  I stopped walking, dead in my tracks.

  Could it have been Tempest?

  Had Tempest somehow stopped me from clocking Bradley Ballard?

  But I didn’t really need to ponder that question—because I knew it was true. I knew it suddenly, in a bone-deep way, the question answering itself as soon as it formed.

  I turned around and looked back at the school.

  Tempest was in there. Inside the building, doing whatever she was doing with that frog and a heap of oversized magnets. I could feel her there. Existing.

  I always could.

  I quickly turned on my heel, away from our usual route home, and I started to jog.

  “Where are you off to now, Tally?” Marisol called.

  “I need to be somewhere,” I called back.

  “But I have your yearbook,” Seth said.

  “I’ll get it later.”

  “You better not be chasing after Bradley,” Marisol called.

  I didn’t answer her, but that wasn’t where I was going. I didn’t care about that anymore.

  But Tempest pressing on my brain somehow, influencing me, keeping me from throwing that punch …

  That mind trick was another story.

  2

  Much later, I trudged up the back steps of my house, sweaty and worn out from cleaning the kennels and playing with the dogs at Pleasant Paws Animal Shelter. It wasn’t my usual volunteer day, but Dr. Francimore didn’t mind when I just stopped in.

  Sometimes animals were so … easy. Especially when humans weren’t.

  I opened my screen door, and Bones came bounding out of nowhere. I bent to greet him, petting his withers. He sat down like a good mutt and nuzzled my knees with his shaggy brown muzzle, his tail beating a happy rhythm against the wood floor. “I missed you too, boy.”

  I rubbed his belly and listened to the indistinct rise and fall of my parents’ voices from the dining room. I couldn’t hear my sister, but I knew she was with them.

  I felt her there.

  Growing up, we could never play hide-and-go-seek. Because of the pull.

  It’s what we had between us. That’s how I always thought of it: the pull.

  It was an invisible tether, pulling at my sternum and pointing me toward my sister, wherever she was. We could never truly play hide-and-go-seek because we always found each other, first stop. No question. It was a weird thing, I guess, if you took time to look it in the eye. But I tried not to.

  Had she really stopped me from punching Bradley? Was it such a stretch to think that Tempest could’ve weaseled her way inside my very own brain?

  Twins shared everything. But this … this. My decisions were supposed to be my own. Weren’t they?

  Because, doggone it, Bradley Ballard deserved a good punching. I pictured his sweaty lip again, and I felt a new swell of anger at my sister for stopping me.

  Along with something else: amazement.

  How did she do it?

  When I was little, I believed in magic. All kinds of it. Wishes on shooting stars. Yanking on the wishbone. Reading people’s minds. Truly, someday I expected to figure out how to converse with every animal on the planet, if I could just listen correctly.

  Did I still believe in magic?

  Then I had a scary thought: I bet that wasn’t the first time Tempest poked her way into my brain.

  A couple of weeks ago I had scraped up a heaping pile of Bones’s poop into a paper bag, and I was just about to light it on fire on Evan’s front porch. But I couldn’t go through with it. Which was very unlike me.

  And then, a few Sundays ago, I very nearly ripped Father Tom’s toupee off his head while he was giving us the sacrament. Actually, on second thought, I was very glad Tempest had stopped me from going through with that one. Mama might never have recovered.

  But wasn’t Tempest breaking some kind of unwritten code of twin conduct?

  How was she doing it? And why?

  “Tally Jo, dinner!” Dad called.

  “Coming!” I stood up and let Bones out into the backyard.

  I walked into the dining room and took my seat, all the while pinning my laser-beam eyes onto my sister, telling her with
my stare, I know it was you. Inside my brain, bamboozling me into good behavior. But she didn’t look up. Instead she made out like she was oh-so-busy buttering a biscuit.

  Mama said, “Tempest told us what happened at school today.”

  “Did she, now?”

  “Don’t sass your mother,” Daddy warned.

  “Yes sir,” I answered, as Mama heaped a generous portion of rice on my plate. “Thank you,” I muttered and unfolded my napkin.

  Mama sighed.

  I poured myself a glass of milk, waiting. I knew it was coming.

  “So, what do you have to say for yourself?” Mama asked.

  Wide-eyed and feigning innocence, I asked, “And exactly what events would you be referring to?”

  “Tally,” Daddy said.

  “You ruined my entire science experiment today on purpose,” Tempest blurted without looking up from her plate.

  “I did not ruin it,” I said. “I saved you from a disaster.”

  Mama’s and Daddy’s eyes were sharply trained on me. “What disaster?” Daddy asked.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but Tempest interrupted. “The disaster of embarrassing my sister.” And Tempest looked at me then, her eyes so full of something … not anger exactly.

  “That’s not true! You can’t tell me you didn’t know that—your equipment was about to—you know—kaboom!”

  “It was not,” Tempest said, but without a lot of conviction.

  So I pounced. “I mean, the equipment did start an actual fire, Tempest. Let’s not forget that small detail.”

  “A fire?” Mama cut in. She put down her fork and knife. “You didn’t say anything about a fire, Tempest.”

  “It was nothing. Just a spark,” Tempest answered, waving it away with her hand. “After the kids left and we were done with the fire extinguisher, I got the frog to levitate, Dad. It floated right in the air!”

  “A fire extinguisher? Tempest!” Mama scolded, just as Dad slapped his hand on the table.

  “You did it?” Dad asked. “It worked?” Tempest and Daddy exchanged a smile.

  “No one got hurt?” Mama asked.

  “That little flame was nothing,” Tempest said.

  “I hardly think a fire at school is nothing,” Mama said.

  Tempest sighed. “Tally nearly came to blows with Bradley Ballard though.” Of course she’d diverted the attention to me. A classic move.

  “Tally.” Mama pursed her lips, her shoulders falling. “Again?”

  “I nearly did, but I didn’t. And he deserved it.” I turned toward my sister. “But somehow I couldn’t go through with it.” I worked my eyeballs like laser beams again, trying to get Tempest to answer me, but suddenly she was all too interested in her country-fried steak.

  Mama said, “Tally, do we need to have another conversation about controlling your temper?”

  Tempest had set a fire in our science lab, but instead we were going to talk about my temper? The injustice of this family.

  “No, ma’am,” I grumbled. A few years ago, when I protected my sister from other kids and their teasing, I was the hero, and now … I was some kind of enemy. It didn’t make a whole heap of sense.

  “Tally Jo,” Mama said, “you’re nearly thirteen. You’ve got to start—”

  “Thinking first, before I act. I get it, Mama. I do. And I didn’t punch him! I flicked him.” I demonstrated, flicking my fingers toward my father. “That’s it.”

  “A flick, huh?” Daddy shrugged and looked at Mama, a smile playing around his lips. “Shows some emotional restraint, don’t you think, Genevieve? Better than a kick in the ribs.”

  Mama rolled her eyes. “Really, William? I don’t think—”

  Tempest interrupted then, her voice quiet. “Bradley Ballard did deserve it, Mom. He really did.” Tempest looked up at me and she gave me a nod.

  There was my sister. The one I knew.

  My sister: well-oiled gears, a cricket singing at night, quiet and hidden. Me: a match itching to be struck, motion and noise, edges prickly like a pinecone.

  Mama sighed and took a bite of her steak. She cleared her throat and said, “Your father and I want to talk to you about this summer.”

  Something in my chest tightened right up. This had to be big if Mama was going to quit with her lecture and move on to something else. I looked over at Tempest. Our eyes locked and she shrugged. After too many beats of silence, I blurted, “Well, what in the pork ’n’ beans is it?”

  Daddy answered, “You two girls get to go to Pa Charlie’s this summer on your own.”

  “You mean, without y’all?” Tempest asked, her brow furrowed.

  “Why?” I asked at the same time.

  “Because you’ll have fun,” Mama said.

  Daddy added, “It’ll be an adventure.”

  “What in the world are y’all going to do without us?” I asked, blowing at my hair to keep it out of my eyes. No matter how many times I redid my ponytail, there were always a million flyaway hairs ’round my face.

  “We’ll manage,” Daddy said.

  We sat in silence for a few moments, all of us listening to Bones’s eternal scratching at the screen door. I studied my parents’ faces: Mama’s lifted eyebrows, Daddy’s rigid smile.

  Tempest broke the silence. “Tally’s going to want to bring the dog.”

  “Can I, please?”

  Mama shook her head.

  “Why aren’t y’all coming?” I asked. “I mean, that’s why you’re teachers though, so we can always travel with Peachtree Carnival in the summers.”

  “We have a lot to do around here,” Daddy answered. “Your mother is going to work on her sculptures, and I’m finally going to finish remodeling the attic so you two can have your own rooms.”

  I said, “We don’t need our own—”

  “Can I have the one in the attic?” Tempest interrupted.

  I blinked and looked over at my sister. She was excited about separate rooms? Of course she was.

  “We’ll have to discuss who goes where. But surely you’ll both want your own room come the teen years,” Mama said. Like it was so very important in that moment.

  Suddenly, I didn’t like this one bit.

  Something was going on. More than they were saying.

  “You’ll have each other at the carnival,” Mama said. “And we’ll meet up with y’all near your birthday. It’s not like we’re abandoning you for the whole summer. Just a couple weeks.”

  “There’s no other reason you want rid of us?” I tried one more time.

  Tempest piped up, all forced cheerfulness. “It’ll be great, I think. Won’t it, Tally?”

  I looked over at Mama. And, just for a second then, I saw something flash over her face. That Sad Mama look: her faraway eyes, the look I always hated.

  Mama: a beautiful egret in regal stance, a window seat to cuddle into and sit reading, a secret wrapped in silk.

  “Fine,” I said. “Even though you won’t tell us what in the jelly donut is really going on. I guess we can handle a few parentless weeks. Me and Tempest’ll find some trouble to get into.”

  “Tempest and I,” Mama corrected. Her fork shook a little when she went to chase after a bit of rice at the edge of her plate. What was with all this mystery? I wanted to ask what was really going on.

  But something inside me let all the questions go.

  I shot a glance at Tempest. Was she somehow forcing me to let this conversation drop? Needling into my brain?

  I watched Tempest take a long swig of milk, listened as my parents’ silverware hit their ivy-bordered china plates, and sighed.

  No. This was just me shutting up for once.

  “It’ll be fun. Like we’re all grown up,” Tempest whispered that night from her bed, as I lay in mine, reading my latest Trenton Sisters Mystery.

  “The carnival?”

  “Yep.”

  I considered this. “Yeah,” I said, turning my head so I could see her profile in the soft light, her blon
de hair framing her face in a halo. “You don’t think something strange is going on with Mama and Daddy?”

  “Probably,” Tempest said. The way she said it, sort of unconcerned and superior, it got under my skin.

  “What do you know?” I sat up and shut my book.

  “Nothing,” she said, pulling the covers up to her chin, reaching over and shutting off the lamp between our beds. “I don’t know anything.”

  “You do too,” I said.

  Tempest sighed. “I know that Mama and Daddy don’t want to tell us more. Something probably is going on, but … we’ll find out what it is when they want us to.”

  “Could Mama be having a baby or something?”

  “Nah, they’re too old. Don’t you think?”

  “Are they arguing? Getting divorced?”

  “I don’t think it’s anything like that, Tally. It could be something totally cool. Maybe it’s a surprise for our birthday.”

  “Our golden birthday.” I smiled.

  “Thirteen’s a good number.” I could hear the matching smile in her voice. “Don’t worry so much. It’ll be good to see Pa Charlie though. Everybody. Digger.” Tempest yawned loudly.

  “Yeah.” I thought about Digger and his pristine comic book collection, the gap between his teeth, the way he could never outrun me, even on his best days. “Think he’ll still want us to sneak the poor kids onto the rides for free?”

  “If he’s still Digger.”

  I lay back, snuggled into my blankets. Digger had a great laugh, like a car engine just starting to rev up. “Hey, Tempest.”

  “Hmm?”

  “How did you do it?”

  “What?” And I could tell in her voice, even in that one word, she knew.

  “I know it was you. Earlier. When I was trying to punch Bradley.”

  “You didn’t really want to hit Bradley.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did you, really, Tally?”

  “Tempest, you’re not answering my question. How did you do it?”

  “Tally, I’m trying to sleep already.”

  She turned away from me, onto her left side, like she always did when she was falling asleep, and I let it go. I listened to her breathing, and after a while it became slow and regular. Then, like the many hundreds of nights before, I waited for a few moments, wondering at that feeling of being truly alone.