“Who is that over there, behind you?” I ask, pointing toward him.
“Where?” She turns to look, then smiles back down at me like I’m a child afraid of snakes under the bed. “There’s no one there, honey.” She pats my foot. “Listen, you just need some rest.”
Everyone thinks you are crazy. No one hears her. No one sees him.
2
Three Months Later
The cab drives me to the airport with the windows all the way down. It’s eighty degrees and humidity-free. A beautiful day on the reservation, the blue sky is interrupted only by cottony white clouds and the bright yellow sun of early summer.
“Where are you flying to?” asks my cab driver.
I resent the intrusion, so I share only a sliver of the truth. “Washington, DC. Staying with my aunt for a bit.”
The driver squints and looks into his rearview to study my expression, as if he knows there is much more to my story. The full truth is that I have a one-way ticket to Reagan National Airport to start the next phase of my life. Aunt Shelby, a political lobbyist, is pulling strings to get me enrolled in Georgetown University.
“Sounds like you have a lot to look forward to. The nation’s capital is a fine city.”
“Yep,” I answer flatly. The burnt-rust and summer-yellow of the reservation’s landscape reflects in my window as I say goodbye. Goodbye for now.
“You can’t run away from me. I will shadow you.”
I bury my life, as it once was, deep in my heart.
I pray for my people who remain.
* * *
The first morning I wake up in Aunt Shelby’s house, I am on the floor, wrapped in an expensive duvet and comforter. Everything inside me feels like it has been crashed into—my organs, my spine, even the muscles in my neck feel pained and pierced. I reach for the alarm, which hasn’t gone off yet, and shower quickly. I throw on some clothes and a fast coat of mascara.
In the kitchen, Aunt Shelby cooks breakfast, smiling, before rolling her eyes at my purple hi-tops. “Your shorts are too short.”
I’m just glad she says nothing about my camisole.
“Wow. Bacon?” I kiss her on the cheek. “I thought you didn’t eat meat anymore.”
“Bacon doesn’t count, Sparrow. Even vegans eat bacon,” she jokes, laughing at herself. “And sweetheart, don’t forget a sweater to put over that teeny-tiny top.”
* * *
“I think you’ve lost it,” jokes Jenny. “You’ve gone bat-shit crazy.” She walks with me back to the metro station after our Psychology 101 class. “Those are freaky dreams. But they are just dreams. Everything about leaving the reservation and losing your mom gets jumbled about in your subconscious and your mind works it out while you sleep. That’s it.”
I’ve been friends with Jenny ever since she sat next to me the first day of class and shot me the widest smile—a smile so wide her eyes disappeared. We are physical opposites. She is a porcelain doll, compared to my more olive skin tone. Her hair is cropped and choppy, while mine is longer and all one length. She is short where I am tall, and musical where I am completely tone deaf.
“I know. I think I believe you. But there is something real in them too.” Yet, in the bright light of the city’s streets, I think she’s right.
“Even Jenny thinks you’re crazy.”
I rub my temples. Where does that voice come from?
“Let’s get back to living, okay? Back to some real people. Come with me over to Neptune Studio. We can hang out with Max and Layne, it’ll be fun.”
* * *
“Eight ball, side pocket.” Maneuvering the cue forward, I miss, of course. Max and Jenny’s friend, Layne, is my partner. He circles the table and chalks the cue, not at all distracted by the loud guitar tracks being recorded in the back of the studio.
As I lean into the table, I hear a soft whisper in my ear. “Sparrow.” I drop my stick and stumble, almost falling backward.
“What’s wrong?” Layne is gifted in reading the mood of a room, even though my spooked jolt is apparent to everyone. His voice is quiet and steady, as his long, blonde dreadlocks flow around his shoulders with restless energy. He looks at me closely, but doesn’t ask again. “Let’s take a rain check. Would that work?”
Layne pulls me over to the room’s pillowed corner. I lay down as he pulls out a notebook filled with lyrics and drawings. He sits cross-legged and hums. He sings some unintelligible words in a comforting, gravelly voice. I snuggle on top of his right thigh and drift off to sleep.
“He will see who you really are soon enough.”
Layne is unmoved when I awake. His eyes glance sideways to me as I sit up and shake my head. Pushing my hair behind my ears, I hold his gaze. I feel no pain or fear. My dreams sit like shadows in another room, behind a closed door. Gone.
Layne’s arm leaves his guitar to rest on my ankle and I feel heat everywhere. He smiles sadly with his head cocked to the side. “Look, I saw the inside of your arms, and those cuts and scars. I know we sort of just met, but you should stop doing it. Seriously.”
I feel a hot flash of anger, followed by embarrassment. “I guess you think I’m pretty pathetic.” It’s the best response I can formulate. He doesn’t know that when I cut myself, I get a release, as if it proves I’m still alive. The tiny nicks from the razor and the red dots of blood make me feel like my mother’s death was not my fault.
“It doesn’t matter what I think. The feelings that push you to do this to yourself are separate from the girl you are. Don’t give those feelings a home, inside or outside of you.” He leans closer and runs his fingertips through my hair.
In the moment, I fall in love with his scent.
* * *
Max, Jenny, Layne and I also spend the next day together, playing video games, making vegetarian sushi, and lounging around the studio.
“Do you miss your reservation?” Max asked out of the blue. “I mean, you fit in so well here with us that it’s hard to imagine you somewhere else. You know?”
Jenny moves closer to me. She smells like honeysuckle and smiles with the happiness of a thousand new stars, but my ears fill with the deafening sound of rustling wind and trees. No one else hears this noise, I feel like my head is stuffed with cotton. I look at Layne. The brightness of his skin is blinding.
“Say nothing. He won’t believe you and he can’t help you. Pathetic girl.”
* * *
The next few weeks pass strangely for Layne and me. We are both aware something is drawing us closer, but we also feel there something unknown sitting between us.
“You will never be enough for him. He only sees half of you.”
3
Seven nights have passed, and I’ve had no dreams. Midterms are done and my eyes burn from lack of sleep. Each slow blink scratches the parched desert of my eyes.
“It’s dusk,” he whispers, looking out my window at the darkening clouds.
I jump and startle. Not because of the voice, but because of its wistful tone. “I’m awake, you know. And I’m not under the influence of prescription pain medications either. I can see you, but I don’t know who you are.”
“Why aren’t you frightened of me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I believe you have something to do with my mother.”
He smiles and shyly looks toward the floor. “My name is Istowun-eh’pata. Call me Mateo.”
“Why do you come here?” I ask again, too exhausted to be afraid of the answer.
“Because I am the strongest. The more you are threatened, the more visible I become. With me near, no one will harm you. I will be here until you are strong enough to go home.”
“No one’s been threatening me.”
“No one you recognize is threatening you,” he corrects.
“And maybe this is my home.”
“And maybe you have one foot in two worlds.”
His bothersome words trigger a memory.
* * *
We rush into our primary
grade Blackfoot language class on the reservation, most of us aren’t wearing green for St. Patrick’s Day.
“Where’s your green?” asks Mrs. De La Croix, as we run past her. We either narrowly miss her playful attempts to pinch us, or we hold up our hands, triumphantly colored with green marker.
“Hustle, girls,” she calls out to the loiterers in the hallway.
Once we’re all seated, she begins class. “I say, then you say,” she announces to us. Her stick points to a color chart in English and Blackfoot. She taps down the list.
“Green,” she begins. “Sai sikimokinaattsi.”
“Green,” we reply. “Sai sikimokinaattsi.”
We must take turns reading the chart alone. And we close our eyes while each of our classmates take a turn, to listen to the rhythm of each word.
Next, we focus on the large painting of a Blackfoot Jesus with Blackfoot Indian children gracing the wall, along with posters of three prayers: The Glory Be, The Hail Mary, and The Our Father. We learn the language of the Creator and Napi, but we can’t pray to them here.
* * *
Mateo is right. I’ve had one foot in two worlds my whole life.
“Maybe you’re right,” I admit, looking out the window. “Can everyone see you?”
He clears his throat. “For now. I won’t be as visible after you have the ink. You won’t need me. You’ll be strong enough on your own.”
“No, you won’t. You never will.”
“Did you hear that?” I ask. “And what ink?”
“Yes, I hear her too. But right now, the voice is merely a threat. You can overcome her.”
“So, I’m not making up these voices?”
“No, the voice is real, but it isn’t part of this world.” He holds up my right arm and turns it over, exposing my scars and cuts. He looks down at me closely; his forehead is damp with sweat. He bends down and presses his lips against my scars.
Chills and fever envelop me. Black and white words swirl around in my mind, tangling in my thoughts like fishing line. I grasp at them, but can’t quite hold onto them. Shadows undulate on my walls, swirling on my ceiling. My name appears on the ceiling in a shiny red scrawl, Sparrow.
Mateo’s lips are still on my inner arm. He looks to me and says, “It’s beautiful. Smoky shades of blood, like the ink. It’s almost time to get your tattoo. Go to Stuart Gilkison at The Black Line. Just like your mother. He knows what to do.”
“Istowun-eh’pata can’t save you. Not from me.”
* * *
On my way to school, I pass The Black Line tattoo parlor again. A small sign announces Stuart’s availability. I open the front door and stand in the entrance, as an Asian woman leaves the check-cashing place next door. She looks at me and turns quickly in the opposite direction, almost running away from me.
“Closed!” a man’s voice yells from the back.
“Are you Stuart Gilkison?” I shout back. My voice sounds tiny and frail, even to my own ears.
“Why?”
“You tattooed my mother. She sent me . . .” I search for words, “before she passed.” The screen door creaks shut behind me as my fingers lose purchase on the frame. It slams shut, bouncing several times.
“I’ve tattooed a lot of people.” He walks out from the back, brushing off his hands. “Can’t remember most of them.”
I don’t know whether Stuart is dangerous or crazy. His worn leather jacket barely covers the tattoos snaking out from his sleeves and curling up the back of his neck. Ink-black eyes are drawn on the back of his neck, surrounded by black and gray knot work. A chaos star is on his calf, a black feather on each point.
“I am here for a tattoo, and I don’t care if you’ll remember me afterward,” I answer, sounding petulant and young. I feel a chill run up my leg, the heat from the radiator clicks on and echoes throughout the room.
“How old are you?” He squints and crosses his arms.
“Eighteen.”
Stuart studies my face, then walks to a bookcase filled with art books. Squatting to look for something, he rests his hands on his legs. “Here.” He gets up and brings me a small book. “This is a good art book to work from. I think I remember your mother now, but that was a long time ago. You look like her, but smaller.” He stepped back to appraise me further. “She brought her own ink with her. Native Ink. Told me to keep the leftovers safe—that it would only get stronger with time. She said I would know who it was for when the time came. I guess that person is you.”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“You’ll never have that ink.”
As soon as I take hold of the small book, I miss my mother more than ever. My hands tremble and my lips quiver, causing Stuart to take the book back.
“You aren’t ready for a tattoo,” he explains.
My legs quake beneath me as I back out the door. I stumble several blocks to Jenny’s, and I feel someone’s eyes on me. I just don’t know whose.
* * *
Jenny’s mom smiles as she directs me to the basement, where Jenny is developing her film. I know I look pale as I clench the railing down the stairs; my knuckles are blanched and bony. The red light above the door stops me from barging into the darkroom, but I peek in a small window to watch her. I admire Jenny’s concentration as she pins the photos onto a clothesline to dry. Her short hair accentuates her cheekbones and the bluish lights make her look like an angel.
I watch her in silence. The smell of the ocean shoots through the air, and I can feel the change in the room. I know Layne’s behind me. Looking over my shoulder, we are eye to eye. He smiles without opening his mouth and his dimples deepen. My breath quickens and I feel my skin burn as he comes closer. Every inch of my skin reaches toward him.
His arms wrap around my waist; fingers finding their way underneath my shirt. His hands feel calloused from playing guitar, and I enjoy his roughness.
“God.” He breathes into my hair. “You are so soft.” Our feelings and actions balance on the point of a needle. We could go one way or another, but right now, nothing seems more impossible than turning away from him. His eyes are half closed and by the way the heat is emanating from his hands, I know he feels the same.
The red light turns off above Jenny’s door and she pops out of her darkroom, looking startled. “Am I interrupting something?”
Instinctively, I take a step away from Layne, but he pulls me forward by my belt loops and I mold against him once again. His fingertips glide along my hips and dip into the top of my jeans. He presses his cheek against my hair, his chin on my shoulder. Everything is how it should be.
* * *
I spend the weekend following Layne’s band as it winds through Richmond and Virginia Beach. The volume in the clubs drown me in sound. I am never certain of what I should be doing while he plays. I feel like a lurker, a hanger-on. Cute girls are everywhere – funky, stylish girls, who sing along with his songs, and seem to speak a secret language with him as he sings. I stand against the walls and chew on the ends of my hair.
“Go home and cut yourself.”
Then Layne looks at me. The sound of his voice and the dank smell of the venue suck me in. I stare at his face, which is luminous under the stage lights, and watch as his lips move over the microphone. As the show ends, he comes offstage and makes a beeline to me. He’s sticky with sweat, and his skin is alive with energy.
I want him all to myself, no more sharing.
Upstairs in the dressing room, the fans descend once again. I skirt out to the bar, though Layne tries to gather me in. He strokes my arms and wraps his arms around my waist. He stands behind me with his chin on my shoulder, claiming me in front of everyone. The other girls look me up and down. Nervously, I pull away.
“Aren’t you into me anymore?” He laughs, but part of him sounds hurt.
“I feel like I am keeping you from having fun. I don’t fit in with the energy here, and I know you keep checking on me, worrying about me.” I shrug and look to the floor.
“I just feel, I don’t know, uncomfortable.”
“He should worry about you. And you should worry about me.”
Layne, always searching for what is true, strokes the ends of my hair. He holds me gently, his arms around me. “You will see what I see, in your own time, I guess. But I’m here for you.”
“But you won’t be there for him.”
* * *
When I open my eyes the next morning, the air feels heavy. It is daybreak, but darker than usual. I go into my bathroom and turn on the hot water.
“Not too deep,” I whisper, the razor sliding in tiny motions across my inner arm. “Crimson is the most seductive of colors.” I breathe into the mirror that is already fogged from the steam.
“Yes . . . do it for the sake of beauty.”
I see a flash of dust, ripped metal, and broken glass. The windy noise in my head makes me dizzy, and I clutch the sink for balance. I gag and cough, tears stinging my eyes. Stumbling back to bed, I’m relieved to have bled away some of my burden.
* * *
When I wake up again, it’s the afternoon and I’m wearing the same clothes I wore the day before. I’ve slept more than twelve hours, but I still don’t feel rested. Downstairs, the news drones softly in the kitchen, a low buzz under the chatty sounds of Jenny and Max, along with the laughter of Aunt Shelby. Soaking in the calm of the moment, I get out of bed and open my door. At the top of the stairs, with his back to me, sits Mateo. I ignore him and walk past, as if I can’t see him.
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