“Great. I certainly want to be green.” My voice catches in the back of my throat. He looks back at me and in a flash, looks down at his keys.
We walk down to the trails and while he walks ahead, I lag behind. I feel a stabbing sadness.
“Look.” Layne stops and turns. I bump into him, but don’t move away. My hips touch his. “I can be patient,” he says in a halted cadence, with his hands in fists at his sides. “It takes great effort, but I can. However,” he breathes deeply, “I need more from you in return.”
“More what? You’re gone most of the time.”
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.” His voice is barely audible, and he looks like a guy who has given up. “Do you just want to go back home?”
“No. I don’t want to go home yet.”
“Which home, Sparrow?”
“I don’t want to go home. I’ll answer whatever you ask.”
The rest of our walk is hilly and damp, along the edges of the Potomac River. He holds the low hanging branches back from my face and balances me as we climb along the slippery rocks, but he lets go quickly. His touch no longer lingers on my skin.
I stop in a clearing to feel the sun. “Can we sit for a while?”
“Sure.” He takes off his black hoodie to use as a make shift blanket.
I rest my head on his knees. “Is this okay?”
He has leaned back, face to the sky, with his eyes closed. “It’s fine.” He shifts his weight away from me, pulling back.
My fingertips find their way to his. I trace the veins in his hand, up to the pale, tapered muscles of his arm. I sit up and our faces are so close I feel his breath blend with mine. I lean in until my lips brush his. I feel him take a sharp breath and his chest expands. Then he spins us, until he is on top of me, pushing himself into me, pinning me against the ground. His breathing is fast as he stares into my eyes, but he pulls away, supporting himself on his elbows, bowing his head.
He looks up and we are inches apart, forehead to forehead.
“I need to be with you,” he finally says. “But I don’t know what this is between us. I don’t want it to be just a hook-up.”
“I never thought this was a hook-up.”
“And the fun stuff,” he smiles, “will be even better if we are open with each other—about everything—even if it’s scary.”
“I know. I’m trying.”
“It’s the only way two people can fit together in a way that can’t be broken. I want that, Sparrow. I want something unbreakable with you.”
“Then he shouldn’t choose you, that much is certain. You are completely broken.”
“I don’t know where to start.” I could tell him about Mateo, but would he believe me? Do I believe me? Somewhere inside, I feel like if I give Layne what he wants—trust and honesty—that he will stay.
He looks pained. “I don’t push you about the cutting. I mean, I kind of understand it. After the accident, you probably have a lot to be angry about. Maybe you’ve closed yourself off from others, I don’t know.”
“I don’t feel like I’m on solid ground.”
“Did someone hurt you?” His entire body tenses with his words.
“No. But I’ve been warned someone might.” I play with my earring and look away.
“Someone wants to hurt you? Why?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know.” Tears stream along my temples and into my hairline.
He leans on one elbow and lifts my chin. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know. Really, I don’t. But it has something to do with my mother and the reservation.”
“You’re telling him too much. Shut up.”
“Are you safe here?”
“I think so. There’s someone . . . looking after me.”
He looks at me through his stringy dreadlocks, one eyebrow raised, waiting for more.
“All right. Here it goes.” I clear my throat. “I have a spirit guide. Sort of a guardian, if you will.”
“A spirit guide.” His voice is monotone. “As in a ghost?” he asks skeptically.
“Look, I know it sounds crazy.”
Layne narrows his eyes and sits up, pulling me into his lap, until I’m straddling his thighs. “Are you messing with me?”
“No. I would never do that.”
He angles his face up to the sky, as if the answers will rain down on him. “Like a floating-through-the-walls kind of spirit?”
“No. Solid and very human looking.”
“Are you sure? I mean, how do you know?”
“Just forget it. Maybe I’m crazy.” I stand up and look to an open clearing. “I’m doing what you asked, and telling you what I know to be true. Are you happy now?”
“Don’t do that.” He stands up, his voice tinged with anger. “Don’t talk like that to me. I’m here for you. I’m listening to all you have to say.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Just continue with what’s real; what’s the truth as you know it.” I shrug and he grabs my hand. “I’ll help,” he begins again. “What does he or she look like?”
“He’s a guy, like you. Well, different . . . taller and darker. Human looking.”
“Oh, thanks,” he jokes. “Can anyone else see him? Or just you?”
“I don’t know. Look, can we stop talking for a while? I think it’s dangerous for you to know about this. Mateo thinks he is protecting me from something until I’m strong enough to go back to the reservation.”
“He can try, but he will fail. You will never return.”
“No one will ever have your back like I will, Sparrow. No one will hurt you, and no one will take you away, as long as you want me here with you.”
I’m relieved I told him, even if it’s just the beginning. I hope with all my heart it isn’t the end.
7
Monday, I am supposed to meet Jenny at the Student Union. She texts me that she is delayed during a portfolio review for her Design Theory class, so I find a table in the corner. I see Mateo by the vending machines, with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Doritos are always an excellent choice,” I say, noticing all the girls staring at him. At least now I have my answer as to whether others can see him.
He looks at me with little emotion, an imperceptible snarl on his lips. “Isn’t your boyfriend waiting for you somewhere?” He lowers his gaze and strides toward an empty table.
I grab my books and follow him, the strap of my bag catches on a chair and I stumble. The commotion of the noisy metal chairs clanking into each other, and me banging into the tables, causes him to turn quickly.
“Are you always this clumsy?” His annoyance makes me nervous.
“What are you doing here? Are you spying on me?”
“No more than I need to, believe me. Your boyfriend is putting out a lot of energy I’d rather not be around, looking for answers to questions that don’t concern him.”
“You’ve done it now.”
“Okay, I get it. You’re pissed I told Layne about you. But he’s a good friend. He wants to help me. Am I supposed to lie and hide everything?”
“He isn’t a Native. He has no role to play here. Bringing him into the reservation’s business isn’t going to help.”
“I don’t even know the reservation’s business!”
He stares me down; his face and body are defensive.
I am completely distracted by the beauty of his bone structure. “Why do I even bother?” I sigh. “Just go away. I was perfectly fine before you came along.”
“No, you weren’t. Not even a little bit.”
“You’ll never be fine.”
Tears sting the back of my eyes as I turn away from him, walking outside and into the wooded area near the library.
At first, Mateo stays inside, then quickly runs after me. “Your mother lived in a double world. The physical and the spirit world. You do too, but you are in a battle with yourself.”
“I am not interested in two world
s. I have enough trouble in the physical one.”
“You don’t have a choice. Your mother was taken from you before she could share what you need to know, but that doesn’t change what is true. Life isn’t separated from death. It only appears that way from this side, the physical side.” He jumps up into a tree. His athleticism and grace shock me. Reaching down, he pulls me up by one arm. He climbs higher into the treetops, motioning for me to follow, but I shake my head. “If you want to see what I see, you’ll need to come up here.”
Caving, I climb carefully through the rough, jagged branches, cursing him in my mind. He situates himself on a high branch and I sit between his legs.
“Do you know about the White Buffalo?” he asks.
“The legend? Of course. Every Blackfoot child learns the story.”
“It’s not just a legend. Every story has truth, including the White Buffalo.”
“From what I remember, whenever there is chaos and disunity, the White Buffalo returns. She is a woman, right?”
“Exactly. She was your mother. Now, she is you.”
I feel dizzy and tilt to the right. Mateo holds me in place by my shirt. “I think I am going to pass out.”
“No. You wanted to hear the truth, so now listen. Your mother returned to the reservation when it was in a state of upheaval. Uranium mines poisoned the land. The water was toxic. She brought Blackfoot ink—ink filled with the blood and tears of Blackfoot warriors—to Stuart. He used it to mark her; to give her the power and strength of our warriors. Now she is gone, and you must fill the void.”
“You will never be that strong. You will destroy yourself.”
“I can’t do that. Plus, the White Buffalo is a myth, a symbolic story.”
“Be patient, Sparrow. All will be fine in the end.” He puts his hand around my waist and helps me to the ground. I crack the seal on a water bottle as we walk in time to the Blackfoot music on his iPod; the bass thumps in rhythm with my heart.
“Go on, keep thinking it’s a myth. You’re making this too easy on me.”
* * *
“We have a problem, Mateo,” I say as we walk in the backdoor to the kitchen. “Stuart has basically told me I’m not ready for the ink.”
“He’ll do it. But it’s only fair to warn you, every time the needle pushes into your skin, the pain of your nation will fill you. But it will also strengthen you.”
“What if I’m not strong enough?”
I hear a girl’s laugh. “If?”
Mateo rubs a hand up and down my arm. “Everything in its own time.”
“What about choice? Do I have a choice?”
“I’m sorry,” he says with the sorrow of a man who knows agony and horror.
The loss of my mother and the memory of the accident creep all around me; my stomach clenches in knots of pain and my face crumbles. Emotions crash around me.
8
The memory of the accident hangs on me like a heavy, wet cloak. I watch a girl leave The Black Line tattoo parlor and walk toward the railroad yard. A flowering vine tattoo emerges from under the back of her tank top and crawls like it is living across her neck. She turns back to me.
“Go ahead and stare. You can’t ignore me. I will take you down.”
She has snowy-white hair, bluish lips, and angular bones jutting from her wrists, shoulders, and elbows, all of which accentuate her anemic and ghastly pale skin—translucent enough to see her veins. Frail and cadaverous, she appears as a living dead girl.
I walk closer to her, and she emits a guttural, feral hissing noise. I enter Stuart’s shop with relief.
Stuart sits by the window, cleaning his machine and looking through the blinds at the living dead girl as she stands on the empty sidewalk.
“Do you know about the White Buffalo?” I blurt out.
He stops cleaning his equipment and pushes up his glasses. “Did your mother tell you it’s part of your heritage?”
“No. She died before she could. She told me about the tattoo though.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I am having a tough time believing anything right now.”
A blanket of silence falls over us; it’s almost like a cautious dance, no one wants to reveal more information to the other.
His expression is troubled and anxious. “I don’t know if it’s time yet. It shouldn’t be done unless it’s right. You are here sooner than I expected. If we rush it, all could be wasted.”
“Because I might not recover?”
“Exactly.”
* * *
As I walk home, I see her again, emerging from the woods alongside the road. Walking like a panther, the blanched icy girl stares at me. Her stride matches mine.
“You can’t ignore me.”
She looks wilder than before, her untamed hair billows angrily as her icy gray eyes stare—still as stone, yet hyper-vigilant. Her eyes change to a deep smoky violet.
Mateo bursts from nowhere and forces the keys to his Jeep into my palm. “Drive it home,” he commands.
“What about you?” I tuck my hair behind my ears and wrap my fingers around his keys.
“Just go. Please do as I say, this one time.” His teeth are clenched as he looks over my shoulder at the girl.
I turn toward her, but he spins me sideways, grabbing my shoulders. I see in his face he has no intention of letting me remain here.
Stumbling into the Jeep, my emotions crisscross and short circuit. What is going on? Mateo is in front of the wild girl; I have no idea how he got to her so quickly. I buckle and stare out the window. But now, where they stood, are two wolves in their place – one black, the other a steely grey.
I blink as my hair blows into my face. I start the Jeep, but don’t put it into gear. I’m frozen in place. The leaves on the oaks turn upside down in the wind. The black wolf stiffens and bares its teeth, as the grey wolf whips its head to look toward me.
“She’s not ready, Mateo. She won’t make it any further.”
“She’ll go further than anyone.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“You can’t stop her. No one can.”
Time feels like a vacuum. A feral snarl rips from one of the wolves and both run into the forest. I put the Jeep in gear, just as Mateo appears from the woods, disheveled and wet.
He walks back over to the driver’s side and with a slight cocked motion, he gestures for me to climb back over to the passenger side. My hands still grip the keys and he has to open my palm to break my trance. I keep my head down; my eyes won’t blink and I can’t swallow.
Mateo revs the engine.
“How are you so calm?” My voice sounds high pitched and tight. “Can you tell me what just happened?” My mouth feels like it is filled with cotton, muffling my words, which struggle past the tightness in my throat.
“I never noticed before,” he answers, “your hair has some blonde in it.” He strokes a strand of hair that is waving about from the open window.
“Only in the sun.” My nervousness transfers to him playing with my hair. My teeth chatter and my arms shake from cold and fear.
He tosses me his jacket.
“Thanks.” I slide into it and bury my face in the sleeves. I love how it smells.
“Are you going to pass out?” His face is concerned, looking over as we stop at a red light. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I nod. He smiles and rests his hand on top of mine. Then he shakes his head and looks unnerved. “This is more complicated than I’d planned.”
I grab some water from my bag and nibble on some stale crackers. “I think after what I just saw, you need to tell me exactly how you, Stuart, and that icy dead girl fit together. And most of all, how all this concerns me.”
“Icy dead girl?” he repeats with a smile. “What a perfect description. Her name is Winona.”
“And?”
“She’s an opposing dark force. She wants the power your mother had . . . the power you will have too, if all goes well. And I�
��m here to make sure it goes well.”
“So, we are back to the White Buffalo?” I ask.
“Yes. Winona wants to change the story. To destroy it, once and for all.”
“There will be no happily ever after. Not anymore.”
* * *
I am unable to move from the Jeep until my brain settles. Mateo and I sit in silence in my driveway.
“Promise me something,” he says.
“Okay.”
“Don’t go to The Black Line without me. I want to be there for you.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just leave it at that for now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Tomorrow,” I reply, jumping down from the Jeep.
“Sparrow?” I turn as he leans across the gear stick, and my heart jumps. “Sweet dreams.”
“Dream of death, stupid girl.”
* * *
“Sparrow!” Jenny calls from inside the kitchen when I walk inside. “Where have you been?” She looks out the window over the sink at Mateo driving away. “Who’s that guy?”
“Just a guy, sort of an old friend.”
“Looks like more than just a friend to me.”
“I don’t know. It’s . . . complicated.”
“Complicated with Layne, or with that guy? Listen, I will tell you right now, I’m a big fan of Layne, and I think you’re super lucky he likes you so much. But I am your friend first and foremost, so . . . I’m here for you. If you want to talk.”
“Thanks, I guess I’m confused about everyone. Not everyone is who they seem.”
“You most of all.”
9
The next morning is dark and foggy—absolutely dismal. I throw on my jeans and flip-flops, regardless of the weather channel’s forecast for rain. Running down the stairs into the kitchen, I pour a bowl of Cheerios, then chase them down with an energy drink.
I run outside and the mist and dew cling to my neck and feet. Such a thick fog is in the air, I don’t see the other car in the driveway. A beaten-up gold Volkswagen Jetta.
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