Overlooked

  Sky was the one who treated my face with herbs. Mary was the one who jumped on Luke's back and clawed his face with her nails. I don't know which one was the one who called the reservation police, but they showed up after a while and pulled Luke to the side. Uncle Gabriel was the one who took me to the shopping mall the next day to replace my glasses. Apparently we had a warranty.

  "Does that mean you knew I'd break 'em?" I asked, grumbling, my cheek and my lip swollen.

  "Better safe than sorry," Uncle Gabriel said. "I hope you know that Luke had no right to touch you. Nobody has the right to put their hands on you like that."

  We left the eyeglass clinic. I swallowed a knot at the base of my throat. It was petty of me, but I was thinking that if our tribes had been allowed to build our own jail cells, people like Luke wouldn't be allowed to hit their kids.

  "Go pick out a book at the bookstore," Uncle Gabriel said. "Consider it your last childhood gift."

  "I finished Charlotte Doyle," I told him. "Mr. Zachariah lives."

  "Well, now you've spoiled it for me."

  When we went home Mary was sitting on the sitting room floor, tuning her bass guitar. I asked her where Caleb had gone and she told me he'd left to get building materials from Paul Looks Over. I didn't know whether that meant he was making his own house, or making his own room in ours. I kind of hoped it was the latter. Families don't belong in separate houses, unless they're just too big to fit under one roof.

  "Hey," Mary said. "Go get elderflower from Annie's house."

  I tossed myself on the couch. "Why do I have to do it?"

  " 'Cause she said she'd give it to me, and she's your friend. Run along now."

  I dragged myself off of the couch, groaning. "You never even gave back the first basket she lent you."

  "So what?" Mary asked. Maybe I want to keep it."

  I tried not to think about how weird that was, or how gross. I shuffled out the front door, aggravated, wondering when I had become Mary's lackey.

  When I arrived at Annie's house she tucked the basket in my arms. She patted me on the head like I was a kid.

  "Congratulations," I scowled. "I didn't know you could reach that high."

  I scampered away again before Annie could yell at me. I carried her basket on my arm and trudged down the road, back into my house. Mary took the basket from me right away, digging beneath the elderflower sprigs, budding and white.

  "Don't get that stuff all over the place," I grunted. "Rosa shouldn't have to clean up after you."

  "Yeah, whatever," Mary said.

  From the bottom of the basket she took out a pair of sewing awls, long and thin. The points were so sharp that when she tapped one of them with her index finger, it drew a bead of blood. She stuck her finger in her mouth, sucking the blood away. A grin spread across her face.

  I remembered what she had told me months back about needles.

  I stepped in front of the front door. My heart was hammering. Mary eyed me shrewdly, her finger tucked between her sharp teeth. Her eyebrows raised with slow appraisal; or maybe it was realization.

  "Move," Mary said.

  "No," I said.

  She clutched the awls in one hand. She advanced on me. It was stupid how hot and how fast the blood gurgled in my ears. This was my sister, who would rather have died than hurt me.

  "Uncle Gabe told you not to," I warned.

  "Don't care if he's the Daigwani," Mary said. "Get out of my way."

  Rosa came out from the kitchen. Rosa stopped.

  "Paul doesn't want to die, Mary," I said shakily. "He told me so."

  "And you think Dad wanted to?" Mary returned.

  Was this about revenge, or wasn't it? Mary's explanation had changed so many times my head was starting to spin. Mary didn't know what she wanted any more than I did.

  "What's going on here?" came Uncle Gabriel's voice.

  He walked toward us from the side hallway. I started to breathe again. Uncle Gabriel could have talked sense into a tin can.

  "Your nephew's blocking the door, that's what," Mary said. "Tell him I've got places to go."

  Uncle Gabriel glanced briefly at the sewing awls in her hand. "A knitting circle?"

  "That's right," Mary said, without missing a beat. "We're making booties this week."

  I looked at Uncle Gabriel; and I knew what he was going to do before he even did it. I knew because I remembered what he'd done when I'd destroyed that library book years ago, or when Mary had dropped Stuart's cat down the water well.

  "You want to take out a blood law so badly?" Uncle Gabriel asked. "Then take it out on me."

  Mary's smile flickered darkly. I think she was too proud to ask him what he meant.

  "You can only blame Paul for so much," Uncle Gabriel said. He walked toward us. "I was the one who decided your father should die. The person you're angry with is me."

  I still thought he was lying.

  "You're lying," Mary said.

  "You don't know that," Uncle Gabriel said.

  She couldn't prove he was lying. If Uncle Gabriel asked Paul to back up his version of events, Paul would do it. That's what it meant to be a Daigwani.

  "You wouldn't," Mary said, laughing raucously.

  "Wouldn't what?" Uncle Gabriel asked, polite.

  "Kill my dad," Mary said. "Kill your own brother-in-law. That's twisted. That's warped. You can't kill your own clan member, that's not how blood law works--"

  "All the more reason to ask someone outside the clan to do it."

  Mary's chest heaved, like she'd run out of breath. She looked raving to me, madder than she had when Luke had punched me in the face. Rosa drew closer to us, but stopped. Mary said through her teeth, "You're lying--"

  "Do you really want to chance killing an innocent man?" Uncle Gabriel asked.

  "He's not innocent!" Mary snapped.

  "You need to calm down," Uncle Gabriel said. "You need to sit down, Mary. I'll sit with you. We'll talk."

  "You--you let Dad die?" Mary stammered.

  I understood everything she was saying. I understood what she felt, but didn't want to feel. Our father was a murderer. Our father was our father. He had bathed her and tucked her into bed when her own mother couldn't bear to. He had given her his Black Sabbath albums, and even sneaked her out of school once so they could watch Batman at the cinema. No one had the right to take that away from her. If somebody had the right to take that away from her, we wouldn't have needed to punish Dad for doing the same to others.

  "Take it out on me," Uncle Gabriel said quietly. "You're angry. Take it out on me."

  So she did.

  It happened so fast I almost don't remember it. Mostly I remember the hideous, frightening expression on Mary's face, like she'd never hated anyone or anything more. She swung the sewing awls at Uncle Gabriel with a grunt of pain. It could have been physical pain. I don't think it was. I smelled blood, the hairs rising on my arms, the pulses tightening in my temples. I saw red, and the walls turned red, the floor turned red; I tasted red at the back of my throat.

  Rosa had forced herself between Mary and Uncle Gabriel. Her hand was shaking. The sewing awls were jammed in her palm, a hole torn open around them.

  The chaos was instantaneous. Uncle Gabriel was shouting. Rosa was breathless, tears beading in her eyes. Mary stood close enough to me that I could feel the warmth draining from her body. I could see the realization, the horror on her face. She had tried to hurt her own family. She had hurt somebody innocent, somebody who had no part in all this. Worse still: She had hurt the child of one of our father's victims. She never could have wanted that. Not when she already felt such guilt about picking out the victims. Not when Dad's stigma was the reason she wasn't Just Mary anymore.

  "I'm taking Rosa to the hospital," Uncle Gabriel said.

  His voice sounded like I'd never heard it before: ragged. Bottomless. I might have mistaken it for the rasping of bone on bone. He put his arms around Rosa and got her out the door so fast it felt like
they'd drifted away in a puff of smoke.

  Mary sat on her knees. She sat quietly. She didn't blink.

  "Mary," I said.

  She wouldn't answer me. Her fingers dug into her thighs. Her nails were long and painted. I worried they'd break the skin.

  "Mary, what did you do?" I begged.

  "I don't know," Mary said blankly.

  I reached for her shoulder. I didn't take it. The shadowy aura encompassing her body burned the hairs on the back of my hand. It rippled in a threatening miasma, stretching around us, reaching for the ceiling.

  "I didn't mean to do that," Mary whispered. "I didn't want to do that. Why did I do that?"

  How was I supposed to answer her? She'd stalked Paul all year, but I'd never thought she would hurt her own family. That wasn't Mary. This wasn't Mary.

  "I'm not Mary," Mary said.

  The shadows blasted the walls off our house. The shadows shook the foundation under our feet. They rotted the trees all around us, the branches curling up with black disease. They tore the sun down from the sky. Tendrils of darkness tore the skin off Mary's bones. I covered my eyes when her scalp started peeling away. I heard animal growling, and I was scared; I didn't have my spear with me. I couldn't protect Mary. I was as defenseless as a dove.

  When the growling stopped, I lowered my hands from my eyes. Nettlebush looked like a nightmare forest from a fairy tale. Black trees cloaked the clouds in the sky, trunks oozing with saliva. The ground was frozen in sheets of amber. Muddy antelope prints spiraled away from me, into an oak thicket, torn white butterflies hanging off the branches. I was afraid.

  I was afraid, and I followed the hoof marks. Mary was out here alone with a wild animal. I had to protect her. I couldn't protect her. What had she done to Rosa? How could I protect her from herself? I swallowed, a cold knot catching in my throat. I leaned against the closest tree. When I took my hand away my fingers were covered in bloody sap. I jumped inside my skin, breaking into a run.

  The hoof marks spiraled. The road spiraled. The black forest opened on a bridge between fantasy castles, the ground so far beneath me I couldn't see it anymore. I saw the moon in the sky like a slice of lavender, but shaped the same as an atlas moth. If it had had a mouth, I could have heard what it wanted to say. Ravens flocked in formation, their wings beating in my chest. The clouds were above me, around me, below me. Were I braver, I would have touched them: daisy yellow, feathery and light.

  "Mary," I said, teeth chattering.

  I walked the bridge to nowhere. The fantasy castles fell away behind me, the cold air biting my face. I stopped walking when I'd reached a valley of black coal, seams glowing red hot in the mountainous walls.

  "Mary?" I asked.

  The air refracted with watery heat. Chunks of flaming rock rocketed into the black clouds. The muddy antelope prints slanted to my left, disappearing inside a craggy, crumbling cave. No way did I want to go into that cave. The dark scared me these days.

  "You'd better appreciate this," I mumbled.

  I ducked inside the cave. The air was so dense I couldn't breathe. My heart rattled in my chest, echoing in my ears. I reached for the cavern walls, but couldn't find them. I couldn't stop thinking about my conversation with Mr. Red Clay. Coughing, I stumbled through shadow. I emerged from the back of the cave. The ground underneath me was glass, and it mirrored every star in the sky with startling clarity. I forgot that I was standing on land. I crouched down, shoulders hunched, hugging my knees.

  The muddy hoof prints gave way to bloody ones. The bloody hoof prints tapered to a stop. I stood up, wary, bleary. I gazed at the creature outside their path.

  The Delgeth was three times as big as a regular antelope. Patches of fur were missing from its brown coat, sticky blood taking their place. Its hooves were split in painful two's and three's. It couldn't close its mouth, its giant, yellow jaws in the way, mad spit dampening its muzzle. Its curved horns were chipped and broken. It stared at me, its breath escaping its nose in a rank fog. I couldn't bear to breathe the same air as this creature. I covered my mouth.

  "Mary?" I called through my hand.

  The Delgeth snapped its head. A sharp pain shot through my arm. I gripped my elbow in right hand; and when I took it away, I saw blood. My blood dripped down the Delgeth's maw, its teeth grinding together as it chewed. My stomach twisted inside-out. I sat down on my knees, light-headed. I knew I was going to be sick.

  "Mary," I said. Where had she gone?

  I knew. I knew when I looked in that freaking monster's eyes. They weren't lightless like I'd first supposed, but hazel, the green and brown forests smudged with gray clouds. My sister was a Delgeth. My sister was a man-eating monster, and had devoured herself first.

  They say that the Delgeth is born when man tries to create children on his own. Mary was a daddy's girl.

  "Stop," I said. I sat on my knees, desperate. "I'm here. I can fix you. You can be Just Mary again. You can stop."

  The Delgeth ate the ear off my skull, ripping, merciless. The pain was so bad I cried. I cried like a powerless baby, the monster's spit dripping down my neck, under my shirt, burning me. I put my hands on the ground. The Delgeth stomped on my fingers, crushing them into the volcanic glass. My head split apart with agony. I couldn't hear it when I screamed. I heard nothing but waves of blood. My vision went spotty and black, my chest tightening. My stomach turned inside-out.

  I don't know how long I spent on the ground. At some point I lay on my back, the Delgeth with its head bowed, eating the heart from my chest. Everything hurt, and I watched the stars, the constellations spiraling, roaming like ancestors in the sky. It never occurred to me to try to run. You don't run away from your family.

  "I love you," I said.

  When I love someone, I love every part of them. Even the annoying parts. When I love someone, I love them unconditionally. Nothing and nobody has the power to change it; least of all me.

  Whores, Mary said.

  Her voice echoed in my skull, the way it used to when we were Just Mary and Just Rafael. My skull was agony, addled.

  They were whores, Mary said. They deserved to die.

  If she'd believed that, she wouldn't have freaked out when she hurt Rosa.

  All women are whores, Mary said. We're all worthless.

  "Stop," I said. I tasted metal in my throat. "I don't care if that's what Dad told you. Dad's gone. It's not true."

  The Delgeth was eating my throat. I felt the cold wind on my spinal cord. I had something in common with Sky now. My hands were torn and my knees were torn. I felt so cold it started to snow, flakes fogging my eyeglasses in ice feathers. My last memory of snow was a happy one, Sky in my arms, my family under one roof.

  "Mary," I said, my voice like gravel.

  I caught a snowflake in my ruined hand. I couldn't see it, but felt the weight of it, the whole entire universe in a macrocosmic snowflake. I felt its symmetry and its delicacy, the crystals reposing on my bloody palm lines.

  "All people are good," I said. "Even you."

  The Delgeth's rancid breath covered me in a fog of poison disbelief.

  "Even Paul," I said. "Even Dad. Even Luke."

  Ribbons of blood bloomed where my heart was supposed to be. The Delgeth ate my stomach open. The blood came out so fast, it didn't have time to turn red. Was I even human anymore? Maybe I was just a mess of blood and organs. Maybe I didn't even have feelings. But the snowflake in my hand didn't melt. The whole entire world waited for me. That was what it meant to be alive. That was the gift my parents had given me.

  "When you were little," I said, every breath filled with pain, "you never wanted to hurt anyone. You never even thought about it. No one is born wanting to hurt people. That's how I know that everyone is good. That's how I know that it's never too late to go back to that. No matter who you are. No matter what you've already done."

  I couldn't see through my glasses anymore. All I saw were hazel smudges. I wondered if the Delgeth was looking me in the eye.


  "I love you," I said.

  Don't, Mary said.

  "The person you really wanted to hurt," I said. "It was you, wasn't it? You want somebody to hurt you. Don't you?"

  Kill me, Mary said.

  She was a man-eating monster, born of man alone. Seven women--eight women--had died. She had looked at their pretty faces. She had picked out their names.

  "I love you," I said. "I love you so much. I don't care if we're Shoshone, I don't care if we're supposed to keep our feelings private. I love you. I don't care what you've done. You didn't do it because you wanted to be a bad person. Nobody sits down and thinks, 'I want to be a bad person.' Nobody."

  Kill me, Mary begged.

  She was a man-eating monster. She was wild game. We hunted antelope every autumn. I'd been hunting this antelope since summer.

  "I love you," I said.

  Strands of hair came off my scalp in bloody hanks, the Delgeth's breath on my skull. I couldn't even feel the pain anymore. My whole body had gone numb, except where the nerves tingled: at my fingertips; at my shins.

  "I love you so much," I said. "I loved you since I was born. You were my big sister. You were my hero. I wanted to be just like you because you were the coolest. I wanted to follow you everywhere. Don't you remember that? Remember how much I annoyed you because I tagged around behind you when you were trying to hang out with friends? Remember I used to wake you up at four AM to play with me?"

  Aikupi, said the voice in my head. It was my favorite game, the buffalo-and-cactus game. Mary was always the buffalo for me.

  "And I took naps on your bed 'cause I thought I'd absorb whatever made you so awesome. And you got mad, and yanked the blankets out from under me so I'd fall off. But you protected me from bigger kids. Like that Quanah Young kid who used to bully me. Four years older than you and you went after him like a bat out of hell. You gave him two black eyes. He's twenty-four now. Can you believe that? That we're all grown up? Can you believe all that was fourteen years ago when it feels like it was yesterday?"