Free Gives Light(Gives Light Series) by Rose Christo Page B

letters to one another, but that wasn't the same as watching the nuances on their faces, hearing the words on their lips.  A future without Rafael felt unfathomable in a way that took me by surprise.  I'd managed just fine without him in the past; now, without him, the future looked unrecognizable and lonely.
     
    More importantly than that, I thought, once I'd left the reservation, who would wash Granny's windows and fetch her crabapples and snap beans?
     
    "I don't know how your dad could have left you alone, anyway," Rafael said indignantly.  "It's obvious you're the coolest person on the planet."
     
    For one ridiculous moment, I thought my heart had literally stopped.  Every sound sounded magnified--crickets restless in the beech trees, owls hooting from their nooks, toads scampering wetly across the forest floor.  Rafael didn't seem to notice my reaction; he had gone back to sketching, braids and lank hair obscuring his tilted face.  I couldn't for a second comprehend how he thought there was anything cool about me, let alone "coolest."  I'd thought it was glaringly obvious that that title belonged to him.  I began to smile--and then I was smiling so hard, it hurt.  And I didn't care.  I had never felt so absurdly happy in my life.
     
    I must have still been wearing that idiotic smile when I went home for the night.  I came in from the outhouse and Granny, alert, asked me if I needed to see a doctor.  I shook my head, kissed her cheek, and darted up the stairs to bed.
     
    "Well!" I heard her laughing after me.
     

9
    Sky
     
    A couple of weeks into July, and suddenly everyone on the reservation only wanted to talk about one thing:  An upcoming pauwau.
     
    I had no idea what the heck a pauwau was, so I finally asked Annie one morning, when my curiosity got the better of me.
     
    Her face lit up.  "Oh, it's wonderful!" she told me.  "Every season we get together with the other tribes for a big celebration.  The summer pauwau's always in Nettlebush.  We all put on our regalia and show off our different styles--dancing and music and sweets--for some, it's quite competitive.  But," she added, and I saw an impetuous twinkle of mischief in her eyes, "for others, it's the perfect time to start feeling...amorous."
     
    I think you've been amorous since the end of June , I signed.  Annie decided to act as though I hadn't said anything.  "Of course, we Plains People have been on the slow decline since the whites came to America, but take a look around you--there are only a few hundred of us living in Nettlebush.  We have to marry outside our tribe sometimes," she said firmly.  "You don't want us marrying our brothers and sisters, do you?"
     
    I definitely didn't want that.  I grinned.  Annie rolled her eyes at me and we went outside to wash our hands at the water pump.
     
    "It's a shame Mom can't be here," she said somberly.  "Mom loves the pauwaus--that's how she met Daddy, as a matter of fact.  She's originally Kiowa."
     
    I squeezed Annie's shoulder.  She flashed me a smile.
     
    Sighing, Lila trudged over to the water pump.  "I'm not ready for love," she told us.  She batted her eyelashes at me.  "Unless it's you, baby."
     
    I grasped my hand to my heart.
     
    "Well, you're much too little for that," Annie said dismissively.  "Now please go to the Stouts' house and ask for my dance shawl, I'm positive Siobhan had it last."
     
    "Stop oppressing me," Lila said, but trundled away.
     
    You're going to dance? I asked Annie.
     
    "A shawl dance, yes," Annie said.  She looked at me thoughtfully.  "Maybe Joseph could teach you to grass dance..."
     
    Are you going to dance with Aubrey? I asked--partially to tease her and partially to get her off the topic of me dancing with her little brother.
     
    Annie turned pink and suddenly had somewhere else to be.
     
    A pauwau, I took it, was a kind of meet and greet.  How many men and women had met their spouses that way?  I wondered, briefly, how