Free Lifting the Sky by Mackie d'Arge

had changed? Had Wonder Baby’s leg really healed? Was it something I’d done? Sure, I’d read about miracles happening, but they all seemed to have happened long ago. Which, of course, didn’t mean that they hadn’t happened … But still. I scrunched up my face something terrible just thinking about it all.
    I was thinking so hard that I didn’t even notice the herd of pronghorns gathering on the hillside below me.
“Shhh,”
I whispered to Pot. I snapped my fingers and pointed to the ground, which was the sign for him to stay low and stay put. Which, being a good ranch doggie, he did. He hunkered right down and lay with his head on his paws, looking straight ahead as if he were pretending the antelope didn’t exist.
    I reached for my pack and pulled out my journal and pencils. I picked out the antelope I’d named Lone One and drew her staring up at me while the rest of the herd calmly grazed. Then I rummaged through my pencils for the gold one and shaded in the fuzzy light that shone out of her and out of the others. I studied them some more and added a rosy pink to the light around the fat-bellied does.
    I squinted. Something else was going on here—something I hadn’t noticed before. I could see silvery-blue lines linking each antelope to the next one. And to the next and the next … I studied the lines for the longest time and then drew what I saw. It looked like golden antelopes caught in a silvery web.
    Lights of the Herd All Connected
, I wrote.
    Then I drew silvery-blue lines connecting the herd to the sagebrush and to the rocks and the hills and the trees, and I drew shimmering light around all of them and up in a corner I drew a glowing Stew Pot and me and my tree, and then I drew lines linking everything all together.
    I concentrated on drawing Lone One. While I sketched I noticed my fingers, how the light streaked out of them, and how just by thinking about Lone One made the light in my fingers grow brighter.
    I stared at my hands and then down at the herd.
Really, what is it that I am seeing?
I wondered. The lights seemed to be some sort of energy that flowed from one object or animal to another. If I’d learned one thing about light as I sketched the herd, it was that everything was connected.
    Everything Light and Everything Connected
, I labeled my drawing.
    I’d noticed before that people’s lights changed, so it seemed that whenever someone had a new thought their lights changed to match it. I’d seen how the light flowed from my hands to the calves. And if thoughts could affect the lights, could the lights affect how a body felt?
    Just thinking about all that made my head swim. I gathered my pencils and journal and pushed myself to my feet. Shadows had crept over the hillsides and the wind whirred through the feathery leaves of the juniper. I shivered, wishing I’d brought my jacket. Down by the creek a coyote yipped and another one answered from the hills. The buck antelope snorted, and suddenly the entire herdand their lights turned as one and flowed across the hillside like a fast-moving golden wave.
    Looking down, I noticed a shiny white rock that seemed to outshine its neighbors. As I picked it up I swear I could feel its energy tickling the palm of my hand—a perfect wishing rock. I closed my eyes.
How many wishes can I stuff into one stone?
I wondered. There was the big wish for my dad to find us. And then for my mom to be happy and want to stay for a while in one place. And for Wonder Baby’s leg to really, really be healed …
    I tucked the stone into a curlicue branch. “Thank you,” I whispered for what the herd’s lights had just taught me, and that was my total prayer.
    That night after supper, my mom and I sat hunched over our books at the kitchen table eating peanut butter cookies and drinking some of Mam’s medicinal tea (good for relaxing, she said). She’d made the cookies special for