If people complained about the line order, Mama just said this was the way it had always been done, and Tobias agreed. Some family traditions were just unbudgeable. This one didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but it worked in my favor, so I liked it.
I had sampled several different brownies while we were packing them up, to see which thought-recipes had worked best; but that had been three hours earlier, and I was hungry. I took only one serving of each thing so there would be enough for the others. We were allowed seconds, but we weren’t supposed to take anything we weren’t going to eat. Mama was strict about that too. One of the benefits of cooking was that I always fixed things I liked. Sometimes I found something I really liked that nobody else liked. More for me.
Three hours since Flint and I had made the brownies, I thought as I sat down. I had forgotten about timekeeping. While I waited for everyone else to serve themselves—that was another rule, nobody got to start before everybody sat down after getting their food—I tested my shoulders.
Tense again.
Maybe I should excuse myself from dinner? Sure, that would go over well. “Pardon me. I have to go curse something.”
Better than staying here and cursing something or someone in the room.
On the other hand, dinner was in front of me, and Flint had finally finished dishing food onto his plate and sat down. I could get tenser than this before I had to use my power.
“So,” said Mama, “what did everyone do with their days?”
This, too, was part of our dinner ritual.
I had never had so much to tell before, or felt so reluctant to tell it. I was used to telling Tobias things. He didn’t take them personally; he analyzed, repackaged the information I gave him, and handed it back to me so I could take another look and maybe see something in it I hadn’t known I knew.
Mama, on the other hand, looked at everything we said in light of how it pertained to her. Sometimes Dad could moderate her response to things, talk her down; mostly, we’d learned to edit what we said.
“Somebody better say something before I toss a little truth-tell around the room,” Mama said, and smiled at us. “Gypsum? Don’t tell me making a pair of gloves was the most exciting thing that happened to you today.”
“Not really.”
“The chalk drawings happened last night, I’m guessing, since they were there when I woke you up on the lawn this morning.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you cleaned them off the back walk yet?”
Oh, man. I had forgotten that one of Mama’s many aims in life was to keep the house and environs in fine condition. Messes could exist, as long as they disappeared after a specified time. Six or eight hours, max. “I, uh, I’ve been kind of busy today. And that chalk is a special case. It’s hard to get out of things. Though, come to think of it, the curse came off it this morning, so maybe I can hose off the walk after dinner.”
“Busy with what?”
“I’m trying to learn how to curse.”
She smiled her most glowing smile at me. As always when I saw that smile, I was struck by how beautiful she was, and I wondered why I hadn’t inherited any of it. Opal got some great features from Mama—lush lips, large, sparkling violet eyes, slender nose—and what she didn’t get, she could assume any time she pleased. Or she could look like anyone else she saw or could imagine. Beryl had Mama’s eyes. I didn’t look like either of my parents—although Flint and I had gotten Dad’s hazel eye-color. Mama thought I had chosen my body shape. Nobody in her family was fat. We hadn’t met Dad’s family. I wondered if I looked like them. Dad was thin, but that didn’t mean the rest of his family was.
I wondered what my Great-Aunt Meta had looked like. Maybe there was a power-of-curses body type that would explain me.
“How’s it going?” Mama asked.
“I found out one thing that’s going to be handy around the house.”
She nodded, encouraging me.
I fished a Kleenex out of my pocket and held it up. I focused on it, narrowed my concentration. I didn’t want to burn my fingers this time. “Damn,” I whispered, and the Kleenex flashed into nothing. This time my fingers were fine.
Mama blinked and sat back.
“Thought I could take care of the trash,” I said.
“Honey,” said Dad, his voice a little hoarse.
“Hey, that’s my job,” Flint said. We all had work jobs. I did a lot of cooking, which left weeding, setting the table, watering the houseplants, laundry, dishes, trash collection, and other things for the others to sort out. We had a gardener, Esteban Rivera, who mowed the back lawn and trimmed the bushes out front and planted whatever Mama asked him to plant, but left the orchard alone; and a housekeeper, Luz Herrera, who came in once a week to sweep, vacuum, dust, and clean the bathrooms—Tuesday, a day when everybody was encouraged to stay away from home so Luz could work undisturbed. I had spent some time with her, since in the past I wasn’t a danger to myself or others.
“You can have it, though,” Flint said after a minute’s thought.
“And Flint and I made brownies together, and they’re really good. When we combine our powers, he takes the curse off. So we have dessert.”
Her smile broadened. “Excellent. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“I don’t know, Mama. Did you know Aunt Meta?”
Her face smoothed. “I met her a few times when I was a little girl. She was so unhappy and sick. I didn’t know why until I was much older, and she was gone.”
“I just thought if you’d ever seen her work. . . .”
Mama glanced at Tobias. Her eyes darkened. “Only once.” She returned her gaze to me. Candle flame reflected in her eyes. “Her mother, my great-aunt Lynx, made her curse a house. It was a little old shack that nobody lived in—used to be in the jungle out back—and they wanted it off the property. Meta wouldn’t do anything, you know. She lived twisted inside herself and spent most of her time in her room. Her power was eating away at her insides. Aunt Lynx knew that was wrong, and tried to get her to work, but most of the time—oh, baby, I’m so glad you’re practicing and doing. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
I couldn’t look away from her.
She took a breath. “Anyway, Lynx convinced Meta that it was all right to curse the shack. So Meta said: ‘You before me, be eaten up by the powers inside you.’ So creepy. Like she was talking to herself. I didn’t know that till later, though. The shack shook. Dust flew as the boards kind of—it was like fast-acting termites. They shrank down on themselves, fell apart. The glass in the windows ran like water. But worst were these little cries, something dying.” Mama shook her head. “It frightened me so badly I didn’t want to go through transition. I had nightmares. What could be crying and dying in an old abandoned shack? Nobody ever told me. Meta’s face—”
Eleven
TOBIAS coughed into his hand.
Startled, Mama glanced at him, then shook herself free of the story she was telling. Sometimes she put dazzle in the words so you heard them better than you did normal speech. Sometimes she didn’t even know she was doing it.
“So it’s exciting that you’re finding positive ways to channel your power, Gyp.” She smiled again.
“I guess so,” I said, unnerved. “Hey, Dad, what did you do today?”
“I taught three classes and had office hours,” he said, and smiled. “I had lunch with Kingston. You remember him, Anise. He was at the faculty Christmas party last year.”
“The man with the long earlobes? I liked him.”
“Pleasant day,” Dad said. “Jasper?”
Jasper checked his watch. “I’ve got band practice tonight,” he said. He had finished his dinner.
“Do you have to leave this minute?” Mama asked.
“No.”
“Anything new and good happen today?”
“I’ve been watching Gyp work. It gives me lots to think about.”
“Would you like to share?”
“
Not until I’ve had some time to mull it over. Anyway, it’s exciting. Gyp, don’t worry. I bet you’re nothing like Aunt Meta.”
“Thanks.”
“May I please be excused?” Jasper said.
“You’re not staying for coffee and dessert?”
He checked his watch again.
“Oh, all right,” Mama said, a little cross.
“Thanks.” He refolded his napkin, clipped the clothespin on it, grabbed his empty plate, and headed for the kitchen.
“Beryl?” Mama stared at my little sister.
“I took my American history makeup, and I think I aced it. Now I’m on break until next year! Hah!”
“Oh yes. Break!” Mama said. “Miles, you go on break too, yes?”
“Tomorrow after school.”
“Gypsum?”
“I’ve got one more shift at the Center, but I phoned in and left a message I’d be out sick tomorrow. I don’t want to curse at school.”
“Oh. Probably wise. Flint? What did you do today?” Her tone shifted, turned a tiny bit satiric. Flint usually reported things like “wandered around downtown” or “practiced guitar” or “rode my bike up in the mountains” or “went surfing.”
“I’m getting into baking. I love it! I’ve got a babysitting gig with the Foster twins tonight, and I’m taking them some of our brownies. Wait till you try ’em, Mama. They’re outrageous.”
“Have you found your interest in life?” Mama’s tone was too intense.
Flint leaned back in his chair and beamed. “Naw. I’m interested in everything. You know that.”
Mama never growled, but sometimes I was sure she wanted to, and this was one of the times. She smiled instead, more teeth than feeling. “Tobias? Did you have a good day?”
“Yes, Anise, I did.” Tobias didn’t play “new and good” with the rest of us, and Mama couldn’t make him. She’d given up trying. “Excellent dinner, Gyp.”
Everybody else chimed in, and I smiled, until my shoulders pinched me. Then I hunched. Tobias’s gaze sharpened. Beryl and I got up to clear and bring in the dessert and the coffee pot. I laid out the various kinds of brownies on a platter decorated with pictures of holly plants and berries, striving for a herringbone pattern—Mama loved a nice presentation. I set down the last one. An arrow of pain shot down my spine. I sucked in air.
“What? What’s wrong, Gyp?” Beryl asked.
“I’ve got to curse something right now.” I dropped the cookie tin and ran for the back door.
Curse something, yes. But what? And how? An image of a house eating itself flared through my mind as I pounded across the back porch. I had to get away from our house. I ran across the lawn to the orchard steps. Night and fog had fallen again. I tripped over something at the top of the stairs, and time shifted into slow motion.
Though the light was bad this far from the back porch, I still saw the steps, pale in the night with black cracks where one step stopped and the next began. Each step had a drooping lip. I was falling, falling toward them forever, though I knew at the end of my tumble I would smack down. I had time to think about that: about how I could crush my ribs, break my jaw, my neck, snap my legs against all those concrete edges. I could die from stupidity and hurry. Or I could just hurt myself really badly.
“Damn!”
A sun went nova in my chest. An ocean of white light opened below me. I heard hard, heavy cracks and snaps, and smelled scorching, melting, acrid stone.
Twelve
“ALTRIA,” I whispered, falling.
Someone laughed, and I fell, but instead of hitting all those angled edges I dropped into arms stretched out to catch me. She loomed over and around me, larger than an elephant, warm, smelling of ripe apricots and peaches and fresh-baked bread. For an instant she hugged me, and then she set me down and disappeared.
I was sitting in a scorched crater. Above me was the lip of the upper terrace, and to my right, the orchard spread out. Beside me was the upper terrace’s retaining wall that used to run beside the staircase. Burn marks had etched a medusa mural, like the outline of fireworks smoke, into the wall.
The staircase had disappeared.
My clothes hadn’t survived the blast very well either. My shirt and most of my bra had burned away from my chest, though I still wore the sleeves, straps, and back. My jeans were mostly there, but streaked with smoke. I didn’t know what had happened to my slip-on shoes; they were gone. The bottom of the crater still steamed. I felt the heat rising from it. Somehow, the heat didn’t bother me, even though my bare feet were against hot stone. It was my own heat. Maybe it couldn’t hurt me.
“What!”
I pressed my palms against the bottom of the crater. Almost porcelain smooth; my curse had carved it out.
“Gyp! What!”
I looked up. My family, minus Jasper and Hermina, stood on the edge of the terrace, where the stairs used to start.
I crossed my arms over my breasts, covered them as best I could with my hands. “I had an accident,” I said.
Dad stripped out of his jacket and dropped it to me. “Thanks.” I turned my back on the family and put the jacket on backwards so it would cover my front. “Are you all right?” asked Dad when I turned to face them again.
I shifted my shoulders, bent my legs, flexed my ankles. No internal screams of pain. Nothing broken, maybe nothing bruised. How could that be? “Guess so.”
Definitely no tension left in my shoulders at all. Curse-proof, for a couple hours at least.
“You destroyed the staircase?” Mama asked.
“I didn’t mean to. I fell. I cursed. It was a reflex.”
“You did this,” Dad said.
“I did, Dad. It’s the new me. Walking disaster area.” I pulled myself to my feet. “Cursing sure is hard on the wardrobe.”
“You did this.”
I sighed. Maybe Dad was finally getting that I had changed.
“Well,” said Mama, “maybe I can replace the old stair with something marble. Something really nice. It never did look good anyway.”
“Thanks, Mama.” She could have reacted a bunch of different ways. Deciding she wanted to replace the stair was the best way I could imagine.
“How do you feel?” Tobias asked me.
“Completely relaxed.”
“This took quite a bit of power, Gyp.” He sounded worried.
“I noticed that.”
“Add it to your record. We need to do some math after dinner, maybe graph your output and frequency so we can plan ahead.”
“Personal math! My idea of heaven. I won’t be able to hurt anything else, so I guess I might as well do math. Did you guys try the brownies?”
“We didn’t have time before the explosion,” Beryl said. “You ready for dessert?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Flint knelt and held his hand out to me. I reached up and took it, and he lifted me up through the air. “We should both be there to watch when they take their first bites.”
He and I exchanged grins.
“That sounds ominous,” said Dad.
“Wow,” said Flint, “it does. I didn’t mean it to.”
We went back to the house. I ran upstairs to change into a new shirt while Beryl finally put dessert out. By the time I got back everyone had served themselves. I grabbed three different kinds of brownies on a small plate and sat down.
Silence.
I poured myself a glass of milk. I looked around the table. “What?”
“How many events have you had today?” Mama asked.
I thought it through, tapping my fingers as I went. Gloves. Grapefruit. Altria’s stone. Brownies. The staircase. “Five.” Plus unnumbered small “damn’s.
Mama looked at Tobias, then back at me. “That’s a lot,” she said.
I tried to remember everybody else’s transitions. We had gone through a lot of events. There had been days when we didn’t dare invite friends over because we didn’t know if we would all be walking on the ceiling, sprou
ting feathers, talking backwards, or struck mute. I didn’t remember us ever measuring somebody’s transition by how many power events happened in a day, though.
My shoulders tingled.
“Am I supposed to do something different? Please tell me. Tobias said if I didn’t use the power, I’d hurt myself. Is there a safe way not to use it?”
“No,” Mama said. She sighed. One of her better sighs. It made me feel extremely guilty.
A thread tightened across my shoulders.
“I’m sorry about messing up the grounds, I truly am. I know I’m lucky nobody’s gotten hurt yet.” When Flint transitioned, I had ended up with a broken leg. Beryl had had the itches so bad she scratched herself bloody, and Jasper had spent a couple days without vision. Since Jasper had powers, he had managed to compensate with extra senses. None of our problems were deliberate on Flint’s part. We all understood; settling in after transition was maybe the roughest time of a person’s life, barring personal tragedies and things beyond one’s control. Flint’s was the toughest transition we’d had in my generation, maybe because he had powers that nobody knew how to work, or maybe because he lacked personal discipline. It hadn’t bothered me a whole lot, despite the broken leg.
Transitions were bumpy. Everybody knew that. But I was being more inconvenient than the rest of them, waiting so late until everybody had settled into believing it would never happen. Mama didn’t like things that fell outside of patterns, or things that didn’t present well. She would have to tell Grandmère and Grandpère and her brothers and sisters about me sometime. They’d all had lots of kids, but none of our cousins had developed curse power, and all of them had transitioned. I was already a blot on Mama’s breeding record; was this new development better or worse than having no power at all?
A Fistful Of Sky Page 15
