All of Us with Wings

by Michelle Ruiz Keil

  “I’m sorry I hurt you.” Gina’s words were hurried, like she’d arranged them while Xochi was in the kitchen and worried they wouldn’t stay put. “I had to go. I was so messed up.”

  “You could have called. Or written. Anything.”

  “I sent letters,” Gina said. “You never wrote back.”

  “I never got them.”

  “He must have kept them from you.” Gina was as pale as the walls of her apartment.

  “I guess so,” Xochi said slowly.

  “Why would he do that? He was furious with me, but he loved you.”

  “Did he say that?” The fine lines at the corners of Gina’s eyes deepened around the paling blue. “Did he actually tell you that?”

  “Everyone loved you,” Gina said. “You were safe in Badger Creek.”

  Xochi made herself exhale the stale air she’d been holding, a hoarder afraid to let anything go. Crazy out. The truth was a start.

  “I wasn’t safe.”

  Gina’s arms were wrapped around her stomach so tight, her dancer’s muscles showed through the thin sweater. “Tell me,” she said.

  Xochi pulled herself up to sit cross-legged on the chair. She straightened her spine, channeling Io in meditation. A breeze flapped the shades: lilac and coffee, the kitchen at Eris Gardens. It might be ruined now, but it was a place Xochi knew, a place where she was known. She’d found it all on her own, earning it with hard work and real love.

  “Loretta got sick,” she said. She waited, letting Gina take it in. “Cancer, like Evan’s stepmom.”

  Gina’s eyes emptied, tears washing blue down her face. Gina had never had a mother. Not even a flighty girl-mom to call her own. Loretta had been the closest thing. “When?” Gina whispered.

  “Last year. Right before harvest.”

  “I’m so sorry, baby.”

  Baby. The word was a hand grenade. Gina reached out to touch Xochi’s hand. Xochi snatched it away. She was shaking now, longing to bolt. She closed her eyes. She needed a dream forest, to race among the trees, a long soak in hot water.

  “It sounds like there’s more. I’m gonna sit here on the floor.” Gina moved down to lean against her bed. “Why don’t you come down, too? It’s easier to talk like this.”

  The tone of her mother’s voice triggered obedience. More than that, it triggered trust. Xochi wanted to laugh meanly at her own expense. Kylen had nothing on her mom.

  Xochi slid from the chair, sitting on the floor across from her mother. Gina handed her a pillow. Shouldn’t Xochi just leave? She took the pillow, hugged it to her stomach. Not going, she thought. Still here.

  “Tell me,” Gina said, knees to her chest. “Don’t worry. I can take it.”

  Xochi dropped her face to the pillow. “It’s bad.” There it was—her kid voice, a dual plea for invisibility and attention.

  “Is it Evan?” Gina’s voice wobbled but held. “Did he—did he do something?”

  The question hung between them. A tide rose in Xochi’s sacrum, whooshing up her spine. Gina’s face changed, imploded.

  She knew.

  The creatures. They must have spared Xochi this telling—no small gift, but Xochi would still rip it away if she could, do anything to take away the pain in Gina’s face.

  “No!” The sound pushed out of Gina’s mouth, only to be sucked back in. “Oh no!” She dove for the trash basket beside her bed and retched. Her body heaved again and again, but after the water came up, nothing was left.

  “Gina!” Xochi kneeled over her mother. “Mom?”

  “I can’t,” Gina said. Tears streamed down her face. “I can’t.”

  “Mom?”

  “I’ll kill him.” Gina was sobbing now, tight heaves that threatened to crack her narrow rib cage.

  “It’s too late,” Xochi said. “He’s already dead.”

  Gina’s head tilted back up, the chaos in her eyes receding an inch or two. “I feel like I knew.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I think I did, anyway. How could I have known that?”

  “The same way I found you here. It’s Loretta. I think she wanted to help us.”

  Gina nodded. She was crying again, softly now. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Xochi. I fucked everything up.”

  “Not everything,” Xochi said. “I’m okay.”

  Gina smiled, her face lit by the sunlight streaming in from the window. “You look all right,” she said. “You look beautiful.”

  “I got it from you.”

  They sat together in silence. The room dimmed and cooled as clouds swam past the sun. “Gina?” Xochi said. “I have to go now.”

  Gina inhaled sharply. She sat up straighter. “Okay.”

  Gina stood, a trick of light sketching a shadow on the wall behind her like the full-body halo around the Guadalupe mural in the Mission. She met Xochi’s eyes, thick lashes over sacred Virgin blue. “Come back, okay? Soon.”

  “I’ll try.” She stood and turned to leave.

  “And Xochi?”

  Xochi looked back.

  “I know there’s no way to make up for what I put you through. But if you ever need anything, I will move heaven and earth for you to get it.”

  Xochi held the shoulders of the little girl in her that wanted to rush into Gina’s arms. Not yet, she told her. Maybe never. But it’s okay.

  She put her hand in her pocket. Loretta’s necklace. She held it up to the sunny window. The opal had changed from dark to pale. Between the two green hummingbirds, it was sky blue, party dress blue. Blue as Gina’s eyes.

  “Take this,” Xochi said, pressing it into Gina’s palm. “Keep it until we see each other again.”

  V.

  Cool stone, clay and bone

  White as the inside of an egg

  The child’s nest perches

  Above the golden city

  “I long for our spring,” Sister says

  “I long to never leave.”

  Brother knows longing, leaving and loss

  Together, they will bear it

  Down below the family sleeps

  Deep and low, the mudpot whispers

  Together, they listen

  Together, they feel

  Waiting for wind

  Wind and the sound of wings

  64

  Blackbird

  The first thing Xochi saw when she opened the attic door was Pallas climbing in the window. The second thing was the birds. They were perched everywhere—on the mantel, the chandeliers, the backs of chairs, the edge of the bathtub. There were robins, finches and at least fifty pigeons. Green-and-yellow parrots had taken over the sofa. The flock of chickadees perched on the curtain rod turned their black-capped heads, giving Xochi a collective quizzical stare.

  “What is this?” Pallas hopped down from the window seat. She was wearing jeans. Jeans and her dad’s leather jacket. “What’s with all the birds?”

  “I was going to ask you,” Xochi said.

  The mass of feathers in the tub shifted to reveal Sister, sound asleep, her skin a healthy aloe green, her hair a cape hovering around her shoulders, a crown of hummingbirds fluttering around her head. Brother rested on the other side of the tub with at least a dozen puffed-up sparrows.

  Xochi blinked at one surreal situation too many. A tired part of her had hoped for a quiet attic, Pallas asleep, the creatures already home, whooshed away the moment Gina opened her eyes.

  “They came back!” Pallas said. She ran to the edge of the tub. The sparrows hissed. Hummingbirds dove at her, sword beaked and fearless. Xochi ran to pull her back. Pallas jerked her arm away. She was pissed, angrier than Xochi had ever seen her. She shrugged her dad’s jacket to the floor.

  Xochi willed her brain to work, grasping to recover the pieces of the apology she’d planned, her explanation about
the green girl and her brother, what had happened with her mom.

  “Where were you just now?” Xochi asked. It was the wrong question, clearly wrong. The birds were screeching. Xochi resisted the temptation to cover her ears.

  “Where were you?”

  Several crows appeared at the window behind Pallas and perched on the fire escape. The smaller birds made high, warning sounds. A sparrow bolted and collided with Pallas, claws trapped in her tangled curls.

  “Don’t move,” Xochi said, reaching to free the panicked bird.

  “I can do it myself!”

  Xochi had expected this, of course. She’d been gone for two nights without a word. Pallas made the tangle worse, her cheeks red with frustration. As she struggled, the window went dark. Behind her, filling the casement, was a stately black bird, larger than the largest crow. Stepping forward with a strangely human gait, he flapped up to Pallas’s forearm. Her eyes went wide as he hopped to her shoulder. The prisoner in Pallas’s curls froze. There was a sound like garden shears cutting through grass. The sparrow flew to join its friends and a lock of Pallas’s hair fell to the floor. The enormous bird hopped down, took the lock in his beak, and walked with enormous dignity, depositing it next to the bathtub.

  The room was silent. Xochi followed Pallas’s shocked gaze from the bird, a giant raven, to a red-headed parrot perched on the edge of a bookshelf. The bird gathered itself in slow motion and released a dropping on the shiny wood floor. The rest of the birds tittered and squawked. A second parrot puffed its feathers and released, this time hitting Pallas’s knitting basket.

  “That’s it!” Pallas jumped up from the window seat. “Out!” she yelled. “Every single one of you needs to get out of here right now! And no one else better poop!”

  She stamped her foot and the birds took flight, an air traffic control nightmare. Xochi raced around the attic, saving breakables from the tops of shelves and closing the doors to the bedrooms as Pallas stalked around the room opening the rest of the windows.

  Birds careened into one another and the furniture. No one could find the way out. A yellow songbird clung to Pallas’s back and several of the sparrows were perched on Xochi’s head and shoulders.

  “Get out!” Pallas yelled. “Get out! Get out! Get out!” She was trapped in the middle of the rug, surrounded by pigeons. Tears streamed down her face when the crows began dive-bombing around the room like crazy stunt pilots, cawing insults.

  Xochi knew she should take charge, try to wake the Waterbabies, get them to make the birds leave. She should comfort Pallas, clean up the bird poo—something! But all she could do was watch the unreal display in helpless fascination.

  “I MEAN IT!” Pallas boomed, not crying anymore. “Every single bird in here needs to line up by the window in an orderly fashion, and when it’s your turn to fly you will GO HOME.”

  Amazingly, the birds calmed down. Starting with the sparrows, they flew in groups of four or five to the window seat and did as Pallas told them. The finches and chickadees and parrots were gone. The sparrows and robins followed the pigeons. The crows remained, taking the parrots’ place on the mantel, and the hummingbirds refused to leave Sister’s hair.

  The raven sat by the fireplace, now blazing on its own, no firewood in sight. Xochi blinked once, twice, three times. The room lost half its light.

  She blinked again, and all the candles in the room were lit. The sky outside turned stormy and the wind smelled like lightning and rain.

  Xochi was surprised to find herself sitting on the sofa. When had she moved? Sister’s voice was a wisp of song tickling her ear. A hummingbird flapped suspended above her shoulder, singing a message. Xochi closed her eyes to focus, delighting at the barest touch of bird breath on her earlobe.

  Summoned by Athena’s fire

  Brought in heat of Maiden’s ire

  So must power rise again

  To cut asunder, later mend.

  The hummingbird returned to its fellows, a proud link in a living crown. The sky grew darker. The attic door slammed shut. The candles flickered as the wind came through the open window and delivered its mail, depositing a piece of paper on the floor between Pallas and Xochi. Pallas backed away. Xochi resisted the impulse to grab the piece of paper and throw it in the fire.

  “This can’t be happening,” Pallas whispered.

  “What is it?” Xochi said, not sure why she didn’t just pick the damn thing up.

  “Take a look,” Pallas said. “I think it’s yours.”

  Xochi stared, not moving. She hadn’t eaten or slept properly for days now. She retrieved the paper, saw the handwriting. Read the crossed-out words.

  “Pallas.” Xochi’s voice wobbled. “What do you think this is?”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “I never said you were. It’s just not what you think. Your dad and I are friends—”

  “I saw you!” Xochi sat back on the sofa. Hard. “You were in his bed. On Saturday morning. You were sleeping with my dad.”

  Pallas’s eyes were fierce. Her hair crackled with static. Xochi imagined her with a sword in one hand, a severed head in the other. Xochi’s? The hummingbird’s message was starting to make sense: Pallas Athena, warrior princess. Every fighter needed a fight. Pallas needed this. She’d needed it all along. And Xochi owed her. Okay, Xochi thought, if this is how it has it to be.

  “Well?” Pallas demanded. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Xochi made her voice as cold as she could. “Nothing.” She cringed, but pushed on. “It’s none of your business.”

  “None of my business?” Pallas stomped her foot again. “None of my business? Xochi, we’re talking about my dad! My dad, not some random guy you’re screwing around with!”

  “No one’s screwing around with anyone.” Xochi’s mild tone was sure to drive Pallas crazy. “You’re making assumptions based on information taken completely out of context. And you know what they say about assuming.”

  The wind rose higher. The chandeliers clinked in alarm and the crows fluffed their feathers against the sudden cold.

  “YOU!” Pallas yelled. “You’re supposed to be my friend! And he’s supposed to be my dad! It’s disgusting! He’s just using you.”

  The crows had taken wing again, but now they were working for Pallas. They flew at Xochi, their feathers brushing her arms. A claw grazed her back. Xochi’s anger rose to meet Pallas’s. The room narrowed. Words erupted before she could screen them.

  “Your dad is using me? What about you? You wanted me to be your instant, live-in friend because you’re too afraid to go out and make one of your own. And that’s fine, but I’m not a windup doll. I have feelings, and some of them have nothing to do with you.”

  “Of course it has nothing to do with me.” Pallas’s eyes had turned from green to black. “I’m just a kid, right?”

  “You are a kid,” Xochi said. “You are a kid, and I’m not. I haven’t been for a long time. And yes, we’re friends. We are. But more than that, I take care of you. It’s my job. A friend is a peer. An equal. They don’t pull their punches, don’t try to protect you from the truth the way an adult will. If you weren’t a kid, you’d already know about this.”

  “I would already know what? That you’re sleeping with my dad? You’re a teenager, Xochi. That IS a kid. I feel sorry for you. I don’t ever want to be your age if it means putting stupid sex and selfishness before the people you’re supposed to love!”

  Love. The word deflated Xochi’s anger in an instant. She sat down, hardly registering the crow perched on the back of the sofa. “But we didn’t. We never had sex; we haven’t spent much time together at all. And it’s kind of sad, because I’ve never felt this way before.”

  “I don’t care!” Pallas said, crying now. “You lied. You both did.”

  “I’m sorry.” Xochi shook her head. “I never meant t
o hurt you. It’s the last thing I wanted. You are my friend. A kindred spirit. Someone I love.”

  Pallas continued to sob, licking the tears off her lips.

  “Your tears,” Xochi said, “are they sweet?”

  Pallas nodded, her shoulders shaking.

  “Mine too,” Xochi said, touching her face. “Like honey.”

  “Why did you lie?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” Xochi said. “I still don’t.”

  Pallas sat down next to Xochi. A crow nuzzled her ear. Xochi handed her a tissue.

  “Are you in love with him?” Pallas asked. “Are you in love with my dad?”

  “I don’t know.” Xochi took Pallas’s hand.

  With the contact, the room came back like déjà-vu, mist rinsed and dim.

  Brother and Sister sat facing each other in the bathtub, hands clasped, eyes closed. Steam curled around their otherworldly hair as the bathwater roiled and spit around them.

  Pallas gripped Xochi’s hand tighter as the Raven walked toward them out of the mist, Pallas’s lock of hair in her beak. She hopped to the edge of the tub and dropped it in, regarding them with clear expectation in her intelligent eyes.

  “Unicorn mane,” Xochi whispered. She ripped up Leviticus’s note, dropping the pieces into the steaming water.

  “Love letter,” Pallas said.

  The water bubbled to a boil, but the creatures didn’t stir.

  Xochi reached into her jeans pocket and came up with lint and several long hairs from the dog at Sirena.

  “Hair of wolf.” She circled the tub. There was a pebble from the beach in her other pocket. “Eye of frog.”

  A long black feather floated into view borne on a current of mist and dropped at Pallas’s feet. “Raven’s feather.”

  Xochi pinched some soil from the potted plant on the coffee table. “Earth of bog.” She sprin0kled it into the water and jumped back as it sparked like shards of mica. Brother’s and Sister’s hair flowed behind them: now flags, now capes, now wings.

  Pallas started the chant.

  “Double, double . . .”