The Color of My Native Sky

by L D Bloodworth

  On the desk were the ragged and bloody bandages of the stain. Her father’s desk was covered in papers, these in his own handwriting, notes and sermons that were incomprehensible. Random words and symbols she didn’t recognize scrawled out in the frenzied hand of what she feared was a deranged man.

  There was a picture, obscured by the litter on his desk, of a man. A muscular arm was all she could make out. She reached across the desk to sweep the papers away and reveal the rest of the man, but a sound from the back recesses of the office startled her.

  Crossing into the darkness, Edie strained to see if someone lurked there, watching her. The soft glow of the street light cast bloody shadows, sending black figures slinking across the walls. Crucified Jesus’ eyes were dark and he looked as if he wore a sinister scowl.

  Crawling out from beneath the black, was her father. A voice hissed, inhuman sounds she was sure must have come from hell itself. “It goes all the way through, now, Edie. The stain goes all the way through.”

  He lifted his bloodied hands to show her his accomplishment in gouging the holes through to his palms.

  Edie started to whimper and tried to back away, to retreat from the hellish vision, but a firm grip on her arm stopped her short.

  Startled, she tried to yank away. Randall pulled her phone out of her pocket. She saw, too late, her phone hurtle across the room and smash into the wall.

  “Let go of me. You’re hurting me.”

  “What do you think you’re doing, running around town, acting like some two-bit tramp? Didn’t you think it would get back to me?” he hissed.

  “We just spent the day together…” she sobbed, pulling against his grip.

  “You’re not to see him again. This time, I took your phone. Next time, I will throw you to the dogs.” He grabbed her face between his fingers, pinching her cheeks against her teeth with blood stained fingers. “It can go all the way through, Edie.”

  **

  She stood under scalding water and scrubbed her skin until it was red. There were still round red prints on her face where Randall had pressed too hard, but the blood was all gone.

  That night, she lay awake and listened to her mother and father argue. She wondered if they were fighting about the wounds on his hands. Her mother surely would get fed up with his descent into madness and take them away from all his misery.

  After they quieted, sleepless in the dark silence of the night, her thoughts wandered to Skylar.

  He had done nothing to deserve the way she treated him. Her heart ached knowing that she had hurt him. It was too late now to say that she had merely been busy. Too late to make excuses and he would never believe her if she told him about her father.

  She had shunned him.

  She wondered what he was doing. If he was lying in his bed thinking of her, or if he was doing a show somewhere, girls throwing themselves at him. Just the thought of another girl paying attention to him made her hot and nauseous.

  Still fresh in her mind, the memory of their time in the truck made her anxious. Tangled in the sheets, the image of Skylar, his damp hair nestled between her breasts, the way he’d trembled beneath her touch, kept her from sleep.

  13

  The moment the sun came up, she dressed and went to his house, not caring if her father caught her, not caring if someone reported back to him, only caring that Skylar knew she wanted him.

  She came to the house, exhausted and upset and on the verge of some kind of break down or break through, she wasn’t sure which. The door was closed behind a black web of wrought iron. She knew she would probably be waking half the house, but she couldn’t let that stop her. If she didn’t go to him now, the chance for her to say what she needed to say would pass and wouldn’t come again.

  A girl with box-color black hair answered the door. Her hair was a nest of barrettes and elastics and she still wore the smudged kohl eyeliner from the day before, only now it had grown past the thin, neat lines it had once been into faded bullseyes.

  “I’m coming. What do you want?” she muttered as she peeked out from behind the steel door.

  “I need to see Skylar. I’m Edie. Can I come in?”

  “Why the fuck are you just now coming to see him?”

  “I, I don’t know.”

  “You the girl that took care of Rix?”

  “Yeah. Look, I’m sorry it’s so early, but my dad broke my phone and I got to thinking that Skylar might think I didn’t want to talk to him and I just, I just need to see him.”

  “I’ll give you a second chance,” she said, opening the door and taking a step back to allow Edie entrance. “But only because you helped Rix. He’s upstairs in his room.”

  The stairwell had that same wrought iron railing and she let her hand feel the smooth coolness of the metal as she made her way upstairs. The walls were lined with thick wood trim that had been pieced together to look like picture frames, just like in some of the other buildings from that era. The white of the halls and the stairwell had grayed with time, but much of the wallpaper was still intact in the rooms. Those details, coupled with the dark wood plank flooring and huge oriental rugs made the house look like something out of a magazine.

  The butterflies swarmed in her belly as she contemplated what she was about to do. She held her stomach until she reached the top of the landing which opened to a small balcony that overlooked the back yard. A suite on each end of the floor gave her only two options. One, with the door ajar, revealed that it was being used for storage. The other, closed off to the rest of the house, had to be Skylar’s.

  Tapping on the door, she turned the knob and slowly stuck her head in. The walls were a brooding blue, much like the sky before a storm. There was a huge cherry wood sleigh bed and matching desk and armoire.

  He was sitting at the desk, rocking slightly in a leather office chair. His hair was disheveled and stood up in crimped spikes all over his head. He had no shirt on, only pajama pants, and looked as if he hadn’t shaved in days.

  Bob Dylan sang “Don’t Think Twice” in the background and Skylar stared blankly at the speaker. She thought that was just about the saddest thing she’d ever seen. She wasn’t sure why, but it pulled her heart apart seeing him that way. Something terrible must have happened.

  “Skylar?”

  A flicker of his eyes revealed that he heard her, but he ignored her. He rolled the chair closer to the desk and turned the speaker up so that he could no longer hear her.

  Edie crossed the room and turned the speaker off. “Talk to me.”

  He refused to say anything or look at her, so she decided she’d have to do the talking.

  “Look, Skylar, my dad broke my phone. He flipped out when I stayed gone for so long and he threw the damn thing against the wall.”

  She sat on her knees in front of him and laid her head in his lap. “Please talk to me,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  When she looked up at him, the dark shadow had not completely diminished, but he was at least willing to look at her now.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he grumbled.

  “Do you want me to go, Skylar? I don’t want to, but I will if that’s what you want.” She wiped the tears away, bracing herself for his answer.

  “We shouldn’t have come here. I thought we’d be able to have a home here. A real home, for the first time. I thought that things were finally looking up for us, but ever since we came here, all people can do is treat us like lepers. I thought this place was different. I thought you were different.”

  “I wish I was. I wish I was everything you needed and then you’d never feel this way again.”

  He climbed down from the chair and lay on the floor beside her. She couldn’t help but look at him. He was beautiful and she took him in completely. The cord necklaces he wore fell to a small patch of hair in the middle of his chest that she suddenly had a desperate need to feel between her fingers.

  When she reached for him, he grabbed her hand. “Don’t. You can’t just come in
here and do this to me again.”

  There was something changing inside her. She wanted to tear him to bits and leave him lying there on the floor, used. When had she become so selfish? Something about Skylar filled her with a primal need, one that she would do anything to meet.

  She wanted to possess him and be his everything, whatever it was he needed or wanted her to be, and that scared her. “But I want you. I want your secrets, I want all of you. The whole town can go to hell.”

  She lay next to him with her head on his chest. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “It pisses me off when people make snap judgments based on things they know nothing about. When they avoid me for no reason.”

  “Is that what you think I did? That’s not true. I wanted to see you, but I got scared.” It hurt her to hear those things because she knew it was true, but she was trying.

  He brought his arms up under his head, tempting her to crawl on top of him right then and show him what she thought of him.

  “Are you still angry with me?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you going to let me make it up to you?”

  “I don’t think I should.”

  “Please?” She ran her fingertips down his arm and along his ribs, making him flinch. Moving her hand down his hip, she tugged at the elastic on his pajama pants and slipped her fingers down inside them. She slid her hand along the dark trail that led to his manhood, then up and down his naked thigh until she felt the hard muscles clench. She sensed his growing desire, his body betraying him. Knowing he wanted her to touch him there, she purposefully avoided it.

  She planted a kiss just above his nipple and felt it raise with goose flesh under her warm breath. Teasing him with her tongue from the soft mounds of his chest down to his belly button, she raked her nails down his sides as she moved. She inhaled the scent of him, patchouli, underlying soap and manliness.

  Raising herself onto her knees, she took her clothes off, letting him see her. She pulled his pants away so that she could feel his skin against hers. She crawled up him, letting her nipples graze his stomach and chest. He arched beneath her and finally brought his hands down on her, pulling her to him.

  “I’m such an idiot.”

  “Why did you say that?”

  “Look at me. You’ve got me here, begging on the floor like some dog under your table, wanting you.”

  She slid her cleft down along his erection and made to take him into her, but she was caught in a forceful embrace.

  “Not this time, little girl,” he growled.

  He rolled her over roughly, pulling her head back. She felt the rug burning her skin as he pushed her wherever he wanted her. Holding her by the hair with one hand, the other caught her leg, opening her up to him. His fingers slipped into her cleft, moving with an aching slowness until she was pleading his name.

  “Please. I want to, Skylar.”

  Skylar came into her, slowly at first, then greedily taking what he wanted. His mouth devoured her neck as he pushed himself deeper into her with each thrust.

  He pulled away and left her lying there hot and wet and moaning. She was on the verge of tears from want of him. He sat on his feet, watching her, making her wait for him and unraveling her.

  “Tell me what you want, Edie.”

  “Huh?”

  “Tell me what you want from me. Why’d you come here?”

  “I want you to love me, Skylar. Love me as hard as you can.”

  He rushed her with frantic kisses and when he entered her again, he drove himself into her until the pleasure mingled with pain. They came, binding their bodies and souls together.

  14

  Sara Beth and Rosemary were hunkered down in the living room, pressed together on the sofa like books on a shelf, the contents of their bedrooms strewn about the hallway and the kitchen. Journals, a jewelry box her grandmother had given them for Christmas one year, and the backpack and purse Edie normally carried were all on the dining room table.

  Loud voices came from beyond the door of their bedroom. Her mother and Randall yelled at each other while shoving and throwing things around and searching for God only knew what.

  Edie took a deep breath and approached the door, only to have it slam in her face. Her mother yelled, “Let her in. She has a right to defend herself if you insist on invading her privacy this way.”

  “I will not have her bringing such a thing into this house.”

  “At least ask her about, Randall. What is wrong with you?”

  The door opened and her father stood there, red faced, a maniacal gleam in his eyes, his forehead sweaty with his effort to expose her secrets. “Where have you been?”

  Shocked, she could not force the words to come out. He tired of waiting for her answer and stung her face with the backside of his hand.

  “Randall! How dare you?”

  “Stay out of this, Shelly. I asked you a question.”

  “I was with Skylar,” she answered, rubbing her cheek and scowling.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked, displaying the bone totem that Rix made.

  Edie grabbed it from his hand and said, “A friend made it for me.”

  “It’s witchcraft. Made from bone for some kind of ritual. How dare you bring that into this house?”

  “Could you just listen for a minute? She wanted to thank me for taking care of her. It’s just jewelry.”

  “What could you possibly have in common with these people? They’re practicing this kind of thing and they’re going to drag you down into it with them. You’re better than this, Edie. Better than them.”

  “Are you so afraid of them?” Edie rubbed her temples where a headache was beginning.

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “You’re afraid of everything! You hole up in your study and poke yourself with that stupid pen and you’re not afraid?”

  Randall’s expression changed as if he were suddenly aware of his exposure and that his behavior had not gone unnoticed. His ability to hide his descent into the darkness was slipping and Edie had grown tired of watching.

  She went to the dining room and grabbed a backpack and began shoving anything she thought that she would need into it.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “You can’t keep me here.”

  He grabbed her by the arm, twisting it and pulling her toward him. “Listen to me very carefully, young lady. If you shack up with those losers, I will run them out of town.”

  “And me along with them.”

  For the first time in her life, she shouted at her father. “You look down from your pedestal at everyone in this town, and you guilty of worse than any of them all the while. I’m not doing this anymore!”

  A large pair of black handled scissors lay on top of her mother’s scrapbooking box. Edie eyed the scissors with a new realization: she could do whatever she wanted. She could cut off the mass of hair that had plagued her with headaches since she was ten years old. She touched her fingertips to the cool metal, wondering. Lifting them from the table, she opened and closed them once, then twice, then brought the length of her hair over her shoulder and proceeded to cut it where it met her elbow.

  Edie felt as if some great stone had been lifted from her and stepped away from her slaughtered childhood as if in a dream. She returned the scissors to the table, ran her fingers through smooth, untangled locks, and grabbed up her things. One last glance to Sara Beth and Rosemary brought remorse for having to leave them, and she was gone.

  She failed to give any thought to where she would go. Billy Charlie was missing and Charlotte would immediately call her father. She didn’t really want to impose on Skylar, but it was looking like she might have to.

  Edie never thought she’d get away. Here she was, a few blocks from her house, feeling like it was a million miles. She couldn’t figure out what her father was thinking. He hadn’t always been so sanctimonious and had even been quite level headed when she was younger. Something had happened to mak
e him turn from loving, sincere pastor to Scarlet Letter level zealot.

  Sometimes she wondered if he held himself to the same unattainable expectations. It had to be hell being him if he did.

  She came upon the old house and drudged up all the courage she had to ring the bell. She would, after all, be having to ask Skylar if she could stay there. That was a much different situation, way past the few dates they’d been on.

  She went through the backyard this time and approached the patio door at the back of the house. As she moved through the yard, she saw the light in Skylar’s window. Her heart skipped a bit at the voyeuristic thoughts that crept into her head and she tried to tell herself that this was no way to treat someone you cared about. She found she couldn’t help herself.

  There she was, ready to worship at his feet.

  She watched him move in front of the open window, bare chested except for the tangle of cords around his neck. Leaning over the window sill, his wild dark hair fell on sculpted shoulders making him look like some kind of god.

  “You gonna come in or are you happy peeping?” he asked, brightening.

  She choked on her redhandedness. “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Come on up.” She saw him run his hands over his face and then rough up his hair as he moved away from the window.

  She was greeted by Rix in the kitchen. “Hey, thanks for the necklace.”

  “Thanks for not letting me die.” She scowled, watching for a reaction, and then let out a giggle.

  “No problem.”

  “Skylar’s waiting for you.”

  Wendy poked her head out long enough to wave as Edie passed by her room. Arlene yelled out from the living room, which was large enough to contain the living room at Edie’s house twice over.

  “Your mom called and said you might be headed this way,” he said, standing above her behind the banister of the landing where the ironwork cast black webs across the floor below.

  She tried not to smile about possibly spending the night with him, in his room, in his bed. All she needed to do was ask him if she could stay in one of the spare rooms or to sleep on the couch. It should not have had the weight in her mind that it did. After all, she had already spent the night there with him taking care of Rix.