Why the Star Stands Still (Gives Light #4)

by Rose Christo

14

  Why the Star Stands Still

  "Whose car is this?" Rafael asked gruffly.

  The SUV parked outside the hospital was streaked in gold paint and stamped with bright, floral stencils. It was probably the most hideous thing I'd ever seen.

  "Mine," said Serafine Takes Flight, and she wandered past us, keys in hand. "Get in."

  Rafael and I exchanged questionable looks.

  "Cool," Mickey said. She pushed past us and climbed into the passenger seat.

  "Uh, no," Rafael said harshly. "Get in the back with Charity and Nick."

  "But...!"

  "And put your seatbelt on. What, you think I was born yesterday?"

  "Something like that," Mickey mumbled, and unwillingly changed seats.

  There were eight of us in one car on the ride to the Black Mountain Reservation. "It's a few hours away," I told Mickey," so sit tight." She straightened out her regalia and stuck her tongue out at me. Serafine and Jessica sat chatting in the front seats over the country radio station--I don't know what women talk about among themselves; bras, probably. DeShawn sat with Rafael and me in the middle row and nattered about some military initiative he was starting up with Annie. "We've got to have jobs lined up for them when they get out of the service. Now, Stuart and Siobhan set up that clinic at Bear River, so I was thinking--" And in the very back of the SUV, Nicholas was at his most disagreeable yet. "Why am I stuck with girls?" he asked. "Girls don't know how to hold a stimulating conversation." I gave him credit for knowing the word "stimulating," but it probably wasn't the best declaration to make in a car full of women. "Ow! Mickey pinched me!" Case in point.

  "Mickey," I said crossly.

  "What?" she returned. "You said I couldn't bite, you didn't say I couldn't pinch..."

  It was around dusk when we arrived at the Black Mountain Reservation. The sky was a rich blue, the clouds scorched black. Serafine parked us on a caked and muddy stretch of land just outside the reservation gates. We climbed out, the eight of us; Mickey looked around with awe, her arms around a boxed pumpkin pie. I wasn't sure whether the pie had come out right. It looked kind of goopy to me when we took it out of the oven.

  "It's cold here," Mickey said.

  "That's why you're wearing a jacket," I returned.

  We walked between the smoking little houses, past a library--Rafael's eyes glued to its door in longing--and past the town center's water well. How picturesque looked the ground, strewn haphazardly with burnt brown and dawn-yellow leaves. How proud were the tall maples, the aspens and the hickories.

  Rafael nudged Mickey. "You know something," he said. "The colors you see on trees in the autumn--those are their natural colors. Leaves are brown and yellow and red by default. They only turn green when they've taken in a lot of sunlight. So really, a tree turns color in spring, not autumn."

  "They should always look this way," Mickey said.

  "But then you wouldn't enjoy it as much," I said. "Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing."

  We walked through the town and out to the pauwau grounds. A wide open area at the bottom of the black mountain, farms visible in the misty distance.

  "There you are," Dad said, when he and Racine met up with us. He looked ten years younger, fresh-faced and alive. He hadn't been to Black Mountain in a very many years. Maybe now that he was back here, he finally understood he had his life back.

  He whispered: "The Hopi are about to start their butterfly dance."

  Mickey looked up at me. "Butterfly dance? Is it like our shawl dance?"

  "Sort of," I told her. I tweaked her nose. "It's their version of the story. The butterfly's first flight."

  The Hopi women danced like light spring blossoms fluttering in the wind. I still don't know how they manage to look so weightless in the heavy layers of their regalia. Have you ever seen a Hopi woman's traditional hairstyle? The way she takes her long, flowing hair and twists and winds it into two whorls on either side of her head? They call it squash blossoms. It's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen--but certainly topheavy.

  The solemn dance reached its end. Everybody applauded politely. Mickey's eyes were fixed to the peak of the black mountain.

  "I want to climb it," Mickey said.

  I looked to Rafael. He looked back at me, at a loss.

  "I think shepherds live up there, hon," I said.

  "Can't I climb it?" Mickey asked. "Please? I just want to see what it looks like from up there. If the shepherds yell at me to go away, I will. Please?"

  I took the pie from her while I thought about it. Grandma Gives Light hobbled along and snatched the box from my arms in turn. "Mary!" she yelled, and kept walking.

  "We'll climb it together," I said. I didn't want her out of my sight.

  "What're we climbing?" Racine asked.

  "The Black Mountain," Rafael said. "You wanna?"

  There's a reason the Hopi call it the Black Mountain. The mountainside sheened with a faint black undertone, mysterious and foreboding. On my own, I probably wouldn't have braved it. But then, I'm not a very brave person.

  We started up the mountainside, Rafael, Mickey, and I, Dad close behind us, Racine along with him. I wasn't sure whether DeShawn and Jessica followed us until I heard Jessica say: "Why are you so slow, Shawny? You need to exercise more."

  Climbing wasn't really a difficult task. A smooth, beaten path curled and coiled up the mountainside, cutting through the craggy rocks and the sharp shrubs. Up here it was easier to discern that the "black" of the mountain was really just the dark foliage of shady evergreen trees. Scary from a distance; not so scary up close.

  "I can't go on!" DeShawn said, mopping his face.

  "What do you mean?" Jessica said. "We're not even halfway up!"

  "Yes, Jess, but it's a big mountain..."

  Jessica shook her head. "What would Autumn Rose say?"

  "She'd say that I had better conserve my energy. And then she would give me a plate of apple dumplings."

  "Keep it up and you'll be as fat as Skylar."

  "I can hear you, you know," I said.

  With an apology, DeShawn started back down the mountain; and Jessica, who didn't trust him to be left to his own devices, trailed after him. The rest of us kept going. I could hear a dog barking somewhere to the west of us. "Bet the shepherd's watchbox isn't far," I said.

  "How far do you actually wanna climb?" Rafael asked Mickey, sounding dubious.

  Mickey didn't say. She stopped every now and then, peering about the beaten path; she climbed higher, higher still, until finally the path came to an abrupt stop.

  "I need to take a break," Dad wheezed, and sat on a boulder next to the path's end.

  "Old man," Racine joked, and sat with him.

  "It's very nice up here," I said. "Isn't it?"

  Rafael grunted. "Not as nice as the badlands."

  Mickey stood on the very edge of the coiling path, worrying me. Here the mountainside was cut steeply, hanging high above the reservation like a bastion at the height of war. Mickey's hair tossed around her little face in the rough winds, the fringe around her elbows dancing like prairie grass.

  "Come back a little farther," I called to her, and reached for her arm. If she fell... I couldn't bear it if she fell.

  She didn't fall. But her eyes were fixed on the horizon; and when I followed her gaze, I saw why. The trees below the mountain were pinpricks of color on a seamless, rippling canvas. The pale roofs of the houses looked like warm blankets tossed across a child's bed; the puffing of the smoke from the chimneys was the rising and falling of slumbering chests. And that beautiful sky, richest, royal blue, was already lit with the roaming stars of the night.

  "I know why the star stands still," Mickey said.

  I let go of her arm; and at the same time, Rafael pulled her back against his chest. I understood why. He was afraid she would fall. All parents are afraid their children will fall; wh
ether from mountainsides, or from willow trees. Funny how I never thought about that before.