Earth/Sky (Earth/Sky Trilogy) (10 page)

In my
bedroom, the points of gold on the feather no longer glinted. I turned it over in bewilderment and showed it to Grandpa Jack at dinner once the television was muted on commercial. “Do you have ostriches in Spooner or something?”

He examined the feather.
“Be news to me. You found this in the tree?”

“Yeah.”

“Must have blown in on the wind from somewhere. Never seen one like it.” He passed back the feather and ate everything on his plate except the vegetables.

I felt like I was the adult and he was the child.
“Grandpa Jack, eat your vegetables. They’re good for you.”

“Gotten to be this old without eating them,”
Grandpa Jack said stubbornly. “The other day at work, I was reading about these fellows who eat nothing but meat. That’s it. An all-meat diet. I might think about that.”

“That’s insane!
” I said. “Their hearts will explode.”

“Is that a fact?” He took the television off mute since the commercials were over.
“Well, least it’d be a fast way to go.”

On Tuesday, Adriel was absent, so I figured he was either ill or his brother had gone off.
It could have been both. It disappointed me to see that empty seat at lunch and in creative writing. I didn’t even have his phone number, and how ridiculous that he missed this much school! Mr. Rogers passed back copies of a play and packets of work to accompany it, and then gave out a sheet of instructions on a longer-term assignment of a story that was due at the end of the semester. The pile of papers grew higher at the chair beside me. When the bell rang, I scooped it up and loaded it into my own binder. Spooner wasn’t that big a place, so I could just drop it off in his mailbox once I knew where he lived.

I got the address
and thorough directions from London rather than Savannah, who would have teased. Spotting Nash and Diego hanging about my locker, I evaded them by going straight to the parking lot. The mail truck looked so silly out there, even in a sea of old cars. Hearing my name called as I got inside, I pretended that I hadn’t and drove away.

The farther northeast one went in Spooner, the more dignif
ied the city became. I wish I’d driven this way the first time, and then this place wouldn’t have seemed so ramshackle. One attractive house after another fell away in my rearview mirror as I tootled along, clutching the scrap full of directions in my hand. At Valley Oak Lane I turned left. The lots grew greater and greater in size, with fancy gardens on display before stately homes. No junked cars or molding sheds rested within untamed yards here. The very last turn-off on Valley Oak was Beacon, and there I turned right since it was the only option.

There were two driveways on Beacon, both of which were labeled private and wended away into the trees.
I bypassed the mailbox and turned into the second driveway. It was unfriendly to stuff everything in the box without even seeing if I could hand it to him personally.

The driveway opened
to an arched gate between stone pillars. The bars were pointed at the top like arrowheads. On one pillar was a call box. There weren’t any instructions on how to use it, so I depressed the button and hoped for the best. Through the gate was a manicured lawn embracing a swept walkway, and tall gnarled valley oaks curled their branches into the sky.

I
gawked unabashedly at the house beyond, which was far nicer than Downy’s incredible home in Bellangame. The Graystones’ very large home looked like an estate in Tuscany, with walls of warm-colored cut stone. A fountain splashed in front of huge windows to what I presumed was a living room. I was too far away to see inside. The rooms on the second floor had balconies, and one also had a staircase that looped around the side of the house to the ground.

A woman’s voice came through the call box.
“May I help you?”

“Hi,” I said nervously.
“I’m Jessa Bright, and I was just wanting to give Adriel his homework. We share a class.” That was dumb to say. If we didn’t have a class together, why would I be there with his homework?

“Jessa!” the woman said in recognition.
The gates suddenly parted and swung open. “I’ll send him down to greet you, if he’s still here.”

Getting back in the mail truck, I drove it inside and followed the driveway around the lawn to a garage.
This place was so grand that I felt like I should have dressed up to come over. I parked the truck, hoping it wasn’t going to block anyone in, and stepped down to the pavement. A door on the second story opened and a very pretty woman came to the railing. This must be his older cousin Drina, although they looked nothing alike. Where he was fair, she was dark, and her long hair rippled over her arms in the breeze. “He should be right out.”

A door on the first story opened
. Adriel came out with a red backpack over his shoulders and another hanging from one hand. It was clear I had surprised him, and I couldn’t tell if it was a welcome surprise or not. Drina went back inside at the ring of a phone, leaving us to stare at one another. He looked healthier than the day before, though there were still vague gray smudges under his eyes.

I unzipped my backpack and said, “I just wanted to drop off your homework for creative writing, so you wouldn’t get so far behind.”

“Thank you. That was kind,” Adriel said, taking it from me and leaning into the house to place it on a counter. The backpacks looked heavy and laden with goods.

“Would you like help?” I asked.
He looked at me quizzically. “With the drop points. Or company at least?”

“You don’t have to do that.”
Closing the door, he set the backpack on the ground and tightened the straps of the one he was wearing. “Really, it’s just a bit of a hike.”

“I don’t mind.”
I picked up the backpack to show him my offer was sincere. Swinging it over my shoulders, I said, “Which way?”

“Will your leg hold?”

“Yes.” He was reluctant to have me come along. I could feel it, and thought he might be embarrassed to have a brother so out of control. It would have embarrassed me, even if it wasn’t my fault, or really my brother’s either.

Motioning slightly around the garag
e, Adriel said, “This way then. Just leave your own backpack there, no need to carry it along, too.”

Behind the house was a patio with terracotta urns and a lovely table set for outside dining.
It overlooked a darling garden with white benches among olive trees. The herb and vegetable beds were extensive. We followed a path through it to a flight of steps down to a sunny spot with deck chairs arranged about a fire pit.

“You have a beautiful place,” I said as we circled it.
“What do your cousin and her husband do for a living?”

“T
aurin and Drina invest well.”

Very
well, from the looks of it. Down another flight of stairs from the fire pit was a lawn, and beyond that a gate in the ten-foot wall that lined the edge of the property. The gate was made of wood and rose as high as the wall, offering complete privacy to anyone in the backyard. He opened the latch and we passed through to a sunny stretch of land spotted with oaks. Sticking my thumbs through the straps of the backpack, I said, “When did he run?”

“His bed was empty this morning,” Adriel said.
“We’ll put one of these at the grove and the other at the waterfall. He turns up in those places a lot, especially the grove.”

“Why there?”

“It’s the way the wind sings through the trees. He loves to listen to it.”

Desperate to know more
about the girl he had lost, I asked about his other sibling instead. “Is your sister liking college?”

“Kishi?
She loves it. But she hasn’t been on time for a single class. She was famous for it at Spooner High, always coming in behind the bell. Most of the teachers just gave up on marking her tardy. I don’t think she’ll ever be on time for anything in her life.”

“ADHD?”

The ground sloped down from the bright spot of oaks, headed to a darker area of redwoods. “It’s not quite ADHD. Her brain just doesn’t prioritize.”

“How does it not do that?” I asked in amusement.

“She’ll walk to a class and see a pretty flower that Drina might like to plant in the garden, and she’ll want to know what it is. So she’ll rush to the library to look it up fast, and while she’s walking in, she might run into a friend and catch up for a bit, and then her friend might need help finding something so Kishi will volunteer herself. Meanwhile class is going on without her. Once the friend is squared away, Kishi remembers the flower, so she’ll grab up six books on botany and rush to the check-out line, sure that only two minutes have gone by when it’s actually ten. And she runs to class wondering why the hallways are empty and bursts into the room all sweaty with an armload of books that have nothing to do with the subject. That’s my sister. She’s great fun, but someone has to keep time for her.” Adriel laughed. “Something about you gets me talking. Enough, I’m not that interesting. Are you applying for college anywhere?”

“I don’t know,” I said, finding him more than interesting.
Even though I was a senior, college was still so abstract in my mind. I’d taken my SATs and gotten good scores, but that was all the energy I had put to it.

“What do you love to do?”
Adriel asked.

“I have a lot of likes, but I’m still waiting
on something to be more than that,” I said. “Are you applying anywhere?”

“No, I’ll just take a few classes at the junior college like Kishi.”

Appalled, I said, “But you’re so smart! You should be applying to Ivy League and places like that. What do Taurin and Drina think about your plans?”

“They’re fine with them.
Neither went to college, not any more than junior college classes that looked interesting.”

It had been beaten into my brain that one had to go to college to be successful, but the house behind me was testimony to a different reality.
Adriel extended a hand as we walked sideways down a slippery cut in the slope. His fingers were warm, and tight around my arm to steady me. Once on level ground, he let go and searched the earth. A child’s footprint was impressed in the mud around a puddle and I said, “Is that his?”

“Yes,” Adriel said.
“This way. Any siblings?”

“No.
I used to want a sister, but then I realized I’d have to share my room.” I laughed, hoping it concealed the twinge of pain from my left leg at this exertion. “You must think I’m horribly selfish.”

“It’s understandable to want your own space.”
We passed between two trees and jumped down into a groove. He nodded to it and said, “This is an old logging road. It’s a little easier to walk here.”

The canopy was thick and green overhead.
There was no hum of traffic, or any sign that civilization existed beside this slim road heaped with dirt. Ants crawled up the trees, the only wildlife in sight. It was strange to be in such a still world, and know how active it must be this very second over on Jacobo with cars in the streets, doors swinging open and shut in the stores, people in the crosswalks. The wind was blowing, but little of it ran over us in the groove.

“How long have you lived in Spooner?” I asked.

“We moved here about two and a half years ago from Thayler. That’s a tiny place almost at the border to Oregon, and has even more trees.”

“That’s hard to believe.
Sometimes I forget there’s even a sun in this place, since the canopy blocks it out.” An odd whistle came through the trees. “What is that?”

Climbing out of the logging road, Adriel said, “The grove.
I’m going to leave you there to do the waterfall on my own. Your leg is bugging you.”

I accepted that he knew this without me having said it.
“Will you be long?”

“No.
It’s less than a half-mile beyond, and it’s easier terrain once I climb out of here. Now these are the fairy rings.”

The whistling had grown louder
as we pushed past some tall bushes. I stopped walking in astonishment to take in the beautiful place on the other side, where the light came down blue-green. I could not have imagined a more stunning sight. Many circles of giant redwoods were streaming up into the sky along a rocky slope of gray and green. Some of the trees had dark hollows in their trunks. Adriel ran his hand along a burl and said, “Will you be okay here until I return?”

“Yes,” I said, loving this place.
“Where should I set this for him?”

“Take it to the highest fairy ring there and tuck it inside the hollow.
You’ll know which tree I mean. Rest your leg on the boulder in the middle and I’ll be back in no time.”

I didn’t know what it was about this place that transformed the wind almost to a lullaby, some happy
coincidence of twists and turns, dips and risings in the uneven landscape, the hollows in the monolithic trees. It was amazing how these trees lived on and on even with their trunks gutted by fire or fungi. I hiked up the slope to the ring in the distance while Adriel went east at a rapid pace.

It was the first moment
I had not regretted coming to Spooner. I wanted to stay in these magic surroundings forever, sitting in the blue-green of it and listening to the sweet hum of the breeze. Taking a picture only would have cheapened it. This place had to be seen and felt, heard and
experienced
. Or else no one would have believed.