What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(15)

Before Daddy died, he started tryna teach me how to play cards. It was our thing, just the two of us, cause Momma and Nia ain’t like to play. The first time we played, Daddy found an old deck of cards in our kitchen junk drawer. The deck was missing a two of clubs and a jack of diamonds, but Daddy used the joker cards and an ink pen to make a whole deck. He started out by teaching me the easy games like tunk and go fish, but then we got to the good stuff. My favorite was speed, cause I loved tryna put my cards down fast enough to beat Daddy. But no matter how fast I went, I could never beat him. Til one day, Daddy whispered to me, Wanna know my secret to winning speed? I nodded so hard my eyes went dizzy. Daddy showed me the cards in his hand, all organized in perfect patterns. I set my cards up before I put a single one down, Daddy said, showing me how it worked. Sometimes, when you wanna speed up, you gotta slow down first.

I feel the gentle tug of the breeze around my arms and find myself back in the field. “Thank you,” I whisper into the wind. I pretend the words are smoke, watch as they spiral up past the stars to catch a kiss from Daddy, then back down to Granddaddy—again rocking and humming in his chair—to graze the soft place on his cheek, just above the chin. I hope, when it lands there, he knows it’s from me. I think back to my Anne book; how I figured Granddaddy was gon’ be like Marilla Cuthbert, who acted like she hated Anne when they first met. But eventually, Marilla loved Anne just as much as Matthew did. Maybe even more. Granddaddy rocks and hums, rocks and hums. Maybe one day he’ll come around, I wish, just like Marilla.

I turn and glance cross to Nia, still in her same spot. She ain’t even look up from her magazine, and I feel sad for her. I bet, if she had tried, she woulda loved the fireflies, too.





3





There’s a long crack in the ceiling I stare at every morning. I fall asleep staring at the crack. I wake up and I stare at the crack. I ain’t even sure what I like bout it, cept that it’s the only thing in the tidy room that look like it don’t belong. Everything in Granddaddy’s house is in its place all the time. That’s why I spend most days outside, where for once—with nobody else around and nothin’ else to do besides what I wanna do—I feel like I belong.

I don’t get to play outside in Detroit much, cause our dead-end street still gets lots of cars that play music so loud it beats in my chest like a second heartbeat. Ain’t much to see outside even if I did, cause all the houses on my block got dirt in the front lawn where there should be grass or plants or flowers. I used to play in the dirt, making muddy sandcastles that looked like dog poop, til one day someone drove through our neighborhood shooting bullets that nicked two trees and left a permanent hole in our neighbor’s front mailbox. After that, I stayed inside. But here in Lansing, outside is green and noiseless, and so being inside feels like choosing one scoop of ice cream when you could have a whole chocolate-sprinkled sundae.

A wind blows in from a window Nia must’ve opened. I pull the covers up around my shoulders and curl my legs til they meet my belly. It’s been three days since I first saw ’em, but I can’t stop thinking bout fireflies. My tucked body reminds me of catching that first one in my cupped hands. Since then, I been catching fireflies every night, sometimes with Granddaddy watching and sometimes on my own. Never with Nia. I watch her now cross the room, a familiar routine, as she stares at her face in the mirror, then pulls at her hair like she’s tryna stretch it longer. When it don’t stretch, she frowns.

Nia has the best hair I ever seen, curly and fluffy like a big ball of cotton candy. But she tells Momma she don’t like it, cause it’s different than the other girls’ hair. I don’t much like the girls with straight hair, though, cause they have hair so flat it just lays against their head. Nia’s hair is alive.

“Hey, Nia?” I wait for her to look back my way, but she don’t. Just keeps staring at herself in the mirror. “I like your hair,” I try again, this time at least gettin’ her attention, but only long enough for her to frown.

“I don’t,” Nia whispers, but I can’t tell if she’s talking to me or herself.

Me and Nia ain’t said nothin’ bout the fight we had, or the word I called her. Still, I can’t help but try to be close to Nia. And I wonder if she feels the same. She does sit on the porch while I’m outside now, but I ain’t sure if it’s to be close to me, or if it’s just cause she don’t wanna stay in the house with Granddaddy, who is still just as quiet and distant with Nia as ever. Either way, she sits on the porch all day with her headphones and magazines. But me, I explore.

I begin today clutching a book that I snuck from Granddaddy’s bookshelf and climbing a tree that I decided yesterday would be my favorite tree. My tree’s hidden behind two giant trees with leaves as big around as my hand. But my tree is better, cause even though it’s small, it knows me best. I climb it, easy, even with the book in one hand. My tree has branches in a perfect row, like steps. Once I climb, I sit with legs dangling on either side of a wide branch right in the center. Sometimes I stay in my tree all day, just reading and watching and reading some more.

Since I finished Anne of Green Gables a couple days ago, I been trying my luck with the few books on Granddaddy’s shelves that don’t look too boring. The book I chose today has a tattered brown cover, with its curious title stretched cross the front in block letters. Their Eyes Were Watching God. I picked it for that title, and for the picture of God—not like the framed Black Jesus hanging in Granddaddy’s dining room, but more like the white God in TV shows—strangling a lightning bolt underneath. When I open the wrinkled pages, I can tell the book is for grown-ups, cause it’s filled with tiny text and big words. But as I start to read, I meet a teenage girl with skin like mine and hair like Nia’s, who’s gotta figure stuff out just like us. I keep reading—even after the teenage girl becomes a grown woman with a mean husband—cause I feel like I know her, and cause I only have to skip over a few hard words along the way.