Bone Dance by Martha Brooks Page B

clamshell, lit candles. She meditated from the womb of her bed, pressing past ceiling to stars, trying to find her way. And then she slept the clock around and dreamed.
    Out of the hill pokes tree branches and rocks and shiny tin cans, and her father’s shirts like fluttering flags and all of his money. His pile of possessions keeps growing. They are an eyesore. They are a blot on the landscape. Grandpa, bent over, carefully shovels them over in the earth, mounding them into the hill. He straightens up, leans on his shovel, wipes tears from his eyes. More tears keep coming. He’s watching someone who is running down the hill. And then she knows, even as she’s dreaming, that she is the one who is running away. Running and running. “Stop!” cries the raven, flying at her back. “Turn around and face the mystery.”
    Auntie Francine, the family tea-leaf reader, unwittingly came the closest to guessing about her dreams and waking visions one Sunday evening.
    She stared into Alex’s porcelain cup, cradled like a half-moon between her hands. “I see a disconnection,” she said, studying the pattern in the leaves, “between your head and your body.”
    â€œWhere? I don’t see it,” said Alex.
    â€œRight there.” Francine’s thin finger pointed.
    Alex peered at something that, to her, resembled a crow flying off a leafy tree in search of something. Then she thought, No, it’s not a crow. It’s a raven. It’s a big raven. It’s a raven transformed. From something. Changing shape. Shape from an old man. Old Raven Man.
    â€œYour dreams,” Francine primly advised, looking up, “are trying to tell you something.”
    Alex’s heart caught in her throat. She hadn’t mentioneda thing to anybody about her dreams. And now she felt her whole body flush hotly. “I don’t know,” she said carefully, “what you are talking about.”
    â€œWhy haven’t you been out to see Earl McKay’s property yet? Don’t look at me that way. The cat’s been out of the bag for quite some time. You’ll find land,” her aunt persisted. “And, apparently, a cabin.” Reaching across the table, she took a firm grip on Alex’s hand. “Listen. Those little letters you’ve been holding on to for so long aren’t him. But what he’s left you is something real and solid. That’s the important thing. Aren’t you even a bit excited over this? Little bug?”
    Francine hadn’t called her little bug for years. The sound of it, popping up like an old and long-lost friend, made her sit there wanting to stay proud while tears poured down her cheeks.
    â€œYou’re a normal girl,” Francine added softly. “You should be happy about such a gift.”
    â€œWhy…?” Alex wiped her tears away. More kept coming.
    â€œWhat? Spit it out.”
    â€œDidn’t he leave
anything
… to her? She’s the one who took care of me. Paid all the bills. Did whatever she had to. And I know Grandpa helped a lot. So did you. But she was the one.…”
    Now she was bawling. She wanted to stop. She couldn’t.
    Francine pulled up her chair and rocked Alex in her arms. “She’s very happy for you,” she said carefully. “You know that. All her life she’s worked hard. Andnow she’s built up her little accounting business, and she’s happy. And she wants you to be happy, too. She wants you to live a normal life.”
    Alex pictured her intestines at this very moment. They were snarled and knotted and begging for mercy. What did Francine mean,
normal
? Was her father crazy? Was that why he ran off? Was she going crazy, too?
    Behind them, the kitchen faucet dripped slowly. Each drop drummed into the sink. She could hear the swelling majesty of powwow drums as her heart broke again and again.

9
    Serena’s dad had, for the third time in the past