Blood Red Road

that’s what I’m sayin.
    But we’re the ones still alive, I says. You an me.
    An Emmi, he says. I know that. But you see how he is. It’s like we don’t exist. He don’t give two hoots fer us.
    Lugh thinks fer a moment. Then he says, Love makes you weak. Carin fer somebody that much means you cain’t think straight. Look at Pa. Who’d wanna end up like him? I ain’t never gonna love nobody. It’s better that way.
    I don’t say naught. Jest trace circles in the dirt with my finger.
    My gut twists. Like a mean hand reached right inside me an grabbed it.
    Then I says, What about me?
    Yer my sister, he says. It ain’t the same.
    But what if I died? You’d miss me, wouldn’t you?
    Huh, he says. Fat chance of you dyin an leavin me in peace. Always followin me everywhere, drivin me nuts. Since the day we was born.
    It ain’t my fault yer the tallest thing around, I says. You make a good sunshade.
    Hey! He pushes me onto my back.
    I push him with my foot. Hey yerself! I prop myself up on my elbows. Well, I says, would you?
    What?
    Miss me.
    Don’t be stupid, he says.
    I kneel in front of him. He looks at me. Lugh’s got eyes as blue as the summer sky. Blue as the clearest water. Ma used to say his eyes was so blue, it made her want to sail away on ’em.
    I’d miss you, I says. If you died, I’d miss you so much I’d wanna kill myself.
    Don’t talk foolish, Saba.
    Promise me you won’t, I says.
    Won’t what?
    Die.
    Everybody’s gotta die one day, he says.
    I reach out an touch his birthmoon tattoo. High on his right cheekbone, jest like mine, it shows how the moon looked in the sky the night we was born. It was a full moon that midwinter. That’s a rare thing. But twins born unner a full moon at the turnin of the year, that’s even rarer. Pa did the tattoos hisself, to mark us out as special.
    We was eighteen year our last birthday. That must be four month ago, near enough.
    When we die, I says, d’you think we’ll end up stars together, side by side?
    You gotta stop thinkin like that, he says. I told you, that’s jest Pa’s nonsense.
    Go on then, if you know so much, tell me what happens when you die.
    I dunno. He sighs an flops back on the ground, squintin at the sky. You jest … stop. Yer heart don’t beat no more, you don’t breathe an then yer jest … gone.
    An that’s it, I says.
    Yeah.
    Well that’s stupid, I says. I mean, we spend our lives doin all this … sleepin an eatin an fixin roofs an then it all jest … ends. Hardly seems worth the trouble.
    Well, that’s the way it is, he says.
    You … hey Lugh, you wouldn’t ever leave without me, would you?
    Of course not, he says. But even if I did, you’d only follow me.
    I will follow you … everywhere you go! When I say it, I make crazy eyes an a crazy face because it creeps him out when I do that. To the bottom of the lake, I says, … to the ends of the earth … to the moon … to the stars …!
    Shut up! He leaps to his feet. Bet you don’t follow me to skip rocks, he says an runs off.
    Hey! I yell. Wait fer me!

    We run a fair ways out onto the dry lakebed before we find water enough to skip stones. We pass the skiff that Pa helped me an Lugh build when we was little kids. Now it lies high an dry where the shoreline used to be.
    We walk till we’re outta sight of the shanty, outta sight of Pa an Emmi. The fierce noonday sun beats down an I wrap my sheema around my head so’s I don’t fry too much. I wish I took after Ma, like Lugh, but I favor Pa. It’s strange, but even with our dark hair, our skin burns if we don’t cover up.
    Lugh never wears a sheema. Says they make him feel trapped an anyways the sun don’t bother him none. Not like me. When I tell him it’ll deserve him right if he drops dead from sunstroke one day, he says, well if that happens you can say I told you so. I will, too.
    I find a pretty good stone right off. I rub my fingers over its flat smoothness. Feel its weight.
    I got a lucky one here, I says.
    Lugh hunts around to find one fer hisself. While he does it, I walk up an down on my hands. It’s about th’only thing I can do that he cain’t. He pretends he don’t care, but I know he does.
    You look funny upside down, I says.
    Lugh’s golden hair gleams in the sun. He wears it tied back in one long braid that reaches almost to his waist. I wear mine the same, only my hair’s black as Nero’s feathers.
    His necklace catches the light. I found the little ring of shiny