The First Read online

  The first child came forward, the tiny girl who had proclaimed her arrival with a shriek. Behind her came the others. They, too, approached slowly, as if this were some strange new game and they didn't know the rules. They were strangers, always strangers, even though she saw them every day.

  If only these were my children, Ibeja thought. Then I could love them and feel they were part of me. In the loneliness of night, maybe they would whisper their dreams to me.

  The tiny girl touched her on the belly. Ibeja scarcely felt it, so thick was the layer of meat. She closed her eyes. She heard the feet of the other children, the soft swish of sand as they gathered about her.

  Her skin split from neck to pelvis, like a swollen seed in damp soil. Her ribs snapped and the bones peeled back, and Ibeja winced with the pain. Perhaps this was like the pain of giving birth. She wondered if the flowers had screamed in their first red glory. But she would never know.

  A small hand reached into her torso and tugged. Then came another hand and another, hundreds of grasping needy fingers. Ibeja lay still and gave of herself. None would go away hungry.

  As the children fed and she peered past the sky, she consoled herself that perhaps, in some small way, these were her children. They carried her inside themselves, she lived on in them. And what is a mother who doesn't surrender herself to the needs of the children?

  And when they were fed, when her body wove itself back together, she would lift her clacking bony frame and drag herself back to her hut while Yoru and the other women grunted in their own sweet agony. And tomorrow there would be new faces, more children, more mouths to feed. But she would return, and she would give enough for all.

  But first, another night and another great warrior to honor. And then the long silent black and bloated wait, ears straining in the hope of whispers.

  ###

  THE NIGHT THE WIND DIED

  The wind was heavy.

  Too heavy for Wendy, who was only fourteen and didn’t like dry lips. But Mom said Wendy had to blow, push air out of her lungs and past her throat and over the pink rug of her tongue until the sky gave way.

  Wendy would rather breathe shallowly, taking tiny sips of air as if it were some bubbly soft drink. She wanted to flare her nostrils delicately, like one of those thin glamorous models in the smoking advertisements, though smoking was totally gross. Wendy would deal with a little ickiness in order to be ladylike and dainty for a half a minute or so.

  But, no, she was the wind girl, and there was nothing for it but to purse her lips, gulp and grab the air, suck in like a starving fish, swallow, suck some more, and then hold

  it, heavy as gold, inside her chest until the moment was just so.

  Sometimes the moment was close, sometimes the moment was days away. Waiting, that was the worst part. If it were up to her, she would draw it in and spit it right back out. But sometimes Mom said she had to suffocate until the rain girl or the cloud man or Mister Thunder was ready.

  Take today, for instance. Here she was, minding her own business, thinking of her two best friends. Beth and Sue Ellen had been teasing each other all day at school about a boy named Randy. They had met him yesterday at the pool, and of course Wendy wasn’t there, Wendy had to come right home after school and sit on the back porch and huff and blow.

  Mom opened the door. “No sign of the rain girl cutting up?”

  “She must be happy today.”

  “Not a cloud in the sky. Still, it’s March, and you’re supposed to blow.”

  March made Wendy’s mouth tired and her cheeks chapped. March, March, March, which was almost as bad as November, except November was colder, but then you only had to wait for the Snow Boy or his cousin Frost. In March, you had the creek minders and the season people and the rain girl and Mister Thunder and a bunch of ice makers from the Antarctica breathing down your neck, trying to make everything move in its proper patterns.

  If only there were one big weather creature, somebody to run all the elements and make the world spin. Then maybe Wendy and all the other makers could be normal again. Why not even leave it to the humans to worry about? Surely a computer was smart enough to do it, if somebody pressed the right buttons.

  “Mom, I can feel the bones of my ribs,” Wendy said. “Can I let go now?”

  Mom cupped her palm over her eyes and studied the horizon. Over the last few days, the edge of the earth had turned from brown to green. “Not a sign of the others.”

  “Can’t I just go by myself? I promise to only make it a little wind, so that not too many leaves get on the lawns of the people who are already mowing their grass.”

  “This is March. A lot of makers need to join together, at least here in the early days of the month.”

  Wendy told herself to just remember the “lamb” part. In like a lion, out like a lamb. Come to think of it, why couldn’t animals run the wind and sun and moon and water? That would work so much better.

  Then November could be in like bird, out like a turkey. December could be in like a dove and out like a polar bear, and so on. Then Wendy wouldn’t have to be the wind girl and could hang out with her friends.

  But right now there was nothing but the stupid waiting.

  While Beth and Sue Ellen were chatting with Randy.

  Oh Randy, who no doubt was gorgeous, most certainly a life guard, with muscles and water-resistant hair and probably his driver’s license already. And here Wendy was, stuck on her back porch, choking herself, her lungs as swollen as balloons, while Beth was probably saying something like, “Randy, do you know how to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

  Beth was the flirty one, she would giggle when she said silly things, and Sue Ellen was already doing a decent job of stretching out a bathing suit, so Wendy would have no chance anyway. She never had a chance, because all the other boys wanted “normal” girls.

  Who would ever want to kiss a girl who would probably ram his tongue all the way down her throat until he tasted whatever she’d had for lunch? Who wanted to sit around and hold hands while the girl beside him gasped and wheezed like a sick whale? What guy would put up with Wendy’s Mom standing beside them on the porch, asking if they wanted lemonade and telling the boy he couldn’t stay too much longer because Wendy had chores.

  Oh, how she wished she could just let the wind fall, leak out on the plains and oceans of the world. Let the wind slither down the mountains, let it sink in the valleys and trickle down along the creeks until it disappeared into all the little holes in the ground. Why couldn’t wind just shut up, just lie down and sleep and let the clouds be still and never never never bother Wendy again?

  “My belly feels full,” Wendy said to Mom.

  “What did you have for lunch?”

  “A peanut butter sandwich and a bunch of grapes. And air, so much air that it makes me sick.”

  “Wendy, don’t talk like that.”

  “I want to throw up.”

  Mom put a worn hand on Wendy’s shoulder, brushed her hair out of her face. “It’s a hard job, honey, but—”

  “I know, I know. Somebody has to do it. Lucky me.”

  “I was the wind girl, too.”

  “A long time ago. At least you’re through. You get to rest now.”

  “And you will, too, someday.”

  Someday. Didn’t Mom know that someday was a million years away? What did grown-ups know about “someday,” anyway? You’d think the longer they lived, the more they should realize that time doesn’t last forever. And meanwhile, Randy was all smiles with Beth and Sue Ellen.

  “There’s a cloud, Mom,” Wendy said, trying to stifle the hope in her voice.

  Mom squinted, now that the boy who saw fire was putting the sun to bed and the sky was orange in the west. A lot of the March storms arose as the night came, and that was almost not so bad, because then Wendy could push the air out of her lungs and inhale through her nose and smell the first sprinkles and the thirsty flowers and the freshly-plowed gardens and the silver wetness of cloud
s.

  And, best of all, when the storms came on fast, Wendy could just throw all her breath at the sky and be done with it.

  “I don’t think that’s a cloud,” Mom said.

  “Please let it be a cloud.”

  The boards of the porch trembled slightly, or at least Wendy thought so. “Aha. Mister Thunder, coming this way.”

  “I believe that was a truck, honey.”

  The air grew heavier in Wendy’s lungs. She might be fifteen before the next storm. Why, Beth or Sue Ellen would be practically married to Randy before Wendy even got to meet him.

  Mom had been married once. It was something Mom didn’t like to talk about. But why should Wendy be the only one who was uncomfortable?

  “What happened to Daddy?” Wendy asked, since it looked like they would be in for a long wait and Mom would have to come up with another creative lie.

  Mom sighed and almost stirred a small breeze, but her lungs were too soft, too thin and weak. “Maybe you’re old enough for me to tell you the truth.”

  “I’m almost fifteen.”

  “Almost fourteen-and-a-half, you mean.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Don’t be in such a hurry to get old, Wendy. I know all your friends make a big deal—”

  “Friends? I don’t have friends. I have stupid air in my lungs because everybody thinks the world needs wind. Well, whoop-de-doo, let the flags go limp for all I care.” “That’s the same thing I said, back before I met your father.”

  Wendy had seen pictures of him, a sullen, gray man with small eyes. Mom, at different times, had said he was a sailor, a carpenter, a preacher, and a bank robber. Wendy had no idea which of those were meant as jokes, because Mom was always sad when she talked about the man in the pictures.

  “He left us, didn’t he?” Wendy said.

  Mom looked off toward the setting sun. Somewhere the fingers of the night maker were preparing to cast a black sheet over the sky. A star shaker had dashed the first tiny dots of light against the darkness. The moon girl was tugging the greenish-white crescent up the opposite horizon from the sunset. This would be a perfect night, if not for Wendy having to hold her breath and Mom turning so quiet and serious.

  “He left me,” Mom said. “I don’t think he ever left you.”

  Left. Like Wendy would leave all this blowing-the-wind business in a heartbeat. “Didn’t he love us?”

  “Love comes in many ways, sweetheart. You’ll have to find that out the hard way. I could tell you and tell you, but I don’t even know half of the ways and I’m probably wrong about the half I do know.”

  “So he loved you enough to have me, but not enough to stay.”

  “He was a good man. But he was just that—a man. He could handle the good times, but responsibility scares even the best of them.”

  “You mean he left because you were a wind girl?”

  “We were different. There’s no plainer way to say it than that.”

  “Can’t people love people who are different?”

  “I think it’s happened before. Mrs. Seaver next doorlikes cats and puzzles and Agatha Christie, while Mr. Seaver likes snakes and football and Stephen King. But it’s different when the two different people are both of the same kind. Makers and people don’t seem to mix too well.”

  Did that mean Wendy could never even think about kissing Randy? Or any of the boys she knew? Did this wind business have ways of hurting that even love hadn’t invented yet? If she had to give up kissing before she’d even started, she wanted to get unmade from being a maker, and fast.

  “So how come you tried?” Wendy asked. “Even when you knew it wouldn’t work.”

  “Because you always have to hope that it does work. That’s what it’s all about. Even when it seems impossible.”

  “Is love ever possible?”

  Mom stood behind Wendy, lightly rubbing her shoulders. “I needed a child, too. And we needed somebody to run the wind because I knew I wouldn’t be young forever We thought that having you would solve everything, you’d be the magic that kept us together.”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Is love ever possible?”

  The sky was darker now, a bruised shade of purple. More stars had been shaken out and the moon girl was right on schedule.

  After a cricket chirped in the stillness, Mom said, “I suppose.”

  At that moment, Wendy wished she were a rain girl, so she could cry and be done with it. Where were the clouds? Where was that dumb thunder? She wanted to get rid of this wind in a hurry.

  Voices came from down the sidewalk. Under the streetlamp, Wendy saw three shadowy figures, then heard Beth’s giggle. The three stepped into the light, Beth on one side, Sue Ellen on the other, and in the middle—oh, sweet mother maker, it must be Randy.

  Randy, who was even taller than she imagined, and even in the bad light and him thirty feet away, she could see that his eyes were big and bright and were those dreamy kind that probably looked at you when you talked instead of walking all over your body.

  Sue Ellen was closest, and she waved to them on the porch. Sue Ellen was in her blue wool sweater, the one that showed off her fast-developing figure. Wendy hated Sue Ellen at that moment, because Wendy was stuck like a lump in her rocking chair, waiting to make some stupid storm, and was wearing a ratty old sweatshirt.

  Beth had her arm locked in Randy’s. Beth had to walk off-balance and kind of leaning over, because Randy was so tall. Beth didn’t seem to mind too much, because she kept falling over and bumping into Randy.

  “Hey, Wendy,” Beth said, when they were closer. “Hi, Mrs. Wells.”

  “Hi, girls,” Wendy’s mom said.

  “Hey,” Wendy said, barely a whisper, but the plastic lawn bird spun its wings.

  “Randy wanted to meet you,” Beth said. Wendy couldn’t tell if Beth was joking. Or maybe she was showing off, because she managed another of her four-star giggles.

  “Hi.” Wendy flipped her wrist in greeting as if she could care less whether Randy turned away or whether he came closer with those big eyes that didn’t look like they could hurt you.

  “Hi, Wendy,” Randy said. He was wearing a T-shirt, even though the night was cool, and his forearms had real muscles, not like the arms of ninth-grade boys.

  “We’re going for a pizza,” Sue Ellen said. “Want to come with us?”

  Pizza. With Randy. That meant she’d have garlic breath and there would be no way to kiss him and, anyway, when they slid in the booth it would be Sue Ellen and Wendy on one side, Randy and Beth on the other. Suddenly-clumsy Beth, who would manage to fall into him at least four times before the waitress even brought the pitcher of tea.

  But for an hour of those eyes across the table—

  “Can I go, Mom?”

  “Sorry, honey. You have chores, remember?”

  Wendy gazed at the black sky, the clear stars, the moon with no cloud touching it. Perfect weather. Perfect for everything but Wendy getting to do something fun for once.

  “I—I’ll see you guys at school tomorrow, I guess,” Wendy said, as if she were the last puppy in the pound.

  “You sure?” Sue Ellen said, secretly rolling her eyes toward Randy as if to say, “How can you pass up a chance with this dream machine?”

  “I have stuff to do. Maybe some other time.”

  Some other time, right. After Beth was wearing Randy’s ring, and it would shine with real stones, because you could just bet that a guy with a smile like Randy’s had a way with money. Or Sue Ellen might lure him away by wearing one of those blouses that showed off her belly button.

  And here Wendy would sit, a stupid old lump.

  “Sorry, girls,” Wendy’s mom said.

  “Too bad,” Beth said, and almost managed to sound like she meant it.

  “Maybe I’ll see you around,” Randy said to Wendy.

  “Maybe.” She felt swollen and strange, holding in all that wind while trying not to talk like a dork.

  The three con
tinued down the sidewalk, Sue Ellen actually skipping, Beth stumbling artfully, Randy walking with his shoulders straight as if he didn’t care whether Wendy was watching him or not.

  And he probably didn’t care.

  Who would waste time on a stupid wind girl, who could do nothing right but stir the sky?

  What guy in his right mind would fall in love with a maker?

  And even though she knew it was probably not possible, that Randy could never love her long, she also knew how Mom felt all those years ago. You have to breathe, you have to inhale, you have to walk through the air.

  You must use whatever you have to grab whatever you can.

  And so she relaxed her throat, clenched the muscles of her stomach, and drew an extra whiff of atmosphere through her nostrils. Now the wind would come, no matter that the cloud girl and Mister Thunder were miles away from getting their work done.

  “Wendy, it’s not time yet,” Mom said.

  “It’s time. It’s either now or never.”

  The words came out with a soft wheeze, and behind the syllables a true bluster broke forth, rising from a whistle to a screech to a keen to a scream.

  Wendy exhaled, and the sky ripped apart. Mom shouted something that was lost in the wind. A soda can rattled along the street. Leaves flapped like a thousand birds lifting, branches bent, the tongue of the mailbox fell open.

  And still Wendy let loose, pushing out her anger and her desire, freeing shingles on the houses across the street, making the streetlamp sway. Beth shouted and lost her balance so thoroughly that she fell to the ground.

  Sue Ellen spun around and caught her sweater in Mrs. Seaver’s rose bushes. Randy turned and faced the gale, his hair barely tousled even though hedges leaned and shutters knocked wood.

  Randy fought against the force of Wendy’s breath, and Wendy kept blowing even as she thought how strange this was, attracting a guy by pushing him away. But he was as strong as he looked and kept coming, elbow raised across his face.

  This was the biggest storm Wendy had ever thrown, and all by herself, too. Sure, the lightning woman and Mister Thunder would have helped the show, and a thick rain would add some color, but Wendy was giving it all she had. The wind poured out of her chest and through her mouth and she had never shrieked as she did now.