“Oh, well that explains a lot,” Samuel said, reaching into his back pocket to pull out his phone. Sunny had no idea who he was texting and couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Can you please just take us to where we're staying, I am very tired. “ Sunny wiped the salt drips off her cheek and turned to walk out. Altan only took a few steps before he caught up with her, the others could come at their own pace, he was here for her.
“So you’ve never met a wolf before?” He asked, glancing at her from the side, never turning to face her. Sunny blew out a breath and shrugged.
“Not before Blue Eyes no, well that’s not completely true, I met a wolf Skinwalker once, but he was very old and I’m told he’s nothing like ya’ll.” Altan’s lips twitched at her use of ya’ll, but no smile formed.
She wondered if he even could. Sunny promised by the time she left Stevensville she will have made him smile at least once.
“So I could tell you blatant lies and you’d believe them as truth.” He mused, crossing his lovely arms behind his back. Sunny scoffed and smiled softly while looking at her feet.
“Not anymore, you’ve just given away your evil plan.”
“Drat, I’ve been foiled. I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for your meddling wit.” He snapped his slender brown fingers. Sunny tilted her head at him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
“Was that a Scooby-Doo reference?” She asked, grinning. Altan wasn’t smiling per se but his eyes were.
“We have a girl, Katie, she was Changed when she was ten, she stays with me often. We watch cartoons.” Altan explained, opening the passenger side door for her. Sunny wondered if having two predators sitting behind him would aggravate his wolf, she was told they were prone to dominance games. It seemed to her that Blue Eyes was the more dominant and Altan was unhappy about that. So why run the risk of a blindsided attack just to have her sit upfront?
“Wow, and she lived?” Sunny’s eyes were wide if there was one thing she knew about werewolves it was that rarely anyone survived the Change.
“Yeah, she’s thirteen now, Changed when she was ten. She’s lived with us for three years. Her father had her in a silver cage to help her.” Samuel was back, calm, and serene as ever. Moony was pouting and she felt bad about snapping at him. He was only frightened for her.
“Damn, when I was ten I was going through a terrible glitter phase, not being locked in a silver cage.” She said, strapping herself into her seat, Moony folding himself behind her.
“God, you looked like a discount stripper.” Moony drawled, tucking his long legs closer to him so he’d fit. “Can you move your seat, Sun?” He asked, peeking around to stare at her. Sunny, without making eye contact, scooted her chair farther back. They were good.
“Sure, thing bro.” Sunny chirped, stretching her legs out comfortably.
“Why?”
“‘Cause it’s fun.” She twisted in her seat to face her brother’s unamused face with a beaming smile. Moony scowled. She wished she could scowl like him, but she only looked like an angry toddler.
Not a good look for anyone.
“I hate you.”
“Awe, don’t say that I’m the light of your life.” She corrected, slapping his knee. She moved in her seat to face out the window. Stevensville was pretty, there were more trees lining the road than she had seen in her entire life. Sunny leaned her head back to get more comfortable, it was a two-hour drive to Altan’s house.
Sunny was excited to see where the Spaniard lived, excited to crack his hard shell open. She wondered what he was like on the inside, he was old. Almost too old. There was a madness in his eyes, but also a feeling of abandonment, of grief. She would help him all she could.
She liked the way he smelled. Inching her nose a little nearer to his neck, but not enough for him to notice her, Sunny breathed in his scent which was nothing not all like her father, who always had a hint of tobacco smoke lingering about his person.
In fact, his scent was so much more exotic; she could recognize the brand of cologne he used, one of her favorites, intermingling with the outlandish aroma of charcoal flames and cinnamon. What was surprising was the thick scent of rose that followed him. Paring it with the dirt on his jeans, Sunny wondered if he had a rose garden… She liked roses, they were her favorite flower….
“What the fudge!” She screeched when her head made contact with the seat and not the headrest she was planning on using. Sunny twisted in her seat, eyes blazing to lock gazes with her smirking brother. He held the missing object in his hands, head propped on it, a lazy grin on his lips.
“What’s wrong Sunny?” He asked innocently, tilting his head to the side and looking up through his long lashes.
“I will tear out your small intestine and wear it like a scarf.” She growled, baring her pearly white teeth.
Altan’s foot stumbled on the gas and she lurched forward only to have a brown hand thrown across her back. Her eyes were wide and yellow, the cat rose to protect, and she stared at Altan. He was laughing as they idled in the middle of a run-down road.
“Ya Allah, grant me strength!” Altan turned to her and Sunny was struck blind by the smile on his lips. The way his lips lifted upward. The way his one dimple crinkled. The way his teeth were perfectly aligned. The warm glow his happiness gave. His smile was a ray of sunshine, and she was a sunburn. She smiled back with an impulsive need to make him smile more.
How can one be so beautiful?
“Sorry…” She rubbed the back of her neck, nervously. Moony, with black eyes downcast, put her headrest back and curled in on himself.
“I have never heard that expression before,” Samuel said, inserting himself back into the conversation.
“My mother says I’m the bane of her existence and I should act more like a lady.”
“Well… I am not sure how to respond. You act just fine to me.” Altan said, eyes flicking briefly to her.
“Neither did she when I told her I was going to be a dancer, not a housewife.” Sunny turned around and settled back in, headrest back in place.
Her relationship with her mother was… trying at best. They never really got along, they were too different. Catori was a traditional native woman, she wore her long black hair in braids and a hand-woven shawl around her shoulders. She still wore moccasins, although everyone Teec Nos Pos, Arizona did, with her faded jeans. She painted the part in the middle of her hair red to symbolize the path of the sun on religious days.
Catori still remembered the mourning chants and handled singing them when someone died, although in a town of seven hundred and thirty her clientele was limited.
She was everything a native Navajo woman should be.
Sunny was not.
Sunny was a wild, smiling girl who was more at home cliff jumping with her brother and the local boys than in the kitchen. Her hair was pink at the ends and cut chin-length, a sight that had her mother grasping at her chest. She wore leather boots, faux of course, she wasn’t a monster and had a dozen piercings in her ear. Maybe her mother could have politely dealt with Sunny’s rebellious nature. If she was only just a little rebellious, but Sunny and her twin were Skinwalkers, a turbulent term that Sunny detested. Seriously whoever came up with that deserved a swift punch to the nuts.
In Navajo, or how Sunny and the rest of her people called it, Diné, culture, a skin-walker (yee naaldlooshii) was a type of harmful witch who had the ability to turn into, possess, or disguise themselves as an animal.
In the Navajo language, yee naaldlooshii translated to "by means of it, [he or she] goes on all fours.” While perhaps the most common variety seen in horror fiction by non-Navajo people, the yee naaldlooshii were one of several varieties of Navajo witch, specifically a type of ’ánti’įhnii.
See why Sunny and most other walkers hated the term? She was hardly a witch, she only saw ghosts. She had been able to see them for her whole life, Moony too.
From what she painfully gathered by the age of five, no one else could see them. Ghosts didn’t do much, they just floated around all pale and creepy like. Most folks only felt a sudden chill when a spirit was around, however to the twins they were just as physical as human beings, albeit just a little deader. When Sunny touched a ghost they became corporal, or visible to others around her, and when Moony touched them they crossed through to the Spirit Realm, or as her baptist ass liked to call it, Heaven. The Spirit Realm wasn't limited to the Christian religion, it was a final resting place for everyone, but Sunny was Baptist so she called it Heaven.
Now this is where the story gets sad, Catori was extremely traditional which means: she did not speak the name of the dead, nor keep an object they’ve owned in life. So when toddling little Sunny finally possessed enough motor skills to say ‘yo, what the fuck is that grey guy doing around my Cheerios?’ Catori was unexpectedly surprised. Catori thought that spirits and their darkness brought things of evil reckoning and in turn that Moony and her did too.
Although to her mother’s defense Moony was her favorite, he was about as traditional as it took to please her. Their mother was the only reason Moony kept his raven black hair long and in braids all the time. Sunny had no reservations about pissing her mother off.
Anywhooooo, enough on that cluster fuck and back to staring at her newest bedroom fantasy.
Altan, Sunny wondered what that name meant. He wasn’t young so it had to have some cool meaning.
Well, at least he’s pretty.
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