BY NOW THE BREEZE had worked itself into a wind, the mischief-making sort that conjures up mini-tornadoes, grabbing bits of trash and grit and whirling them high in the air. Head down, Mo trudged toward her back door. She trailed her fingers along the side of Starchbutt’s house, then tossed the wadded-up letter over the fence. But just as she was about to go inside, her ears pricked up. What was that sound, mingling with the wind? A little bark, a musical howl, coming from her own, her very own backyard.
I knew it.
Holding her breath, pressing flat against the house, Mo crept around the corner. There beneath the plum tree, down on all fours, rusty headed and wild, crouched Dottie, emitting sounds that were a cross between a human’s oh no no no and an animal’s pitiful, wordless wail.
Mo smooshed her forehead against the side of the house. She’d expressly told Dottie she was grounded. The little monster was deliberately disobeying. If there was ever a time Mo was justified in completely and totally letting her sister have it, kaboom, now was that time.
But to her own confusion, Mo discovered she had no anger left. She’d used it up, on her father, on Mercedes, on Pi, on the whole world. As enormous as her supply of anger had been, a supply big enough to last a lifetime, it was all gone. Where it had raged and burned was only a hollow tender place, empty as could be.
“What’s the matter?” The trickster wind snatched Mo’s words away. She crossed the grass to stand over her sister and asked again. Dottie lurched over sideways. Bits of grass stuck to her hands and knees. Around her neck hung a string of plastic pearls Mo had once found tossed down the hill. Dottie claimed they were magic-wearing them gave her X-ray vision.
Oh, if only Mo still believed in magic! If only she could be as little and ignorant as Dottie, whose world was so simple that just wanting something bad enough might make it happen.
Dottie’s hair streamed across her face. When Mo pushed it back, Dottie’s cheeks were streaked with tears. All Mo’s envy of her little sister vanished. Dottie, who never cried, was crying her head off.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Mo tried to pull her sister to her feet. “Let’s go inside. You need a bath. I’ll let you have bubbles.”
But Dottie grabbed her sister’s ankle in a death grip. “I didn’t mean it,” she blubbered.
A strange calm took hold of Mo. She became a smooth rock in a rushing river.
“What? What didn’t you mean?”
Dottie looked frightened, like a child who’s woken up a guard dog. Mo waited. Calmly. Like a rock.
“How come you never tolded me?” Fat tears rolled down Dottie’s cheeks.
“Told you what?”
“Mrs. Petrone gave it to you, right?”
“Gave me what?’
“It was just the same like mine,” Dottie bawled. “Everybody says that. You keep saying I don’t remember, but I do. I do!”
“Remember what?” The river rushing, rising.
Dottie dove forward and buried her head in Mo’s lap. “I didn’t mean it! I just wanted to look at it for one single tiny minute, and I came out here so you wouldn’t know, and I didn’t know it was so windy, I didn’t know. I didn’t mean it!”
Mo dug her fingers into Dottie’s hair and yanked her head up. “Where is it? Where is it?”
Dottie’s eyes tilted upward in Mo’s iron grip. She pointed toward the plum tree, then the house, then the sky, her arm wheeling around like a compass gone loco.
Mo raced around the yard, directionless as the leaves and scraps flying at the mercy of this wind. At the base of the plum tree lay a bit of blue tissue paper, flimsy as a torn moth wing. That was all. By now the weightless fur would have blown everywhere, and nowhere.
“I’ll get you some more,” Dottie promised. “I’ll go ask Mrs. P right now.”
“Forget it! You can’t!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, she was my mama too!”
Mo spun around. Dottie had her fists up, ready to duke it out.
“Not just yours! Mine too!”
“What are you talking about? That wasn’t her hair.”
Dottie landed a punch in Mo’s belly. “You big fat liar! She wasn’t just yours. I remember too!”
Mo caught her arm, but Dottie bared her fangs and bit down on Mo’s hand. Hard.
“Yeow!”
Above their heads the branches of the plum tree creaked. Mo, with Dottie still attached, stepped back just as a sudden, sharp crack split the air. A branch swung down and hung there, like a broken arm. A tiny nest spilled onto the grass, then tumbleweeded away.
Dottie’s jaw fell open. Mo pressed the back of her hand against her own mouth.
“You bit me.”
Instead of apologizing, Dottie put her dukes back up, ready for round two.
“She had a sweater with buttons like Life Savers. She made me dandelion necklaces. I put an ant in my mouth and she took it out and it didn’t even die.”
“That was fox fur,” Mo said. “I found it down in the ravine.”
Dottie lowered her fists. How easy it was to read her face-her feelings scrolled across it like closed-captioned TV. Distrust, disappointment, sorrow, guilt.
“Cross your heart?”
Mo longed to say, “I never lie.” But that would be a lie.
“I’ve been looking for signs for a long time,” Mo told her. “Every time I go down there, I’m looking.”
Lonesomeness flashed across the little face. After all Mo’s work to keep her safe, Dottie carried lonesomeness and sorrow around, too. All this time, like a scar in a place no one else ever saw.
“You shoulda showed me, Mo.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll get you more!”
Laughing and crying-who knew how closely the two were twined inside you?
Mo turned away from her sister and fitted her spine to the trunk of the plum tree-there it was, the groove that had shaped itself, year by year, to cushion and hold her just right. The back of her hand throbbed, and her eyes felt rubbed with sand. The broken branch swung in the wind.
“Don’t sit there,” Dottie begged. “It’s danger out here.”
“Just go inside. I’ll come in a minute.”
“I’m sorry I bited you!”
“Yeah, right.”
Dottie looked heartbroken. But what could Mo do? It was no use. The fur was gone, and with it any power she’d had. Any hope. The fur was scattered on the evil wind, and her father had sold the house, the yard, everything, out from under Mo’s feet. All this time she’d believed that if she tried her hardest, and did her best, she could fix things-if one thing didn’t work, then something else would, and if not that, then something else. But Mo had run out of things. There was nothing left for her to do.
“Never mind,” she said. She longed to make her voice comforting and kind, but Dottie only looked more wretched. What could Mo do? It was no use. The time had come for Dottie to stop believing in magic, stop believing in Mo.