On the back of the doll are two shapes carefully marked in ink. They look familiar to me because I have seen them before in one of the missionary’s books he called a primer. He uses that book to teach us the twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, letters that I have already learned. One resembles a capital . The other looks like a small .

“Ah,” I say. Then I speak the letters. “Gee bee.”

Ahyokah looks up at me. “What is geebee?”

I point at the two inked shapes. “Gee and bee,” I say.

“Tlahhuh!” Ahyokah says. “No!” She puts her little finger on the two shapes one after the other. “Lo,” she says. “Si.”

I’m confused, confusion that grows strong when she takes her other two dolls and shows me the marks on their backs.

“Meli,” she says. “ Me” and “ li.”

“Madi,” she says. “ Ma” and “ di.”

Those marks look nothing at all like any of the twenty-six letters I have learned from the missionary.

“Ahyokah,” someone calls from behind us. It takes a moment for me to realize it is my stepmother.

“Yes, Mother?”

“Now that your brother has met your dolls, let him go out on the porch with your father. You can come help me clean up.”

Ahyokah looks up at me again. I know what that look on her face means. I suspect it is on mine whenever my own mother calls me away from something I am doing. I grin at her and then look up toward the roof of the cabin.

What can we do except what our mothers ask us to do?

Ahyokah sighs, then gives me a little conspiratorial smile and nods.

What, indeed?

“I am coming, Etsi,” she says.

And as soon as she dances out of the room it feels empty. Am I missing her presence? Despite my best efforts, have I begun to like this little half sister I was so determined to ignore?

CHAPTER 6

Marbles

There are two chairs on the small porch of Sally Guess’s house. My father has settled himself peacefully into one of them and has already lit his pipe. Every now and then he lifts it from his lips and lets a little cloud of smoke drift up from his lips.

I have seen how some old people smoke. They puff hard on their pipes and chew the stems. They make it seem more like work than something that relaxes them. But it seems that even smoking, like everything my father does, is something that he does with a sort of gentle ease.

He nods his head toward the other chair. I settle in next to him.