They had Carlos’ and Raquél’s wrists bound behind their backs in less than a minute, and she had almost forgotten about the constantly pouring rain until she stepped back out into it. The little girl hadn’t moved an inch and now, she slowly raised both hands to show her rescuers exactly what else she’d pulled from the van—two cheap cell phones.
“Smart kid.” Lily raised an eyebrow. “Do you think she—”
The child threw one device onto the ground and stamped on it with her bare heel, over and over. She grunted with the effort but making little other noise. They let her take out the rest of her anger on the phone, and when she lifted the other one to hurl onto the highway, Romeo stepped toward her. “Espere.” She froze and looked at him. He held his open hand out and nodded slowly, and the girl looked a little disappointed but gave him the cell phone anyway. He held her gaze as he took the phone in both hands, broke it in half, and scattered plastic and tiny metal shards over the road.
The girl stared at the destruction and a slow smile spread across her lips. “Vámanos.” She spun on her heel and stepped across the soggy, overgrown earth to take the boy by the hand and walk with him toward the Winnebago. The couple stared after them until the girl opened the side door and ushered the boy inside without another word.
“Well.” Romeo tilted his head, his expression a little bemused. “That seems good enough to me.”
“Yeah, I think she nailed it.”
“Almost.” He grasped both doors and slammed them shut. Then, he walked to the driver-side door, yanked the keys from the ignition, and moved around the front of the van. Lily heard the jangle of keys before she saw them careen over the bushes and ferns and narrow, twisted trunks of the tall trees. They disappeared without a sound over the rain, and he walked back toward her with her duffle bag of books in tow. “I think they’re dry.” He shrugged. “If not, I’m sorry and I’ll buy you new ones.”
She shook her head firmly. “If sacrificing a few books is what it took to get those kids back home, I’m totally okay with it.
Seven
They returned to the Winnie to find the kids seated on the couch. The boy had curled into a sopping-wet ball, his knees pulled to his chin and his skinny arms wound around them. The girl sat cross-legged beside him and she straightened when they entered through the side door. The rain still poured as ferociously as before, but it was much quieter in the RV and Lily shivered in the cold air left from running the AC while they drove.
“We should go,” Romeo said.
“I know. We have time for one more thing, though. I’ll be right back.” She smiled at the kids, dropped her purse on the center console, and hurried toward her bedroom and slid the door shut behind her. That was simply so she could change quickly in private, but she also found two oversized t-shirts in the built-in wardrobe—the gray one with the Phish logo and a white one with the Charleston River Dogs’ yellow mascot biting a wooden baseball bat in half. She held them out for a second and shook her head. “Like they’re gonna care.”
When she stepped out, her friend sat in the swiveling armchair across from the couch and smiled at the little girl. “Y ella se llama Lily.” He gestured toward Lily and met her gaze. “This is Rosalía and Filipe.”
“Mucho gusto,” the girl said.
“Yeah. Mucho gusto, Rosalía. Um…” She held the t-shirts up. “Quieres…otra camiseta?”
The child smiled, nodded fiercely, and considered her options before she selected the RiverDogs shirt.
“I thought you might choose that one. Oh.” She stepped aside and slid the bathroom door open. “Here’s the bathroom.” Rosalía leapt off the couch and went in to strip out of her sopping clothes and into a shirt that was way too big even for Lily. It looked like a sack on a kid Rosalía’s size. Despite that, the kid smiled and returned to the couch, took the other shirt on the way, and climbed next to Filipe to explain to him in a hushed voice what the gray t-shirt was for. The boy didn’t say a thing or move at all. He merely stared at the floor. With a shrug, she pulled the Phish shirt over his head and his bare torso, ruffled his damp black hair, and whispered something else.
“Okay, that’s good enough.” Romeo stood from the armchair and headed toward the front. “Do you still want me to drive?”
“In the rain? Yes, please.” She had to return to her room to rescue the keys from her wet jean shorts and hurried back to hand them over. When she sat in the passenger seat as Romeo started the Winnie, she strapped her seatbelt on and paused. “They don’t have seatbelts back there.”
He smirked and opened his mouth, then closed it again, saving himself from the mistake of a poorly timed joke about tying the kids down for safety. “I think they’ll be okay,” he said instead. “And I’ll be careful.”
“Okay.” She turned in her seat and smiled at Rosalía. The girl nodded and returned the smile like this was all simply a normal day for her—a witch, a werewolf, and two kidnapped-and-rescued kids heading off on another adventure. With a sigh, she shifted into a comfortable position and watched the continuous rain as he pulled them back onto the highway.
The first half-hour passed in silence beyond the ambient music playing through the Winnie’s speakers, punctuated once and a while by a jazz trumpet. Lily must have looked back at the kids on the couch every couple of minutes. “Did she tell you where they live?”
“Um…a little village, maybe. I think it’s outside Plan de Ayutla, but I’ll have to check.”
“How far is it?”
“In the Winnie? Nine hours. Maybe ten.”
She glanced at the clock—2:07 p.m. “Okay, so we have a couple of kids overnight.” She stopped herself from looking at them again. They’re still there, Lily. And they’re still okay. “Did she say…anything else? About what happened?”
“Not really. I mean, we only talked while you were changing, but at least I got their names and where they’re from.” He glanced at her and smiled. “We’ll get them home.”
“I know.” She leaned her head against the seat for only a few seconds before she bolted upright again. “Romeo, they’re witches.”
He shot her a playful frown and chuckled. “Well, yeah. That’s how we found them.”
“Right. No, I know. I only…” With a sigh, she stared through the windshield and tried to think past her surprise. “I didn’t even put two and two together until right now. Which is weird for me, because I always—”
“Woah. Hey.” He stretched his open hand over the center console and she took it. “It’s totally normal to feel a little scattered after seeing some sh—” He jerked his head like he meant to glance at the kids but chose to keep his eyes on the road instead. “Something awful like that. Trust me, I was too.”
“But you didn’t forget about the magic part. One of them cast a spell in that van. I’m sure it was only light and a little force, but still. That shouldn’t have slipped my mind. That’s what I do, Romeo. I look at all the pieces and I fit them together—”
“Lil?”
She puffed out a breath. “Yeah.”
“Please stop beating yourself up about it, okay? We got them outta there. That’s what matters.”
“I know, but—”
“You fit all the pieces together. I know.” He squeezed her hand. “And you’re ridiculously good at it.”
“Yeah, but you—”
“Hey.” When he squeezed her hand a little harder this time, she looked at him. He glanced sideways at her and smiled. “You remembered the important stuff. You did what you had to do. We both did. And I didn’t forget about that flash of light or the magic because I literally can’t when it’s right in front of me.” He sniffed and wrinkled his nose with an airy chuckle. “I can smell it.”
Lily blinked. “Right.”
“Right. Which is something you can’t do. That’s not me bragging, Lil. That’s me reminding you to let yourself off the hook. Okay? It’s not like you forgot how to use your magic or anything.” He chuckled. “You’re always r
ight on the money with that.”
“Well, not always.” He looked quickly at her before turning back to the road, but she knew they had both thought the same thing. The black cloud is still an exception. And she hadn’t quite discovered how to control it completely.
“Okay, ninety-nine-percent is still amazing. And we’re moving forward, okay?”
“Okay.”
The Winnebago fell silent again as Romeo took them carefully around the occasional winding curves in the highway. The drive now definitely started to look more and more like the tropical-rainforest Mexico Lily remembered, even through the thick rain.
“Lily?”
She jumped a little, surprised out of her silence, and turned around to see Rosalía staring at her with a smile. Filipe, apparently, had fallen asleep sitting up, nestled in the corner of the couch’s back cushion and the armrest. “Yeah?” The girl asked her something, but her voice was too soft and her Spanish a little too rapid. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… What did she say?” She turned to Romeo, who glanced into the rear-view mirror that only showed the inside of the RV.
He smiled and said something to Rosalía. The girl grinned and moved out of her cross-legged position to kneel on the couch and sit back on her heels. They continued the conversation in Spanish, speaking rapidly between, and the child uttered a long, pealing giggle.
“Okay, so I didn’t catch any of that.” She smiled at the girl and glanced at her. “What are you guys talking about?”
“You.”
“What?” A surprised chuckle escaped her. “You’re talking about me and it made her laugh?”
“Not exactly.” He smiled and shook his head. “She wants to talk to you about magic.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, really?”
“Yes. She wants you to teach her new spells.” He smirked. “Because you’re the most powerful witch she’s ever seen.”
She froze for a second under the weight of that surprisingly poignant compliment and looked at Rosalía again. The girl grinned at her, studying her face. “So why did she laugh?”
“ʼCause I said you’re the most powerful witch I’ve ever seen.”
It made her laugh too. “Way to build me up like that. Okay, I appreciate the sentiment, but…” She glanced at the child once more. “I have a feeling that kid’s smart enough to see through even white lies.”
“Oh, absolutely.” He sent her an appraising look for as long as he could before turning back to the highway. “It’s not a lie, though.”
“What?”
“Not even a little.”
Lily studied his profile and the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth, although he tried to hold it back. “You simply haven’t seen very many witches, then.”
“Lily, I’ve run into more witches in the last couple of weeks on this trip with you than I’ve probably seen in my entire life before this. That’s enough.”
She thumped her head against the headrest and smiled. “Well, the most powerful witch I’ve ever seen is still out there.” I’m coming, Mom.
Eight
About an hour later, Rosalía stood from the couch and crept carefully toward the front seats. Lily didn’t see her until the girl’s hand settled around the armrest and startled the older witch out of her wandering thoughts.
“Oh, man.” She caught her breath and had to laugh at herself. “You really snuck up on me.”
Chuckling, Romeo translated. The child grinned and fired off a rapid string of Spanish in response. “She wants you to teach her.”
“What?” She looked at the girl again, who nodded and clapped her hands as if in prayer. “I… Romeo, I don’t know how to teach magic.”
He translated again and this time, he and Rosalía held a much longer conversation that she couldn’t even begin to follow. The total irony that Spanish is the one romance language I never had the chance to pin down. She caught a few words—bruja, estudiante, mágico, família—but other than that, she was clueless.
He became as animated through their conversation as Rosalía did and his eyes widened with whatever story she told him next. They continued the discussion for what felt like forever until he finally said, “She wants to learn your kind of magic, Lily. I think her family and her village might be in a little bubble out where they are. Most of what they do is…” He chuckled. “Agricultural?”
“Farming witches.” she smiled at Rosalía, who’d squatted behind the center console for at least an hour and grasped the armrests of the driver and passenger seats while she’d been totally consumed by her and Romeo’s conversation. “They use their magic to grow crops, then?”
“Something like that. She said something about rain and death that I don’t exactly understand, but yeah. They could be farmers.”
“It makes sense if they don’t have much access to magical texts and histories. Or even new teachers, I guess—oh…”
Romeo laughed. “Yeah, I think that’s her point. It looks like you found yourself an apprentice.”
“Wow.” Lily took a deep breath. “It’s literally never crossed my mind that I’d end up teaching anyone anything.”
“Well, there’s a ton she could learn from you. That’s even better, right?”
“I guess…” She gazed at the girl, unable to keep herself from mirroring the fearless, determined smirk on the little face. “Okay.”
Rosalía squeaked. Her hands balled into fists and her eyes clenched so tightly when she grinned that her whole body trembled in excitement. Then, the girl sighed heavily. “Gracias, Lily! Muchas gracias.”
“De nada.” She laughed and shook her head. “I guess I need a lesson plan. When we stop for the night, I’ll…find something to start with.”
Romeo repeated what she’d said in Spanish, and Rosalía bounced behind the center console. Her eagerness started to infect Lily too.
“First, though, I gotta figure out a way for us to understand each other.”
“Oh, a translator simply doesn’t cut it, huh?” He chuckled.
“You translating is fine. But we can get much more done in less time if we don’t have to do it with you in the middle.” She smirked and folded her arms. “And I have this feeling that you’re translating way more for her than you are for me.”
He stared directly ahead for a moment, then snorted. “Okay. You caught me. We’ve had a few conversations between the actual translating parts.”
“See, that kinda side talk is only gonna get distracting. And magic doesn’t need an interpreter, anyway. It’s universal.”
“Universal,” Rosalía repeated.
Lily eyed her with a skeptical smile. “Is she copying me now?”
Her friend chucked. “Nope. It’s the same word in Spanish.”
The rain eased only a little before they stopped for the night outside Chancalá, but it still pounded onto the Winnie’s roof with a steady, unending rush. “It’s a good thing we bought a supply of food this morning,” Lily said and opened the fridge to survey what little they kept in there. “It’s probably not a great idea to step into a restaurant with missing kids, even though we’re taking them home.”
“Yeah, I had the same thought.” Romeo stepped up behind her, put his hands on her hips, and muttered in her ear. “It’s a good thing we hadn’t planned on going anywhere.”
She grinned.
“Oh,” Rosalía called behind them. “Están enamorados?”
He stepped away and turned toward the girl with a surprised laugh. “Eso no es asunto tuyo. Ve a despertarlo.” He nodded toward Filipe still sleeping on the couch.
The child pursed her lips, mocking him with a little wiggle of her head, then turned and leapt onto the couch before she spoke softly to the boy curled in the corner of it.
“What was that about?” Lily turned toward Romeo and tilted her chin with a raised eyebrow.
“I told her to wake him up.” He smiled but didn’t quite meet her gaze.
“Uh-huh.” She waited and he took a deep breath be
fore he finally looked at her.
“Do you want help making dinner?”
“Sure.” He definitely doesn’t translate everything.
The smell of the frozen meals reheated on the stove did more to rouse Filipe from his deep sleep on the couch than any combination of Rosalía’s shaking, prodding, poking, and even uttering his name in a range of volumes from whispers to near-shouts. Lily had just finished stirring the now steaming mix of rice, beans, green peppers, onions, and chicken in the pot when the boy’s head jerked up. Rosalía leapt away from him with a giggle and spoke to him in a low voice. Together, the kids slid off the couch and headed to the table Romeo had set for them five minutes before.
“Someone’s hungry,” the werewolf said from the armchair beside the Winnie’s side door. When the youngsters had settled themselves in the booths at the table—which definitely wasn’t big enough for all four of them, Rosalía and Filipe’s scrawniness notwithstanding—the boy stared silently at Lily’s hand and the food she was almost ready to set down in front of them.
Rosalía asked him a question but he didn’t answer. He pressed his lips together and watched the pot cross the narrow kitchen. His gaze followed the serving spoon’s every movement as she piled two heaped spoonfuls on his plate. The minute she moved the pot toward Rosalía’s plate, the boy snatched a handful of the hot food and crammed it into his mouth. Rice fell down the front of the oversized Phish t-shirt and across the table. Rosalía hissed, slapped his arm, and pointed at the spoon beside his plate. He stared at her and swallowed.
“Água?” the girl asked.
“Oh. Yeah.” Lily quickly scooped food onto the girl’s plate.
“Gracias.”
“De nada.” She set the pot down and brought the kids two bottles of water. Filipe almost ripped the lid off and chugged half of it before he thumped it on the table and shoveled more food into his mouth.
Any Witch Way (The Witch Next Door Book 3) Page 5