“Making sure the fire doesn’t spread while we’re gone.” Fern shook her flamelike hair. “As a fire sign, if there’s one thing I can do, it’s talk to fire elementals.”
Fern held her hands over the fire. She flicked her fingers through the flame to see if she coud stand the heat, then held her hands steady. Fern tried to concentrate on telling the fire to keep confined while they scoped out the goods in the kitchen. She didn’t really know what she was doing, but she liked the danger of it. The heat sent uncomfortable prickles racing across her palms. Part of her wanted to stop, but something made her keep her hands exactly where they were. That fire was really getting hot, though.
“Okay, Fern, that’s enough,” Marina said testily.
Fern smiled slyly and lowered her hands closer to the candles. She poked and prodded the flames once again, mostly for the effect, and because it hurt less than holding her hands still over the fire.
“Knock it off,” Marina demanded.
“It’s a test of strength to see if I can get the fire to do what I want,” Fern replied calmly. “I saw a couple of guys from the neighborhood, Ruben Gomez and Salvadore Ramirez, trying it last night. Well, until Mrs. Ramirez caught them. It’s kinda fun. Wanna try it?”
Marina snatched Fern’s hands from the fire. “No thanks, Miss Pyro.”
Fern shrugged and jumped to her feet. Her hands hurt a little, but she didn’t want Marina to know. Actually, she ached to rub her hands on her skirt, but it was the cutest vintage 1960s number she got on a trip to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, and she didn’t want to smudge soot on it.
Marina bent over and blew out the candles.
“Why did you do that?” Fern asked.
“They’re only birthday candles,” Marina said impatiently, flipping back her hair. “They’ll burn down before we get to the kitchen.”
“Oh yeah. Oh well, come on, let’s eat.” Fern marched out the door and almost collided with a small, dark-skinned woman. “I’m sorry.”
“No problema,” the woman said with a smile. She carried two steaming mugs and wore a housedress with a blue shawl draped over her shoulders. A single gray braid fell to the small of her back. Her deep-set brownish black eyes crinkled into slants when she smiled. Except for the laugh lines, her face was like smooth, tanned leather.
The woman reminded Fern of her aunt Ibis. In whispers of mixed disdain and awe, Fern’s family had told her that Ibis was a seer and that she cured people in the ice-capped mountains where she lived. Now that Fern thought about it, Ibis wore a necklace of bright turquoise and emerald with a charm of the Virgin Mary very similar to the one this woman was wearing.
“Fern, this is our new maid, Rogelia.” Marina quickly stepped into the hall and closed her bedroom door behind her. Rogelia peeked over Marina’s shoulder and looked back at Fern with an inscrutable expression. Marina took a deep breath as she cautiously said, “Rogelia, this me amiguh, Fernanda.”
“Fern,” Fern corrected her with a warm smile. She could have corrected Marina’s butchered Spanglish but let it pass. Inwardly, Fern giggled. Rogelia might be small, and as the maid, she had no authority to demand that Marina and Fern go back to bed, but she had a self-assured, commanding quality about her. She wasn’t mousy like some of the maids who had worked for the Peraltas before. And Marina was so obviously in awe of Rogelia and wanted to get off on the right foot with her. Fern decided to play along. “Mucho gusto, Doña Rogelia. Espero que usted goce su permanece aquí.”
Besides, Fern loved the soft rolling sounds of the Spanish language, the first language she had learned. It had more descriptive words for her feelings. It was satisfying to speak Spanish with someone in Marina’s house for once.
“Gracias.” Rogelia smiled and nodded to both girls before heading off to her bedroom in the garage.
“What did you say to her?” Marina asked curiously.
“I told her that it was nice to meet her and I hope she enjoys it here,” Fern answered. It kind of annoyed Fern how much Marina’s family bragged about the Spanish side of being Mexican, but they didn’t speak the language. She couldn’t get over how the Peraltas rejected their culture. Fern was glad she still had family in Colombia; they were proud of their nationality, and so was she. “Why don’t you learn Spanish already?”
Marina gave Fern a steely glare. Then she raised her eyebrows in haughty disdain and with a toss of her golden-brown hair headed down the hallway, past the bedrooms where her sisters, Monica and Samantha, slept, to the kitchen. “You know perfectly well I took one year of Spanish.”
“Then you quit,” Fern reminded her.
“Yeah, well, Mr. Sandoval smoked.” Marina flicked her hand backward like she was batting away a fly. “He smelled disgusting.” She turned on the kitchen light.
Tiles imported from Portugal lay in intricate patterns on the walls of the kitchen, china and crystal gleamed inside polished teak cabinetry with designer cutouts, and an ornate glass lamp hung above the large butcher-block island. Fern almost laughed each time she saw another example of professional decorating in the Peralta house. It was as if having a polished look straight out of Martha Stewart Living magazine meant you were a person of value. It was surreal in an emotionless, mechanical sort of way.
Fern’s home was a chaotic celebration of life. Plants grew wildly everywhere. Each room was painted a different color and splattered with pictures or artifacts of the places they had visited. Fern lived with her older sister, Pilar, when their parents traveled. Sometimes they took her with them. Fern had been to Spain, the mother country; Colombia (of course); Mexico, because it’s a neighboring Latin country; and Greece, due to her mother’s obsession with Greek mythology. Fern loved to travel and considered it quite the bonus to speak two languages.
“So you quit Spanish because the teacher smoked?” Fern asked as she looked around at the spotless stainless-steel appliances, without a single smudge. Not a dish lay out on the counter, not a thing was out of place.
Marina turned on her heel, coming almost nose to nose with Fern, who backed away. “Well, the truth is, I didn’t like having to ask questions with everybody else,” she said. “My mom or Grandpy should’ve taught me Spanish at home.”
“You need to get over that someday.” Fern put her hand on Marina’s shoulder.
“It was embarrassing.” Marina turned away. She bent down to a drawer and pulled out a few spools of yarn, scissors, a fistful of Popsicle sticks, and glue. “I mean, obviously I can get by without speaking Spanish, but still, it wouldn’t suck to be able to tell the gardener I need a little space when I’m lying out at the pool.”
Fern thought she should bop Marina for her arrogance, but she decided to drop it for now. “Why don’t you let me teach you?”
Marina paused for a fraction of a second. However, when she spoke there was an edge to her voice, “You know, I don’t even get how to conjugate verbs. And what makes a noun male or female?” Marina yanked open the fridge and grabbed a bowl of orange slices, which she handed to Fern. “And what’s up with the usted? Why should there be a whole verb family for your elders?”
Marina strode across the kitchen and flipped on the pantry light. The shelves were lined with food. She grabbed caramel popcorn with macadamia nuts (Fern’s and her favorite snack) and two cans of Hansen’s cherry vanilla creme soda. “I don’t see why I have to show respect to someone like my mom if she doesn’t respect me.”
Fern didn’t reply. What could she say? Respect for her elders had been drilled into Fern every day since her birth, like the importance of breathing. It wasn’t something she could explain. Besides, something had caught Fern’s eye: a Mexican talavera tile stuck to one of the shelves with a picture of the earth and the saying LOVE YOUR MOTHER.
Fern sighed pensively. “I wish everyone loved Mother Earth the way I do.” Fern couldn’t wait to register as part of the Green Party. She attended every local rally, supporting causes like stopping deforestation in South America, prote
sting illegal exhumation of local Indian skeletons, and planting indigenous herbs as a steward on the Bolsa Chica wetlands. It was her dream to be arrested for forming a human chain around a beached whale or for handcuffing herself to a bulldozer threatening to turn up the remains of an ancient civilization.
“That’s not what the tile means,” Marina said, pushing aside cans of soup in a desperate attempt to find something. “She’s not so much into me loving Mother Earth as she is into drilling the idea into my head: love your mother. No matter what she does. No matter what she says. Love your mother. Let me repeat: love your mother. I’d say it’s a Latina thing, but it could be cuz she’s crazy.”
A full minute later the door at the end of the hall opened, and Rogelia shuffled to the kitchen carrying two empty mugs. She placed the dishes in the dishwasher.
“Rogelia, do you know where the chocolate chips are?” Marina asked.
Rogelia walked to the pantry and grabbed the bag of chocolate chips, seemingly out of thin air, from a shelf directly in front of Marina. She handed the bag to her with a terse smile.
“How could I have not seen that?” Marina asked, dumbstruck.
Rogelia turned to face Fern. In a serious voice she said, “Fernanda, you are right to protect nature. It is very important that you never lose that passion.” Rogelia nodded sternly, gave a wink, then shuffled back to her room. Marina and Fern looked at each other in shocked silence.
“How did she know I said anything about nature?” Fern asked. “She was still in her room.”
“I have no idea,” Marina said as she led the way back down the hall. “But it was totally bizarre.”
“Maybe Rogelia can read minds,” Fern said in a flabbergasted whisper as she followed Marina into her bedroom.
Four
Xochitl peeked through the crack of her nana’s open bedroom door, which was connected to the Peraltas’ house by the hall. Xochitl found if she looked though the doorway just right, she could catch a glimpse of Marina’s bedroom door. She watched Fern and Marina disappear into their room. Then she silently closed the door with a sigh.
“Las muchachas son muy amigables,” Nana said.
“I’m sure they are very friendly, Nana.” Xochitl sighed, resting her forehead on the door.
“Marina y Fern que te serán buenas amigas,” Nana pressed on.
Xochitl turned around and stared at Nana in exasperation. She clenched her teeth and squared her jaw. “I don’t need friends.”
Xochitl walked across the bedroom, batting at one of the many bunches of chamomile hanging upside down from the ceiling. Small white flowers with tiny yellow centers fluttered to the ground. Xochitl sat on the bed and gazed at the displays of her nana’s impervious faith: wooden crosses, a statue of St. Jude, the flaming Sacred Heart, and images of Mary, both as the mother of Jesus and as La Virgen de Guadalupe with her hands in prayer. Several candles burned on the window ledge. Copal incense billowed out from a thurible.
How did she do it? Xochitl wanted to know. How did Nana hold on to her faith, her saints, in a time like this?
“Everyone needs friends, mi’jita,” Nana said as she knelt at her altar. “Who else is going to tell you when you have spinach stuck between your teeth?”
“That is so gross, Nana.”
“It’s true.” Nana moved a crystal cluster to the back of the altar and pulled forward a dead monarch butterfly whose wings had closed. “Ven aqui. Come here, mi amor,” she said sweetly, but there was no denying the resolution in her dark brown eyes.
Xochitl shook her head. Nana was a good yet predictable woman. Xochitl could tell she was itching to give one of her little pep talks. Xochitl was not in the mood. She turned her head away, but everywhere she looked reminded her of Mexico and Graciela, and how lonely she was without her. Her eyes fell upon a vibrant rainbow-colored Huichol weaving her uncle Guillermo had made and Nana had somehow managed to hold on to despite the accident. Xochitl lowered her eyes and smoothed out the quilt. Why did her nana bring that thing?
“Ai Díos, must you resist everything?” Nana moaned as she stood up, her old knees crackling like a log full of sap in a fire. She padded over to the bed, sat down next to Xochitl, and held out her hand, holding the orange-and-black butterfly.
Xochitl shuddered. “Is that the butterfly you found, after the, the…” Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“After the accident, yes.” Nana placed her arm around Xochitl’s shoulders. “Do you remember what butterfly medicine represents?”
Xochitl shook her head. She didn’t really care for any of Nana’s teachings anymore. What good was it to be a curandera and have magical powers if you couldn’t stop bad things from happening, like a family member dying right in front of you? Nana placed the butterfly in Xochitl’s hand. “In the teachings of our people, butterflies represent transformation. When I was younger than you, my grandmother took me out to the fields to watch the chrysalis transform into this beautiful winged creature. This animal totem will help you make the transition from sadness to happiness.”
“Can’t you just whip up some remedy to bring Graciela back?” Xochitl begged. She folded her long legs beneath her.
“You know I can’t do that,” Nana said gently. “I work with nature, not against it.”
Nana picked up a wide, flat-handled boar’s-hair brush and tenderly pulled it through Xochitl’s waist-length hair. Xochitl’s shoulders tensed and her fingers flinched, nearly crushing the butterfly. This nightly ritual was something she used to do with Graciela. They had taken turns brushing long strokes through each other’s hair. She didn’t want Nana to do it now, but she couldn’t seem to stop her.
Xochitl looked over at the bedside table, where dried lupine flowers from the accident scene lay next to a picture of her and Graciela standing in the river that ran behind their town.
“What about making a special concoction to make Graciela’s spirit visit?” Xochitl asked.
“We can only invite spirits to come. There is no magic that can pluck Graciela from wherever she is and make her do our will,” Nana said as she swept the brush through Xochitl’s hair again.
“I tried to speak with Graciela at the Santa Ana River earlier today, but nothing happened,” Xochitl admitted.
“Graciela will come to you when the time is right,” Nana said wisely.
“When?” Xochitl croaked over the lump in her throat. The tears had swelled in her eyes.
“¿Quien sabe?” Nana answered. “Who knows?”
Xochitl’s shoulders slouched in defeat while Nana kept brushing. Xochitl closed her eyes and remembered how Graciela had plaited her hair into two long braids before they got into the truck that would take them to their father and America, the Land of the Free.
“I know it is hard, but you can’t stay sad forever. Graciela wouldn’t want that. You must be strong for her,” Nana persisted.
“I can’t,” Xochitl mumbled.
“Yes, you can. It’s in your blood. When the Spanish conquered the Aztec people—your people, our people—the Aztecs kept their faith. Through the Spanish Virgin Mary and Aztec Tonanztin, a prophecy was given that the power of the people would return. From the combination of these two Great Mothers, La Virgen de Guadalupe brought hope when she first appeared with the miraculous fragrant red Castilian roses at her feet.”
Nana patted Xochitl so hard on the back of the shoulder that Xochitl lurched forward. “‘Xochitlcheztal’ means ‘where the flowers bloom’ in the Aztec language. Your name is special and has deep meaning.”
“I know, I know.” Xochitl dismissed her nana with an impatient wave of her hand.
“Don’t ever forget the long line of wise women you come from, Xochitl. We passed the lessons of curanderismo for generations. I learned from my grandmother. My grandmother was taught by her grandmother, who was taught by her grandmother, and so on, all the way to the ancient Aztec healers.” Nana smiled widely, revealing a missing tooth toward the back of
her mouth.
“You’re always telling me stories like that,” Xochitl countered.
“And I’ll tell you as many times as I like until my teeth fall out,” Nana retorted.
“They already are,” Xochitl pointed out. “You’d better be careful before you only have gums to chew with.”
Nana turned Xochitl so that they faced each other. Nana searched Xochitl’s face and held her granddaughter’s wavering gaze.
“I’m not interested in ancient history, Nana. I just want my sister back,” Xochitl said sadly.
“I know, mi’jita.” Nana squeezed Xochitl’s hand. “I wish Graciela were here, too. But…al vivo la hogaza y al muerto, la mortaja. We must live by the living, not by the dead.”
Not another dicho, Xochitl thought wearily. She wished she could shout at Nana and tell her to stop lecturing. But she didn’t dare. Nana was kind but tough, and would not tolerate any disrespect.
“You have been given life, you must live. To do that properly, you must engage.” Nana patted Xochitl’s chest like she was trying to wake up her heart, but Xochitl could only sigh. “Now quiet down, I am going to pray for you to find friends.”
“Nana,” Xochitl protested. She pulled Nana’s arm to keep her from performing her ritual, but her grandmother easily broke her grip and marched to the altar.
Nana pulled out another votive candle, placed it in the center of the altar, and lit it. Xochitl watched the bright flame flicker. The curandera sprinkled more of the pale yellow copal resin onto the burning charcoal. The heavy, musky scent of deep magic filled the room. The air felt charged with electricity, like during a storm.
Up until three months ago, Xochitl believed in Nana’s powers and her ability to defend, protect, and heal. But the loss of Graciela put a dark shadow over everything Nana had taught Xochitl. Even so, when Nana began to meditate, Xochitl closed her eyes and concentrated hard on becoming weightless. Within seconds, her skin felt flushed and her body felt like it was floating. Xochitl wasn’t sure what to do now that she was invisible, but as long as she stayed this way, at least Nana wouldn’t be able to see the look of doubt on her face.
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