“I wanted to introduce you to Fern,” Tristán said.
“Oh, the girl you told me about,” Uncle Jimi spoke in a gruff but kind voice.
He talked about me? Fern wondered.
She glanced over at Tristán, who was staring at his Vans tennis shoes, a red flush spreading up his neck. The blue aura softened in color, melting into a lavender hue before turning rosy pink and spilling over his shoulders and down the length of his body. For a moment, Fern found it difficult to concentrate on anything but Tristán and his aura.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Uncle Jimi said, shaking Fern’s hand. “I’m really glad to see young kids like you and Tristán get involved in saving the land.”
“I think as much land as possible should stay wild,” Fern said.
“It’s more than wilderness we’re protecting here,” Uncle Jimi replied. “Every October we have a pilgrimage to Native American sacred sites in Orange County, and Bolsa Chica is one of those stops.”
“I didn’t know that,” Fern said.
Tristán pointed to a plateau of eucalyptus trees deep in the wetlands. “They sing and pray up there, where there used to be a Tongva cemetery.”
At that moment, a woman with a ruddy complexion, light blue eyes, and long strawberry blond hair stepped up to a raised berm, or mound of sand. Everyone turned their attention to her. “Thanks for coming, everyone. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Kim Bradfield. We’re going to work on maintaining the trails and watering today. Shovels are to my right, and the water is over by the trucks in the parking lot, as usual. We’ll be meeting in a couple of hours right back here to discuss how we can help protect the wetlands. In just six weeks the courts decide whether or not to pass the Bolsa Chica Restoration Project, which would help protect the land from developers.”
Tristán gestured for Fern to choose between the shovels or the watering truck. “What do you want to do?” he asked.
Fern shrugged. “I usually work on the trails.” How will I concentrate if he chooses to work with me? What if I drive the shovel into my toe?
“Sounds good,” Tristán said.
Fern walked over to the tools and selected a yellow shovel with a blunt edge. “We can start over the bridge.” She pointed to a wooden walk-bridge that stretched across a small lagoon and connected the entrance of the park to the beginning of the trails. As she walked nervously over the bridge, she thought, I should say something funny and clever, but what?
Once on the trails, Fern immediately found a few potholes to fill in with dirt. She tried to relax and get into the groove of her work, but Tristán smelled so clean and fresh. Fern looked down at her shovel. She tried to peer at him through her hair, but only a couple of copper ringlets escaped her tangled mass, not nearly enough to conceal her eyes. Tristán caught her trying to steal a look and smiled. If only she had hair like Marina, who could pull that sheet of thick hair over her face as if she had six layers of extensions. Fern seethed with hair envy as she stared down at the packed-sand trails littered with seashells.
“So how did you find out about Bolsa Chica?” Tristán asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Fern said. This was not how she would have preferred to start a conversation.
“Try me,” Tristán insisted.
Fern began slowly as she dumped a shovelful of dirt into a hole and packed the earth down. “I’m an artist, you see. I’ll paint or draw with anything.” Fern looked up. Tristán’s aura was still pink. She took a deep breath and plowed ahead. “At the end of last year I got hold of a spray can and created these really funkadelic peace signs to protest the war.”
“Funkadelic?” Tristán smiled.
“Yeah,” Fern said shyly.
“Where did you paint them?” Tristán asked while digging into the earth on the side of the trail.
“At my school.” Fern smiled nervously and scrunched her nose.
Tristán chuckled and gazed at Fern in astonished appreciation. “You’ve got guts.”
“You could call it that.” Fern smiled as Tristán’s aura changed colors again. This time a lime green light shone around his head. It was the kind of bright green in a rainbow, like the one she had seen when playing with the crystals at Moonlight Midwifery. Green was by far her favorite color.
“So, as ironic as it is, while trying to create awareness for peace, I got busted for tagging and had to volunteer community service hours.” Fern rested on her shovel and looked around at the rolling hills of tall grass that rose above the inlets and lagoons of blue-green water. “My hours were up months ago. I just fell in love with this place. And I really like Kim. She asks my advice about how to get more kids involved to protect Bolsa Chica.”
“You’re an amazing girl.” Tristán reached out and squeezed her hand.
Fern shivered from his touch. She loved how Tristán adored her passion. She was sometimes teased for her enthusiasm, and here Tristán was complimenting her for it. “How can anyone not see the beauty of these wetlands? You know, they want to build nine hundred houses here. It’s already home for two hundred species of birds, and over fifty types of mammals.”
“And it’s been the ancestral home to my people for thousands of years,” Tristán said.
“Exactly. It just burns me up when I think what some people are willing to throw away for the sake of money.” Fern rammed the shovel into the dirt.
“I’m sure a passionate girl like you has a plan.” Tristán smiled coyly at her.
Instead of making her feel weak at the knees, this time Tristán’s smoothness made her think of Ruben and the possibility that Tristán could share his player ways. How could she tell if he was being honest? Then again, if he could help her cause…She’d have to just wait and see. Plus, he was really hot. Fern just loved the way his long eyelashes rimmed his eyes. And she couldn’t get enough of watching that tattoo on his bicep move when he shoveled.
“I was thinking, if we could get hundreds of people to just hold hands across the wetlands and get enough press here, we’d put some real pressure on those bigwigs that are making all the decisions,” Fern said. “It would show that people care.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Tristán said.
“But how do we get people here? What about security? Permits? And all that red tape?” Fern complained.
“If you believe in something, you’ve got to go for it,” Tristán said, looking intently into Fern’s eyes. “Come on, I’ll help you talk with Kim.”
Thirteen
The church bells chimed out from the Saint Jude’s Catholic church in downtown Santa Ana, muffling the sounds of the creaking gate as Xochitl entered the courtyard of Four Crows. She stepped inside as cautiously as if she were about to commit a robbery. She wasn’t, of course. She had just come here to get sandalwood oil, which had been Graciela’s favorite scent, and the other special ingredients for the spell to summon her spirit. Still, Xochitl felt a little like she was scheming, purposefully trying to hook her sister from the cosmos. Nana had warned her it wasn’t okay to continually pester someone’s spirit to visit the earth plane. But she needed to speak with Graciela.
Xochitl headed for the glass case of essential oils. She had finally earned enough money walking her neighbor’s dogs to buy the things she needed—though now her lats were sore from the dogs pulling on the leashes. Xochitl reached into the case and took out a bottle of sandalwood oil and a bottle of oil that combined the essences of frankincense and myrrh. She selected a couple of sandalwood incense sticks from a display in a woven-pine-needle basket next to the cabinet.
Xochitl picked up a packet of loose sage leaves. If she’d still been in Mexico, she would have had an abundance of sage to burn for a ceremony. Graciela and Xochitl had often accompanied Nana on her trips into the fields to gather the herb. She turned around to head toward the cash register and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Tristán watching her from behind the counter. She should have become invisible when she entered th
e store and just left some money on the counter.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Tristán said. “You came in so determined. I thought I had better not disturb you.”
“I didn’t see you,” Xochitl muttered.
“I noticed,” Tristán said warmly.
Xochitl put the oil, incense, and sage on the counter without saying anything. She wasn’t used to being the one who didn’t notice other people. Usually it was others who didn’t notice her.
“Where are your friends today?” Tristán asked as he rang up her items.
“They aren’t part of this,” Xochitl said quickly. “It’s kind of personal.”
“I get it.” Tristán put her goods into a small brown bag. He folded over the top of the bag twice, as if he was just as concerned to keep her mission secret as she was, and handed it to Xochitl. “Good luck.”
She took the bag, put it in her backpack, and slung the pack over her shoulder. “Thanks.”
As she stepped out the door, Xochitl thought of how much Tristán reminded her of her brother Tano. He never told a soul any of her secrets. Both guys had that quiet, confident air about them. Xochitl sighed. She missed her family. She patted her pocket, where she kept her mother’s last letter.
Xochitl hopped on her bike and rode through Santa Ana’s artists village. The colorful buildings and brown-faced people seemed to mock her pain. Everywhere she went reminded Xochitl of home. But then she rode past red, white, and blue banners, remnants of the recent Fourth of July celebrations, and she remembered how very far away from home she really was.
Xochitl rode her bike along the asphalt trail that ran above the Santa Ana River. Once she could smell the sea in the air, she got off her bike. Walking her bike, she carefully descended the dirt incline into the alluvial woodland that flourished to the left of the river trail.
Midmorning rain drizzled on Xochitl as she tiptoed along the animal path bordered by tall marshland grasses. Until rains had flooded the area, the murky creek to her left had been a sandy dirt trail wide enough for a truck to drive through. The three-inch-deep water actually had a small current and was home to what sounded like hundreds of croaking frogs. A rustling caught Xochitl’s attention. She watched the white fluff of a cottontail rabbit disappear under a pile of sycamore leaves.
Seeing the rabbit made Xochitl think of Nana’s lesson about how rabbits represent fear. She wondered if the animal sighting was an omen of some sort. Fear has nothing to do with my mission today, she told herself. She was excited to do the spell that would help her speak with her sister. She needed to talk with her, to somehow begin to understand how her life had changed so drastically and so quickly. Xochitl dismissed the rabbit as a coincidence.
Xochitl held on to a low sycamore branch and leapt over a particularly muddy track. She continued through the dense undergrowth beneath a sprawling oak tree and crept deep into the forest canopy. She was completely hidden from the trail when she stopped. She debated turning invisible to avoid being seen by anyone passing by, but since she wanted to see Graciela in the physical form, it made sense for her to remain flesh and bones, for now.
Xochitl faced north, the direction that connects to family. She dug in her backpack and took out the picture of Graciela and herself at the river, propping it up against a small tree stump. Looking at the photograph of her sister, Xochitl distractedly twisted her wishing bracelet. Then she took out the bag from Four Crows, lit a dried sage leaf with her lighter, and allowed the smoke to waft over her entire body. When the leaf was nearly burned down to her fingertips, she dropped it to the ground and carefully stomped on the leaf until the smoke disappeared.
Xochitl willed herself to relax as she lit the sandalwood incense and stuck the bottom of the stick into the soft dirt. She took out orange slices, a tamale from her neighbor Mr. Soto, and peppermint candies and placed them on a small paper plate. Xochitl dripped three drops of each essential oil onto her palms and held her hands up toward the San Bernardino Mountains.
“I welcome the four directions to this ceremony,” she said. “Please bless me with your presence. And Great Spirit, if you make Graciela appear, I’ll promise to believe in magic and miracles again. Do we have a deal?”
The wind blew the trees above, sending oak leaves flying past her. Xochitl felt a chill of anticipation. She stared at the picture and spoke to Graciela as if her sister were there under the oak tree.
“Graciela, I miss you more than you can imagine. You would have loved America, if only…” Xochitl broke off, not wanting to give any room for memories of the accident to come rushing back to her. She changed the subject. “You’d like Fern and Marina. They are exactly the two friends that we would have wanted to meet. It’s so hard to go on without you, living the dream we were supposed to be sharing side by side.”
Xochitl paused and looked around at the moss growing on the thin branches of the trees and bits of fluff floating on the air from the cattails.
“I came to this spot because it’s near the river, just like this picture of us. And I thought you’d like the fact that you can smell the ocean from here, too.”
The wind blew the branches above her, sending a small shower of leaves to flutter around Xochitl.
“Where are you, Gracie?”
For twenty minutes, Xochitl looked for a sign from her sister. Eventually, she had to admit to herself that Graciela wasn’t going to show herself today. Would she ever reappear, or was she lost forever? Xochitl noticed a sleeping lizard with zigzagged stripes basking in the sun. She remembered one of Nana’s lessons that lizards were known as dreamers in the Spirit World. Maybe this ceremony was like opening the door, and Graciela would appear in a dream? It wasn’t enough. She wanted to talk to her now.
Devastated that Graciela hadn’t appeared, Xochitl grabbed her backpack and shoved in her things, including a fistful of dirt and a few oak leaves that got caught up in her angry frenzied movements. She got back on her bike and rode home thinking about the day she and Graciela had first learned to ride two-wheelers. Graciela had fallen more but had learned to ride first. Xochitl had feared how hard she might hit the ground, so it took her longer to find her balance. She could ride hands free for blocks on end now, but Graciela would never ride again.
The wind lifted the scent of honeysuckle and jasmine into the air as she turned into her neighborhood. A group of older women laughed on rocking chairs, gossiping in Spanish. Mr. Soto, the tamale man, pushed his small metal cart, sealed tight to keep warm the dozens of tamales his wife had made that morning. Xochitl remembered countless Christmases making tamales at home with the family. Mamá used to scold Xochitl and Graciela for spreading the masa too thick. Mariachi music floated out of Mrs. Ramirez’s house.
“Xochitl!” Fern called from somewhere behind Xochitl as she whizzed past.
Xochitl put on the brakes and turned to see Fern practically sashaying down the sidewalk.
“Where have you been?” Fern asked.
“Just riding around,” Xochitl said.
Fern gave her a quizzical look. Xochitl didn’t think she had quite pulled off a sense of lightheartedness. How could she?
Fern smiled knowingly but didn’t press Xochitl for additional information. “I’ll walk you home,” Fern said happily with a bounce in her step.
Xochitl got off her bike and began to push it alongside Fern as they walked down the street. How is it that Fern and her sunshiny enthusiasm pops up when I’m missing my sister the most? Xochitl wondered. A flock of screeching green parrots flew overhead.
“I was at Pilar’s,” Fern said cheerfully. “She made the yummiest vegetarian empanadas.”
“I thought empanadas were made of meat,” Xochitl said.
“Pilar makes them special for me,” Fern said. “So I just have to tell you, I am so excited about the limpia.”
Xochitl grimaced and feigned excitement. “Yeah.” But there was no way she could muster the same enthusiasm as Fern. Since she couldn’t summon Graciela, Xochitl
had very little desire to talk about magic, especially because she couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling she got now and then about Fern’s sincerity. When Fern or Marina talked like this, Xochitl still got a little worried that they were using her to get closer to Nana.
“Have you already got the items to honor the directions?” Fern asked.
“I’m working on it,” Xochitl said.
“We’re still on for Friday, right? What time is Rogelia going to meet us at your house?” Fern asked, forging right ahead, not seeing that Xochitl would rather disappear than have this conversation.
“Nana and Marina will take the bus over Friday afternoon,” Xochitl replied.
Fern giggled.
“What?” Xochitl wondered.
“Nothing.” Fern tried to cover up her laughter by biting her lip.
“What?” Xochitl prompted.
Fern caved in immediately. “Haven’t you noticed how uncomfortable Marina is riding the bus?”
“She was acting weird the day at the mall. I thought it was the spell,” Xochitl said.
“Well, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” Fern began. “Marina is a product of her new environment. Ever since she moved to that fancy house, she’s been caught up in appearances. She only buys popular clothes and stuff. And the bus, in her mind, just isn’t…” Fern trailed off.
“She doesn’t think it’s cool to ride the bus?” Xochitl offered.
“It’s beyond uncool,” Fern said. “It’s more like she’s afraid to be seen as low class. But that’s mostly her mother’s baggage. It’s not really what Marina is all about.”
“Oh,” Xochitl said. She couldn’t even begin to understand this concept.
“I’ve tried to help her feel better by telling her taking the bus is an environmentally conscious thing to do.” Fern shook her head hopelessly and sighed dramatically. “Whatever. She’ll get over it eventually, if I have anything to do with it.”
Xochitl stopped walking at the end of her driveway. “See you later,” she said. She just wanted to be alone.
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