Instead, all I do is dust off my jeans and bask in her calming presence. Rishi has that effect on me. She’s so wonderfully bright, like when you stare at the sun and when you look away you have that spot in your line of vision. That’s how Rishi makes me feel. She’s about the only person in school who isn’t weirded out by me, and I don’t want to do anything to mess it up.
“I felt extra spacey this morning,” she says, and points at her leggings. Planets and supernovas stretch around her thighs and calves.
“Funny.”
“You’re a mess.” She bends down. Her multicolored bracelets jingle as she ties the laces to my sneaker.
“I can do that myself, thanks.”
“Clearly not today.” She stands back up. “What would you do without me?”
I smirk. Shake my head. She hooks her arm with mine and pulls me along, exiting the stairwell.
We walk into the gym where kids run around playing basketball and girls who don’t want to sweat sit up high on the bleachers.
“Want to come out today? There’s a show in Williamsburg. It’s kind of a scene, but I think we’ll survive.”
I want to say yes. I want to be the girl who goes to concerts and hangs out after school and everyone laughs at her jokes because she’s effortlessly funny and look at her hair it’s so shiny… I want to be that girl.
Instead, I’m the girl with a jar of sugar and an impending magic spell waiting for her at sunset.
“I can’t. I have boring family stuff.”
Rishi makes a face. In the two years we’ve been friends, I’ve never let her into my house. She’s picked me up, but the farthest she’s ever got is the front porch. It’s not like there’s a sign that says, “Welcome to Bruja Land! Don’t. Touch. Anything.” It’s that I’d be too embarrassed.
“Your life would be way more exciting if you spent more time with me,” she says, dodging a stray volleyball.
I wipe my suddenly sweaty palms on my gym shorts. I look at Rishi again. Her hands are decorated with the burned-amber swirls of henna from her cousin’s wedding this past weekend. She smiles like there’s sunshine inside her and walks like she’s ready to fly. I wish I had a fraction of that. Sometimes when I’m with her long enough, I forget about all the things I can’t tell her—the fear, the cantos, the ghosts. I forget and let myself just be.
The right corner of her lips tugs upward, revealing a tiny dimple. The crystal of her nose ring twinkles with the same brightness in her rich-brown eyes. When she looks at me, I feel like she’s seeing right through me. Like she knows I’m hiding a big part of myself.
“What?” My stomach flutters and I fidget with the hem of my uniform shirt.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
My cheeks burn. There are lots of things I’m not telling lots of people. Rishi. My sisters. My mother. Even myself. Sometimes I’m afraid I’ve put on so many masks that one day I won’t be able to recognize who I am. Still, I smirk to play it off because I can’t think of any other way to be.
“I didn’t finish reading Romeo and Juliet,” I say.
“Alex, you know I’m totally psychic. You won’t be able to hide from me much longer.”
That makes me smile. “Of course you are.”
“Speaking of psychics,” she says, “they’re supposed to have a bunch at the Ghoul Ball next weekend. Do you have a costume yet?”
“Can’t I just go as a really stressed-out high school sophomore?”
“Alex, you are not allowed to bail on me. If you’re not having a birthday party, then we will celebrate early with a thousand strangers.”
“I’ll be there.” Damn, my guilt is at an all-time high today. First my family. Now Rishi. Since I can’t invite her to my house, I lied and told her there’d be no birthday party at all.
“Want to walk around the track?” Rishi starts to stretch. The gym teacher isn’t here yet, as evident by most of my classmates sitting around on their phones and a handful of guys failing to slam-dunk basketballs.
I start to follow Rishi out of the gym when I hear, “Duck, you freak!”
I don’t generally answer to “freak,” but I want to see the source.
When I turn around, Ivan is holding a volleyball over his head. He throws it as hard as he can in our direction. I hold my arms up as a shield, but it wasn’t meant for me. The ball slams into Rishi’s face. Her head snaps back and the force of it knocks her on the floor.
Ivan holds his belly and laughs. Some kids laugh with him. Others are too embarrassed for Rishi to say anything, so they look away.
“Dick!” Rishi shouts at him. A tiny trickle of blood starts to flow from her nose.
“Are you okay?” I ask, even though it’s a stupid thing to ask. Of course she’s not okay. She wipes the blood away with the back of her hand, but it starts to gush down her face. I unzip my hoodie and press the fabric to her nose.
Anger flashes through me. I feel a tick in my neck and an itch in my palms. I turn around to face Ivan. He picks up another ball and gets in my space. I feel his energy, dark and hateful, brush against my own. Then, his eyes flash red for a second. I step back. Something is wrong. The feeling twists in my gut.
“You got a problem?” Ivan asks. “Want to get messed up like your little girlfriend?” He slams the ball into my shoulder.
“Stop,” I shout. My hands are shaking.
“Make me.” He won’t back down.
I take a step toward him, but Rishi stops me.
“Alex,” Rishi says. Angry tears spill from the corners of her eyes. “Help me up.”
She holds out her hand. It’s covered in blood. Ivan moves to grab my wrist, but I push him as hard as I can. I feel my head spin at the sight of Rishi’s blood. I shut my eyes to make the dizziness go away, but I see the warm, red light of my dream again. The rotten stench of dead flesh fills the air. Then, I hear the last words my dad ever spoke to me. “Sh, my darling. Everything will be okay.” He lied. Nothing would ever be okay—not truly.
I close my eyes. Remember to breath. Remember to pull the tide back. Remember to keep it buried. But there’s something else there, struggling to break free again. Just like last time. Dread digs into my chest and won’t let go. I feel a swell in my heart, and when I look down at my hands, they’re covered in blood. The wind is knocked out of my lungs. Something breaks inside of me and I can’t hold on anymore.
My magic slips.
My ears pop and adrenaline rushes through my veins. I wait for something to shatter or move, but instead, Ivan falls on his hands and knees, choking. The head of a black snake slithers from his mouth, flicking a bright-red tongue.
Ivan makes a final, terrible gagging noise, and then the whole snake is out. It slithers across the waxed gym floor between feet that run for the exits. Piercing screams fill the air as Ivan shivers and collapses. The snake grows bigger by the second, like it feeds off the people screaming. When there’s no one left in the gym but the three of us, the snake darts for Rishi.
“No!” I shout.
The snake freezes, turns its head in my direction. That red tongue flicks at me. It nods. It knows me. Then, the snake slithers out the door and into the halls.
“Alex.” Someone calls my name. I turn around but no one is there.
“Who’s there?” I whisper. The temperature in the room drops.
“We need to go!” Rishi holds her bloody hand out for me to take.
But there’s that voice again. I fall backward onto the gym floor. I can hear the rush of waves, the crackle of static. Rishi tries to help me stand. I stare at her fingers. Pink nails. Brown henna. But then she’s gone as Aunt Rosaria appears between us.
“Alex, what’s wrong?” Rishi shouts.
I crawl backward, my insides clenching and twisting painfully. Recoil. My skin burns from the inside like there’s fi
re in my veins. Aunt Rosaria’s open lips are a black hole, but the sound is lost. She grabs her throat with one hand and points at me with the other, a long, accusatory finger. I hold up my arms to shield myself from her. My magic slips defensively. The blast sets off the sprinkler systems. It shudders the windowpanes. It fills the air with the howling winds of a storm. Magic flares in my veins, and I panic, pulling it back like a lifeline that is slipping from my fingers. Aunt Rosaria starts to fade into the shadows, my name the last word on her cold, dead lips.
5
The Deos created the brujos and brujas.
Bless our kind, vessels of their Eternal Gifts.
—from the journal of Philomeno de las Rosas
I run all the way home. The last thing I heard before I took off was Rishi and Lula looking for me in the throng of students. I went out the side door and bolted down the street. I realize running from this is like trying to outrun the sun. Sometimes I feel like all I want to do is run. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I never stopped.
When I get to my street, I slow down. Sweat drips from my temples and down my nose. My muscles burn down to the core. I run into my house. I press my head against the kitchen door until I stop shaking. I practice my breaths like Mrs. Castellano, my guidance counselor, once told me, “If you hold your breath, Alejandra, your panic attacks will get worse. Breathe and you will see how much easier it is to make sense of your emotions.”
She was wrong then and she’s wrong now. There is not enough air in the world to calm me down. So I do the only thing that makes me feel better—I clean. I attack the dishes with soap and a sponge. I run the soapy dishes under water. I place them on the drying rack so hard I break one. I grip the sink and try to rationalize today’s events.
I couldn’t have done that to Ivan. It had to be Aunt Ro’s ghost. But why would she do that? Why would she point at me? Aunt Rosaria hasn’t shown herself to any family member since her death. Not even on the night of the Waking Canto. My mother’s circle blamed me. I broke the enchantment with my midnight appearance. They would never find the true reason for my aunt’s death. They’re afraid she’s lost to the realms beyond the veil. But if she’s lost, why appear to me when I didn’t even summon her?
The back door slams shut.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?” Lula asks. She drops her backpack and stares at me. Her face is a mixture of awe and glee.
She knows.
“Too many people,” I say, turning up the water even though it’s already sloshing over the sink and onto the floor. She lets me wallow in my guilty silence. “What happened to Ivan?”
She walks across the kitchen and leans against the wall beside me. Her cool, gray eyes watch as I scrub away the remnants of chicken parm from two nights ago.
“Oh, he’s fine. Animal control had the snake cornered, and then it did the most curious thing.”
“What?”
“It vanished into smoke. Poof.”
I chance a glance at Lula. Her curls are wild and her pouty lips glisten pink. Then I look at myself in the mirror on the kitchen wall: tangled, sweaty hair; bags from sleepless nights under my big, brown eyes; the sickly green pallor to my tan skin.
Lula lets out an excited squeal and hugs me. She bounces up and down, then leaves a sticky kiss on my cheek.
“How did you do it?” she asks.
I shake my head. I rinse the plate in my hands. I grab for another glass to clean. I breathe. And breathe. And breathe. And Lula bounces around me, doing a bruja dance of joy.
“Do you know what this means?”
“Rose gets to eat all the ambrosia?”
“Smart-ass. This means the three of us finally have our powers!” If she had peacock feathers, they’d be proudly displayed. “This is huge! Think of the things we could do. Why aren’t you more excited?”
“Because I made a snake come out of a boy’s throat!”
“You conjured, Ale! I mean, he’ll probably have nightmares for a few nights, but the snake disappeared when you did. What did he do to you?”
He broke Rishi’s nose. He attacked me. He had the same red eyes Miluna had on the day…
“I wonder the extent of your powers.” She keeps going, pacing around the kitchen table. “Maybe you’ll learn to heal, like Ma and me. Pa could control weather a little. Do you remember? Before his disappearance—”
“Dad left,” I shout. The glass cracks in my hand. “He left us.”
Lula stops her frantic pacing. I stare at myself in mirror again. You are not a bruja. You are a girl who needs to get far, far away, where the blood dreams can’t follow.
“You don’t know that,” Lula says. Her bottom lip trembles and her stormy-gray eyes are glossy with tears.
But I do know that. I was there.
Everyone has a theory of why Patricio Mortiz, benevolent brujo and loving family man, disappeared without a trace. Some think my father was taken by the kind of people who still hunt people like us. But there was no struggle or ransom note. I know in my heart that he left because of the magic inside me. No matter how much I try to forget, the memory floats on the surface of my mind.
It was an accident. Back then, I repeated that like a mantra.
I was ten years old and suffered from nightmares and paralyzing headaches. No one could figure out what was wrong with me. My parents’ Circle came over one day and bathed me in seawater and rubbed ashes on my face to scare away the ghosts. But it wasn’t ghosts. It was something inside that wanted to rip me in half to set itself free.
One day, the pain was so bad I stopped going to school. I was alone in the house. Something woke me, a voice calling from the shadows. Claws scratched against the wooden floor. Miluna prowled toward me, her paws trailing ragged, black shadows. Her normally green eyes were red as rubies, and her pearly white teeth were bared and covered in yellow froth.
It was an accident. I repeat it still.
Miluna attacked me. I raised my hands in defense, and the magic coiled in my heart was unleashed. I saw ribbons of red and flesh. Then, I remember darkness and, for the first time in a long time, relief. I woke to my father shouting my name. “Alejandra, Alejandra, are you okay?” He picked me up and carried me to the couch. My body shook with recoil. My veins buzzed with freed magic.
I cried and screamed and my father held me tighter. He brushed my hair back and kissed away the tears on my cheeks. He cleaned the blood on my hands and face.
“Everything will be okay,” he said, but I could see the fear darkening his gray eyes. I will always remember the way he looked at me, as if he didn’t know who I was. “Miluna was possessed. She didn’t know it was you. There are bad things in this world, Alejandra. They hurt people like us. I’ll take care of it. I promise. It’ll be our secret, but you can’t tell a soul. Do you swear it?”
“I swear it,” I cried. I clung to him, but he pulled away. Wouldn’t look into my eyes.
“Sh, my darling. Everything will be okay.”
He ran outside. From my window, I could see him digging a small grave. I told myself my dad would make things right.
When I woke up again, he was gone, and I knew it was because of me. My own father was afraid of me. I pulled my magic deep inside and kept it there. Our secret.
Now, in our kitchen, Lula gasps. My whole body tenses with magic.
“Alejandra,” my mom says.
I hadn’t even heard her come in. The door is wide-open, letting in the cold.
My mom presses her hands against her mouth. “Oh, my sweet girl.”
When I look up, I see what I’ve done. Everything—the dishes and the beads of water and soap on them, the flower pots, the jars of pickled chicken feet and frog eyes. The vials of cooking spices, the chairs, the frames on the walls, the fruits, and the collection of good luck roosters on the kitchen sill. Even the ends of Lula’s hair.
> All of it. All of it is floating around me.
In a heartbeat, my mom drops her shopping bags. The air is thick, like a steam room. Then she puts her hands on my face. “Mi’jita,” she says. My little daughter. “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.”
I’ve heard that before, and I know it isn’t true. Then, like the fall of our tears, everything I’ve done comes crashing to the ground.
6
Father, my father, my light through the dark,
my soul and my hope and my path to embark.
—Rezo de El Papa, Book of Cantos
SOMETHING IS WRONG AND YOU’D BETTER TEXT ME.
NO CALL ME.
SILENCE WILL GET YOU NOWHERE.
IF YOU DON’T CALL ME, I’M COMING OVER AND YOU BETTER LET ME IN.
…ARE YOU OKAY? I HAVE ALL THE WORRIES.
All texts from Rishi over the last two days.
For the first time in six years, I skip school. My mom is so busy planning my Deathday ceremony that she lets me. Rishi stopped by this morning and Lula took my homework from her but said I was sick and sleeping. Sometimes I want to tell Rishi the truth. I wonder if she’d be surprised or scared or even believe me. Rishi likes her days with a side of weird. Lula reminds me we’re discouraged from revealing ourselves. Otherwise, she’d tell Maks in a heartbeat. Our uncle Harry married a human who died when she tried using his Book of Cantos to make herself younger.
I’m in the car with my family, I start to type. We’re getting supplies for my magical birthday ceremony. BTW, I’m a witch.
Then I delete it and retype. I’ll explain. I promise.
Lula turns around in the front seat. She tries to grab my phone, but I yank it away. “Is that Rishi?”
“Why?”
“Just kidding. Who else would it be?”
“Lula,” my mom warns. “Be nice.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Better than the whole swim team having my number,” I hiss so just Lula can hear me. If looks could kill, I’d be dead for three lifetimes.
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