Majix: Notes from a Serious Teen Witch

by Douglas Rees

  “Perhaps that’s because we named you very carefully,” Irene says. “We waited for four days, until we were certain you were a Laura.”

  “We might have waited longer, but the hospital wouldn’t release you without a name,” Arthur says. “Otherwise, you might still be known as ‘Hey, You.’”

  And he and Irene smile at Laura like she’s made of gold, or maybe diamonds.

  “We’d better leave if we’re going to get lunch first,” Ariel says.

  “Yes, of course,” Arthur says. “But I hope we can spend some time together soon.”

  “Perhaps you could come over for dinner,” Irene says.

  “That would be lovely,” Ariel says.

  And we’re out the door and off to Costa Mesa.

  Laura is just sitting in the back with me, smiling. Really quiet. I decide to try to loosen her up. I want more of the kind of talk we had on the phone.

  “So how did your dad get to be a poet?”

  “Oh, he just is, I guess,” Laura says. “He teaches English at the community college, mostly.”

  “Every poet works at something else to make a living,” Ariel says. “Arthur Greenwood has a national reputation.”

  “So your dad is famous?” I ask.

  “Not really,” Laura says.

  “He would be, if poets became famous in this country,” Aunt Ariel says.

  After that, Laura stops being shy around Ariel and the three of us talk about everything under the moon until we get where we’re going.

  When we get to Costa Mesa there’s this huge mall. We go to the food court and have lunch. Then we go up to the top floor and there’s a bookstore called the White Goddess, and in the back of the store there’s a big space with a garden fountain and plants in rock containers, and this audience sitting on cushions, waiting for my aunt.

  They all clap for her, and Ariel lights a huge candle and says, “Merry met and blesséd be.”

  “Blesséd be and merry met,” some of the people say.

  Laura and I stand at the back and watch. I feel so proud that all these people are here, paying fifty bucks apiece, to hear my aunt.

  Laura is leaning forward like she’s afraid one of Ariel’s words might fall on the floor before it gets to her ears. But a lot of what my aunt is talking about is stuff I already know.

  After a while, I decide to look around the store.

  “Want to check this place out?” I whisper to Laura. “I can teach you all this stuff later.”

  So she gets up and comes with me.

  Besides books, the White Goddess sells crystals and DVDs and audiobooks and all kinds of supplies for the Craft. In the middle of the store is a big display of books Ariel has written. There are like six different titles. I didn’t know she could do that! I’m so happy to be right here, right now, that I hug myself.

  “This is so cool,” I whisper to Laura. “My aunt is awesome.”

  “She’s famous,” Laura whispers back. “Didn’t you know? She’s been on television, and in Personal magazine.”

  Wow. I didn’t know any of this. I guess that’s how much BD and Aunt Ariel don’t get along. I start thinking about how nice it would be to be part of a family like Laura’s seems to be. I try to push the feelings away, but I can’t. And—this is lame—I start to cry. Quietly. Just tears. No sobs.

  Laura gets very quiet. Of course, she’s pretty quiet anyway. But I appreciate it. She takes my hand, and I appreciate that. And then she hands me something to wipe my nose with, and I appreciate that even more.

  After the lecture, Ariel signs about a thousand books and we drive home. Laura’s full of questions for Ariel and the two of them talk all the way back to Jurupa. I just listen and think how the universe gets more and more complex the more you step back and say, Interesting…

  When we get back to Laura’s place, her rentz ask us in for a drink. Aunt Ariel has no problem with this. Neither do I.

  We sit on a patio with a thatch of palm fronds over it. The furniture is all made of little branches and fits together like coral or the skeletons of little dragons. No two pieces are alike.

  “Neat chairs,” I say.

  “My mother makes them,” Laura says.

  “These things are my wife’s poems,” Arthur says. “Unlike mine, each one is unique.”

  “Just bits of driftwood I find on trips,” Irene says.

  There’s a little waterfall in the corner of the yard and its light is glittering on the brick wall beside it, and feathery jacaranda trees are catching the sun. It’s so peaceful that when the clouds pass by, it’s like they’ve come to visit, too.

  Arthur disappears and comes back with a bottle and some glasses.

  “May we have a glass?” Laura asks.

  “I’m afraid not this time, dear,” Arthur says. “It would be rude.” Then he turns to Ariel and explains, “It’s our custom to allow Laura one glass of wine with us. It’s legal if one’s parents give it to their child. But not under any other circumstances.”

  “Would you care for one, Kestrel?” Ariel asks me.

  “Uh—sure,” I say.

  “Well, Arthur, I’ll decline your kind offer since I’m driving. But if you give me a glass and I hand it to Kestrel, that will suit me, her, and the state of California. And then Laura can have hers.”

  The wine is chilled and a little sweet. It’s my first glass of wine ever, and I try to notice everything about it, like the way it changes on my tongue after the first few sips. And here I am drinking it with a poet, and a mom who makes art furniture, and a girl who thinks I’m cool, and my Aunt Ariel.

  Everyone talks a little, nobody talks too much, and everything that gets said seems to matter. I can’t remember a conversation like this. Meanwhile, the jacarandas are dropping twigs and leaves and shadows on the lawn, saying, “Don’t forget us. We’re part of this, too,” and the sun is blazing down the smoggy sky, but we’re comfortable and cool under the palm thatch.

  If blesséd be means anything, I guess this is what it means.

  17

  TAMALES AND COMETS

  I DO NOT THINK THINGS can get any better. But then they do.

  When we walk in the door of our place, Ratchbaggit runs out, sees us, hisses, runs away, remembers who we are, runs back, and tells me he’s starving. I feed him the kitten food we picked up on the way home, and check the answering machine. No calls about a cat (of course), but there’s one from Chris Iturrigaray.

  Ariel calls him back.

  “Yes, we’d love to come over tomorrow afternoon. About two? Good. See you.”

  She puts the phone down.

  “What did he want?” I ask.

  “To show me his shop,” she says. “He’s got a special car he’s working on.”

  She’s got this funny little smile on her face.

  The next day we go over to Chris’s shop. It turns out to be on this little street with only seven houses, two on each side, and three in a half circle where the street dead-ends. The shop is on the corner. It’s just a house and a garage with a sign in the yard that says COCHES CLÁSICOS BY CHRIS. There are three cars lined up in the yard. The garage door is open, and there are all kinds of painting equipment inside.

  I see José in there putting tape on the chrome of some little sports car.

  “Hey, José,” I holler.

  He looks up, doesn’t say anything, and goes into the house. A minute later, he’s back with Chris.

  We all walk around the car, which is little, and old, and pale cream.

  “Good grief, it’s a Cométe,” Aunt Ariel says.

  Chris and José look like they’ve just been electrocuted.

  “Wow,” says Chris. “When the guy brought it in, even I didn’t know what it was.”

  “They only made eighty-five of them,” Ariel says. “And only a few of those ever left France. Does it still have the Ford engine?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Chris says, and he’s smiling like the sun coming up. “Nothing special about the eng
ine.”

  “And they want it turned into a lowrider?” Ariel asks.

  “Nah. Just cherried out,” Chris says. “I don’t just do low-riders. Everything on wheels needs paint.”

  So far, José still hasn’t said anything.

  “You help out here a lot?” I ask.

  “Sometimes.” He shrugs. Then he says, “How’s the cat?”

  I whisper, “Aunt Ariel put an ad in the paper for him, but no one’s going to answer it. I’ve made him my familiar.”

  “What’s that?” he asks.

  “A special pet,” I say. “Only witches get to have them.”

  “What’s it do?” José wants to know.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “I never had one before.”

  After that, José doesn’t say anything. It’s like Friday never happened or something.

  Finally, I say, “You live around here?”

  He points. “Down there. With my mom.”

  He means the last house on the street. It looks older than the others. It’s Spanish-style, but a lot smaller than Laura’s place. It’s still cool, though. It’s got white walls and a red tile roof and this little arch over the driveway.

  “José,” Chris says suddenly. “Take Kestrel home and introduce her. We’ll be along in a few.”

  “Come on,” José says.

  He leads me down the street past yards full of kids who holler at us and wave.

  “They all know you,” I say.

  “They’re all my cousins,” he says. “We own this street. Leon lives next to mom. Victor lives over there. My Aunt Carmela lives on the other side of us. There’s a bunch of us, I guess.” He shrugs. “My dad’s dead. He was kind of old. I was an unexpected pleasure. That’s what my mom says.”

  “My dad’s almost dead,” I say. “He had a bad heart attack.”

  “Mine, too,” José says. “Is he getting better?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”

  I don’t want to think about BD right now, or what it will feel like if he dies. I look back up the little street and think about all seven houses being filled with Iturrigarays. They all know each other. They all seem to like each other. They all seem to enjoy being Iturrigarays.

  “It’s like a castle,” I say.

  “Huh?” José says.

  “This street. I don’t know. It just seems like one,” I say.

  José looks back up the street, too. “You think it’s like a castle?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Come on in,” he says, and opens the door to his house.

  Inside, there’s about a hundred different women, all ages and sizes. The house is hot, with steam and great smells coming out of the kitchen, and everybody talking and there’s that Mexican music with all the violins playing on an old stereo.

  José kind of pushes his way into the kitchen and over to the stove.

  “Mami, this is Kestrel,” he says to this little old lady who’s wiping her hands on her apron. “Kestrel, this is my mom, Mrs. Iturrigaray.”

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Welcome, Kestrel,” she says. “It’s nice to finally meet you. José talks about you so much.”

  He does?

  But then I’m getting introduced around to all these aunts and cousins and nieces and no way can I keep everyone straight, and then Chris and Ariel come in and the whole thing starts all over again.

  Then Leon comes in with his family, and Victor comes over with his girlfriend, and there’s this little string of introductions. Victor looks happy. I don’t think he’s one-tenth as angry as he was the first time I saw him.

  With Leon is this little old lady who looks like she must be about a hundred and fifty. She’s about four feet tall and she walks like a mechanical doll. Leon says, “Ms. Murphy, Kestrel, I’d like to present my grandmother, Imelda Iturrigaray.” Aunt Ariel kind of drops her eyes and says, “Encantada, Doña Imelda.”

  And the little old lady looks up into Ariel’s face and says one word, “Hermana,” and there’s this feeling in the room like Aunt Ariel’s just been blessed.

  Now that half the population of Southern California is in the living room, José’s mother figures we have enough people to go outside. Everyone heads into the backyard and it’s filled with tables—dining tables, card tables, boards on saw horses—all covered with different kinds of cloths and they’re held down at the corners with little rocks in case a breeze comes up, and out comes the food.

  Mostly, it’s tamales. Gibungous mountains of tamales on every table. And to go with them there’s salad and chips and salsa that makes your mouth explode, and cans of beer and soda in big tubs full of ice set in the shade along the house.

  I sit next to José, of course, and Aunt Ariel sits at another table with Doña Imelda and Leon’s family. I look around and I see that everyone’s happy and talking and laughing, and Aunt Ariel and Doña Imelda have their heads together and it’s like they’re in some place of their own.

  José hands me a cola and a paper plate full of tamales and I’m trying to think if I’ve ever had a better day in my life.

  “You are so lucky,” I say. “This is cool.”

  “You like this?” José says.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Good,” he says.

  We stay all afternoon. About sundown, the sea breeze finally finds its way to Jurupa and begins to blow the tablecloths around. The shadows start filling the yard and the tamales change flavor. Some of them are sweet and some of them are salty, and they don’t have any meat in them. I figure they must be dessert, but then the dessert comes out and it’s flan, which is caramel custard, in all different kinds of little bowls.

  Then Doña Imelda leaves on Leon’s arm and other people start to go. José and I help clean up, and the relatives take their tables and their dishes home, and the whole wonderful thing kind of vanishes like magick.

  “Want to see my special place?” José asks me.

  “Cool,” I say.

  It’s the garage. It’s real little and it’s tucked in behind the house, not attached to it. It’s so little that a modern car wouldn’t fit in it. But it’s got a red tile roof and white walls just like the house, and a door and a window. There’s an old rug on the floor and a drafting table and one stool and a lightbulb hanging down and on the walls are José’s drawings. A lot of them are on big sheets of paper.

  On the drafting table there’s a picture he’s working on. It’s of me. Actually, it’s a bunch of pictures of me. There’s me in a witch’s hat, me with Ratchbaggit in my hands, and two or three others of my head turned different ways.

  “Excuse me,” says José, and tries to cover the picture up before I can see it.

  “Wait, I want to look,” I say.

  “It’s not finished yet.”

  “Can I look anyway?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not finished.”

  “Come on, José,” I say.

  He stands there a minute, then takes away the piece of paper he was using to cover up the picture.

  It’s so weird to see a drawing of yourself. Especially by someone who can draw like José. It’s not like a photograph. It’s all these different ways of looking at yourself. At how somebody else is looking at you. It’s a cool way of seeing, especially the way he drew my hands.

  “You must spend a lot of time out here,” I say.

  “As much as I can,” he says. “I like it a lot better than that pinche English class.”

  I turn around. “Why is English so much more pinche than any other class?” I ask.

  “I don’t get it,” he says. “I can do the other stuff, but English—I get so nervous about that class I’m even afraid to go to school.”

  Then he blushes again, like he’s told me more than he wanted to.

  I remember those sentence diagrams mixed in with the drawings José showed me. How crippled the lines looked where he’d tried to take the words apart. And I get mad. Because nothing so simple should cause him so much
trouble.

  And, of course, one of my powers is grammar.

  So I say, “Can you learn one thing a day?”

  He looks at me like I’m dumb.

  “Sure,” he says.

  “Well, there are forty-five grammar rules,” I tell him. “And if you learn one a day you’ll know them all in a month and a half. Besides, you already know some. I’ve seen your stuff, José.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “José, what’s that thing called?” I say, pointing to his table.

  “It’s my drafting table,” he says.

  “And what’s that thing over there?” I point at the window.

  “The window.”

  “And that thing on the floor?”

  “The rug.”

  “See, you already know what a noun is,” I say.

  “Huh?”

  “Sure, they’re just words for objects, that’s all.”

  He thinks that one over. Then he says, “So that two-by-four up there is a noun. And the garage door. And the floor.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “So what’s the big deal?”

  “There isn’t one,” I explain. “They just tell you there is so the teachers will have jobs.”

  José’s thinking more.

  “So what’s a verb?” he asks.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” I say.

  “Before English, okay?”

  18

  SWEET

  WE GO LOOKING FOR AUNT ARIEL. José’s mom tells us that she’s over at Chris’s place.

  By now it’s kind of purple and gray in the sky and lights are on in the houses. They’re on in the garage where Chris paints cars. And that’s where Aunt Ariel is. Kissing Chris. I mean kissing. She’s practically bent backwards on top of that Cométe.

  I stop in the middle of the street ’cause I don’t want to interrupt anything, but mostly because I can’t get my mind around it. Aunt Ariel? And Chris? On the first date? But this isn’t even a date. We just came over and ate, and she started kissing.

  I check them out. They look a little weird because she’s about as tall as he is, but they look kind of cute, too.

  “My aunt,” I say. “Your brother.”