by Douglas Rees
TV WOMAN: And there you have it. Are the sticks a protest, a joke, or the emblem of a satanic cult? What do the kids at Nixon High say?
A HUGE BUNCH OF KIDS IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL: We want our sticks!
Which just goes to show me how twisted the universe can get. I mean, when Ariel and I cast Laura’s protection spell, I sure didn’t mean that the universe should use Blake to carry it out. But that’s what’s happened.
Interesting.
27
SAMHAIN
GORRINGE STILL MAKES US take off our sticks. The board of education backs him up.
Laura gets a week of detention.
Her first day, I make more brownies and take her one.
“Thanks.” She smiles. “I feel so proud of myself. And my father is bragging about me to his classes.”
Then I go down to the dojo and take one to Blake.
“Brownies again?” he says when I give it to him. “The last one you left me practically killed me.”
I smile. “Just for that, I’m going to bring you one every day this week, pinche. ’Til you die.”
The stick story gets on national TV. It gets on the Web. It gets in more newspapers. And pretty soon, everybody in America knows that Garbage Gorringe is an idiot. Then some late-night comic makes a dumb mistake, looks into the camera, and says in a Garbagey voice, “Don’t worry, folks. I’m a trained professional.”
And after that, everybody is saying it whenever they screw up.
“I am a trained professional.”
And out of nowhere come bumper stickers:
I AM A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL
DON’T STICK IT TO THE KIDS
I AM A STICK OWNER—AND I VOTE
By Samhain, Garbage is famous. But he does not like it.
Samhain is what witches call Halloween. (It is pronounced SOW-en if you ever want to pronounce it.) For us it is a very big deal. Christmas, Halloween, and New Year’s Eve all wrapped up in one night. Plus, this year the moon is going to be full right on the Night. A true harvest moon. Very big deal.
Now I was going to have a ceremony with my coven. Only it turns out that Laura promised six months ago to help out with a little kids’ party on Halloween. Which means me and José. Except he’s got some family thing to go to that he can’t get out of. So I figure Aunt Ariel will cut some slack for her favorite niece and let me join her ceremony.
So I say, “You know, Aunt Ariel, best of witches, it’s almost Samhain.”
“Tomorrow night,” she says.
“Well, it turns out I’m not busy,” I say.
And Aunt Ariel looks a little weird, like she’s about to say something she can’t believe she’s going to say, and says it anyway. “Well. You know the Rule of Thirteen.”
“Oh,” I say, like I’d forgotten it. “Yeah.”
And I’m quiet because I know that she means that since her coven has exactly thirteen witches, WE aren’t doing anything tomorrow night.
“I’m very sorry, Kestrel,” Aunt Ariel says. “Perhaps I could ask one of the others not to come.”
“No,” I say. “That would be way unfair.”
Ariel nods. “You’re right. It would.”
“It’s cool,” I tell her, and I get up from the table to do the dishes.
Then I do my homework. This is supposed to help me not to think about Samhain, but it doesn’t. I think about TV, but who needs that? It’s all about people sitting around in their living rooms with their friends.
Then I think, majix this. Duh.
I go into my room, get out this book and doodle around for a while, waiting for a spell to come. It doesn’t take long until one does:
Samhain, I am all alone,
Bring me help by telephone.
Then I get out my pentagram and say the chant at all five points. I burn some incense, too. Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see how the universe flows.
I’m waiting for the universe in the kitchen with a couple of cookies when my cell rings. I check who’s calling. José.
Ah, yes, I was expecting him, I thinksay.
HERE’S HOW JOSÉ HELPED THE UNIVERSE
José: Hey, Kestrel, I heard Laura can’t come to your thing, either. Want to come to my thing?
ME: What is it?
José: The little kids go trick-or-treating and the adults have an ofrenda. Afterwards there’s a party.
ME: I’m there. What time?
I don’t even ask what an ofrenda is. Who cares? I’m invited to it.
José: Oh, yeah. Ariel can come, too.
ME: She’s busy. But I’ll be there.
José: Okay if we pick you up about six?
ME: Sure.
We hang up and I tell Aunt Ariel, “It’s cool. The universe is sending me to José’s for Samhain. What’s an ofrenda?”
“Did you ever hear of the Day of the Dead?” Ariel asks.
“It’s like Mexican Halloween,” I say.
“You could say that,” Ariel says. “Anyway, an ofrenda is a memorial altar. But are they doing one at Halloween?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Hmm,” says Aunt Ariel. “It’s usually one day later, on All Souls’ Day.”
“Too bad,” I say. “If it was, you could go.”
“Yeah,” she says. “And I’m really sorry I can’t.”
But I am totally happy. My Samhain is taken care of, and my spell has worked. I write it down here in my book of majix.
28
MY OWN PERSONAL SKULL
I AM ALL READY WHEN JOSÉ comes to get me. I stand on the front lawn and watch the first little kids going up and down the street in their costumes. Their rentz are walking with them. It makes me miss mine, a little. Mommy Angel used to take me around when I was little, and BD would always bring home some candy just for me. Don’t ask me how he could always remember Halloween. He just did. It was a universe thing, I guess.
But now there is no more time for sad because the coche pulls up and away we go.
When we get to José’s street it’s full of trick-or-treaters. I see Chris with a bunch of kids around him going door-to-door and women passing out candy.
We go along with Chris’s bunch hanging back and being cool, and it is way cool to be one of the big ones looking out for the little ones.
The moon is huge, like it’s never been this big before. It is also orange. The smog colors it that. It looks like this big, squashed jack-o’-lantern. What could be better for Samhain?
“Too bad your aunt couldn’t come,” Chris says.
“That’s what she thinks,” I say.
Up and down the street we go, to all seven houses. Then we go a few streets over, and then it is time to start herding the little ones back home.
When we get back to the Iturrigarays’ street, the garage door to Leon’s house is open, and what I see there I have never seen before. The whole thing is full of flowers from the gardens around the houses on this street. At the back, they reach almost to the ceiling. Others are hanging down from the rafters to meet them. A carpet is spread on the floor. It is old, but pretty. And standing on the carpet is a big table, covered with stuff. There are pictures of people, and bunches of marigolds, and little piles of things, like old tobacco tins and rosary beads. There are skulls made of sugar with names spelled on their foreheads. I see LEON, CHRIS, VICTOR, JOSÉ, and a lot of others. I guess there’s one for everybody in the family.
“This is the ofrenda,” José says. He sort of points with his chin. “That’s my father.”
I see an old colored photograph in a big leather frame. There’s a guy in a uniform with a flag behind him. He’s got a helmet on his head.
“He was airborne,” José says. “In Vietnam.”
“What was his name?” I ask.
“Armando. Like on the coche,” José says.
People come up and talk to the pictures and leave flowers and candles in front of them. The older people are explaining to the little ones who the people in the picture
s are. When the little ones have said hello to everybody on the altar, they take the candy skulls with their names on them, but they don’t eat them. Not yet. They are still in their costumes, all the little ghosts and princesses and aliens, running around about waist-high to the rest of us, and they are laughing and full of candy, and us old ones are more serious and some of us are crying.
I just look at this wonderful thing the Iturrigarays have made to remember José’s father and all these other people who were part of their lives.
“I got to go say hello,” José says when the crowd has thinned out.
“You want to introduce me?” I say.
“Come on,” he says. And takes my hand real lightly.
“Papi, this is Kestrel Murphy,” he says to the picture.
“Blesséd be, Mr. Iturrigaray,” I say.
José takes this big breath and says, “I’m doing okay in school, Papi. Kestrel’s helping me with English, and my drawing is good.”
“His drawing is way better than good,” I put in.
Doña Imelda is sitting beside the ofrenda, and her eyes are shining and dark. She leans over and says something in Spanish.
“She says, ‘The wall between the worlds is very thin tonight,’” José tells me.
And then this totally great weird feeling happens and it’s like all the time there ever was is happening right now. And all the people there ever were are right around me, and it’s scary but not, all at the same time.
“Yeah,” I say. “You’re right, señora.”
José picks up his skull. It is pink, with his name in red. Then he hands me one that was at the back. White with blue letters. KESTREL.
He leads me back, and Chris goes up.
“José, there’s one thing I have to know,” I say. “How come you put live people’s names on these skulls?”
“’Cause someday we’re going to be in one of those pictures,” he says.
I go outside onto the driveway and stand in the shadows of the front yard. The moon has climbed above the smog now and is as white and blue as the skull in my hands. And it is like it knows I’m here, and it is blessing me, wanting me to be happy.
José comes up beside me. I feel the warm glowies come back, bright and warm as the ofrenda candles.
And I put my hand out, and my hand is attached to my arm, and my arm is attached to the rest of me, and he takes it and I take his and we wrap them around each other and we kiss.
And I am happy. So happy that it’s like it’s not really just my happiness. It belongs to the whole universe.
29
THE WALL BETWEEN THE WORLDS
WHICH LASTS UNTIL I GET HOME.
The coche purrs away from the curb and I wave until the night takes it in.
When I come into the house, Ratchy runs out and pounces on me. I pick him up, but he wants to fight, so I play with him to wear him out. Then he hops up on a chair and goes to sleep.
Aunt Ariel isn’t home yet, but it is way short of midnight, so I don’t expect her. Anyway, it is nice to have the house all to myself. I can’t believe how grown-up I feel, wandering all over the house in the dark, feeling it is mine, feeling that I really belong here.
Then Ariel’s phone rings.
I don’t pick it up the first time. I figure at this time of night it has to be for her. But then it rings again about ten minutes later, and again a little after that. Whoever it is is leaving messages. I decide I’d better listen.
There is a whole stream of them, starting about eight o’clock. All from Mommy Angel. Here is the first one: “Susan, dear. This is your mother. You’d better come home at once. It’s your father—he’s had another attack. He’s back in the hospital. I’m—afraid it’s pretty bad—” and she starts to sob.
I listen to all the other messages, but they don’t say anything but, “Please pick up the phone,” and “Please call as soon as you get home,” and stuff like that. There’s no more news.
So I call.
But there’s no answer. Not at home. Not on Mommy Angel’s cell phone.
I get scared. It’s like I hear Doña Imelda saying, “The wall between the worlds is very thin tonight.” I sit down on the floor and start to cry. I am still crying when Ariel gets home.
She’s all happy and smells like cinnamon and incense, but as soon as she sees me she gets a totally scared look. She sits down on the floor and holds me.
“My daddy’s sick” is all I can get out.
We try for another hour to get Mommy Angel on the phone before she finally calls us. When she does, it turns out that she accidentally turned her cell phone off, and she was too busy to call back anyway.
“They’re operating right now,” she says. “It’s a blood clot in his heart. Susan, you’d better come home.”
“Okay,” I say. This is no time to remind her that my name is Kestrel.
“She’ll be on the first plane out,” Ariel says, and I am.
WHEN MOMMY ANGEL MEETS ME at the airport, she looks gray and her eyes are tired and scared.
“Do I look as bad as you do?” I say.
“I’ve been up all night,” she says.
“Me, too,” I say.
We hug like we never hugged before and like we think we never will again. It feels so good.
“When can I see Daddy?” I ask.
“He’s still in intensive care. No visitors,” she says. “Do you want breakfast?”
“Ariel made me eat before I left,” I say. “I wasn’t hungry. I don’t feel like I’ll ever be hungry again.”
“I know,” Mommy Angel says. “I feel the same way.”
We go home. On the way, Mommy Angel tells me what happened.
Daddy just fell over when he was walking on his new treadmill. If Mommy Angel hadn’t been home, he would have died right then. But the paramedics came in time and got his heart going again. They found the blood clot at the hospital. It is so big they’re surprised he’s still alive.
“But he’s all right now,” I say. “He’s going to be all right, right?”
Mommy Angel doesn’t answer right away. “He’s over this one,” she says. “There may be other blood clots. Any one of them is very serious.”
“Like it could kill him serious?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
“Yes,” she says after a minute.
I start crying again and I don’t stop until we get home.
It is totally weird to be back. Everything looks smaller, even our house, which is huge. Especially the house. What’s weirder is that everything feels familiar and strange at the same time. A couple of times I turn around and am surprised that Ariel’s not there. Once I think I feel Ratchy pulling at my shoelace, but it’s only me stepping on it. I am like in two places at once. Or maybe nowhere.
Finally, I sit down in a chair to rest for a few minutes. The next thing I know, it’s two hours later and the phone is ringing.
It’s the hospital. Daddy is doing okay. If he is still doing okay tomorrow, they’ll move him out of intensive care and we can visit him.
I call Ariel and tell her. When I hear her voice, it’s like it’s more real than Mommy Angel’s voice, even though she’s in the room with me. I miss that voice. I need it.
“The coven is meeting tonight,” she says. “We’re going to do a healing for him. Is there anything I can do for you, darling?”
“Have you got a picture of Daddy?” I ask.
“Yes,” Ariel says.
“Then give it to José and tell him I need him to draw Daddy being healthy,” I say. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Good idea,” Ariel says.
“And ask him to ask Doña Imelda about the wall between the worlds. I need to know if it’s getting thicker…. And tell Ratchy—”
I stop. What am I supposed to tell Ratchy? Am I going back to Ariel when this is over? Am I ever going to see José again? I just stay on the phone not wanting to hang up and break the connection to everything down in ugly old Jurupa.
/> Finally, Ariel says, “I’ll tell Ratchy not to worry.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Now call me any time you need me, Kestrel. Understand?” Ariel says.
“Yeah.”
But I still don’t hang up.
Ariel waits for me and finally she says, “Blesséd be.”
“Blesséd be,” I say, and I do hang up.
But nothing feels blesséd.
30
SALUD, PESETAS, Y AMOR
HERE IS WHAT THERE IS ABOUT HOSPITALS THAT MAKES THEM HOSPITALS
The smell. No place else smells like a hospital. They smell like something terrible is happening and they are trying to cover it up.
Something terrible is happening and they are trying to cover it up.
The light at night looks like you are inside a bad spaceship.
Half the stuff looks like it is warm and soft, or is supposed to be warm and soft. The rest of it looks like equipment on a really bad spaceship.
When a fire starts in one of the rooms, they say, “Dr. Red: Room Whatever It Is” so you won’t know the hospital’s about to burn down with you in it.
HERE IS HOW I KNOW THAT
It is three days before they finally let us see him. When they do, Mommy Angel and I are walking down the hall to his room when we hear “Dr. Red” come over the intercom and everybody starts running to room 331. Which is Daddy’s.