by Anna Meriano
Her morning work finished, Leo nibbled on a day-old concha and listened to Alma and Belén argue about who had stolen whose favorite shirt first. She wondered if there was a spell to stop a thief, and what sort of candles or herbs it would use.
“Leonora,” Daddy called from the office. “There’s a message here for you from yesterday.”
Leo winced. She had been so excited thinking about the lesson last night, she hadn’t remembered to call Caroline.
“Actually, there are messages. Plural.”
Alma exchanged an eye roll with Belén, and Leo’s heart sank. Her sisters’ disapproval always made her feel about two inches tall.
“I’ll listen later,” she said loudly. “I want to study right now.” She shouldn’t have to prove that she was serious about magic, but she snatched Tía Paloma’s candle packet and clutched it to her chest. Caroline probably wasn’t awake yet, anyway.
She stomped to the front counter, knowing without having to check that the whiteboard schedule in the office had her listed once again on cashier duty. She had planned to beg her way into helping Isabel with the decorations on the first few batches of rosca de reyes, but now she perched grumpily on a stool and focused on decoding the copied book.
The charts were simple enough to follow and the illustrations helped, but the twisty cursive and Spanish words made Leo’s work slow. Tía Paloma often forgot that Leo had never talked with her abuela much before she died and couldn’t speak Spanish fluently like her older sisters. That was another thing Caroline helped her with. Unlike Leo, Caroline could read and understand Spanish almost perfectly, and only struggled a little with her speaking. That was another reason why having Caroline help her study her magic lessons should be a good thing, not something her sisters rolled their eyes at.
Leo flipped through the packet to find the clearest passages while the first round of morning traffic whizzed past the windows and Isabel filled the shelves around her with fresh pan dulce. She was so absorbed that she didn’t notice the ringing bell or the swish of the front door as the morning’s first customer entered the shop.
“Leo?” The voice startled Leo into dropping her packet, pages escaping their paper clip and falling into a jumble on the floor.
“Caroline!” Leo slid down from the counter and bent to collect the scattered packet. “What are you doing here?”
“I didn’t hear from you.” Caroline stayed in the doorway with an uncertain expression, her fingers pulling the edges of her purple sweater together. “So I just thought I could walk over and see . . .”
Leo ran to hug her friend, the pages of her photocopied stack dropping, out of order, across the counter. “How was Costa Rica? How is your grandmother? How did you get your dad to let you walk here alone?”
No matter what her family said, Leo didn’t feel like Caroline was a distraction to her focus. She was Leo’s friend, and having her around made everything better. Like, for example, reading dense Spanish passages about candle magic.
Caroline’s face relaxed into a smile when Leo let her go. “Thanks, it was good. I mean, it was okay.” She pushed the hood of her sweater off her head.
“Do you want a cinnamon roll?” Leo offered. Maybe if she filled Caroline’s stomach, then the guilt gnawing at her stomach would subside.
“I already ate Toaster Strudel,” Caroline said. “I knew you’d be here at five, and so I got up early, hoping . . . you might call.”
Guilt dug its teeth deeper into Leo’s gut. “Have one,” she pleaded. She felt very relieved when her friend smiled and nodded. Once Leo explained about the candle magic, Caroline would understand. It was hard to remember normal things when there were so many magical things to learn.
Caroline used a pair of hanging tongs to pull one of the flaky cinnamon rolls from its shelf. The dry rolls weren’t as delicious as the gooey ones Leo sometimes made at home, but they were easier for customers to pick up.
“Thanks,” Caroline said. “My dad walked me to Main Street. His parenting books say that now is a good time for me to start asserting my independence in safe contexts, so he let me walk here while he went to the hardware store. The bad news is he’s picking paint colors, so I’m probably going to get stuck repainting another room this weekend.”
Leo nodded. Ever since Caroline’s mother had died, not quite one year ago, Mr. Campbell had been remodeling, rearranging, and repainting their house. He was becoming a pretty good interior designer, but Caroline swore all the paint fumes were going to stunt her growth. Since her blond ponytail already bobbed a few inches above Leo’s head, Leo thought she could maybe afford to be stunted, just a little.
“Want to see something cool?” Leo asked, shuffling her papers into a neater stack and holding them up as Caroline brought her cinnamon roll behind the counter. “Tía Paloma is teaching me a whole new type of magic. No more leaf shapes to memorize.”
“Oh.” Caroline peeled bite-size pieces off the edge of her pastry. “I liked learning the herbs. But this is something different?”
“Yeah, it’s so cool.” Leo grinned. “It’s all candles, how they can change the energy of a situation and how they can strengthen certain types of spells. I’m learning about types of candles—or, um, veladora, I guess . . .”
“Or velas.” Caroline shrugged. “Either one.”
“Right—we’re learning which kind to use and what you can do with them. And that’s why I didn’t call last night. Tía Paloma was teaching us and I got distracted. Sorry.”
Caroline rolled bits of cinnamon filling into balls and popped them into her mouth. “Yeah . . . ,” she said. “I get it. Casting spells with candles is a lot more exciting than getting lost in Costa Rica.”
“You got lost?” Leo asked. “How? Where?”
Caroline’s face relaxed, and she looked up from her cinnamon roll with a sheepish smile. “In the airport. Everyone thought we were tourists. I mean, we basically were.” She sighed. “It was . . . weird. Going without my mom. It felt different.”
Caroline had moved away to Houston for her mom’s treatment, so Leo had lost contact with her friend during the worst part of Mrs. Campbell’s illness and death. Even when Caroline and her dad moved back to Rose Hill, her next-door neighbor Brent had been the one to help lift the dark cloud and cheer Caroline up enough to come back to school. She would sometimes mention her mom, but she had never talked to Leo about the pain of losing her. Leo hadn’t even realized that this was Caroline’s first time visiting Costa Rica without her mother.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That sounds so—”
“It was like I didn’t—” Caroline started to say.
The swinging creak of the blue doors made both girls jump.
“Leo,” Isabel said, pushing the door with her shoulder and walking backward through it, a tray of fresh conchas balanced on her arm. “Mamá says if there are no customers, you can get started gathering supplies for special orders. We have to make ocean breeze conchas for relaxation, and she wants me and Marisol to get the dough started for the listening orejas—” She turned around carefully and stopped. “Oh. Caroline. Good morning. Um.” Isabel shifted from one foot to the other, the conchas wobbling dangerously on the tray. “Well, we’ll talk later, Leo.” She walked briskly to add the conchas to the earlier batches already on the shelves, sliding the pan dulce off the tray and turning them so they sat right side up and attractive.
Caroline ducked her head so that her eyes hid behind her bangs.
Leo jutted out her lower jaw in frustration. Why did Isabel have to act like Caroline was some stranger who couldn’t hear about magic? Caroline had been Leo’s partner in crime when she did her first disastrous spells in November. Caroline already knew they were brujas, so Leo didn’t understand what her sister was acting so squirrely for. It made Leo mad to see Caroline hunch her shoulders and shift from one foot to the other, nibbling on her thumbnail.
She just wasn’t sure if it was Isabel she was mad at, or herself for not saying any
thing.
“Well, I should go anyway,” Caroline said.
“No, wait—”
“I didn’t mean to make you—” Isabel’s words tripped over Leo’s.
“You didn’t. I shouldn’t have come while you were all still opening the bakery. I’m in your way. I don’t . . .” Caroline took a deep breath. “I don’t belong here, either.”
She took a few steps to the trash can at the end of the counter. As she dropped her cinnamon roll with a clang and spun on her heel, she crashed straight into Belén, who barreled through the blue doors with an armful of veladoras.
Caroline screeched. Belén saved most of her cargo by flailing her arms like a juggler and falling to the ground to catch some candles in her lap, but two thick purple candles dented their edges toppling onto the tile floor, and one skinny pink one encased in glass hit the edge of the counter and shattered.
Belén said some words that made Mamá shout her name from the kitchen. Caroline knelt to help gather the glass shards but was quickly shooed away by Isabel. Belén passed the candles to Leo and Caroline, who lined them up on the counter as she swept the mess into the dustpan Alma brought her.
“I’m sorry,” Leo whispered to Caroline. “My sisters are . . . they’re just weird. They didn’t mean to be—”
“Leo.” Mamá walked into the front of the shop, her worried eyes quickly scanning the scene before turning stormy mad. “What are you doing, ’jita? You were supposed to be helping, or studying, not making messes. You know we’re busy this week. Where is your head?” She stared down at Leo, wearing her most disappointed expression.
“I didn’t make any messes,” Leo protested. “Caroline was the one who—”
She clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. She saw the hurt in Caroline’s eyes turn liquid and spill over her eyelashes. Her friend shoved her hands into her sweater pockets, shook her head hard, and then turned and marched out of the bakery without saying a word.
CHAPTER 4
CHOICES
“What’s her problem?” Belén asked, emptying the dustpan and handing it back to Alma.
Mamá patted Leo’s shoulder, her frown disappearing as she watched Caroline leave. “Sorry, ’jita, I thought . . . well. Maybe I’m a little tired from the trip still. I know you’re helping. I don’t really mind having Caroline around.”
“But does she always have to be around? Calling the bakery phone, and showing up like that?” Isabel asked. “This is a business, not a playground. And not just any business.” Her eyes darted toward the front door to make sure no more customers were coming in. “You know, at the convention we discussed the necessary precautions of discretion in an increasingly polarized world.”
Whenever Isabel used that tone of voice, it meant she was discussing very important grown-up issues. Leo rolled her eyes.
“Caroline already knows about magic,” she reminded Isabel, turning to Mamá for support, “and some people have to know we do magic—who would know to ask for all those special orders, if no one who wasn’t a bruja knew about us? It’s not like it’s some big secret, right?”
“Well.” Mamá sighed. “It’s a little bit complicated. Some of our best customers here in Rose Hill know something about what we do, but we’re certainly not advertising our spells far and wide, and I think it’s best to keep it that way. This sounds like a topic for a family meeting, some time when we’re not all upset and busy with—”
The beeping of an oven interrupted her, and she patted Leo’s hair as she rushed toward the back of the kitchen. “We’ll talk,” she promised, “as soon as we can all have a breather!” She hurried back into the kitchen.
Leo balled her fists and ground the toe of her sneaker against a spiderweb crack in the tile.
Belén sighed and shrugged. She had gathered up her armful of candles. “Tía Paloma told me not to light any more of these inside, so we’re heading to the parking lot to test out some potential spell ideas.”
“We were going to try to see if the right type of candle can help us channel without using so much power,” Alma added. “Do you want to come, Leo? You could try lighting a pink candle to help make up with Caroline.”
Leo felt like a rubber band pulled from too many sides. She wanted to join the twins in the parking lot and see if she could pick up some interesting tricks from their new magic lessons. She wanted to run out the front door and chase Caroline down to apologize. She wanted to stay here and show Mamá that she was focused, that she was helping.
“Maybe I’ll meet you out there.”
“Sure.” Alma waved with one hand while grabbing a teetering candle before it fell out of Belén’s grasp. “Oh no, where did the yellow one go? Did you drop it? I rolled it in some crushed-up Solomon’s seal to see if that would add strength, and I really wanted to see how that worked. . . .” The twins headed through the doors, bickering softly about candles and herbs.
Leo whirled angrily to face Isabel. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” Isabel asked, standing and brushing her knees as she finished inspecting the floor for shards. She picked up the empty conchas tray and held it in front of her stomach like a shield.
“Caroline helps me study. She’s seen the spell book. You don’t have be so rude; she knows about magic, and she’s always been trustworthy.”
Isabel sighed, lowering the tray to the floor. “Oh, Leo, I know that.”
“Then why are you so weird about it?” Leo’s stomach ached remembering Caroline’s sad face, and it felt good to blame Isabel and her family and all their confusing rules. She thought of the Día de los Muertos festival, how she had snuck into the tent where Alma and Belén were secretly helping people contact their loved ones who had passed on. “Why do only some people get to know about what we do? Like Alma and Belén’s messenger booth at the festival? I mean, I didn’t even know what the booth was for until I decided to spy on them!”
“It’s like Mamá said. Complicated.”
Leo threw up her hands. “Complicated” was what everyone said when they didn’t have any good reasons and didn’t want to explain themselves.
“This is why we usually wait until everyone is fifteen to initiate—” Isabel started, but she pressed her lips together when she saw Leo’s face turn dark.
This again. She had thought that being initiated into the family magic, getting permission to study and work in the bakery, would put an end to her sisters holding her age against her, but they still reminded her that she wasn’t old enough or smart enough. “I don’t care that I’m not fifteen. I don’t care if you think I’m too young.” Leo spat the lie like sour milk to get the taste out of her mouth. She felt ready to scream.
“If you would just calm down for a second . . .” Isabel took a deep breath. As she let it out, a soft feeling settled over Leo’s skin, raising goose bumps on her arms. Her head felt light, and the sharp bite of guilt and resentment started to loosen its hold on her stomach. Annoyance bloomed underneath the calm as she realized that Isabel was using her special power of influence to soothe Leo’s emotions, but soon even that pain melted away into stillness.
“Stop it,” Leo said. Her voice was soft in her ears. If she was Marisol, she would roughen it into a hiss, push back against Isabel’s spell, and get even madder than before, just to prove she could.
Isabel dropped the spell. Leo’s head steadied and her skin prickled again. Her troubled feelings returned in a wave of tension, but she felt them less fiercely than before. She didn’t mind Isabel’s power. It was helpful to quiet her mind so she could focus on her question.
“I guess I just don’t understand. How secret is our magic supposed to be?” Leo asked.
“It’s not exactly secret,” Isabel said. “We’re registered for the Southwest Regional Brujería and Spellcraft newsletter; it’s not like we’re in hiding. It’s just . . . people who aren’t brujas . . . they don’t always understand. Our customers who know are the people we trust to keep quiet, and not to
spread lies or mistrust about what we do. I’m sure you know that some people think brujos and brujas do evil magic. We can’t take the risk of one of those people finding out about us.”
Leo nodded. It was beginning to make sense, now that Isabel was actually explaining it. She imagined what would happen if her friend Brent’s mom, who loved to gossip and complain, found out Leo had accidentally shrunk her son in November. She would do everything she could to put the bakery out of business, and probably to get Leo arrested!
“I know Caroline is your friend,” Isabel continued, “but she’s already used you to magically solve her problems once. The more she knows about your powers—”
“That wasn’t Caroline’s idea,” Leo interrupted. When she had cast the love spells that went so wrong, it was Caroline who had tried to convince her to be more careful. “And even if she did, so what? Lots of people need magic help. That’s why we have this bakery in the first place.”
“Customers are different. Most of them just think we make ordinary—but extraordinarily delicious—breads and cakes.” She smiled. “The rest, who know what we do, pay for an answer, or a feeling, or a superstition. Half the time they don’t really believe in what they’re buying. Or they don’t know how everything works, they just know that it does. They don’t really understand our powers. It’s easier that way. They don’t get scared, or angry, or ask for more than we can deliver.”
Leo shrugged. It didn’t sound easier to her. Wouldn’t everyone rather have a friend like Caroline, who helped her learn about her power, than customers who used it without caring where it came from?
“I’m just saying,” Isabel said. “Sometimes you have to choose, Leo. It’s good to have friends at school, but they’re never going to be like your family, and they’re never going to understand . . . all of this.”
Choose? Leo didn’t want to choose between Caroline and her sisters. She wanted her family to include Caroline so she didn’t have to choose.