by Anna Meriano
Leo beamed. “That sounds like a good idea.”
“You should talk to your family too,” Tricia told Leo. “About Caroline, I mean. They’re being unreasonable. You should tell them so. And apologize to Caroline. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear from you.”
“Yeah . . .” Leo shrugged, feeling like the world’s biggest phony. Tricia was ready to be brave and tell her father the truth. Leo was still protecting her family by lying to her friends. Caroline wouldn’t want to hear from her, not when Leo hadn’t changed anything about her actions.
“Hang on.” Tricia sniffed. “I need to get a tissue. Be right back.” She stood up and turned toward the hallway. Mrs. Morales dived out of sight. “Thanks,” Tricia said before she left the room.
For three seconds, alone in the kitchen, Leo hesitated. She could leave the note. She could stop lying.
But would the note make Tricia feel any better? Or would it just make her confused, or angry, or scared? And if Tricia was going to speak up and talk to her father, he wouldn’t need the note anyway.
She slipped into the living room, lifted the note off the coffee table, and folded it carefully into her pocket before returning to the kitchen.
“I think I’m going to go,” she said when Tricia returned with a handful of tissues. “You were right. I need to talk to my family. Thanks for listening.”
“No, thank you,” Tricia said. “I’m sorry I made everything about my own problems.”
Leo almost burst out laughing. Tricia was far less guilty of that selfishness than Leo was.
“Are you sure you don’t want to hang out?” Tricia asked. She wiped her still-red nose. “Mai is going to come over in a couple of hours.”
“No thanks.” Leo smiled. “My sister is supposed to bring me to the bakery soon. I should get back home. Tell Mai hi from me, though.”
She left, waved until Tricia closed the door, then sprinted down the block to Marisol’s car.
Mrs. Morales sat calmly in the back seat of the van, hands connected to the armrests with plastic zip ties and a huge smile spread across her face.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Marisol said before Leo could ask about the spirit’s escape.
Leo raised her eyebrows, noticing the red imprint of zip ties on Marisol’s wrists.
Marisol shook her head. “I found a new useful object to summon, and it backfired at first. I really don’t want to talk about it. Did you get it?”
“I got it.” Leo produced the note from her pocket and handed it to Abuela, who passed it into Mrs. Morales’s bound hands. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 8
DETOUR
Mrs. Morales’s happiness didn’t wear off as they drove toward the bakery, especially when Marisol reached back to turn the summoned zip ties back into nothing. “My granddaughter is an amazing girl,” she told Abuela as the car bumped out of the neighborhood. “I felt so useless and worried before. I couldn’t do anything to help Freddy, and I could see how scared he was. But now I know Tricia will work it out. She’s such a good girl. And Freddy will do the right thing for her.”
Abuela nodded. “You raised him right,” she said.
“He’s stubborn like me.” Mrs. Morales sighed. “I was never any good at being sick.”
“I remember,” Abuela teased. “You made me walk you home on that sprained ankle just because you thought Alfredo was babying you.”
Mrs. Morales laughed. “I forgot all about that!”
“That’s because you weren’t the one you were leaning on,” Abuela said. “I probably still have the bruises, mira.”
Leo smiled in spite of her nervous stomachache. Even knowing that the spirits didn’t belong here, she still liked getting to know Abuela better, listening to her joke with her friend. She was happy that Tricia had a possible solution to her problem, and that Mrs. Morales felt better. But now that the note was taken care of, Leo was back to worrying. As they drove toward the bakery, she wondered again if Mamá would blame her for the spirits’ appearance. She wondered if she was really a bad friend—if Caroline would forgive her, or if Tricia would think of her differently if she knew that what Leo had told her was mostly lies.
She looked in the rearview mirror to watch the two old ladies—and gasped at what she saw.
“What?” Marisol slammed on the brakes. “What is it?”
“Abuela, your hair.” Leo stared. Her grandmother’s silver bun was streaked with black, and Mrs. Morales’s white hair had darkened to a salt-and-pepper gray. The two ghosts looked at each other.
“I thought I felt younger spending time with you,” Abuela said, her eyes wide.
Mrs. Morales chuckled and rubbed the thinner wrinkles on her face. “Do you think we can keep this up? We’ll be young enough to go dancing by the end of the night.”
Marisol started driving again, her mouth a tight line. “Did you forget we’re trying to keep you out of sight?” she asked.
“Of course, of course,” Abuela said. “We’re only joking. . . . Although, well, nobody around here would recognize us. They never knew us as young women.”
“Their loss,” Mrs. Morales added, and Abuela let out another burst of laughter.
Marisol pressed the gas pedal extra hard, and the van lumbered down the street with a roar.
“Can y’all duck or something?” Marisol asked as they turned onto Main Street. She nervously watched the car on their right until it pulled in front of them, then switched to eyeing Ms. Flores, who was outside sprucing up the window decorations of her restaurant. “I feel like everyone can see you.”
Abuela and Mrs. Morales just giggled harder.
Tiny raindrops collected on the windshield as the car approached the bakery. When the giggling cut off suddenly, Leo perked up her ears. Mrs. Morales whispered, “¿Esos son . . . ?”
Leo glanced in the rearview mirror to see Abuela and Mrs. Morales pointing and staring at something on the other side of the car. She spun around in her seat to follow the pointing fingers.
On the sidewalk, scattered somewhat by the drizzle but leaving an unmistakable trail up to the green-awninged door of the hardware store, was a line of orange petals.
“Stop the car!” Leo shouted. Marisol shouted a curse word back, and everyone slumped forward as the brakes squealed.
“What happened?” Marisol asked. “Someone sees us, right? Someone’s going to ask questions.” She took several quick breaths. “Okay, we should get our stories straight. You’re our aunts. Our great-aunts visiting from Mexico, and, um, Abuela had a twin sister and Mrs. Morales is related by marriage and—”
“Marisol.” Leo pointed at the hardware store. “Nobody saw us, but I think there’s a spirit in there. I’m going inside. Watch them.” She was running as soon as her feet hit the asphalt.
The hardware store didn’t have a bell, but it had an orange cat that meowed when Leo opened the door, almost catching its tail. Cannon’s Hardware was a large rectangular building with aluminum walls and concrete floors, separated into sections for tools, lumber, plumbing, and other things Leo didn’t know anything about. The only part of the store she’d ever visited with Mamá was the plexiglass-enclosed annex in the back, where they sold plants and gardening supplies. The line of petals, the same color as the cat who was sniffing them, led straight back to the annex.
There was a teenager in a green polo shirt sweeping marigold petals into a dustpan in front of the gardening section. His light brown skin, wavy black hair, and large ears looked familiar; Leo was sure he went to Rose Hill High School, and she thought he might even be a friend of Marisol’s. Maybe it would have been better if she had followed the petals.
“Hi, can I help you find anything,” he droned, tugging only one earbud out of his ear. He looked Leo up and down—mostly down, since he was over six feet tall. “Did you, uh, lose your parents?”
Leo opened her mouth to tell him that she was not a little kid, but then she swallowed the words as an idea ballooned out of her annoya
nce.
“Yes,” she said. “I was with my . . . aunt? Uncle? My aunt and my uncle. I lost them, and I think one of them came in here. I’m not sure which.”
The teen gave a slow shrug. “Yeah, I saw a couple people. They were in here just a minute ago, buying flowers with their kids. I didn’t see what a mess they made until after they left.” He nodded at the dustpan.
Leo’s eyes bulged. “I don’t think that was them,” she squeaked, hoping that there wasn’t a whole family of spirits walking the town.
“Well, then it’s just been that guy.” The teen pointed, then frowned. “Aw jeez, does nobody understand how to look at a flower without ripping it to shreds?”
The customer in the gardening annex stood inspecting a pair of shears, surrounded by another puddle of petals.
“That must be him!” Leo yelped. “Um, I mean, yep, that is him. Definitely.”
The teen raised two bushy black eyebrows. “That’s your uncle?”
The man, Leo realized a second late, was easily as old as Abuela, hunched and balding and white, with pale pink skin and rosy cheeks.
“Great-uncle,” she said. “By marriage.”
The kid shrugged, turning back to his dustpan. Leo squeezed her hands together to keep them steady, hardly believing she had gotten away with her terrible lie. But she still needed to distract the store employee before she could confront the spirit. The old man might do any number of noticeable things, from spraying petals all over the place to making a big deal out of the fact that he had no idea who Leo was.
Her mind raced along with her heart. She needed a shiny distracting lie, one that would tempt the employee away from his dustpan. What did teenage boys like? She didn’t spend much time with teenage boys, except her cousin J.P., who was on her dad’s side of the family and liked movies about space. The only other teenage boys Leo had spent any time with were the ones who followed Marisol home and looked at her like lost puppies.
Well . . . it was worth a shot.
“Um, do you know my sister?” Leo asked the employee. “Marisol Logroño?”
His eyebrows jumped again, and his voice came out in a squeak when he said, “Oh, that’s your sister?” He coughed and continued, in a lower voice, “Yeah, we have some classes together. She’s cool. Whatever.” The tips of his ears started to turn red. “Why?”
“Well, she’s outside,” Leo said. “Waiting with my . . . other great-aunts. We’re having a family reunion. For Día de los Reyes?” Leo clamped her mouth shut before she could add any more confusing details to her lie, but luckily the boy was nodding without seeming to listen, his eyes turned toward the windows at the front of the shop. She took a breath. “Anyway, she said she wanted to say hello.”
“Yeah, cool. That’s cool.” He cleared his throat. “I should take the trash out anyway, before I have to bag all these flower petals.” He left the broom propped against the wall and jogged toward the front door, only stopping to pick up the mostly empty trash can on his way out.
Leo grinned. Teenagers were too easy. Now for the old man.
“Excuse me,” she said. The man didn’t look up from the shears. His eyes scanned the label, mouth moving as he read. “Um, excuse me?” she repeated. “Sir?” She took another step into the annex to tap the man on the shoulder.
He startled, dropping the pair of shears. “Sakes alive,” he said loudly. “Don’t sneak up like that, young lady. How can I help you?”
Leo tried out her best friendly smile. “My name is Leo Logroño, and I know you came from el Otro Lado—”
“Speak up a little?” the man asked, turning to face Leo head on and leaning forward.
“Um, hi, I’m Leo. I know that you’re . . .” Leo didn’t want to shout about spirits. “Well, I need you to . . .” The old man stared intently at her and moved his lips along with her as she spoke, which was distracting. “Um, can you just come with me, please?”
The man nodded along with her words, but then he straightened and shook his head.
“Sorry, young lady. I’m on a mission. You wouldn’t believe the state my garden is in right now! A complete mess—totally neglected! I’ve only been gone for half a decade or so, and it seems that nobody so much as weeded it in all that time. I know January isn’t the ideal month to get one’s garden back in order, but with a little luck . . .” He started back down the aisle, picking up a new pair of shears and muttering to himself about planting seasons and perennials, trailing orange petals behind him.
“No,” Leo said, and then louder, “No, wait! You have to come with me.” Leo gritted her teeth. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Just right, young lady. Which species can survive transplanting at this time of year? I don’t know how long I have to get everything looking nice before I’m pulled back, after all.”
“That’s not what I . . .” Leo stomped her foot in frustration and almost slipped on the marigolds. If only she had Isabel’s power to make him feel like doing what she needed him to do, or Marisol’s power to produce spiders and wasps out of thin air—that would drive him out of the shop. Or if Caroline were here, she would know just what to say to convince him to come outside.
“Sir,” she said, forcing her voice to be calm, “I know what you’re talking about. I know where you were pulled from. And it’s very important that you come with me right now. It’s . . . sort of an emergency.”
The man, squinting at a row of potted shrubs farther down the aisle, didn’t even acknowledge that she had spoken. She didn’t have her sisters’ powers, or her friend’s help, and there was no time to waste, and that meant she was going to have to get creative.
Leo caught up with the old man and tugged his sleeve until he faced her again. “Sir, what I was trying to tell you is that you should come with me . . . to the plant nursery. It’s new in town, and has a much greater selection. If you really want to repair your garden, I can show you where it is.” She made sure to speak up. “If you come right now, during our, um, opening weekend, you can get a twenty percent discount.” Leo flashed her best salesperson smile, perfected at the bakery register. “Don’t you at least want to come see our inventory?”
The old man chewed on his bottom lip. “I don’t know if I like your business practices. Hiring children, stealing customers out from other stores.” He looked down at the shrub in his hand, bringing it closer to his face to read the price tag. “Twenty percent, you said?”
“Opening weekend only.” Leo smiled and raised her eyebrows. Her fingernails dug into her palms.
“Well, all right. I suppose I can take a look, at least. Lead the way, young lady.”
Leo didn’t wait for him to change his mind. She tugged him out of the annex, through the front doorway, past the boy in the green polo, who leaned against Marisol’s window. Leo pulled open the door of the van and shoved the old man into the back seat. “Complimentary shuttle,” she explained when he looked like he might object, and she jumped into the front seat herself. “Go, go!” she whispered to Marisol, who nodded, waved the smiling boy back from the car, and pulled away from the curb.
“This doesn’t look like a shuttle,” the new spirit said as Marisol revved the engine. “Where did you say the nursery was located?” When Leo couldn’t think of an answer, he tapped the back of Marisol’s head. “Excuse me, miss, do you work for the plant nursery?”
“Leo, what is he talking about?” Marisol asked. “Did you lie to this old man?”
Leo shrank in her seat. “He wasn’t listening.”
“Don’t worry,” Abuela told the man. “The girls are here to help. They’re going to send us back across the veil.”
“Send us back?” the man huffed. “But what about my garden?”
“Oh dear, this poor soul wants to tend to his garden.” Mrs. Morales sighed wistfully. “Surely you’ll let him do that before you send us all back, won’t you? It’s such a reasonable request; what could be the harm?”
“Nobody’s doing anything with any gard
ens,” Marisol said. “You’re all going back the second we can work out the spell!”
“Abduction, and gross dishonesty,” the old man complained at top volume. “I thought you were a nice young lady, but it turns out you’re nothing but a con artist!”
Leo balled her hands into fists and counted down the blocks to the bakery to avoid the sour pit of guilt in her stomach. She didn’t want to lie or keep an old man away from his garden, but the spirits had to stay hidden, and wandering around the hardware store was far from hidden.
“Watch how you talk to my granddaughter,” Abuela warned, but the old man kept complaining right up until Marisol scraped the front bumper against the curb parking in the back lot behind the bakery.
Leo’s muscles relaxed. Next to her, Marisol let out a long sigh. Even the back seat went quiet long enough for Leo to breathe in the aroma of baking bread. For the first time since Abuela had woken her up, she felt safe.
“Where are we?” the old man asked.
With the strength of Amor y Azúcar surrounding her, Leo turned around in her seat.
“I’m really sorry I tricked you,” she said. “My name is Leo Logroño, and my sister Marisol and I are brujas, and I accidentally brought you into the real world—well, we think I did, anyway, but it doesn’t matter how you got here, because we’re the ones who are going to help get you back. And I’m sorry about your garden. If you tell me where it is, maybe I can check on it for you?” The old man still looked suspicious, so Leo held out her hand as a peace offering.
The man shook it. “Well, it’s nice to meet you after all, Leo. Call me Old Jack. I suppose it was a bit mean to call you a con artist.”
Leo nodded. “It’s okay. You understand, though, don’t you? Spirits aren’t supposed to be in this world. I need to get all of you inside so my mom and my aunt can figure out what to do about this.”
Old Jack shrugged. “I thought it was my chance to fix things,” he said.
“I thought so too.” Mrs. Morales patted his shoulder.
“But it wasn’t,” Abuela said. “It was just a mistake. Think of it as a joyride. We have to return the car eventually.”