by Anna Meriano
CHAPTER 10
CAROLINE’S HOUSE
With three brujas and three spirits, Mamá’s van was stuffed like the walk-in fridge on milk and egg delivery day. Tía Paloma drove in her usual haphazard way, blinking owlishly at stop signs as she barreled through them and making as many wrong turns as right. She talked through her ideas for the location-based spell-revealing spell, half to herself and half to Isabel next to her.
Leo, seated in the second row of back seats, strained to hear their discussion.
“The revealing spell will confirm if the spirits really originated from something Caroline did,” Isabel said. “I’m still not so sure Leo didn’t have something to do with it.”
Leo tried to protest, but of course no one paid attention.
“You might be right, but even so, the spirits are gathering in that house. It must be relevant somehow. And even if we just get a glimpse of the original spell, that will make it much easier to cook up an unraveling spell.” Tía Paloma slammed on the brakes, and all the passengers jolted forward.
Leo had used an unraveling spell to reverse the effects of a problematic spell once before. They were tricky to get right because you had to use ingredients that were the magical opposites of those used in the original spell. Leo tapped her feet against the floor of the van and hoped that the revealing spell turned up useful information. She would be terrified to try to reverse a spell when she didn’t even know what the original spell was.
Isabel, though, grinned. Magical theory was her favorite aspect of being a bruja. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“For good reason,” Tía Paloma warned, her voice sober. “This isn’t a game, Isabel. Whatever Leo or Caroline are messing with, it’s dangerous.”
“I know.” Isabel’s voice lost its sparkle. “I didn’t mean . . . This never would have happened if Leo hadn’t been doing so much magic with Caroline.”
Leo sat back against her seat angrily. She was tired of being blamed for everything, tired of Isabel’s rudeness toward her friend. She turned her face to the rain-sprinkled window, no longer interested in hearing the magical shop talk. In the first row of back seats, Abuela and Mrs. Morales fought for elbow room and joked about when they were young. Old Jack leaned against the window next to them and sighed every time they passed a particularly nice garden.
As her mind began to wander, Leo thought she saw something shimmer in front of the window, like a piece of plastic wrap covering the glass. She reached for it, but when she moved her hand toward the window, it blurred and rippled. Before she could figure out what it was, they were pulling onto Caroline’s street. It was still and silent, and they found her driveway empty. The oleander bushes on either side of her door didn’t even rustle in the breeze. Leo climbed over the back seat and tumbled out to stand on the wet lawn with Tía Paloma, Isabel, Abuela, and the other spirits.
“Oh yes,” Abuela whispered, breaking the hush. “This is where it started. I can feel it.”
Mrs. Morales nodded, giving an exaggerated shiver and spraying flower petals into Leo’s face.
“What does that mean?” Leo asked Isabel in a low voice, but Isabel busied herself taking Tía Paloma’s books out of the van, arranging the stack neatly in her arms in size order, and adjusting the purse across her shoulder.
Leo huffed out an angry breath and marched up to the front door. She tried sniffing the air, but she only smelled the sharp smell of wet grass and dirt and oleander. No spice. “I don’t feel anything,” she muttered.
But when she rang the doorbell and faced the frosted-glass panel of Caroline’s door, the white window seemed to shimmer with a shiny film, just as the one in the car had. Was this the power Abuela felt? Leo rubbed her eyes until Caroline’s face appeared in the doorway.
“Leo!” Caroline opened the door only a crack, poked her head out, and glanced up and down the street. “I’m so glad you’re here. Things are getting hectic, and I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier, but it’s really scary and I don’t know what to do. Oh.” Isabel walked up behind Leo, and Caroline ducked to hide her eyes behind her bangs. “Hi, Isabel.”
“Caroline.” Isabel matched Caroline’s cold voice.
Leo stifled a groan. She didn’t have time to figure out how to fix things between her sister and her friend. “Shouldn’t we get the spirits inside?” she reminded them.
Leo hadn’t seen the Campbells’ living room so loud and busy since before Mrs. Campbell got sick. There was Mr. Nguyen, who had taught music at Rose Hill Elementary until Leo was in fourth grade. Even though he was a spirit, Leo grinned when she saw the familiar glasses and gray hair—he had always been one of her favorite teachers. She smiled and waved.
Beside him was a pale man with a long gray beard, big-toothed smile, and thick hair slicked to one side like Daddy when he was getting dressed for church. And there was also a tall, muscular middle-aged man with tattoos peeking out of the sleeves of his leather jacket and over the collar of his blue T-shirt.
Leo raised her eyebrows. Her morning had been stressful, frustrating, and confusing, but at least she hadn’t had to deal with a group of strange grown-ups all on her own. She felt extra impressed with Caroline, and extra happy that her family was here now, ready to help banish the spirits for good.
“Miguel Antonio Pérez!” Abuela’s voice and laugh cut over the general chatter of six ghosts and four humans. “Is that really you?”
Mrs. Morales tugged Abuela’s sleeve, looking embarrassed, but Abuela ignored her. “You really grew into that height, didn’t you? I haven’t seen you in years! Long before I died, I mean.”
The muscled, tattooed man clomped over to Abuela in boots Marisol would envy. He grinned and clapped Abuela into a hug, then held his arms open for Mrs. Morales.
“Lucy and Leti, you’re both looking beautiful as ever. Tell me you weren’t this young when you stretched up your paws?” He frowned. “Huh. It’s convenient to be able to speak in English easily now, but some things really don’t sound as good.”
Mrs. Morales looked about three inches shorter than usual, but she gave the man a quick hug and kissed his cheek. “No, Miguel Antonio,” she said, “some of us had enough sense to avoid those terrible motorcycles and got to see our old age.” She frowned at him, and hit the shoulder of his leather jacket lightly. “You upset your family, you know. Ratoncito.”
“Ah, Leti, I know. I owe them an apology.” The man, Mr. Pérez, shrugged his big shoulders. “So that’s why you married Alfredo and not me, right?”
For a second, Mrs. Morales looked like she had taken a big sip of milk only to find it sour. But then her face relaxed and she clicked her tongue at the big man. “Sinvergüenza,” she muttered, loud enough for him to hear and chuckle.
Meanwhile, the older man made his way around the room, shaking hands with Tía Paloma and Isabel and Old Jack before reaching the corner of the couch where Leo and Caroline stood.
“Abraham Rose,” he announced. “Former mayor of Rose Hill. I was around back when Rose Hill was nothing more than unincorporated territory.” He winked at Leo. “And look how we’ve grown.” He swept his hands in a circle as if the whole town could be seen through the closed blinds of the living room.
The bustle was starting to remind Leo of Easter gatherings with the Logroño side of the family, with her aunts and uncles and cousins who normally lived across the state all packed into one house for the weekend and usually fighting with each other in between mouthfuls of chocolate. She stepped back to put more of the couch between her and the spirits, catching Caroline’s eye as she did.
“There’s a lot going on,” Caroline said, scooting into the corner next to Leo. She gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Leo smiled and returned the shrug. “Me too,” she said. “I thought my magic was malfunctioning again.”
Caroline wrapped her arms around her stomach. “How do we fix this? I don’t even know what’s happening.”
“
That’s what we’re here to figure out.” Tía Paloma squeezed around Miguel Antonio’s broad frame to join the two girls in their corner. “But we can’t get started without more information. Is there a quieter place we can sit and talk through this?”
Caroline glanced at the spirits as Isabel nodded her way out of another handshake from Mayor Rose. “I’m not sure about leaving them alone,” she admitted. “Mr. Pérez tried to sneak out the back door twice already to find his sister, and the mayor won’t stop talking about getting over to city hall to register as a candidate in the next election.”
“I know just how to get the town back on track,” Mayor Rose interjected, his head swiveling as soon as he heard Caroline mention him. “I’ll put us back on the map. I just need to fill out the paperwork before the deadline.”
Caroline rolled her eyes and snorted, but Leo didn’t think the idea of a dead mayor walking into city hall was very funny. Isabel kept her face calm, but by the way she smoothed the front of her skirt and then twisted her hands together, Leo guessed she wasn’t amused either.
“If this guy is running for mayor, I don’t see why I can’t pull a few weeds in my garden,” Old Jack grumbled.
“Or why I can’t go tune the school piano,” Mr. Nguyen added. “Mr. Song has no idea how to treat it. He got rid of my dehumidifier; he never puts the cover on it at the end of the school day. . . . I didn’t leave my Steinway to the school for a whole generation of music students to be singing flat Cs and sharp Es.”
“I can’t hear myself think.” Tía Paloma sighed. “This is too much ghost chatter, even for me.”
“Actually . . .” Isabel smoothed her already wrinkle-free skirt again. “I have a way to help with that part. If we want to talk privately.” She opened the round black purse hanging from her shoulder and pulled out a bundle twisted in wax paper, with two lumps on top and a smooth circular bottom. Tía Paloma clapped her hands and nodded when she saw it.
“Is that a listening oreja?” Leo asked. She had seen her sisters make batches of those rolled-up pastries, spelled to make whoever ate them into a better listener. The recipe in the family spell book called for the bruja to listen to two sides of an argument while rolling butter into the pastry dough. Mamá and Marisol had helped Isabel with that part.
“‘Share a bite with a friend or an enemy, and soon you’ll be able to hear each other without impediments or distractions.’” Isabel quoted the family spell book from memory. “It’s usually used for emotional distractions, like when someone is too upset to listen, but it can work in lots of ways. I knew a Spanish speaker who used to use them to communicate better with her English-speaking coworkers. It didn’t change their languages, but it helped everyone try harder to understand, even when it wasn’t easy.” Isabel broke the oreja into four pieces, keeping one for herself and handing the others to Leo, Caroline, and Tía Paloma. “So let’s get rid of some of the impediments to our conversation.”
Leo brought her piece to her mouth, holding one hand under her chin to catch the thin crumbs that flaked off when she bit down. She tasted cinnamon sugar and buttery bread and the whiff of magic. Then, like a song fading out on the radio, the noise of Abuela laughing and Mrs. Morales scolding Mr. Pérez began to fade, along with Old Jack’s grumbling, Mayor Rose’s campaign speech, and Mr. Nguyen’s humming. Although the spirits were still in the room, Leo hardly noticed them anymore.
Caroline and Isabel let out twin sighs of relief.
“That’s much better,” Tía Paloma said. “Very good thinking, Isabel, bringing that along. I wasn’t even imagining such a commotion. Now I think we should start from the beginning with—”
“Wait,” Isabel said. “I have something I want to say first. It’s the reason I brought the oreja. I actually wasn’t expecting anything like this.” She gestured at the spirits.
Leo nodded, leaning toward Isabel instinctively as she waited for her sister to continue.
“I . . . well, I wanted to talk to you, Caroline.” Isabel ran her hands down her skirt once more and cleared her throat. “I wanted to apologize for . . . maybe not acting very friendly toward you yesterday at the bakery. Whenever you’re at the bakery, actually.”
Was it the oreja making Leo think she could hear a world of feelings behind Isabel’s words? As she wondered this, she thought of what Marisol had said, about Isabel not having any close friends from school, or from anywhere, and that she spent most of her time talking to Mamá or Tía Paloma or the Logroño cousins that were her age. She understood how Isabel might feel left out when Marisol went to parties with kids from Rose Hill High, parties with kids who were seniors like Isabel, and how that feeling of loneliness could have come out unfairly as resentment toward Leo and her friend. She remembered that Isabel hated breaking any rule or disappointing Mamá in any way—but that she had been the one to disobey tradition by telling Leo about the family magic just a few months ago, because she didn’t want Leo to feel lonely or left out anymore. And instead of keeping her sister’s secret, Leo had blabbed to Caroline and then made a huge mess of two spells, trying to fix Caroline’s friendship with Brent.
Maybe Isabel shouldn’t have taken all those feelings out on Caroline yesterday, but it did sort of make sense now.
“Thank you,” Caroline said. “I wasn’t trying to be annoying, hanging around so much, but I can see how it might be frustrating when everyone is so busy. I just like the bakery. I don’t want you all to hate me.”
Caroline didn’t have any sisters or brothers, and her family was all far away and separated by borders and language—and grief, now, after her mother had passed away. Naturally, she would like to sit by the cash register with Leo and pretend to belong in the easy routine of the bakery. It wasn’t the spells that drew her to help Leo study; she wasn’t trying to figure out Logroño family secrets like Leo had been last year, or looking for magical shortcuts to solve all her problems. She just wanted to be near the true magic of the Logroño family—their love and closeness.
“We don’t hate you,” Isabel said as she put her hand on the younger girl’s shoulder. “How could we hate someone who is so important to our favorite littlest sister?”
Caroline’s smile was small, and watery, but it was there. And Leo smiled as well.
“I’m glad you girls could work this out,” Tía Paloma said. “And I want you to know that as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome at the bakery anytime, Caroline.” Her smile was sincere. “Now, while we have a moment of peace and quiet, do you mind telling us how you think all the spirits came to be here?”
It was a little scary for Leo, hearing the confusion in her aunt’s words—the most expert bruja she knew was completely baffled. But she also felt less alone. It was going to take all of them to fix this, and Leo was confident they could.
“Okay,” Caroline said, her eyes cast down and her cheeks pink. She was embarrassed, confused, and scared—exactly how Leo remembered feeling all the times her spells had ended up wrong. “Here’s what happened.”
CHAPTER 11
STORIES
“When I was in Costa Rica,” Caroline said, “I felt really . . . I missed my mom a lot.”
Caroline had said something similar when she had come to the bakery the day before, but Leo hadn’t really been listening then. Her ears turned hot. She shouldn’t need a magic spell to listen to her friend. Just this weekend had been strange without Mamá in the bakery, everything changing and shifting to make up for her absence. She couldn’t imagine how much worse it would feel for Caroline to travel without her mother, how hard that trip would be.
“I guess I never realized that I’m so American. When I was with my mom, she would talk to everyone in the airport and in the stores and everything, and she made Costa Rica feel like home. But without her it just . . . didn’t. It all changed too.”
Leo thought about how Caroline and her dad had rearranged and redecorated their whole house in the past few months. They had wanted things to be different, to reflect the
truth that nothing would ever feel the same. But it seemed hard to face heartache without a familiar place to sleep.
“My family was nice, but I felt disconnected. Like, without my mom I’m not really part of the family. And then I tried calling Leo when I came back, but she could never talk, and so I went to the bakery, but everyone acted like I shouldn’t be there either. It’s just for your family. And I got mad. So I . . . I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. But I stole a candle.”
Tía Paloma nodded with a heavy sigh. “Belén’s candle.”
Caroline nodded. “I don’t know why I did it. But once I got home, I was thinking about how my grandmother has veladoras burning in her house, and how they’re supposed to be like prayers that keep going all the time. As long as the candle stays lit, it’s like someone’s still listening. And I wanted . . . that. I wanted Mom to be listening.”
“So you lit a candle for the dead.” Isabel nodded. “Of course you did. And with all your deep feelings poured into it, and the fact that it already had Belén’s spirit magic running through it . . .”
There was a long silence, and Leo wondered if the whisper in her head was Caroline’s thought or her own, or if everyone was thinking the same thing she was thinking, her eyes flickering across the six spirits in the room. Could Caroline’s action really have caused so many spirits to return from the dead?
“Caroline,” Tía Paloma said, her voice gentle, “this is very important. Does your family have any history of brujería? I admit it’s possible that what you did could have caused this, but in all my years I’ve never heard of such a powerful result with just a relic and some secondhand magical knowledge. If we have a second strain of witchcraft built into this spell, then it’s going to be extra complicated to unravel. We need to know as much as we can.”
“I don’t know,” Caroline said, and Leo could hear the truth in her words even without the oreja’s magic.