A Sprinkle of Spirits

by Anna Meriano

  She followed Isabel back to the living room. Tía Paloma had spread multiple books on the floor around the coffee table and set an assortment of candles and small herb pouches on the tabletop. “Be careful,” she intoned, barely looking up from her research.

  “Wait.” Abuela spoke behind her. “I’m coming with you.”

  Leo froze. “You are?”

  “Of course,” Abuela said. “It’s as much my fault as yours that the others all got spooked and left, and you’ll need someone who can knock Miguel Antonio upside the head if he gets too stubborn. Besides, this way you don’t need a bike, because I can drive.”

  Leo nodded slowly. “Sure, I . . . I guess?”

  “Oh, now, don’t take me too seriously, Leonora.” Abuela linked arms with Leo and walked her out the front door onto the soggy front lawn. “There won’t be any fighting, even with Miguel Antonio, I’m sure.”

  That wasn’t what had Leo’s stomach twisted in knots, but she shrugged and let Abuela lead her to the van, water from the ground seeping through the toes of her sneakers and making her socks sticky and cold. She had a plan for how to catch all the spirits, but it didn’t seem like a plan she should share with Abuela.

  “You know, Abuela,” Leo said, fiddling with Caroline’s cell phone in the pocket of her jeans. “Maybe we should split up. I could bike to the school and catch Mr. Nguyen. And you can drive to city hall and get started with Mayor Rose.” Leo smiled and tried to shrug casually. “It would probably be faster.”

  Abuela stopped just in front of the van, turning to look at Leo with one hand on the passenger-side door. “You really think so, Leonora?”

  Her dark eyes didn’t blink, and Leo felt herself shrink from the gaze. But she squared her shoulders. This was important. Too much time had passed already. They needed to round up the spirits as quickly as possible.

  “Sure,” she squeaked, then cleared her throat and calmed her voice to continue. “It’s no problem. Caroline offered her bike already.”

  Abuela let out a long breath—did spirits need to breathe, Leo wondered, or did they just do it for dramatic effect?—and pulled open the passenger door. “Get in, Leonora.”

  Leo climbed into the van without another word of protest. While Abuela walked around and opened the driver door, Leo stared at the pattern her wet and muddy tennis shoes left on the already soggy floor of the van.

  “I may be old. I may be dead. And I may be one solid breeze away from poofing into the star of some horror film,” Abuela said, hunched forward to reach the steering wheel but pausing before turning on the engine. “But I’m still not gullible. So why don’t you tell me the real reason you want to go off on your own?”

  Leo winced. Where was Mrs. Morales when you needed her to distract Abuela with memories about high school? As sneaky and dishonest as she could sometimes be, Leo felt a bigger-than-average twinge of guilt at the thought of lying straight to Abuela’s face.

  “I wasn’t trying to go off on my own,” she said slowly. Abuela’s eyebrows went up, and Leo lost all her defiance under the force of that disappointed expression. She pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and held it out like evidence, or like a plea. “I just want to find the spirits fast, and they’re all in different places. So I was thinking, maybe . . .”

  “Maybe?” Abuela tapped one finger against the steering wheel.

  “I thought I could call some people,” Leo finally admitted. “To help.”

  “Your friends,” Abuela said. Leo nodded. “You wanted to get your non-brujo friends and get them involved, and you didn’t want to tell your family you were doing it.” She took the phone out of Leo’s hands, turning it over thoughtfully.

  Leo hung her head. “I just wanted to fix it,” she said. “We need more hands to catch all the runaways.” Runaways who only ran because she hadn’t done her job.

  Abuela turned the key, and the van engine grumbled. “So okay. What was your plan? Who were you going to call?”

  “First I was going to knock on Brent Bayman’s door, right there.” She pointed to the house next to Caroline’s. “And send him to the school after Mr. Nguyen. Then I’d go to city hall on the bike, and Tricia Morales can get her grandmother, who will hopefully be headed back to her house. And then you could use the car.” Leo shrugged. “I don’t know where the other spirits will be, but if you drive all around town, maybe . . .”

  She stopped. Abuela was shaking her head.

  “I know.” Leo sighed. “We’re not supposed to involve people outside the family in bruja business. We’re supposed to be secretive. We’re not even supposed to have nonmagical friends.”

  “That’s what Isabel told you,” Abuela stated flatly.

  “And Marisol told me I should have friends, and that learning magic was the problem, and I shouldn’t do it.” Leo made a face at the dashboard. “It makes me wish . . .” She shook her head.

  “Wish what?” Abuela asked.

  Leo felt her throat squeeze inward. Wish I had never found out about magic. She couldn’t say that, though. She didn’t mean it. “We need to go,” she said instead. “We’re wasting time.”

  “Well, I’m trying to tell you,” Abuela said. “Your plan is wrong. Leti Morales isn’t going to her house. She’s helping Miguel Antonio get to his sister.”

  “Oh.” Leo frowned. “Okay. Is that around here?” Maybe all the spirits would stay near the center of town. Maybe she and Abuela would be just fine alone.

  “It’s out by Wide Oak Lane,” Abuela answered, “close by Leti’s house.”

  Leo groaned. That was still far from their current location. “What happens if we don’t catch them?” she asked softly.

  Abuela hesitated. “There might be a way to reverse the spell without the spirits being present, if your friend is very lucky and very clever,” she said. “But if not—and I think it’s unlikely—the spirits will wander until they tire out and disintegrate.”

  Leo frowned. “Then you shouldn’t come with me. You should stay here so that you can get sent back the second they figure it out. You have to be careful.”

  Abuela smiled, releasing the steering wheel and turning to face Leo.

  “Did you notice that each spirit that’s come back has a purpose? Some unfinished business in the world of the living?”

  Leo blinked. Old Jack’s garden, Mr. Nguyen’s piano, Mr. Pérez’s apology to his sister . . . Abuela was right. “But you don’t have one,” she said. “Do you?”

  Abuela smiled gently. “I showed up in your bedroom, Leo. Not in my house with Paloma. Not in my bakery. Because I wanted to talk.”

  “To me.” Leo’s face warmed. She was Abuela’s unfinished business. And that meant—her mouth dropped open in horror. It was her fault Abuela was in danger. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  Abuela waved away her apology with a flap of one hand. “Leo, your sisters don’t know everything.”

  “I know.” Leo shrugged.

  “They’re still young, and still figuring out their places in life,” Abuela continued. “And their places in the family, in the community. Same as you. And what’s best for them—when it comes to secrets, and family, and friends—might not always be what’s best for you.”

  “Really?” A tight knot of worry in Leo’s chest started to loosen.

  Abuela smiled softly. “It wasn’t always a secret, our magic. Back when this town first sprang up, people knew. It’s right there in the name of the bakery: Amor y Azucar. First and foremost, our magic is about love. Love for our family and our friends, for our customers and our town. Magic should strengthen relationships, not sever them.”

  The words swept over Leo like a wave, like music, flooding her emotions even quicker than Isabel’s influence. “I knew it,” she whispered fiercely. Then the wave crashed. “I should have known it.” She frowned. “I’m sorry, Abuela. I should have known it and then you wouldn’t have been pulled through and you wouldn’t be in danger of going poof and—”

  “Leonora,”
Abuela said. “Cálmate.”

  The soft Spanish word sparked a memory: a party in the backyard of the Logroño house, Leo crying into the front of her purple-and-white Easter dress because Marisol had smashed cascarones on her head and the broken eggshell and confetti pieces dug into her scalp and tangled in her hair. Daddy was breaking up a fight between his two sisters, and Mamá was keeping the twins from picking on their cousin J.P., so it was Abuela’s hands that had scooped Leo into the air, patted her back, and worked the debris out of her ponytail. It was Abuela’s voice that had whispered, “Cálmate, Leonora, mijita linda.”

  Leo didn’t know until that moment that she had any memories of Abuela alive, and she squeezed her eyes shut to concentrate on locking this one into her brain where she would never lose it again.

  “I didn’t come here just for you,” Abuela said. “I wanted to talk to you first, because you needed help immediately, to fix things with Caroline. But that wasn’t the only reason.” Abuela sighed, her eyes flicking to the green-glowing clock on the van’s dashboard—10:41. “I’m afraid now that we’re running out of time, so I may need to trust you with delivering the message to Isabel and Marisol. I don’t want you all to grow up thinking that you have to choose between being a bruja and having good friends, isolating yourselves because of something that should be connecting you. If I had gotten that same advice, Leti and I would never have been best friends!”

  Understanding sparked like Christmas lights in Leo’s mind. “Abuela, are you saying . . . ?”

  “I’m saying you’re right; we won’t be able to do this alone.” Abuela put the cell phone back in Leo’s hands. “Call your friends.”

  CHAPTER 13

  CALLING ALL SPIRIT HUNTERS

  “The spirits drop these orange petals,” Leo explained to Brent Bayman. “So you can follow any trails you see. Mr. Nguyen should be easy to spot, since the school will be mostly empty. Are you sure you can do this?”

  “Oh, I can find him,” Brent said, showing off shiny braces in a wide smile and squeezing the brakes of the bicycle he perched on with one foot on the ground. “I’m just worried about what happens once I do. Are you sure I shouldn’t have some kind of, I don’t know, equipment?”

  “This isn’t Ghostbusters,” Leo said. “They’re just regular people.” Brent raised his eyebrows, and Leo sighed. “Who are dead and are actually spirits pulled through the veil, yes, okay. But my point is you just need to talk to him and explain that he needs to come back to Caroline’s or else he might disappear forever. Use your words.”

  “Use your words,” Brent grumbled. “Sure, everyone else gets magic and spells, and I get ‘use your words.’” He stuck out his tongue and smiled, though, so Leo knew he wasn’t really mad.

  Brent had found out about Leo’s magic the hard way, when Leo accidentally made him fall in love with the whole school and then shrank him to the size of a gingerbread man, which could be why he had taken the news of Caroline’s new powers in stride, staying totally calm except for one long loud whistle of surprise. He had greeted Abuela cheerfully, having met her last November when he was two inches tall and she was a regular ghost. And best of all, he had shown no hesitation when Leo asked for his help tracking down a piano-obsessed spirit—though he had made Leo promise him free bakery goodies if he helped her out.

  In fact, the only part of this whole situation he found unreasonable was his lack of proper weaponry. It made Leo want to laugh—and maybe also cry—that her friend trusted her even after all the trouble her magic had caused him.

  “So I’ll find him, and I’ll bring him back here, and I’ll meet up with you and your spirits and everyone, and you will pay me back with free cake.” Brent nodded, clipped his green-and-blue helmet under his chin, and lifted his foot to coast down the driveway. “Sounds good. Last one back has the sulfuric odor but none of the compostable nutrients of a rotten egg!”

  Leo nodded and waved, rolling her eyes a little. Abuela honked from the van, and Leo hopped into the passenger seat, buckling her seat belt as Abuela followed Brent to the end of the block. She pulled out the phone once more.

  “Go ahead, Leonora,” Abuela said.

  Leo nodded but gulped. Brent, even though he was a tough negotiator, was the easy one. Calling Tricia was more complicated. Just a few hours ago, Leo had lied to her friend’s face. How angry would Tricia be when Leo told her the truth? But there was no other way. She found Tricia’s name in Caroline’s contacts, gritted her teeth, and tapped the call button. She needed the help, and if her friend hated her after this was over, then she would be getting what she deserved.

  The phone rang. And rang. Leo squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Caroline? What’s up?”

  Leo had totally forgotten which phone she was calling from.

  “Hi, Tricia,” she said. “It’s actually Leo. I’m using Caroline’s phone.”

  “Oh!” Tricia said. “Did you two make up? I knew you would. Mai’s here now, and we . . .” Mai’s voice shouted something muffled. “Yes, you two should come over! We can do a mini snack-club meeting—I have brownie mix, I think.”

  “Wait,” Leo said. “Um, I have something sort of . . . huge to tell you. And I need to ask a big favor.”

  “Are you okay?” Tricia asked. “Is everything okay with your family?”

  “Yes, yes, we’re all fine. We’re just . . .” Leo glanced at Abuela, who nodded. “This is so weird,” Leo whispered to her grandmother before speaking into the phone in one giant rush. “My family and I are actually brujas? And there are a bunch of spirits on the loose because of a spell that went wrong and . . . well, Caroline’s involved too, but we’re not exactly sure how that works, but I sort of need help catching them? And one of them is your grandma, so I probably should have told you that when I saw you this morning. But I didn’t. Sorry. She left your dad a note, but I stole it. Sorry again. Anyway, you don’t have to help, but it’s really important that we find them and we need more people, and oh, and do you mind telling Mai? That way you can both work together. It’s okay, she can know about our secret too, I trust her.”

  Tricia was silent. Leo heard rustling and crackling noises and wondered if Tricia was about to hang up on her. The phone beeped, and a slightly muffled voice asked, “Hello?”

  “Mai?”

  “You’re on speaker,” Tricia said. “Because I definitely don’t want to try to explain this conversation. So just start over, please? And tell us what you need us to do.”

  As Abuela turned onto Main Street, Leo took a breath and told her friends everything, starting with discovering her family’s secret magic back in November.

  Abuela pulled into the city hall parking lot as Leo gave Tricia and Mai the directions to Mr. Pérez’s sister’s house, as best Abuela could remember them. She hung up the phone, nervous sweat drying as she let out a long breath. She’d told someone about magic, on purpose. Nobody—not Mamá, or Tía Paloma, or Isabel or Marisol—would approve of that. And then she had sent three nonmagical friends off to hunt spirits, armed only with cell phones and vague descriptions.

  What the heck was she thinking?

  She didn’t have time for second thoughts, though, because Abuela cut the engine and unbuckled her seat belt. “So. Mayor Rose. What’s the plan here?” she asked Leo. “Do you want me to go in with you?”

  Leo weighed the risk of someone recognizing Abuela against how much she didn’t want to walk into the very official-looking building on her own. “No, that’s okay,’ she said with a grimace. “You can stay here.”

  Abuela smirked. “I always wanted to be a getaway driver. Unfinished business number two, checked off the list.”

  Leo only half laughed as she left the van and jogged up the wheelchair ramp of the city hall. It was smaller than the lower school and the movie theater, but it had a tall clock tower and walls made of shiny white stone, and the doors were made of metal with flowers and vines molded into their surfaces. Leo tugged them open and stepped onto the shin
y white tile floor, straight into the sights of one of the old church ladies Mamá knew, someone who gossiped over doughnuts with the other church ladies and who would definitely recognize Abuela or anyone else from town who had died in the past thirty or so years.

  Good thing Mayor Rose was a lot older than that, or he’d have been recognized the second he walked through the doors.

  “Hello,” the woman said. “Leo Logroño? What are you doing here?”

  Leo smiled a big desperate smile as her brain spiraled in a frenzy, whipping her thoughts into a froth. She couldn’t use the same lie she had at the hardware store; the church lady wouldn’t fall for a mysterious great-uncle that she’d never met or heard of without getting suspicious. She searched the room and caught sight of a few orange petals bunched against the wall under a bulletin board of town information. The cork backing was crumbling, and two red balloons trailed limply on the ground, mostly deflated but still stapled to the top of the board. The pile of ragged petals made the whole thing look even more abandoned, but they meant Mayor Rose had been here. She just needed to know what he had done and where he was now.

  “Leo?” the church lady asked. “Is everything all right?”

  “I . . .” Leo gulped. “I had a question about the mayor election.” She paused, hoping the church lady would mention another man who had been in here asking about the election, but instead the woman blinked at Leo through her narrow glasses.

  “The mayoral election?” she asked. “Why do you want to know about that?”

  Leo blinked back. “Um, no reason,” she said.

  This was apparently the wrong answer. Church Lady straightened her glasses, threw back her shoulders, and fixed Leo with a disapproving glare that made her look a lot like Abuela. “Miss Leo, I hope I don’t have to tell your mamá that you were involved in the recent incident of vandalism,” she said harshly.

  “Vandalism?” Leo squeaked. “No, I didn’t do that. I don’t even know what that is!”

  Church Lady produced several medium-sized posters from behind her desk and held them out for Leo to inspect. “Vandalism is a criminal act of defacing property . . . like these mayoral campaign signs that were defaced, just minutes before you show up with questions about the election.”