I sat on a lopsided wooden stool at the edge of the counter and watched her small, robust hands mix the ingredients. She prepared two separate bowls, one for each of us.
“Did you ever teach Mom to do this?” I asked.
Nana nodded. “I tried. Now put your hands into the bowl and knead the dough.”
I pushed, pulled, twisted, and squeezed. But my dough didn’t look anything like Nana’s. It felt warm and gooey and stuck to my hands like glue. “I don’t think this is right.”
Nana chuckled and set my bowl aside, then handed me her own. “Your mama never liked cooking. She always preferred being outdoors. Here. Knead this dough.”
I wiped my sticky fingers across my apron and tried again. I pinched the dough between my fingers.
“Ah, mijita. It’s not Play-Doh! Do not press so hard. Be more delicate. Just let it take shape.”
“Maybe I’m not meant to make tortillas.”
“You can do anything you set your heart to.” We started again, but this time she helped me. She pressed my hands into the dough. Her hands felt like smooth pieces of glass.
“Tortilla making seems hard at first—it’s no bowl of sopaipillas, but keep at it and you will be a master tortilla maker in no time at all.” Nana smiled and pointed to the bowl. “Mira, no stickies. Let’s get Martha now.”
“Who’s Martha?”
Nana raised her eyebrows like I should know this. “She is one of the patron saints of cooks.” She took the plastic St. Martha statue from the windowsill and sat her next to the bowl. She stood maybe three inches high. One hand was placed over her chest and the other carried a cross. Then, Nana reached into a small cabinet, removed an amber spice bottle, and sprinkled something over the dough.
“This is a very special recipe. La sagrada. And this is the secret ingredient. People from all over Albuquerque come for these tortillas. It gets so I can’t keep up at times. But I only use the secret ingredient when someone really needs it.”
“Like when would they need it?”
“Well, Maggie likes to eat them when Gip is extra pale and she is worried. Mrs. Gomez next door ate so many when her husband died that now she looks like a stuffed taco.” Nana folded in the secret ingredient with her hands. “And sometimes it has nothing to do with sadness. Maybe someone’s heart just needs a blessing.”
“Do you know when someone needs it because you’re a cura?” I asked.
She laughed. “You mean curandera?”
“Yeah, that.”
She sprinkled flour onto the pine table and made balls from the dough. I pinched off a piece and copied her motions. “Muy bien, Izzy. Slowly. Patiently.”
Next, she pressed her wooden rolling pin into one of the balls, turning and flattening it. “Oh, mija, you are full of such good questions. Sí, I am a curandera. I know the old ways of finding and blending herbs to ease pain and heal others. Who told you that?”
“Mateo.”
“Ah. So you two are friends?”
I hoped so, but wasn’t sure what he thought of me after the way I had freaked out.
“I guess. So what kind of sickness? Like stomachaches?” I rolled my lopsided little ball with the rolling pin, but it didn’t become round like Nana’s. The misshapen dough looked more like the state of Texas. “Mine doesn’t look like yours.”
Nana smiled and kept working. “Just be patient. Try again.”
She told me all the sickness she cured, like stomachaches, headaches, rashes, allergies—those sorts of things.
“What about a broken heart? Can you cure that?” I pushed the rolling pin against the dough hard and quick, thinking about Mom.
Nana stopped pressing and wiped her hands across the front of her apron. “The tortillas can open the heart a little at a time, to let out the sadness or fill up the emptiness. But only if the person is ready.”
“How do you know if you’re ready?”
Nana raised her fist over her chest. “You know in here, like something is missing.”
“Like how I feel about my dad? And how it’s worse because Mom never wants to talk about him?”
Nana nodded and squinted like she was thinking hard about this. Soft wrinkles formed around her eyes. “Sí, mija.”
I waited for her to shut me down, like Mom, but she nodded like it was all right for me to keep going. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The other night at the fiesta, someone said ‘she hits like her papá.’ What did that mean?”
Nana motioned toward the uncooked tortillas. “Hand me those so I can put them on the comal.” I stood up and handed them to her one at a time as she snapped them on and off the flat, iron pan with the speed of a frog’s tongue catching its prey. I knew I’d never be as fast as Nana.
She stacked the tortillas in a basket. Before they even cooled, I grabbed one off the top and slathered butter all over it, then drizzled honey in the center and rolled it tight.
We sat at the long table in the kitchen and enjoyed our hard work. The first bite tasted warm and earthy. It eased its way into my stomach and filled me up.
Nana swiped her pinky across a dot of honey on the table. “It’s only natural for a girl to want to know her father.”
I pulled another tortilla from the basket on the table and drizzled it with honey.
“Your mama was very young when she met him.” Nana sighed. “I didn’t approve of him at first.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Oh, I always dreamed she would marry a Hispanic Catholic like me and my mama and hers before that.” She looked up at me through a lock of salt-and-pepper hair that had fallen from her bun. “Gip was right, you look a lot like him.”
“I do?” The sweet honey coated my insides.
“Yes, you have his cheekbones.” She moved my hair from my face. “And his eyes, exactamente. He was very handsome, your father,” she continued.
“Why won’t Mom talk about him?”
“She only wants to protect you, mija.”
“From what?”
“From pain I suppose. She has always avoided pain—even as a little girl.”
I raised my eyebrows, puzzled.
“When she was very young she used to rush down to the river to look for fishermen. She would hide in the bushes for just the right moment. And when the fishermen put the fish in their baskets, she would sneak up and take the fish.” She laughed. “Then she would run downstream and release them! Oh, how she cried for the ones she couldn’t save.”
“Really?” I laughed too. “That doesn’t even sound like her.”
Nana nodded. “Well, sometimes people change and ignore their essence.”
“Essence?”
“It’s what you are born to be. For me? I was born to be a curandera. And you will have your own path. Does that make sense?”
“Sort of.”
“Now, back to your good question. Your mama and papa met when they were just sixteen. He was a star of the high school baseball team. Your papa could smack a ball to the stars.”
Nana slathered a square of melting butter into a tortilla and continued. “They fell in love quickly, as many young lovers do, and married during their first year of college.”
I stuffed the last bit of tortilla into my mouth and licked the dripping honey off my fingers.
“Soon after their marriage she became pregnant with you.”
Nana’s words echoed across the sun-washed walls and filled my empty spaces like I had eaten ten tortillas.
“The whole village celebrated. Everyone was so eager for you to come,” she said.
“Really?”
“Of course. You were to be the daughter and granddaughter of healers.”
“My mom is a healer?”
“She is a natural. But she has chosen not to practice her gift. You see, I was trained in the ways, but your mama, she didn’t even need the training. She could go out in the moonlight with her eyes closed to pick a healing flower. She needed only her instincts. It was like magic.�
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Nana glanced at the clock on the wall. “That is all for today. I am late for cards with Gip and Tía. Remember, some stories need to be unfolded slowly so we can appreciate what’s inside of them.”
“But what do you mean by magic?”
Nana carried the basket to the kitchen counter and set it down. “It means something is enchanting and special. You being here is magic. A hummingbird’s wings, the buzzing bee, the way the sun rises every day no matter what. That’s magic.” A warm breeze drifted in through an open window carrying the scent of Nana’s roses just outside. She closed her eyes and smiled. “And sometimes you can’t see the magic, you just know it’s there because you can feel it.”
She opened her eyes and turned to me. “Life is magic.”
Nana’s words floated through the air to me on the tips of the breeze. And then I remembered the missing words on the baseball.
As soon as Nana left, I ran to Estrella and picked up the baseball from the nightstand, tracing my fingers over it carefully. “Because life is magic?” I whispered. “Is that what you wrote, Dad?” The words fit, but somehow didn’t feel right. The way Nana described it, anything and everything could be magic. That made figuring out the missing words so much harder.
Sinking into the chair, I thought about everything Nana had told me about my dad, especially how he could hit a ball to the stars. I pulled out a story card and a pen.
One summer night a handsome prince asked the girl he loved which star she liked best. She pointed to the brightest one in the sky. But the next night it had disappeared. So he set off on a journey in search of her favorite star to bring it back and … How would he bring back a star? He’d have to reach heaven.
Tapping the baseball with the pen I wondered how someone might reach heaven? A mountain top? An airplane? I traced my finger across the empty space between the words because and magic.
“Just two little missing words,” I whispered.
The missing words reminded me of Mrs. Barney, who’d given me the story cards. She said that stories are made up of many pieces. She’d explained: “Letters are the pieces strung together to make a word. Words make sentences. And sentences make stories. It’s piece by piece. Do you get it?”
I kind of got it, but wasn’t completely sure. I didn’t want her to think she’d wasted her time on me so I just nodded and whispered, “Piece by piece.”
10
The Ghost Trail
The next day, I made a beeline for the hammock. Dangling my right leg over the side, the hammock swayed back and forth beneath the trees as I tossed Dad’s baseball into the air. My bare toes curled into the soft earth.
“Hey, Izzy.”
I snapped straight up when I saw Mateo standing over me. “Hi.”
Silence surrounded us like the shadows beneath the trees.
Mateo leaned against a long walking stick he was carrying. “I was wondering, if … do you …” He pushed the end of the stick into the ground. “I’m going to the ghost trail today.”
I swung my leg over the hammock and stood up. “Ghost trail?” I said, glad he was still talking to me after I’d run away yesterday.
“Just a place haunted by spirits.” He stood a little straighter. “If you’re not busy, maybe you can come along.”
“I’m not busy,” I said trying to sound casual. I didn’t want to sound like a chicken and ditch him again.
“So you want to go?” His voice rose with excitement.
“Sure.” I plunked down onto the ground to put on my socks and tennis shoes. As I looped the laces, I said, “Hey, I’m sorry I acted like … I don’t usually—”
“Acted like what?” Mateo sat down next to me. The afternoon sunlight danced across his chocolate eyes.
I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. Mateo helped me to my feet and I reached back into the hammock for the baseball before we zigzagged down the trail. It wasn’t long before the wind rolled gently across the landscape, a soft breath caressing my back and swishing in my ears.
Come.
I slowed my pace and turned toward the wind carefully, afraid I might disturb its whisper. But when I thought I heard it echoing from the north, it switched directions and flowed south. I got so frustrated I finally stopped and shouted, “Where?”
Mateo spun around, like he’d already seen a ghost.
“Sorry, I just—”
“You just what? Gave me a heart attack?”
Mateo must’ve thought I was the strangest girl in the universe. “I didn’t mean to, I just thought I heard something. Didn’t you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
I popped a sour ball into my mouth. “Want one?”
“No. But I wanna hear what you think you heard,” Mateo said.
Now I just felt stupid for saying anything at all. I rolled the sour ball to the side of my mouth. “Ever since I got here, to Nana’s house, I keep thinking I hear the wind whisper, ‘Come.’”
“So why don’t you follow it?”
Mateo had a way of always saying the right thing. I pushed my bangs out of my eyes. “How do you follow the wind?”
He leaned against his walking stick. “Just listen to the direction it’s coming from, then you’ll see where it goes and you can follow it. If it ends up being nothing then you’ll know you’re just loca.” He laughed and turned back up the twisted shady trail. “You are an unusual girl, Izzy Roybal.”
Was that a good thing? I swallowed the last traces of the sour ball.
“There it is.” Mateo pointed with his stick. A winding trail, lined with dead twisted trees with black straggled limbs, looped up a hill and out of sight.
“Off over there, a huge fire came through ’bout a hundred years ago. The trees still haven’t grown back. Weird, huh?
“The legend says that a group of caballeros came through here looking for the treasure. And this is where they were last seen. But their bodies and horses were never found.” Mateo turned toward the trail. “Let’s check it out.”
“Really? Is it safe to go up there?” I asked.
Mateo continued. “I’ve never gone past the top of the hill. No one has that I know of. Legend has it that if you climb down the other side, your eyeballs will burn right out of your head.”
“Then why are you going?” I asked.
Mateo shrugged and turned toward the haunted trail. “Maybe I’ll run into a ghost who knows where to find the treasure.”
I had no intention of running into a ghost on some haunted trail. “You should go first and then holler to let me know if you make it. I’ll watch this end of the trail.”
Mateo laughed. “Fine, I’ll go alone.”
After he left me standing alone, the sun peeked through the branches overhead, casting long ribbonlike shadows on the ground.
I tossed the ball into the air and caught it just as a mild breeze glided through my hair, soft like Mom’s hands and Nana’s voice. I turned to meet the warm air now tickling my hands, pulling me away from the haunted trail. A light familiar voice floated through the trees.
Bella.
I raised one hand in the air, trying to grab hold of the swishing wind as I thought about Nana’s words: Sometimes you can’t see the magic; you just know it’s there because you can feel it.
Just as I felt the breeze take hold of my hand, Mateo came tearing down the path screaming and holding his eyes. Blood flowed down his face.
“Aaahh!” I screamed just as he ran right into me and knocked me to the ground. It wasn’t until my left elbow hit earth with a bang that I heard him laughing.
Mateo’s weight pushed against me. I tried to roll out from under him but we got all tangled up, and before I knew it his grinning face was two inches from mine. His dark eyes danced with amusement.
“I can’t believe you! I thought you were actually hurt. And you butted in just as I was going to follow the wind.”
Still laughing, Mateo raised a hand to apologize. I pushed him away and stood up. I laughed a litt
le too, not because I thought his stupid prank was funny but because he looked like one big cherry mess with all the red face paint streaked across his cheeks.
“It’s not funny,” I said.
“Oh, come on. Where’s your sense of humor?”
I turned on my heels and marched toward Nana’s, picking up my baseball on the way. Mateo tried to walk next to me. As soon as his stride matched mine, I raced ahead.
“Izzy, come on. It was just a joke. I said I was sorry.”
He tugged at my elbow. “Could you slow down for one sec?”
“Why?”
“So I can talk to you and see your face. I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”
I stopped and turned to glare at him.
“Okay, so you’re not kidding. Just one nod of forgiveness?” Then he smiled and clasped his hands together, raising them to his face in a pleading kind of way.
I folded my arms across my chest, still glaring. “I felt the wind, but then you showed up, and now—”
“I said I was sorry.”
It was useless to try and keep my smile inside. I cracked a small grin and gave one curt nod. “I’ll forgive you on one condition.”
“What? Anything.”
“I can’t tell you now. I get to save it, like a lucky penny. And when I need a favor you have to promise to do what I ask.”
“Fine,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry I made you miss the wind.”
“It’s fine. I just have to make sure to follow it faster next time.”
“Or you can go looking for it.”
“How?” I asked.
He smiled and draped his arm over my shoulder. “Where it blows strongest.”
Then he pointed to the sky.
11
The Balloon in the Church
The following afternoon was unusually cool and crisp. I leaned into the lounge chair, gazing at the pink glow hugging the tree-tops in the distance. I listened for the wind, but the air was still and silent.
Nana’s story about my parents stirred inside me. Knowing just a few details about my dad, how he played baseball and loved Mom, made me feel connected to him.
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