Bruja Born

by Zoraida Cordova

  At least you’re alive, a voice hisses at me.

  I catch a silent tear from the corner of my eye and try to focus on my guests. I can’t climb the stairs every day, so my parents turned the living room into my bedroom. Ma even brought down my altar, but I can’t bring myself to light any of the colorful, new candles the girls have brought for me. A tall, black taper with gold flecks—to banish evil. A cherry-red candle mixed with white rose petals—to mend a broken heart. Simple white ones in tall glass cylinders—a new start.

  The brujas from my magic lessons are here to cheer me up, despite the High Circle warning them to stay away. Adrian, whose dad would have a stroke if he knew his son was here, is having his tarot cards read by Rose. Paloma, Emma, and Mayi regale me with gossip about local brujas, but they circle back to me and the accident when the news replays their breaking story.

  “That’s the detective that was here earlier, right?” Paloma points at the screen. She sits crossed-legged on the carpet, her slender fingers toying with her straight, raven-black hair. “Is he still asking you questions?”

  Emma sighs, pressing her hand to her chest. She’s got her mother’s blue eyes and russet hair. Her Argentine accent is musical, and her voice is as sharp as her features. “You’re so lucky. Imagine if you’d been caught working real magic. At least they just think you were going to—” She can’t say it, so she points at the bandages on my left arm. “Romeo-and-Juliet yourself.”

  A dark laugh leaves my lips, and it scares them. “Yeah, at least I’m that lucky.”

  “You know you can talk to us,” Mayi says, but her voice is drowned out by Emma.

  “I’m just saying.” Emma lifts a shoulder and drops it dramatically. “The High Circle—”

  “Can’t touch me,” I say, holding her gaze until she looks away first.

  “No.” She picks at a loose thread on the carpet. “But the Knights of Lavant can. My mom says the hunters will look for any excuse to arrest us. The sinmago police haven’t caught that nurse guy, and a bunch of bodies vanished into thin air. How long before they come looking for you?”

  “Let’s hope they catch him,” Mayi says. “Because then you witches are off the hook.”

  “We’re not on the hook,” Rose says. She never takes her eyes off the card she flips. The ten of daggers, each one driven through a tiny hare.

  I swallow the knot sensation in my throat, but it doesn’t help. I have a terrible feeling. It’s everywhere—my gut, my heart, my bones. Sometimes when I look at people out of the corner of my eyes, I see skeletons instead of bodies. What if La Muerte cursed me? What if the hunters come for us? What if the Alliance locks me up?

  “Maybe we should talk about something else,” Paloma says, taking a dulce de leche puff from one of the many sugary treats on the coffee table. It’s amazing how some people can avoid reality so easily, turning to something like self-preservation and denial mixed together. “My aunt Reina is teaching me how to conjure crystals. But I can only get them the size of a bead right now.”

  “You look really good on TV,” Mayi says, raising a mirror to check her lipstick. The bright pink is a beautiful contrast on her dark brown skin, but when she presses her fingers to her high cheekbone, her glamour magic ripples.

  Mayi was the first person to show up with a bouquet of pink carnations, El Amor’s favorite flower, and a tray of her famous brownies dotted with huge chunks of caramel. I know Mayi means well, but everything she says makes me want to smash the candles on my altar and scream. I remind myself that she doesn’t know what to say to me. None of them do, so they just talk and talk and don’t think of their words. Everyone wants me to be better, feel better, without giving me the time to do so.

  “The camera adds ten dark circles,” I say, fastening my bathrobe to give my hands something to do.

  “Really?” Emma asks, her lips a round and confused O.

  “She’s just playing,” Mayi tells Emma. “You look really skinny though, Lu. Your waist is the size of my neck. What diet did they have you on, ’cause I’m about to try it?”

  “The Nearly Dead Diet,” Rose grumbles. She glares at Mayi and snatches another caramel brownie from the large tray.

  “Don’t worry, Rosie. Your baby weight will fall right off soon enough.” Mayi smiles, and I’m pretty sure she says half the things she does to get under people’s skin.

  “I wish I could say the same for your personality,” Alex tells her, marching from the kitchen and past the living room archway. Stacks of clean towels and bedsheets are balanced in her arms. She winks at Rose and heads back upstairs.

  “No one was talking to you!” Mayi shouts.

  She’s fought with Alex since they were kids. For a long time, Mayi was the one with a strange power. Glamour magic isn’t rare, but it isn’t common either. It’s unique enough that the High Circle always said they’d keep a spot open for her when she grew into her powers. But when Alex came of age as an encantrix, the invitation went away.

  Although, after everything that’s happened now, I don’t think the High Circle wants anything to do with any of the Mortiz girls.

  I almost feel sorry for Mayi. From the corner of my eye, I can see her real face, the one she hides behind her glamour, under the illusion. Her nose is crooked from a nasty fall when she was ten, and her dark skin is dotted with angry-red acne that no elixir has been able to cure. Every time she hides her face behind the glamour, new marks appear on her skin, and in turn, she hides it with more magic. But that’s the thing—one of our universal laws is that we can’t use our power on ourselves. I can’t heal myself and Rose can’t see her own future. And so, the more Mayi glamours herself, the worse it’ll be for her in the end.

  “I can’t believe you’re on TV,” Paloma says, voice like sticky syrup. “I’ve always wanted to be on TV.”

  Mayi slaps her upside the head. “Do you also want to go to the hospital?”

  Paloma realizes the folly of her wish and gives me an apologetic smile.

  “Where’s Alex going?” Adrian, a new addition to our class, asks. He’s fifteen and one of Gustavo’s sons. He cranes his neck toward the creaky wooden stairs that lead to the second floor.

  “She’s helping my mother,” I say. “Does your dad know you’re here?”

  “He knows I’m with Mayi,” he says by way of explanation. His hair is a mop of straight, inky blackness, and his skin is hazelnut brown. “Are they healing? Can I watch? My dad never lets me do anything.”

  “Yes, they’re healing,” I say, slumping down on the couch. I am grateful for my friends’ visit, but they’ve been here for hours, and I’m exhausted from their endless questions about what it felt like to be put to sleep or have doctors prod around in my gut. “And no, you can’t watch.”

  He frowns. “I wanted to talk to Alex about what to do—you know, when your powers come.”

  “Why don’t you talk to us?” Paloma asks, and if her voice were a color, it would be an acidic green.

  “Because she’s an encantrix,” Adrian says, as if it should be obvious. “She’s the only one in our generation.”

  “And she knows nothing about magic or our history,” Mayi says, sounding more like her mother every day.

  “None of that matters,” I say. “You can be the perfect little bruja, but the Deos won’t care, if they ever cared at all.”

  “How can you say that?” Emma asks.

  “Easy, I use my words.” I eat another sweet thing they’ve brought for me, but the sugar takes like dust and I’ve lost my appetite again.

  “There’s no need to be snippy with Emma,” Mayi says. “We know you’re going through a hard time.”

  “No, you don’t.” I sit up, my words turning to poison as they slither off my tongue. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve gone through or what I’ve seen. You guys want to sit around in a circle and summon ghosts and g
lamour yourselves for fun, but the rest of us have to deal with real life. My sister is an encantrix, but if you want to talk smack about her, I will be the one to end you.”

  Paloma rolls her eyes and scoffs in my direction. “You’re no fun anymore, Lula.”

  You’re no fun anymore.

  No.

  Fun.

  Anymore.

  Her words ring in my ears. Maks said something like that to me once…

  I don’t care what Paloma thinks. They don’t understand. Not my sinmago friends and not these witches. Magic transforms. Magic is also unpredictable and unforgiving. You don’t know who you’ll become after wielding it.

  Suddenly, despite the room full of brujas and a brujo, I feel alone. My heart gives a sharp jolt, like there’s something piercing it. I shut my eyes and let the pain subside.

  “It’s hurting again, isn’t it?” Mayi says, frowning. “You should tell your mom.”

  I breathe in and out slowly. I keep getting this pain in my chest. I have so many broken parts that a tiny pinch in my chest should be the least of my worries. But it keeps happening at odd intervals.

  “We can try to heal you,” Paloma says. The most Paloma has ever used her power for is to change her failing grades into As. “We’re not natural healers like you, but maybe there’s something in the Book of Cantos.”

  “And wind up turning into a slug?” I say, trying to sound like the old Lula. The one they expect me to be so quickly. “I’ll pass.”

  “Have a little faith,” Mayi tells me. In this light, she’s ethereal. Like a fairy queen lounging, taking slow bites of the chocolate-caramel treats.

  “I have faith,” I say, gruffer than I wanted to.

  But Mayi looks at my unkempt altar and Emma purses her lips skeptically.

  “Well,” Paloma says, “we’ve failed in cheering you up.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s too soon.”

  These same girls I’ve know my whole life, girls I’ve shared magic with, stare at me like I’m a stranger. Their eyes are full of worry and something else I couldn’t place until just now: fear. They’re all afraid of me, with the exception of Adrian. He looks like he wants to move in and fanboy over my sister.

  “Thank you for coming over,” I tell them, trying to salvage this visit. Rose goes upstairs to help our parents and Alex.

  My friends gather their purses, and I walk them out. The girls kiss me on the cheek and give me their blessings. Before they reach the door, they touch the statue of La Mama that we keep in the foyer, as is customary.

  Each girl does this—rubs the hand and walks out. I stand on the porch and watch them exit our metal fence and turn down the street. They hold hands and break into a laugh halfway down the block.

  Jealousy tugs at me because I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a nightmare featuring shadow monsters or skeletons reaching for my throat.

  “Hey,” Adrian says, standing behind me.

  I jump and swear loudly. “Don’t sneak up on people. Why didn’t you leave with your Circle?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking,” he says. “And I don’t want to be part of that circle. I just came because I wanted to meet Alex.”

  “I’ll tell her you stopped by, kid,” I tell him, and start to head back inside.

  “Does it get easier?” he asks, shoving his hands in his pockets. At first glance, he’s a normal kid—fresh kicks, new jeans, a band T-shirt. Now, looking into his big, brown eyes framed by eyelashes most girls would kill to have, I see the power he doesn’t know what do with. The power that haunts my own family. “The magic, I mean. Does it get easier?”

  How do I give this kid hope when I don’t have any for myself? I swallow the hurt that bubbles up in my throat and blink away the new tears that are multiplying like the heads of a hydra.

  “Not always,” I say honestly. “It’s different for everyone. Have you told your dad?”

  He shakes his head. “He wants to wait for my Deathday to let me try any cantos. But look.” He holds his hand out, palm up, and conjures a tiny tornado that spins at the center, flecks of dirt and tiny leaves are pulled into the breeze. It’s only for a second, but it’s some of the most beautiful magic I’ve seen in so long. Magic without death or darkness.

  I take his hand in mine, and the baby tornado disappears as I close his fingers into a fist. “That’s amazing.”

  He looks down at his sneakers shyly. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. But you have to be careful. Talk to your dad, okay? I’m sure Alex would love to help you out too. But first, start with family.” Take your own advice, a voice whispers in the back of my thoughts.

  He smiles and runs down the porch steps, waving at me. Most of the brujas I know have faint traces of power, and here Adrian can command the wind. I head back in the house to get Alex, but I notice a bundle left on the floor.

  Flowers.

  They’re still wrapped in plastic. They’re the darkest plum, nearly black in the shadow of our doorstep. I never knew flowers could be this color or shape, wild and elegant at the same time, like a cross between orchids and roses. There’s no note attached.

  I can’t imagine who would leave me flowers. A sharp ache pulls at my chest again when I think of the impossible. Maks.

  I bring the flowers in with me and shut the door.

  I sit in front of the TV, but only the evening news is on, and we don’t have cable. I flip channels, but the same image appears every time I press the button. A breeze finds its way into the living room, bringing the scent of summer barbecue and car exhaust.

  The door must be open.

  I shake my head. I thought I shut it. I know I shut it. But yesterday I also put the remote in the freezer.

  My body aches in protest as I get off the couch again. After I close the door, I turn the bottom lock and the dead bolt and do the chain on top.

  I settle back on the couch and wrap myself in a blanket. Wailing noises come from upstairs, where it’s all hands-on deck as my mom tries to heal five fairy children who picked a fight with a preteen werewolf pack.

  I ignore the tugging sensation in my chest. It’s not pain. It’s like dust that never settles. It’s like the rumble before a storm.

  Then, I see the words flash red across the screen. TWO BROOKLYN TEENS FOUND DEAD.

  I turn up the volume as loud as possible.

  The news anchor looks somberly into the camera and speaks. “Reports confirm two teenage boys were found and pronounced dead on the scene in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Adam Silvera is on-site with the person who discovered the bodies. Adam?”

  The camera cuts to a crowded street. The setting sun is red and angry behind the tall reporter as he holds out a microphone to a middle-aged black woman whose eyes look like they’re going to pop out of her skull.

  “Thanks, Naomi. I’m here with Beatrice Jean. Mrs. Jean, can you tell us what you saw?”

  “I just finished my shift at the hospital. I walk home. I’ve always felt safe. When I tripped over something, I thought I was being attacked. I didn’t know what I was seeing. My feet were covered in blood. How did no one see them? No one—”

  “It sounds like you’re in shock.”

  “Of course I’m shocked. I’ve lived here for thirty years. I’ve never in my life seen something like this.” She makes the sign of the cross over her torso.

  “Thank you for your time.” The camera moves away from Mrs. Jean’s face, but the haunted look in her eyes lingers in my mind. The mic shakes in Adam’s hand. “The police have closed down neighboring streets and are canvasing the areas. There are no suspects. One of the victims has been identified as a student from Thorne Hill High School by his school ID. The other victim carried no identification.”

  My heart thunders in my chest and I double over a
s the pain becomes unbearable.

  Despite that, I have a driving urge to run. I pull on jeans and a hoodie and head for the door. I don’t leave a note. I don’t take my phone.

  I rub the hand of La Mama’s statue as I leave, but when my thumb grazes the porcelain, the hand breaks cleanly off at the wrist.

  Words echo in my ears. You have betrayed the Deos.

  When I unlock the door and step outside, my body sighs. A light, warm as flesh but completely transparent, materializes over my chest. It unfurls into a dozen silver threads that float in front of me like jellyfish tentacles.

  One string of silver light is brighter than the rest, and it tugs me forward. I don’t know where it leads, but if I want answers about what’s happening to me, I know I have to follow it.

  10

  And they feared

  her touch so cold,

  her cloak of shadow,

  her thorns of gold.

  —Song of Lady de la Muerte, Book of Cantos

  I race toward the subway. Garbage and dirty water lodged in storm drains cook under the June sun. Nothing smells like New York during the summer. As I pass a mass of strangers, no one bats an eye at me or the silver thread coming from my chest.

  I run across the street to make the light. The pain shoots up my hips and settles around my abdomen, and I stumble into an old woman selling mangos from a cart.

  “¿Estas bien?” she asks me, raising a gloved hand stained with sticky fruit juice.

  I try to smile, but when she looks at the scars on my face, she can’t help but jump back a bit.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Thank you.”

  I enter the subway station, swipe my MetroCard, push the turnstile with my hands, and make a beeline toward the front end of the platform. I tie my hair into a bun and pull up my hood. I’m wearing Maks’s hoodie from his first year on the team. It’s too big for me, but hopefully it’ll help cover up my curves and make me look like a boy. My face has been on the evening news as the only survivor of the crash, and I don’t want to be recognized.