by Loriel Ryon
“My mom didn’t say anything about your dad,” Hasik said. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked tears back and cleared her throat. She couldn’t think about him now. Who knew where he was or what was happening to him this time. “And I have to avoid Sonja. And her bees.” She touched the raw spot on her cheek.
He rubbed the back of his head with his hand. “That stinks,” he said. “And your eye looks really—”
Yolanda glanced up at him. “Terrible?”
“Well—yeah.” Hasik smiled, and the tightness in her chest relaxed a little. “I have an aloe plant I can bring over. It can help with the swelling. I’ve actually read honey can help with bee stings as well.”
“Honey?” she scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
Seven
WHEN they reached Yolanda’s house, she felt a little better. Hasik was easy to talk to, even if he was a little pushy. A ruby sedan was parked in the driveway next to a white car.
“I wonder who that is.” Yolanda craned her neck to see inside the red car. No one was there. “The nurse drives the white car.”
“Maybe they sent someone else today,” Hasik said. They walked along a gravel path between the side of the house and the small detached garage that was Wela’s workshop. “My mom said she’s going to bring dinner over tonight.”
Mrs. Patel was always doing things like that after Welo died, bringing food over and checking on Wela. Especially after Dad left.
As they rounded the corner to the backyard, Yolanda stopped in her tracks.
“What the—?”
A fine layer of green covered the desert backyard, as far as she could see—all the way to the riverbed.
“Whoa, look at that.” Hasik walked to the edge, bent down, and skimmed his hands over the top. It was only a few inches tall.
Yolanda bent down to do the same. “That’s so strange.” The young blades were soft between her fingers.
Hasik walked out into it. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “But … it hasn’t rained in ages.” Hasik bent down and examined it again. Closer this time. “You’ve never had grass back here before, have you?”
Yolanda shook her head. The backyard had always been the same, a barren desert of ocotillo, cactus, and sage, but nothing exceptionally green. Not this green. Sonja said there were cottonwoods by the riverbed, but most of those were long dead from the drought.
“Hmmm.” Hasik was on all fours now, peering at the grass. “Did they used to grow anything here? It sure is a lot of land to not use it for anything.”
“Wela’s family used to have a pecan orchard here. But that was a long time ago.” Yolanda pointed in the hazy distance toward the butte. “That tree is the last one, although it never blooms. Wela’s whole family is buried there.” Even Mamá.
Yolanda had tried to ask Wela about it once, but Wela snapped at her. “Don’t talk to me about that tree!” Yolanda and Sonja had exchanged a look, and neither of them had mentioned it again.
Rosalind Franklin barked from inside the house, and Yolanda climbed the steps to let her out. She scampered through the screen door, leapt off the wraparound porch, and bolted into the grass. The tags on her collar clinked as she pranced through the grass.
“Rosalind Franklin!” Yolanda called. The dog’s ears perked up, but she ignored Yolanda and continued sniffing the grass.
“Your dog has a first and last name?” Hasik cocked his head to the side. “I like it.”
Yolanda smiled and brushed her curls from her face. “Rosalind Franklin is my favorite scientist. Wela told me about her right around the time we got our dogs and I couldn’t get her out of my mind, so …”
Hasik smiled. “Makes perfect sense.”
Rosalind Franklin limped over, lifted her front paw, and whined. Yolanda picked her up and found a fat goathead burr lodged deep in the pad. When she gripped it between her fingers and tugged, Rosalind Franklin yelped and jerked her paw away.
“Hang on, girl. Lemme get it.”
She tried again, and this time it pulled loose but stuck in her own thumb. She winced. She carefully pulled it out and set Rosalind Franklin on the ground.
“You’re lucky I like you.” Yolanda sucked the blood from her thumb. The little black dog wagged her tail thankfully and danced around her in a circle.
From Wela’s workshop, there was a crash.
“What was that?” Yolanda said.
Rosalind Franklin bolted for the cracked door, and Hasik and Yolanda followed her inside, stepping between the darkened shelves. Rosalind Franklin’s barks echoed in the workshop. On one of the shelves Yolanda spotted Welo’s machete next to a stuffed bobcat with pointed black ears, its sharp teeth bared. She had always hated that thing. Welo used to tease the girls and hide it in unexpected places. Wela found it once and it scared her so bad she threw it out, but Welo dug it out from the garbage and put it back on the shelf. Now no one had the heart to throw it out.
Yolanda picked up the machete.
When they entered the main part of the workshop, a woman with her hair in a tight blond bun stood on a stool in the center of the room, holding a notebook. Rosalind Franklin jumped and barked, nipping at her shoes.
“Oh! Thank goodness! Can you get this dog away from me?” The woman shook a manicured hand at Rosalind Franklin, who jumped up and tried to bite it. “I’m terribly frightened of dogs.”
“Who are you?” Yolanda held the machete up. “And what are you doing in here?”
The woman straightened her blouse, almost losing her balance on the stool. She regained her balance and stuck out her hand. “I’m Abby Malcolm. Social worker.”
“Oh.” Yolanda didn’t move. She’d forgotten that Mrs. Patel said a social worker was coming by.
“You must be Yolanda?” Abby checked her notebook. “Or are you Sonja?”
“Yolanda.”
“Great! It’s a pleasure to meet you. Do you think you can get your dog to stop trying to attack me?” Rosalind Franklin jumped and scratched at the stool, and Abby clutched the notebook to her chest, a terrified look on her face.
“Rosalind Franklin! Get over here,” Yolanda said. When Rosalind Franklin didn’t stop, Yolanda set the machete on a shelf and picked up her fat, wiggling body. She handed the dog to Hasik.
Abby stepped down from the stool and tugged her skirt down. “That’s better,” she said. “I knocked on the front door, but the nurse said you weren’t here. She said sometimes you all are in the workshop, so … Anyhow, that’s how I ended up in here.” She consulted her notebook again. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of your father, but it’s been tricky getting in touch with him.”
“He’s on an important mission.”
“Appears to be the case. So, we need to figure out where to send you and your sister until he gets back. Shreya Patel, your neighbor, said she’s been the main caregiver for you all since your grandmother became ill. Do you have any other family nearby?”
“You aren’t sending us anywhere.” Yolanda crossed her arms over her chest.
“Oh, honey, I know this is hard. I do. I really do.” She placed a hand on Yolanda’s shoulder. Yolanda shook her off and took a step back. You don’t know anything about us.
Abby stooped down to her eye level, and Yolanda clenched her arms across her chest even tighter. Abby removed her glasses. “I understand this is hard and scary, but you have to understand, you and your sister are twelve years old. You are kids. You can’t live in this house with your grandmother the way she is … all alone. It’s not a safe situation.”
Yolanda knew Abby was right, but she wasn’t going to give her an inch. Some stranger wasn’t going to get to choose what happened to everyone in her family.
“We don’t have other family. Wela is our only family … who sticks around.” Yolanda felt a little pang of guilt when she said that and thought of her dad.
“What about any family friends?”
Yolanda glanced at Hasik, who hadn’t said anything. He shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m sure my mom would love to help, but we leave for India in a couple days. My aunt is getting married.”
“Why can’t we do what we’ve been doing? Mrs. Patel checks on us throughout the day and makes us food sometimes. Why can’t we do that until my dad gets home?”
“Because … that’s not a long-term solution, and Mrs. Patel is leaving the country. If your dad were coming home tomorrow, that would be one thing. But the military told me it could be weeks before we hear from his unit. So, we need to plan accordingly. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, when the hospice home comes to pick up your grandmother—”
“Wela!” Yolanda snapped. If they couldn’t even get her name right, how would they ensure she would be taken care of? How could Wela be going to hospice? Didn’t they understand she was just asleep? She had to be asleep, or else all of this was Yolanda’s fault.
Abby reviewed her notes. “She’s being transferred to Meitner Place. They will take good care of your grandmother—I mean Wela. I’ll be here at two o’clock tomorrow, when they come to pick her up, and you and Sonja both need to have your bags packed. We will have to place you somewhere.”
“But what about our dogs?” Yolanda hadn’t considered what would happen to Rosalind Franklin or Yosemite. “And where? Who will we have to go with?”
“You can have a friend care for the dogs.” Abby glanced at Rosalind Franklin and wrinkled her nose. “Or surrender them to the shelter.”
“Surrender them? Abandon her?” Yolanda took Rosalind Franklin from Hasik and rubbed the soft spot between her eyes. Rosalind Franklin immediately relaxed. Yolanda’s chest squeezed tight. “I’m never doing that.”
“I’m so sorry. I really am.” Abby tried to touch Yolanda’s arm, but Rosalind Franklin nipped at her hand and Abby jumped back. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “This is not a safe situation for you and your sister. You cannot live here with your grandmother the way she is. It’s too big of a job for you girls.”
“We’ve been doing just fine.”
“Yes, yes, you are right. You have been doing a great job. But we need to make some hard decisions. And it’s easier if we do that together, with all of the cards on the table.” Abby checked her watch and pressed her notebook to her chest. “I have one more question. I apologize if you think this rude, but what is this I’ve heard about”—Abby lowered her voice—“a bruja?”
There was that word again. The anger bubbled up inside of Yolanda as she stared at Abby blankly and said nothing. Abby didn’t know what she was talking about, it was obvious, but Yolanda wasn’t going to dignify her question with a response.
“I’m sorry. Some folks at the office were talking about it. I wasn’t sure what it meant and I just moved here. …” Abby glanced down at her watch. “I’m sorry, I have another appointment. Tomorrow. Two o’clock.”
Yolanda squeezed Rosalind Franklin to her chest and nuzzled her nose in the dog’s fur. She was not going to get rid of her dog, and she and Sonja were not going to foster care. There was no way she was going to let any of that happen.
Eight
LATER that evening, as the sun was setting, Yolanda let Rosalind Franklin into the backyard and watched as she bolted to the edge of the grass, sniffing along the edge. The grass had grown in the few hours since she and Hasik first noticed it. She bent down and skimmed her fingertips over the top. It was to her knees.
Pop. Click. Pop.
How strange. It was the sound of the grass growing.
She had been told very little about their family history, the town of McClintock, and Wela’s relationship with the townsfolk. But over the years, bits leaked out here and there. Like the time Eli’s mother called Wela about Sonja’s bees and the camping trip. When they hung up, Wela muttered under her breath, “Por el árbol se conoce el fruto.” Yolanda didn’t know exactly what it meant, but she knew it was something about children being like their parents. Up until Welo died, Wela had always been vague about growing up here. She had told them before the drought it used to be a pecan orchard and that her family owned it and worked on it. The girls knew she’d had a brother and a sister and assumed she had a mother and father too, but the details were always incomplete.
And of course she had heard the rumors all over town about how Wela had caused the drought fifty years ago when she and Welo moved back to the orchard. The strange looks. The mothers who held back their children and whispered when Wela passed by, the butterflies winking in her hair. They whispered that word under their breath.
Bruja.
Wela spent most of her time holed up in her lab at the college or in her workshop, tending to her butterflies and running her experiments, avoiding the town as much as she could.
After Welo died, when Wela was off in her thoughts, she would slip and say something like, “A strange land for a strange family” and “You’ve never tasted such sweetness as the Rodríguez pecans.” A few days before she fell into the sleep, she said, “Mami once told me the story of her abuelita, who had so much of the gift in her. She could do the most amazing things with her mind: summon a flower to grow with a flick of her wrist or spark a fire with the snap of her fingers.” Yolanda and Sonja knew better than to show interest and ask questions, because if they did, Wela would wave them off and shake her head. “Some other time, mijas.”
But time seemed to be running out.
And Yolanda always wondered.
Why did their family have the gifts? Why Sonja?
Why not her?
She lifted her curls off her neck, letting the breeze cool her.
Pop. Click. Pop.
The blades of grass quivered in the breeze. Yolanda knelt and skimmed her fingers through the silky stalks, a sweet, fresh aroma settling in her nose and calming her. She took a deep breath, shivered, and gazed out to the silhouette of the pecan tree in the distance. There were so many questions Wela never answered. And now it might be too late.
How was she going to keep Wela out of hospice? How would she and Sonja avoid foster care? How was she going to make sure Rosalind Franklin didn’t get taken away? The problems swirled in her mind, making her nauseous. It was all so hopeless. Her entire family was falling into a deep, dark hole, and no one was there to rescue them.
Yolanda walked up the steps and sat on the porch swing. She rifled through her backpack and found the gold journal. Wela’s journal. The yellowed pages crinkled when she opened it to the bookmarked page, and a musty scent curled around her. She recognized Wela’s slanted, scratchy handwriting, although it was much more precisely written than the shaky handwriting she now possessed.
September 17, 1942
Today the butterflies followed me to school again. I wasn’t so sure last week, but now I know this is it.
This is my gift.
The orange-and-black ones like me best and follow me wherever I go. Cynthia trapped one in a cup at school last week and our teacher made her let it go outside. She called them black-veined brown butterflies. Another classmate said they were monarchs. I had to concentrate so hard I got a headache, but I was able to get them to stay outside today. Although, they can be quite distracting bouncing against the glass window in our classroom, waiting for me.
Mami says if I practice, I can learn how to control them. She knew my gift was coming, of course, because she always knows things like that.
When I showed Violeta what I could do with the butterflies, she cried, which surprised me. She hoped the gift would skip me and leave me normal. She made me promise not to tell anyone outside of the family.
I promised.
The last thing I need is for Cynthia and Fiona to have another reason to ask me if I’m a bruja again. They call us the Rodríguez brujas. They’ve always called our family that. Even before Violeta did what she did. Mami says it’s part of living here and part of who we are and that we shouldn’t expect it to change.
Violeta’s gift came when she was twelve too, and she hid it from everyone at school for as long as she could. But
when Margaret Purty broke her arm and the bone was sticking out of the skin, that’s when everyone found out about her. Violeta couldn’t just leave her there writhing in pain.
She’s spent the last four years trying to get everyone to forget. But once you see what Vi can do, there is no forgetting.
Raúl doesn’t have one yet, but he’s only ten. He thought it was really neat when I showed him the butterflies.
Mami tells us we are special and our gifts are to be cherished. But I feel like being special makes us outsiders. It’s not only the children who whisper about us. It’s their parents too.
They remember when Mami’s mama sold them pecans from the orchard, so they still buy them from us sometimes. But not without an odd glance or a suspicious look.
And that word on their lips.
Bruja.
It’s a powerful feeling when everyone is afraid of you, but it’s also lonely.
At least I have Vi.
We aren’t brujas. At least, not the way they mean it.
Yolanda closed the journal.
The light was beginning to fade, and the stars came out one by one, announcing the arrival of night in the dusky blue sky. A coyote howled in the distance. She closed her eyes, thoughts of Wela in her mind.
Violeta. Wela had said her sister’s name that morning. She’d said, “Lo siento.” Wela was sorry about something. But what was it?
Yolanda could relate to Wela’s journal entry. It was lonely to have an entire town saying those things about you. She realized that nothing much had changed in all the years since Wela had written that entry.
But to have a special skill—that would be incredible.
Her thoughts drifted again. What was going to happen to them? And why hadn’t they heard from their dad? What was she going to do?
Rosalind Franklin barked in the distance, breaking her thoughts.