by Loriel Ryon
“So really—there’s no chance you might like me? Even a teeny bit?” He held up his index finger and thumb, making an inch with it.
Yolanda felt her cheeks flush. She checked to make sure Wela was still asleep.
“Um … well … I don’t know.” Yolanda rubbed the inside of her thumbs, the blisters almost healed. She wasn’t sure. Did she like him? He was so kind and somehow suddenly making her nervous. He was also awfully cute, especially his bright white smile. Maybe she did like him. She looked up at his towering figure through her lashes. “I guess—maybe?”
“Maybe?” Hasik’s eyes shone.
Yolanda tucked a frizzy curl behind her ear. “Maybe.” That answer suited her. Not a yes. Not a no. She smiled.
Hasik let go of the wheelbarrow, hopped an extra step, and clapped his hands. “I’ll take a maybe.”
Yolanda looked at him out of the corner of her eye and he was smiling, and she couldn’t help but smile too.
As they continued walking, they passed beneath an old bridge, the wood splintered and cracked. Hasik stood on his toes and could just reach the bottom of it. His fingers curled around a green vine and he pulled off an orange flower, twirling it between his fingers.
“Mexican flame vine.” He tucked the orange flower behind his ear.
Yolanda laughed. He looked adorable with the bright orange flower against his brown skin. It was the perfect color for him.
Hasik tugged a second orange flower, sniffed it, and looped it behind Yolanda’s ear. “For the ‘maybe’ girl,” he said, their eyes meeting.
Yolanda’s heart pounded against her ribs. How was he making her so nervous? She’d known him for years. This was Hasik. She needed to change the subject before she embarrassed herself.
Her gaze darted toward the ground. “How come you love plants so much?” she asked.
Hasik pushed the wheelbarrow and shrugged. “I’ve been helping my dad out at the nursery since I could walk, so I’ve been around them basically my whole life.” He lowered his voice. “But really, it was this one time. He brought home a Venus flytrap and I saw it eat a fly. I’ve been hooked ever since.”
Yolanda laughed and nodded. “That’s like me. Ever since I looked into my first microscope, I couldn’t unsee what I saw in there.” Yolanda stretched her arms out in front of her. “It’s like there’s an entire world we don’t even know about, under our noses, waiting to be discovered.”
“It’s incredible,” Hasik said.
They continued bumping along the scorched riverbed, with no relief from the dry heat baking them. Yolanda wiped the sweat from her upper lip and Rosalind Franklin’s tag clinked against her wrist. She shook it once more.
Hasik gave her a sad sideways smile. “She’s just lost,” he said. “We’ll find her.”
“I hope so.” Yolanda didn’t want to break down in front of Hasik and embarrass herself, but she felt the tears coming. “I know Wela has always appreciated your dad supplying her with milkweed for her butterflies all these years.” She quickly wiped her tears away. Hasik didn’t notice.
“He’s happy to have the business.” Hasik maneuvered the wheelbarrow around a rock. “What about your dad? What’s he going to do when he gets back?”
Yolanda sighed and blinked the tears back. “I don’t know. He’s only ever known the military life, but he promised this was his last tour.” Yolanda sighed and wished she believed him. “But I worry about him. What will he do when he comes home? If he even makes it home. What kind of job will he have? He’s not the type to go work in an office.” There was no way Dad would be able to sit still long enough to hold a desk job, or even put on a suit. The only uniform he would wear was what the military told him to wear. “He loves the outdoors, so maybe he could do something outside.”
“He’ll figure it out,” Hasik said.
“I hope so.” But Yolanda wasn’t so sure.
They continued walking along the riverbed, not finding anything that would signal water was nearby.
“I’m not seeing anything. Let’s head back.” Hasik turned the wheelbarrow around, and Yolanda took over.
They bumped along the riverbed in silence until they reached the place they’d parted from Sonja and Ghita.
No one was there.
“Sonja!” Yolanda called.
“I’m sure they’re just a few minutes late.” Hasik walked in the direction Sonja and Ghita had gone. He shrugged hopefully. “Maybe they found water?”
“I don’t have a good feeling,” Yolanda gripped the handles of wheelbarrow a little tighter. Her blisters burned again.
They walked for ten more minutes before Yolanda finally spotted Ghita and Sonja crouched on the ground. Her body went ice-cold.
“Sonja!” Yolanda set the wheelbarrow down and took off running.
When she reached Sonja, she was curled up in a ball and rocking back and forth. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” Yolanda searched her sister for any injury. It wasn’t until she saw the blood smeared on Sonja’s sunburned leg that she thought she might faint.
“What happened?” Yolanda said frantically. “Tell me! What happened?”
A whine escaped from Sonja’s lap. Sonja uncurled herself, and there was Rosalind Franklin, with her stub of a tail wagging furiously. Rosalind Franklin leapt out of Sonja’s arms and into Yolanda’s.
A wave of relief washed over her, and the tears she had swallowed happily spilled over. “Rosalind Franklin! Where have you been?” Yolanda said, petting her all over her soft, dusty fur. Rosalind Franklin jumped up and licked the tears from her cheeks. “Oh, I missed you so much!” Rosalind Franklin yelped. Yolanda pulled back.
“She’s hurt.” Hasik pointed. On her hind leg was a deep cut, crusted with blood and dirt. Yolanda tried to look at it, but Rosalind Franklin snapped her leg back and whined.
“She wouldn’t let me look at it either.” Sonja climbed to her feet. “Ghita found her hobbling along. She looks thirsty—I think she needs water.”
Yolanda stooped to examine Rosalind Franklin’s leg. She was gentler this time, careful not to touch it. It was a deep cut, the tendons and muscle exposed. She would definitely need stitches.
“Once we find water I can clean it,” Yolanda said. Hopefully they would find water soon. She placed Rosalind Franklin inside her backpack and zipped it up enough to let her head peek out from the top.
“We didn’t find any water. Let’s follow the riverbed south. It’ll go right by the base of the butte to the trail we’ll have to take to get to the pecan tree,” Sonja said, the bees flying around her. “Maybe we’ll spot something along the way.”
And so they did. They walked down the riverbed in search of water. The heat beat down on them, radiating off the dried, cracked earth.
Yolanda’s backpack wriggled. “Rosalind Franklin, what are you doing?” She wiggled harder and harder until Yolanda flicked off one strap and placed the backpack on the ground. Rosalind Franklin clawed at the zipper. Yolanda unzipped it, and Rosalind Franklin tumbled out in a puff of dust. She righted herself and then took off half hobbling, half running, the blood from her gash spraying in the dirt.
“Rosalind Franklin!” Yolanda yelled. “Come back here, girl!” Yolanda broke into a run, but within a few seconds Rosalind Franklin was out of sight. Her heart pounded. Where did she go?
When she rounded the next bend, Yolanda saw an enormous cottonwood tree on the bank of the riverbed. The gnarled roots twisted in all directions, making a space tall enough for Yolanda to walk through. A large beehive hummed high in the tree as Rosalind Franklin dug with her paws.
Then she saw it.
Yolanda smiled. They would find water here.
It was beautiful shiny brown mud.
Twenty-seven
YOLANDA and Hasik started digging a large hole in the mud, creating a pool to collect the water. Rosalind Franklin pranced around excitedly, occasionally jumping into the hole and drinking the muddy water, while Ghita and Sonja tended to Wela.
Wela stirred. “Oh, mijitos, you found water.” Wela pressed her palm to her chest.
“What happened next, Wela?” Sonja wiped the sweat from Wela’s forehead.
“What happened with Violeta and Benjamín?” Ghita asked, her eyes shining.
Wela cleared her throat and sat up. “Well, mijitos, in order to tell you that part, I’ll have to tell you about what I did.”
When summer ended and school started again, I was busy, attempting to do as Violeta said and hide my skill from everyone. That proved impossible.
My butterflies were a beautiful plague. They especially liked to burrow in my hair during class, and with all the looks I was getting from the other students, it was all I could do to hide the truth any longer, really.
Normally during recess, I sheltered beneath the weeping willow tree behind the schoolhouse, practicing. Some days I would coax the catkins to blossom and reveal their tiny flowers. Other days I summoned the butterflies. Sometimes I sent them away. Most days I sat there and let them come to me naturally, the way they did.
One day during recess, Cynthia Purty popped her head between the curtain of branches. “Wow,” she whispered.
I jumped, and the butterflies darted upward, fluttering underneath the cave of the willow tree, before settling down into a lush orange-and-black mantle on my arms. They opened and closed their wings as though they were winking at me.
Fiona, shielded behind the long branches, sucked in a sharp breath. “I knew you were a bruja.”
“I’m not a bruja.”
“Violeta healed my sister, Margaret. She told me so.” Cynthia stepped between the long branches of the willow tree and rested her hands on her hips. “She said when your sister came over, the pain disappeared. She didn’t even have to go to the doctor to get a cast. How do you explain that?”
“I swear,” I said. “We aren’t brujas.”
“That’s exactly”—Cynthia’s eyes sparkled with accusation—“what a bruja would say.”
I shut my eyes and wished they would leave. “Okay, so what if I am? Who cares?”
Fiona spoke. “You know what they used to do to brujas?” She parted the branches and peeked her head inside. “They hung ’em or drowned ’em. My daddy told me.”
“We. Are. Not. Brujas, Fiona.” It was getting ridiculous. I don’t know how many different ways I could have said it.
“Then why don’t you go to church on Sundays?” Fiona stepped between the branches and shielded herself behind Cynthia.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “We just don’t. We work in the pecan orchard every day. I guess … we don’t have time for church.”
“Don’t have time for the Lord?” Cynthia placed her hand over her heart and fluttered her eyelashes. “Oh my, such sacrilege.”
I laughed. “You sound like your mother.”
Cynthia laughed, sat down next to me, and placed a finger under one of the butterflies, letting it crawl onto her index finger. “So, really, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I can do special things with butterflies and other insects. Plants too. And Vi can heal. And Mami has dreams. It’s a family thing.”
“Can you show us?” Fiona asked, her stringy blond hair hanging in her face. She stepped closer, her hands clasped in front of her, as though she was afraid she might catch something.
I thought it over. What would be the harm? Maybe if they understood it wasn’t so scary, they wouldn’t be so afraid of us. Maybe they would stop using that word to try to hurt us. Maybe my family would finally be accepted in this town instead of being feared.
Then I did something I never should have.
I showed them what I could do.
Twenty-eight
“WHY do you think she showed them?” Hasik wiped his brow. He and Ghita took turns digging at the large hole in the thick mud.
“Because”—Sonja ripped one of the extra T-shirts from the backpacks in half—“she thought maybe if they actually saw, they would understand and wouldn’t be so afraid.”
It reminded Yolanda of Welo’s lifelong mission to explain the trait. “The mystery of something is scarier than its reality,” she said. She lifted her curls from her neck, letting the hot breeze cool her. It felt better not being enclosed in the tall grass. Now she could see the vast blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. Wela was asleep again on the serape under the shade of the tree, and Yolanda stood back with her, eyeing the humming beehive hanging on a branch.
She couldn’t get stung out here.
Sonja showed the group how to filter the muddy water through the T-shirt to make it cleaner to drink. Rosalind Franklin stood in the hole, her front paws in the mud, her butt up in the air. She lapped the water and then lifted her head, letting it dribble down her chin. Yolanda drank until her stomach was so bloated she couldn’t drink anymore. Even though the water was slightly gritty, it was satisfying.
They lounged underneath the shade of the tree for a while, let the hole fill with water again and filled up the water bottles. Rosalind Franklin sat happily in Yolanda’s lap as she pet her back over and over again. She squeezed her tight and nuzzled her nose into the dog’s fur, breathing her in, relieved she had returned. And was safe.
Yolanda picked up one of the water bottles and squirted water on Rosalind Franklin’s hind leg. The dog flinched, but Yolanda gripped her tight and washed the wound. The bloody water poured from the gash, ran down Rosalind Franklin’s leg and into the dirt. Yolanda stretched her hind leg out with one hand and took a deep breath in. Then she blew the dog’s fur over to one side to get a better look at it. White tendon and fatty tissue was exposed.
She definitely needed stitches.
“Hasik, do you still have that turmeric?” Yolanda asked. Hasik pulled the orange bulb from his pocket and tossed it to her. Yolanda scraped it on a rock, exposing the juicy orange root, and rubbed it over the gash. Rosalind Franklin whined.
“I don’t think that will do much,” Ghita said. “You should have it looked at.”
Yolanda rolled her eyes. “Thanks. I’ll get right on that.”
“You know what I mean—when we get back.”
Yolanda ripped a corner of the T-shirt they had used to filter the water and wrapped Rosalind Franklin’s leg, tying it in a tight knot.
Rosalind Franklin hopped off her lap and hobbled away, shaking her leg, trying to get the bandage off. She bit at it a few times and then shook it one last time before surrendering, walking in a circle, and lying down with her chin on top of her crossed paws.
Wela woke and Yolanda helped her sit up and drink water. She had aged on their journey. Her hair was not as curly and had changed to a dull gray from the bright white it normally was. Three butterflies left her hair, perched on the wet ground, and drank. Wela didn’t speak, her fingers pressed around the box in her lap, her gaze distant and vacant.
What was in the box, and why was Wela rattled so badly when she saw it?
Yolanda sat back on her heels. She followed Wela’s sad gaze to the pecan tree. Only the top was visible from the riverbed, its branches twisted and black. Yolanda didn’t want to think about the mountain they were going to have to climb to get there. But one thing was certain.
They were getting closer.
“Wela? What happened to Benjamín and Violeta?” Ghita asked.
“Well, mijitos …”
Twenty-nine
AFTER Benjamín showed me the microscope, we became friends. When he wasn’t with Violeta, he worked hard on the orchard and asked me a thousand questions. “What does it feel like? How do you control it? When did you find out you could do that?” He asked me to show him. I danced butterflies and fireflies around his head and coaxed flowers to bloom as we walked in the orchard. I showed him. Proudly.
But after some time, it felt like my skills were all he was interested in. His questions grew incessant, and I began to wonder about him. “What are you doing here? Why are you here working on a pecan orchard if you are a scientist?
” His answers never satisfied me.
One night, after Benjamín and Violeta strolled back toward the house, I snuck through the orchard all the way to the casita. I don’t know what I was looking for really. Just anything that could explain what he was doing here. I looked through his slides and rifled through his books.
Hidden in the false bottom of the black trunk, I found dozens of journals filled with his notes. There were hundreds of names. Countless years and locations all over the country. Tales of special abilities, witchcraft, and unbelievable talents.
There was a list of names. Women who had been accused of practicing witchcraft. Their fates were next to their names. Drowned. Hung. Just as Fiona had described. My stomach soured as I touched each name. All those women, murdered. They could have been us. Why did Benjamín have all these names? What was he studying?
Near the bottom, I found an entry in a journal with our name.
Rodríguez
The Rodríguez brujas of McClintock, New Mexico, have owned a pecan orchard for numerous generations. Rumors in town say they are a family with a long maternal line of brujería and special abilities.
The mother, “Mami,” appears to be a clairvoyant of some sort. Although she denies ever hearing of the brujas when asked about it, she had an extra place set for dinner on the night I arrived, leading me to believe she knew I was coming.
Oldest daughter, “Violeta,” is a curandera or healer. The rumors of her abilities are the most discussed in town and the most interesting to me.
Conversation on May 12, 1943, with (16 y.o.) Margaret Purty: “A few years ago, when I was playing during recess at school, I fell from a tree and broke my arm. The bone was sticking out, and dizzy from the pain, I couldn’t breathe. Violeta Rodríguez immediately ran over, crouched down, and grabbed my arm. I screamed from the pain. She told me to close my eyes and take deep breaths, so I did. I felt cool air on my arm, and then the pain was immediately gone. When I opened my eyes, the bone wasn’t sticking out anymore and there was a dark pink mark and a small bit of dried blood. See here—that’s the scar.” Margaret Purty has a two-inch thin silver scar on the outer portion of her left forearm. She denies ever seeing a doctor for this injury.