by Loriel Ryon
“I can help with that.” Wela sat up, stretched her arms, and closed her eyes.
They waited for what felt like forever before the butterflies arrived. They trickled in slowly, first the white ones, then the black-and-orange monarchs. And finally, the blue butterflies. They landed on Wela’s outstretched arms. Their wings opened and closed, and before long her arms were covered in them.
Ghita and Hasik straightened the serape once more. Sonja flattened the ball of bees underneath it as she had before. Ghita and Hasik gently laid the blanket on top. Yolanda helped Wela climb to her feet, careful not to disturb the butterflies on her arms. Yolanda snatched the chancla from Rosalind Franklin and slipped it on Wela’s foot. Wela walked, slowly, toward the blanket, her white gown skimming the dusty brown earth. Her eyes were closed.
When she opened her eyes, the butterflies left her arms, flying straight up before swooping underneath the blanket and disappearing. Wela stepped toward the blanket.
“Are you sure?” Yolanda asked.
“I trust them, mija.”
Ghita and Sonja helped Wela climb onto the blanket. The blanket sank down slightly in the center from her weight, but it held her. Sonja set the papery beehive near her feet.
Yolanda breathed a sigh of relief as Sonja and Ghita pulled Wela down the center of the riverbed. It had worked. The blanket floated along the riverbed as though the water was actually flowing.
Yolanda kept her distance, and Hasik and Rosalind Franklin hung back to keep her company. It was nice to not have to worry about walking through the grass anymore, even though the dry desert heat radiated off the riverbed. Everyone seemed to be in much better spirits now that they had water in their bellies.
A little while later, Sonja peeled away the papery outside of the nest and broke off bits of honeycomb, handing them out. The sticky, sweet honey dripped down Yolanda’s chin, and she ran her thumb along it and scooped it into her mouth.
“What happened to Violeta?” Sonja bit into a piece of honeycomb. “Something bad happened to her, didn’t it? Was it Benjamín’s fault?”
Wela looked sadly down at her lap. “No, mija. It was my fault.”
Thirty-three
I TOLD Cynthia not to do anything dangerous. I told her it was just to scare my sister. She asked if Fiona could help, and while I didn’t think it was a good idea at first, I agreed.
I thought she was my friend.
But she wasn’t. She was just like the rest of the town.
She didn’t listen.
After the butterflies flew away with the bus ticket, I knew Violeta would follow them, and I knew exactly where they were going. I watched from the window as Violeta ran down to the center of the orchard.
“Something’s not right,” Mami said from the doorway. I glanced up. Her fingertips were pressed against her forehead, one of my dresses in her hand. “Something’s not right.”
I took the dress from her and placed it on my bed. “It’ll be okay, Mami. I’m taking care of it.”
A terrified look crossed her face. “Something’s not right.”
I pushed past Mami, down the steps, and ran as fast as I could, staying behind Violeta, making sure she didn’t see me. I hid in the pungent blood sage until she crossed the bridge over the roaring river before I made my way across. When she reached the foot of the butte, the butterflies danced around a large circle of white rocks on the ground. Large dried tumbleweeds had been piled in the center, as tall as Violeta.
The butterflies dropped the bus ticket inside the circle.
Violeta set her suitcase down, stepped inside the circle, picked up the bus ticket, and smiled.
Then, from behind the trees, the girls stepped out. Cynthia wasn’t alone. Her sister, Margaret; Fiona; and four other girls from our school were all there, carrying torches of fire.
I ducked behind a tree. What were they all doing here? It was only supposed to be Cynthia and Fiona.
Violeta’s eyes widened as the girls approached her, the torches lighting her face.
“Violeta Rodríguez, we hereby declare you a bruja,” one of the girls said.
Fiona’s stringy blond hair covered her eyes. “Brujas are made by the devil and must be … extinguished.”
Violeta backed away.
She tripped and fell into the pile of tumbleweeds.
The group of girls stepped forward and surrounded my sister, trapping her in the center of the circle.
My heart pounded. I had to do something. I’d read Benjamín’s notes. I could guess what came next. I revealed myself from behind the tree. “We aren’t what you say!”
Fiona turned and glared at me, the fire from the torch lighting her sunken eyes. “You are,” Fiona said. “You showed us what you can do. Brujas must be burned.”
The girls closed in on my sister, the circle around her getting smaller and smaller. Violeta’s eyes flashed in the fire. Her fingers curled around the bus ticket.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to stop them.
So I did what I knew how to do.
I summoned them.
I summoned everything that would come. The butterflies, bees, fireflies, moths.
I wasn’t sure I could do it. I had never tried before.
But they came.
It started with a low hum, and it took longer than I thought it would. But as the cloud of insects descended upon them, the girls flailed and screamed. Their torches flew all over. Cynthia screamed, dropped her torch, and ran back toward the house. The flames crackled and popped in the dry tumbleweeds, lighting the nearby underbrush.
“Josefa!” Violeta cried. “Run!”
I pressed the swarm of insects at the girls, driving them one by one away from my sister. The girls ran toward the house. But a line of fire had grown up between me and my sister, keeping us from each other.
“Vi! Come on!” I yelled. “Run through the flames. You can heal yourself afterward.”
Violeta shook her head and picked up her suitcase and bus ticket. “I’m going to Benjamín.”
“No, Vi! You can’t!” I cried, reaching for her. The flames licked higher and higher, catching the lower limbs of a pecan tree, the smoke burning my eyes.
She coughed. “If I just get over the butte, I’ll be there in no time. I’m sorry, but now you see what this town thinks of us. I can’t stay here.”
She blew me a kiss. “Te amo, Jo.”
Then she turned and started up the trail. It was the last time I ever saw her.
Thirty-four
WELA had fallen asleep again, hovering on the humming bees and butterflies, while Ghita and Sonja pulled her along up ahead, the heat radiating off the dry earth. Yolanda was thinking about Wela’s story and the girls with the torches. No wonder Wela had always been so secretive about the skill. It must have been frightening to have them attack her sister that way. Yolanda’s gaze wandered up the butte. The pecan tree wasn’t visible from where they were, but they were definitely making progress now.
“She looks peaceful,” said Hasik.
Wela’s hair was limp, the curls flattening and losing their bounce. Her fingers were slack around the metal box on her lap.
“She does look peaceful. But she looks very weak too.”
“I lost my Nani—my grandmother—last fall. Around the same time you lost Welo,” Hasik said. His feet scraped against the earth. “It was hard.”
“Didn’t you visit her most summers?” For years, Ghita went to India for a few weeks each summer, while Yolanda counted down the days until her return.
“We did.” Hasik nodded. “My mother took us to her last show. We didn’t know it was going to be her last show though. She was a snake charmer—you know, she had a knack with the music. She could get the snakes to move in ways I had never seen before.”
“Snake charmers aren’t real.” Yolanda raised her eyebrows. “I read about it once. The performers usually defang the snakes to keep them from biting.”
“I’d heard that
too,” Hasik said. “But Nani was a real snake charmer. I’ve seen it. She tried to teach me how to play the punji, but I never could get the hang of it. Ghita is pretty good at it.”
Yolanda thought of Ghita and Sonja’s science project. The honey, the music, the bees. “Is that the little flute Ghita carries around?”
Hasik wrung his hands. “It was Nani’s. My mother took us for a visit, and she died while we were there. The men in the family are supposed to perform the funeral rites, but Nani had two daughters—my mother and my aunt. My mother asked me to help, but I … couldn’t. I was too afraid. It was the first time anyone I knew had … died.”
They walked a few more minutes, neither one saying anything at all. Yolanda thought back to when Welo died and how Wela asked her if she wanted to see him one last time.
To tell him goodbye.
Yolanda had fled into the desert. She couldn’t see him like that.
She pinched her eyes shut and swallowed back her grief.
“But Ghita did,” Hasik continued. “Ghita helped wash Nani’s body. I feel so bad—I watched from the hillside as my mother, my aunt, and Ghita bathed her and wrapped her in an all-white cloth. They took such care with her. Then they laid her body on a row of wooden slats by the river.” Hasik cleared his throat and looked up to vast blue sky. His eyes were wet. “I knew what was coming next, but I still wasn’t ready for it.” He stopped and looked at the ground. “They set it on fire.”
Yolanda sucked in a breath. “Why did they set her on fire?”
“In our culture burning the dead ensures the person is released from their physical body so they can be reborn.” Hasik scratched his head. “At first it was scary. I’d seen it in movies before, but it was the first time I’d ever experienced it in real life. And it was Nani, which made it even harder. Now I guess it’s okay. It’s what we do. What else would they do?”
“I guess it’s not different from what happened to Welo.” Yolanda thought of Welo’s urn on the bookshelf. “Death is scary—I don’t think I could do what Ghita did.”
The two of them walked along in silence again. Ghita and Sonja were talking ahead, pulling Wela along as Rosalind Franklin sniffed at the dirt.
Hearing Hasik talk about his grandmother made her sad, because it made her think about Welo and losing him all over again. But it also made her feel better in some small way. Hearing him talk about his feelings about death made her feel less scared about her own feelings. “I refused to believe Welo would die. I really thought I could save him—I couldn’t. I didn’t.”
“No one can beat death,” Hasik said.
His words stung. Yolanda thought of Wela and the pecan tree and hoped Hasik was wrong. Maybe Wela was different. She had the tree. Wela’s words, “it’s a strange land,” rang in her ears, and Yolanda felt calm. Once they got to the tree, everything would be set right. She knew it in her heart.
Rosalind Franklin chased a blue-tailed lizard to the edge of the riverbed, but came back quickly, refusing to leave the group again. Ghita turned, and the golden ring in her nose glinted in the sunlight.
“Is that when Ghita got her nose pierced?” Yolanda asked. The timing would have been right around then.
Hasik nodded. “Nani wanted her to get it when she turned twelve, like she and my mother did, but Ghita had refused, worried about what everyone back here would think. Right after the funeral, Ghita did it. She wanted to. For Nani.”
Yolanda felt the shame warm her body. She had thought Ghita was trying to be cool with her nose ring. She couldn’t believe her best friend had gone through so much last fall and she never knew about it. They were supposed to be best friends. Yolanda had been so selfish and focused on Welo, she never even thought about Ghita. “Wait, when did this happen?”
“We left a few days before Welo died and came back a few weeks later. I know Ghita felt terrible she wasn’t here for you.”
That must have been why Ghita suddenly disappeared. If only Yolanda had talked to her, maybe she would have known the truth. Yolanda felt sick to her stomach when she thought about it. She’d been so wrapped up in herself. Poor Ghita.
As they reached a widening in the riverbed, a carpet of pink flower buds covered the dry, cracked earth. “Wow.” Hasik bent down and plucked a blossom. “A wildflower bloom.”
Rosalind Franklin sniffed at one of the blossoms. Sonja let go of the serape and bent down. She touched the tops of the buds, and they stretched their petals wide, revealing scarlet-colored centers. She smiled and ran through the center of the bloom, her fingers brushing the tops of the flowers. The buds opened, revealing a crimson river flowing against the veined cracks of the dry earth.
Sonja danced through the flowers, coaxing the buds to open as Yolanda and Hasik collected handfuls of the flowers and Hasik wove them into Wela’s serape. The butterflies and bumblebees drank hungrily. Ghita tried to weave a blossom into Sonja’s hair, but Sonja glanced back at Yolanda nervously and took the flower from Ghita, tucking it in herself.
“Ghita likes her.” Hasik leaned in. “But that doesn’t mean you and Ghita can’t be friends.”
Yolanda wasn’t sure what to think anymore.
Thirty-five
AS THE group made their way through the wildflower bloom, they passed around the water bottles. Wela stirred and asked for a sip of water. Sonja helped her drink.
Rosalind Franklin sat down and refused to keep walking. Ghita picked the dog up and placed her on Wela’s lap. The serape sank in, but it held. Wela stroked the top of Rosalind Franklin’s head, and the dog’s eyelids began to close.
“How was it your fault?” Ghita asked, taking a sip of water. “With what happened to Violeta?”
A look of sadness crept across Wela’s face as she continued with her story.
I ran all the way home to tell Mami and Papá about the fire. They were already filling buckets when I got back. They had smelled the smoke. Mami and I filled buckets of water, while Papá and Raúl rode back and forth on horses, trying to keep it from moving toward the house.
“What were those girls doing? Something’s not right,” Mami said. “I saw Cynthia Purty running away.”
“Nothing, Mami. It was nothing.” But I couldn’t shake the way they had surrounded my sister. What would have happened if I hadn’t been there to stop them?
Mami heaved a large bucket onto the back of the trailer. “Did they start this fire?”
I chewed the inside of my lip.
“Josefa! I know you aren’t telling me something. I can feel it.” Mami waited for me to answer, and when I didn’t, she threw her hands up. “Go and get Vi! She needs to get out here and help.” Mami wiped her hands across her apron.
I didn’t move.
“Jo, go and get your sister right now!” Mami yelled.
“I can’t, Mami.”
“¿Por qué no?”
“She left.” Tears formed in the corners of my eyes.
“Left? Where did she go?” Mami asked. “She knows the plan when there’s a fire.”
“She left to be with Benjamín,” I said.
Mami’s hands flew to her face, smudging black soot on her cheeks. Her hands shook as I told her about the suitcase and the bus ticket.
Mami thought that was all I was hiding from her.
Papá and Raúl rode frantically up the orchard.
“It’s coming across the river. We need to wet down the house,” Papá said.
“Papá?” I said. He should know too.
“Basta!” Mami shook her head. This was not the time to tell him about Violeta. “As long as your sister is safe on a bus, we will worry about her later,” Mami whispered as we filled buckets of water.
The air was thick with black smoke, and my eyes burned. We filled bucket after bucket from the well, lining them up for Papá and Raúl to collect. Mami and I soaked the wraparound porch and my favorite tree by the bay window.
Then the winds changed.
It pushed the line of fire closer and close
r to our house.
Papá and Raúl rode up on the horses and called out, “Load up the buckets! We need more water!”
They rode back and forth across the orchard, dumping water along the perimeter of our house while Mami and I continued to fill buckets.
My heart ached for Violeta. How could she have abandoned us? Would she ever come back? Would I ever see her again?
Finally Papá and Raúl rode up, their eyes red and cheeks smudged with soot.
“It’s no use.” Papá rubbed his eyes. “It’s going to burn all the way to the edge of the property. It already made it to the casita. It’s all we can do to keep it from coming to the house.”
We spent the rest of the evening wetting the house with buckets of water in hopes it wouldn’t catch fire. The fire inched closer and closer. Raúl and I ran up and down the stairs with buckets and poured them over the roof.
“It’s going to be okay,” Raúl said, patting my back. “Papá and Mami will rebuild. You know how this land is. It always comes back.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“No you’re not. You’re sad,” Raúl said.
“I am not.”
“You are.” He dumped a bucket of water out the window. “I can feel it.”
I shook my head at him. “It’s nothing, Raúl.”
“It’s not nothing. It’s a horrible ache in my chest.”
The fire crept closer and closer until finally the winds changed and the fire moved south along the property, burning every pecan tree in sight, all the way to the butte.
Then, a low rumble in the distance gave us hope. Maybe the rains would come.
The rains did come and put out the fire, dampening the gray-black smoke hanging in the air. It rained all night long and into the next morning. I was grateful the fire was out, but my chest still ached.
It wasn’t until the next afternoon that Papá called up the stairs. “Vi!”
Mami broke down as she told Papá that Violeta was gone.
His face went gray when she said his name.
Benjamín.
I was sure she had made it to the bus station.