direction, the stones change. I struggle for breath as the stones lead
us up a new hill, then alongside patches of lavender, and then another
stretch of dead earth.
After a while, I look over my shoulder. Nova’s face is full of
awe. His eyes are wide and looking only at me. Rishi, my little
magpie, urges me to keep going.
So I do. I keep going until my muscles ache and my tongue is
parched. Until the incline is too steep and we struggle to breathe.
Until I see the ripple of the glamour, and I know we’re closer. Until
the clouds return, darker and stronger, and the light of my crescent
moon disappears.
29
Take me to the glittering mountain
to find the riches of the world.
Take me to the glittering mountain
to mine its treasures untold.
- Folk song, Book of Cantos
When I fall down, hands grab me instantly to pick me back up. Nova
turns me over on my back.
“I’m fine.” My body is screaming with pain, and my heart and mind
are racing.
He holds my face in his hands. “You’re not fine. We’ve walked for
miles. You’re exhausted.”
“Don’t tell me what I am.”
A smile creeps on his face. “Stubborn.”
“Jerk.”
“Do you see that?” Rishi shouts, running ahead.
“Wait!” I call after her, but when we make it around a steep hill,
I can see what has her so excited. There’s a smattering of trees that
grow so low to the ground they appear to be bowing. It’s a tiny oasis
in the middle of a barren land.
Despite the ache in my bones and the sight-splintering headache
that comes from recoil, hunger, and general exhaustion, I sprint to
the perfectly round pond nestled in a valley between two hills. I cup
the water in my hands and drink greedily until my belly is full and my
head spins.
“Sweet, sweet nectar of life,” Rishi says.
I look up at the dark-purple sky, torn between the need to keep
going and the toll the journey is taking on us.
“We need rest,” Rishi says. “We’re not going to be of much use if
we crawl the rest of the way.”
Nova holds his hand out to me. “Give me your dagger. I’m going to
find us something to eat.”
“Since when are you the hunting-and-gathering kind?” Rishi asks.
“Just thank your stars you’ve never been so hungry you hunted
squirrels in Central Park at night.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or not, but the idea of Nova alone and
hungry in the dark makes my heart hurt. Then he breaks into that sly
smile of his, the kind that makes you forget about all the worries you
might have.
“You collect wood,” Nova tells Rishi. Then he turns to me. “You
should get your rest. I don’t like being out in the open like this.”
When Rishi and Nova leave, I fill our empty water bottles. I look
at my reflection in the pond. My skin is bruised, and I look like I
went a few rounds with a heavyweight champion. I take off my clothes.
With Rishi and Nova gone, I let myself cry out in pain instead of
keeping it in. I wade into the water and submerge myself until my
chest burns for air. I let myself float on the surface, and the tepid
water washes away the dirt on my skin and more. It fills me with a
pleasant warmth that pulls me beneath the surface. I feel myself sink.
I let myself sink.
I know I’m dreaming when I’m standing on top of the pond. I jump
when I fear I’ll fall straight through the surface, but my feet only
create small ripples. There’s a woman standing in front of me. When I
recognize her, I want to fall on my knees and weep.
“You always fell asleep during your bath time,” Mama Juanita says.
“Even as a baby. I told your mother she gave birth to a fish instead
of a little girl.”
Suddenly I’m six years old again, and my sisters and I are running
around the yard, pretending we’re part of our great-grandmother’s
Circle. Mama Juanita, our favorite person in the world. She had a mean
face, but she baked the best sweets and told the best stories-the kind
my mom said we were too young to listen to.
“Mama Juanita?”
The glow of her soul is so bright against the violet of the day.
She looks just as she did before she died-skin dark as coffee, and the
same gray eyes as my dad and Lula. Long, white dress. A ring of
orchids around her neck. A prex made of onyx. A thin cigar hanging
between her red lips. Mama Juanita was our matriarch before her heart
attack at ninety. Mama Juanita has this way about her, like the world
should tremble when she walks. She could speak to the dead like Rose.
She could recite all the blessings to the Deos, every canto in our
family book. This is the woman who named me. She died before my
sisters and I could grow up. Before my father left. Before my mother
started going crazy from missing him. Before the greatest Circle of
brujas and brujos dwindled to handfuls.
She clicks her wooden cane on the water, then smacks my leg with
it.
“What was that for?”
“Don’t be such a drama queen, nena,” she says. “It’s only a tap.”
“Is that what you told yourself all those years?” I rub the spot
she hit. “Mama, why are you here?”
“Why do you think I’m here, eh?” She takes a puff of her cigarillo
and blows at the sky like she’s exhaling a cloud. Ghost secondhand
smoke can’t kill, but the scent reminds me of late mornings, watching
her strain coffee through a sock and fry cheese on top of plantains.
“I’m waiting for you to come and get us out.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.” She smacks my other leg with her cane.
I hiss, then bite my tongue.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen! I just wanted-”
“Don’t you yell at me, Alejandra.” She points her finger at me.
“You’re not the first witch to make a selfish choice, and you won’t be
the last. I should’ve been there to teach you the ways. Your mother
didn’t want me starting on you three too young. I respect that. The
first time I saw a dead body, I was five years old. Neighbor was
murdered and the cops couldn’t figure out how. So the family brought
him to us. I had the Gift of the Veil, like Rose. Had to sit in a room
with his dead body for three days and wake his soul, ask him how he
died. I didn’t talk for days after that.”
I look up when she says that. She smiles like she knows the
secrets of the world, and in my heart, I believe she does.
“I told you,” she says, “you’re not the only one. I couldn’t be
there for you, but I’m here now. Rose is a fine little bruja. Between
her and me, we can project ourselves to you, but you’re a hard one to
reach.”
“I’ve been told.”
“Don’t get fresh with me.” She smacks her cane on my arm. “Who are
the witches you’re traveling with?”
For an apparition, it hurts like hell. Talking back will just get
me another ghost slap, so I stay quiet.
“There’s this boy. He’s a brujo. He’s got the gift of light.”
She sucks her teeth. “Parlor trick. Human matchstick if you ask
me.”
“ Ma. ” I sigh. Why is it never easy to talk to your family,
living or dead? “He was going to help me get to the Devourer. Then
there’s Rishi, but she’s not exactly a witch.”
“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?”
So I tell her about Rishi and how she followed me here. How we
started at the Selva of Ashes and met the avianas. How we faced the
Devourer and found the Hidden Path.
I brace myself for another slap from the cane, but it never comes.
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek.