“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 as 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.