“Oh God…I ate—I ate—”
“What’s wrong?” I ask, still reaching. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, I’m going to help you.”
He keeps walking backward, toward the front door. I want to grab him. I want to help him. I want to hold him in my arms and fix this—whatever this is. But he walks into the statue of La Mama. The statue topples over and I dive to grab it, pressing it against my chest. Blood seeps through the bandage on my arm. I’ll have to change it later. I pull myself up and put the statue back in place.
“I should go home.” He paces the foyer. “My mom is waiting for me. I was supposed to play and I forgot. I should go home.”
“Wait,” I say, keeping my distance. He’s like a spooked horse and I don’t know what set him off. “You can’t.”
“Why?” He squints and presses his hands against his temples, as if the light in the living room is too bright. I flick it off, leaving only the sunset casting a warm glow through the windows. He turns around, pressing his fists against the wall. He grinds his teeth, then slams his fist over and over until it goes through.
“Stop! You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I can’t! Everything already hurts. I don’t know. I don’t know what is wrong with me.” He pulls his hand back, bits of Sheetrock crumbling around his bloody fist. He wipes his hands on his jeans. He looks at them. They’re still dirty. “I’m sorry.”
“Your parents aren’t home.” It’s a lie. But how can I send him home like this? What if he hurts himself? Or worse, what if he hurts someone else? “You have to stay here for a little while. Do you trust me?”
His eyes snap up in my direction. He takes my face in his hands, and for the first time since I’ve known him, a pang of fear strikes my heart. “How can you ask me that? Of course, I do.”
? ? ?
I rush to the closet in our infirmary room, where we keep spare clothes for our patients, and grab a clean white shirt and sweatpants. Hopefully they’ll fit better than what he’s wearing now.
As I make my way out of the infirmary and down the hall, my footsteps are heavy. There are too many questions floating around my head, too many things to do. So I focus on what I can handle right now. Get Maks clean. Make a calming draught. Get him fed.
In my head, he’s old Maks. Playful Maks. Sweet Maks.
“I smell like a Dumpster,” he says when I push open the bathroom door. He takes his clothes off and tosses them in a pile on the corner. “How can you be around me?”
“This is nothing compared to the way you stink after you’ve been practicing for eight hours straight.” I get the water running for him because the knobs are old and reversed.
“What the f—” he shouts. I look up to see him stare at his chest. “Where did all these scars come from?”
I’m afraid he’s going to punch another hole in the wall. I don’t move. I look at him and tell him as much truth as he’ll be able to handle. “We had an accident. You keep forgetting.”
But he doesn’t rage out. He wipes the steam from the mirror and looks at himself. “I can’t tell what’s a memory and what’s a dream. I’m sorry I scared you before.”
“It’s okay,” I say, but my gut tells me it isn’t. “It’ll be okay.”
He frowns, dark eyebrows knitting together. His fingers, cold and gentle, skim the scars on my cheek. “Was this from the accident too?”
I nearly jump out of my skin. It’s been days since my last Bellaza Canto. I hold my hand over my scars.
“No, Lula,” he says, taking my hands in his. He kisses my scarred knuckles. “I swear, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I’ve always loved your face. Still do.”
When he talks like that, it’s easy for me to want to forget everything that happened, to want things to go back to the way they used to be for so long.
But Maks’s skin has a dull paleness that worries me. I rest my hand on his shoulder, try not to wince at how cold he is. I can hardly breathe as my hand roams the muscles of his chest, searching, searching.
I’ve found it—the whisper of his heartbeat, so faint it’s hardly there at all.
? ? ?
While Maks gets cleaned up, I work on a sleeping draught in the infirmary. It’s strange being in here, putting a potion together after avoiding it for months.
The walls are papered with a green leaf pattern that looks newer than any part of our old house. Ma says it makes patients feel more at home. Alex thinks that the kind of folk who come to us for healing can’t get to a hospital anyway, so they won’t mind the faded paint in the rest of the house.
The room is filled by an exam table, two twin beds for patients to sleep, and a giant altar dedicated to La Esperanza, Goddess of Sighs and All the World’s Goodness. I’ll find the ingredients I need against the wall with blackout curtains. The shelves are lined with jars in all shapes and sizes that contain ingredients from every corner of the world: the tears of an infant, the feathers of a blue jay, the eyes of coquis, the hair from a widow’s head, all alphabetized by Rose on one of the nights she couldn’t sleep.
I turn on the electric kettle and get the jars I need. I scoop dried poppy leaves, chamomile oil, and fresh lavender into a tea pouch. I hold the tea and stand in front of the altar of La Esperanza. Fresh flowers in tall vases of water are set around her feet. Her dress is bright pink, and a crown of silver stars and lilacs rest on her pale-pink hair.
I want to say something, a rezo to make up for all the prayers that have died on my lips, but it’s like the words are caught in my throat. So instead, I light one of the tea candles.
La Muerte’s shadow voice echoes in my mind. You do not know what you’ve created—
“Lula?” Maks shouts my name and I jump.
I hear the rattle of the fence outside and go to the window. Rose is opening the gate so my mom can pull into the garage.
I hurry out into the hall where Maks is shirtless, his black hair dripping water down his neck. The dirty clothes and towel are in a bundle in his hands. He holds his hand up to shield his eyes from the light in the hallway.
“Come,” I say, trying to remain calm, though it’s not just for his sake now.
The door downstairs opens, and I hear my sisters call my name. Alex shouts, “Lula! You better be home!”
“I’m fine. I’m in my room!”
I shut the door once Maks and I are inside. I hit the lights, leaving only my reading lamp on.
He stares at every detail. The midnight-blue comforter and white pillows are undisturbed. The flowers at my bedside are long dead in their vase. Maks gave them to me a month ago, when he was trying to cheer me up and I simply couldn’t.
I set the tea on the bedside table and close the curtains. I find a match and light some of the dusty candle stubs. My altar has never been this neglected. My first impulse is to clean it. I’ve offended the gods enough to last me a lifetime, if I even get a whole lifetime after this mess. Right now, all I care about is helping Maks. After all, the Deos abandoned me first.
“Your parents don’t know I’m here?” he asks softly.
I shake my head. “It’s complicated.”
He stands behind me and wraps his hands around my waist. I flinch as his fingers graze the line of stitches on my belly. I breathe through the pain. After all the magic my family spent on me, they should be healed by now.
“I can hide,” he whispers against my ear. “I think I could get used to you taking care of me.”
I turn around in his arms and reach for the tea. “Start by drinking this. It’ll stop your headache and help you sleep.”
He takes the mug from my hand but sets it back down on the nightstand. He walks across the length of my room and points to a map of the world pinned to the wall. I had this idea that I’d put a pin in every place I’ll travel to one day. But the only pin is in New York, the rest of the world untouched and foreign to me. Maks takes a pin from my desk. He stares at it for a little while.