I wonder, is that what Maks is feeling now that his memory is gone?
“We’ll get through this. The whole world always feels turned upside down,” Ma says, a sad smile as she looks around the table. “We’re brujas. We’ve been through worse.”
And I don’t have the heart to tell her that, perhaps, she’s wrong.
? ? ?
Alex, Rose, and I clean up after dinner while Mom and Dad get ready to go out to Montauk for the home birth.
“Easy on the plate,” Alex says, taking the wet dish out of my hands to dry it.
“It’s not exactly porcelain,” I say.
“Who’s going to buy new ones to replace the ones you break?” she sasses me.
“Sorry, Mom. I have a few things to worry about, like Maks possibly murdering strangers and ripping out their hearts.”
“Did you fix Maks a plate?” Alex asks somberly. “Maybe he’ll keep something down this time.”
“Dad didn’t eat, so I’m going to try to give Maks those leftovers.” I don’t voice my fears out loud. I don’t think this is what Maks wants to eat.
“Are you worried about Dad?” Alex whispers. “He’s getting thinner and thinner. Pernil and yucca used to be his favorite.”
I shake my head and grab the soapy plate like a steering wheel. I watch the water run down, transfixed by the way it washes away the suds. “I can’t. This is all too much. Why can’t the Deos cut us some slack?”
Then, the plate snaps cleanly in half.
Alex takes each half of the plate from my hands and throws them in the garbage.
“Is there a saying about what message the Deos are trying to send when your dishes break?” Alex asks. “You need to ease up on cursing the gods. Especially when I’m standing right next to you.”
I know she’s trying to lighten the mood and make me smile, but the muscles of my face feel stiff.
Rose walks in from the backyard shivering and holding something in her hands. “Why is it so cold all of a sudden? It’s June.”
“You’re always cold,” Alex tells her.
“Exactly.” She shrugs. “If I’m complaining, then maybe we should worry.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
Rose sets the thick, black box on the table. It’s the size of a shoe box but taller. A black satin ribbon is tied in a bow at the top.
“I don’t know,” Rose says. “It was just at the door. I noticed it when I was walking back in.”
“Maybe it’s a gift from a patient?” Alex asks, though she doesn’t sound convinced.
Sometimes, the people we help in our clinic leave presents behind because we don’t charge money to use our power. They send small tithes, like a bag of rice or baskets of fruit or things for the house like potted mint and flowers. Flowers. I think of the deep purple flowers that I found on the porch yesterday.
I press my hand on top of the box to send a pulse of magic to sense for organic matter, but either I’m too weak or there’s something blocking it.
“Open it,” Alex says. She raises her hands and the tips of her fingers crackle with energy.
“What if it’s one of those horrible clowns or, oh, the plague?” Rose asks. “I don’t think you can contain plague with electric shocks, Alex.”
With that seed of doubt, we just stare at it. I pick it up and shake it, and it makes a clinking rattle. It isn’t exactly heavy, but there’s a heft to it.
I pull the satin, black ribbon. The bow comes undone and I lift the lid.
“That’s weird,” Rose says.
There’s a thick, white note card. Quick, black letters scrawled across it, as if whoever was writing was furious while doing so.
“You have twenty-four hours to destroy the abomination. In the meantime…”
“In the meantime what?” Alex asks.
I pick up the box. “It’s still heavy.”
Alex leans over my shoulder. “It’s a false bottom.”
I feel against the surface and find there’s a tab that folds up. The false bottom gives way to a metal lining full of ice.
We suck in sharp breaths all at once and scatter back.
“Is that real?” I ask, my knees shaking with the need to give beneath me.
“What is it?” Rose grimaces. “That can’t be—”
Alex’s body is tense, as if she’s trying to stop her instinct to run as she says, “It’s a human heart.”
15
It is by the blood spilled by this alliance, and all who witness, that any who harms humankind shall meet the penalty of death.
—The Thorne Hill Alliance, The Treaty of New York, Section 1
I shut the box in my hands and hold it close to my chest.
“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours,” Rose says, panicked. “Has it?”
“Who sent this?” Alex picks up the card and flips it over.
“How am I supposed to know?” I say, voice climbing octaves. “Lady de la Muerte?”
But she’s trapped between realms. It can’t be her, which means someone else knows about Maks.
“Whoever knocked on the door during dinner,” Alex says, pacing again. “Dammit.”
“I knew I heard a weird noise yesterday,” I say. “What if they’ve been watching the house this whole time?”
“Hunt—” Alex is about to say but there’s a thundering bang on the front door.
“Girls?” Dad calls out from the living room. Whoever is on the other side alternates between jamming the bell and punching. “Stay in the kitchen!”
My mom races downstairs and meets my dad at the front door, the pounding doesn’t cease, this time accompanied by someone screaming bloody murder.
“What are they doing?” I shout.
“You heard what Dad said.” Alex grabs my arm and keeps me back.
“Get him upstairs!” Dad shouts. “First door on the right.”
“Hide that,” Alex warns me.
I panic and put the box in the freezer. We run to the living room, where our parents are helping two bloodied guys climb up our steps.
“Clean this up,” Mom orders, looking back at us. She has her game face on. When people come through that door asking for help, she doesn’t cringe or hesitate. She looks at the injury and gets to work.
Rose brings the mop and bucket from the kitchen and I go and close the door. Two sets of footprints trail blood from outside.
“I’ll clean out here,” I tell her.
I limp around the side of the house to grab the hose and spray the cement where the blood leads directly into our house. I can’t get enough slack on the hose to go down the block. I curse at the heavens. I can only pray for rain.
My street is too quiet for this time of night, but I’m grateful I don’t have to explain the bloody sidewalk to my neighbors.
I wrap the hose around my shoulder and close the fence behind me. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel safe in my own house. I was born here, literally in the living room. When my mom went into labor three weeks early, I sped into this world screaming and eager. Alex took forty-eight hours. Rose was right on time.
After everything I’ve done, a dark thought tugs at me. I wonder if I’ll die here too.
Up on the second floor, the light in my room is still off, which is a small relief. I can see shadows moving in the infirmary window. There’s a scream, like the call of a banshee trailing in the wind.
“I should help,” I say out loud. “Even if I’m not ready, I should help.”
Then, I jump as a shadow moves at the side of the house. And I realize, it’s not a shadow. It’s a man dressed from head to toe in black.
“Who the hell are you?” I shout.
He starts to run. It’s so dark I can’t see his face. The light at the porch isn’t turning on, so I fumble with the hose, point it in his direction, and spray.
I hear him grunt, the blast hitting his side. He’s fast and, in two swift movements, jumps over the side of the porch and into the neighbor’s yard.
“Stop!” I shout. I start to run, but a pain shreds my sides. I take a knee and wait for it to subside. “Alex!”
She comes running out. “What’s wrong?”
“There was someone watching through the window.”
She comes over and pulls my shirt up. The look on her face tells me something is wrong.
“Forget that,” she says. “I have to heal you again.”