When I get closer, I can see my reflection in Rishi’s sunglasses—my dark curls made unruly by the summer breeze, my red lipstick to match my dress, my scars uncovered and for everyone to see.
“You look beautiful.” She pulls me into a long embrace. While her parents are busy talking to ours, she stomps her feet and playfully slaps my arm. “I can’t believe I missed the zombie romp across town. I feel like Alex needs to take me ghost hunting for winter break.”
Alex laughs and threads her fingers through Rishi’s. “I promise, it was just a regular Tuesday night.”
“What about you, Lula?” Rishi asks, her nose ring catching the bright sunlight. “Are you okay? I know how verbose you Mortiz sisters can be with your feelings. Spare no details.”
I chuckle and look down at my shoes. Am I okay? I feel so many things. Weary. Relieved. Guilty. Free. Sometimes I feel everything all at once and sometimes I don’t feel anything at all. But my family is helping me deal with everything. I just have to ask for help.
My body, on the other hand—there are some things that science or magic can’t fix. In the evenings, when it’s cold and damp, the pain in my hips comes with a side of angry tears. Even now, I have to reach for Rose’s arm for balancing support. My body is different and strange and new to me, and I have to be kind to it. I have to learn this version of myself and love her like she deserves.
But now, I know I’m telling the truth when I say, “I’m going to be fine.”
? ? ?
Queens Village, Queens, is a strange place.
It definitely isn’t Brooklyn. Our neighbors want to talk to us, which is weird, and the house feels too new. Too freshly painted. Too straight. Too big.
The Knights of Lavant bought the house. They didn’t have any properties in Brooklyn, because Brooklyn real estate is somehow worse than Manhattan these days.
Dad didn’t want to take the house. But McKay convinced him that it was the least they could do after they burned ours down. I didn’t tell Dad it was Alex who started the fire.
Half-truths and half-lies.
That night, after graduation and the memorial and dinner, we set up our new altar in our new house. Mom ordered a new statue of La Mama from a botánica down in Florida. There’s a built-in shelf in the entrance wall where she fits perfectly. Rose and Nova are in charge of candles. Alex and I string flowers together with white thread.
“What’s Dad in charge of?” Rose asks.
“Finding a good angle for the TV,” I say.
Mom hits me on the back of my head.
“Ma,” I groan.
She strikes a match and starts lighting the sage bundles. Even new houses need to be cleansed. “Let your father be. Nova, honey, set a pot to boil.”
“Actually, Ms. Carmen, I wanted to talk to you guys about something.”
“Did you leave a red sock in the laundry again?” I ask, which garners another smack to the back of my head. Everything is almost back to normal.
We sit around the living room with Nova on the couch across from us. He’s trying to let his beard grow out, and I think he’s trying to emulate my dad. The marks on his hands are getting longer, and we try to act like we aren’t worried.
Ever since that night, I have a mark on my chest too. Just like Nova does on his heart and hands, and just like Alex does on her palms. Mine is in the shape of a star, burned right over my solar plexus, at the center of my scar.
“I was thinking about what Lady de la Muerte said,” Nova says. “About how you’ve been in a realm she can’t reach. I think that might help in getting your memories back.”
Dad sits up on the couch. He smooths his mustache down around the corners of his mouth. “What did you have in mind?”
“You’ve tried potions and cantos, and nothing works,” Nova says. “But I think we’re missing something from the realm you were in. I can find something that can help us.”
“On one condition,” Dad tells him.
“What?”
Mom and Dad sit closer to each other than they have in the last few months. Dad puts his arm around her and she sinks into him.
“We’ve talked about it,” Mom says. “We want to have a Deathday for you to stabilize your power.”
“I couldn’t,” he says, blue-green eyes glassy and I never thought I’d see the day when Nova Santiago was bashful. “That’s too much.”
“You already live here,” Rose says.
“And you’re already a pain, like a brother would be.” Alex smirks.
“What they mean,” I say, “is you did so much for me. You stayed, even though you didn’t have to.”
“Family isn’t just blood,” Dad says. “Sometimes you get to choose your family. And you’ve earned a place here.”
? ? ?
The middle of July is scorching. I miss Coney Island. I miss the beach and the noise. But Queens is okay. I sit in the front yard on a lawn chair. Light breaks through the large tree in front of our house and makes patterns along my skin. Alex and Rose lie down on a blanket. Rose reads from The Kingdom of Adas, and Alex tries to find a canto for Nova in a large, unmarked text.
A black car pulls up right in front of our house.
“Here comes your boyfriend,” Alex singsongs.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say calmly because I know they’re just trying to get a rise out of me. “I’m not ready for boyfriends.”
“Hey,” Rhett says, approaching the brick gate. The ends of his dark hair curl at his shoulders, and he blows a strand away from his deep brown eyes. It’s strange seeing him in broad daylight. He’s holding a plant with dark-purple flowers, and it makes him look like a normal guy, instead of a hunter. “I should get you one of those ‘number of days without an incident’ signs.”
“Do not get us that,” Alex says without looking up from her book.
“Right,” he says. “I just wanted to drop by a housewarming present from the THA. Frederik grew it.”
Rose lowers her sunglasses and tells him, “Half-truth.”
Rhett smirks. “Charming. How’s your new power working out, magical hacker?”
She pushes the lenses back up with a dismissive finger. “You can’t call me that.”
“Stay there,” I say, and I get up from my chair to save him from my sisters. Close the distance between us. I favor my left leg, which hurts less, but I’ll always have an ache in my bones. Even now, the scar on my chest burns.
I lean my elbow on top of the brick gate. A part of me likes the way his Adam’s apple ripples when he swallows, the blush that creeps up to his cheeks when I look at him.
“These are beautiful. Tell Frederik thanks.” I touch the gauzelike petals that remind me of butterfly wings. I grab the pot by the base. “Is that it?”
“I wanted to say I’m sorry I missed your graduation ceremony,” he says. “We had to take down this alien cult that was using human sacrifices—it was a whole ordeal.”
“I’m not sure I believe in aliens.”
He scrunches his face, bewildered. “I watched a deity rip what was basically a cephalopod out of your chest cavity, but aliens make you skeptical?”
“We all have our boundaries, hunter boy.”
Garhett Dulac, hunter and Knight of Lavant, actually chuckles. “I could show you proof. Peru’s an extraterrestrial hot spot.”
“And how would we get there?” I cock my head to the side and let my hair fall over my shoulders.
He licks his lip, and his dark eyes flick from my mouth to my scars. “I could steal one of our jets. Break protocol again.”
I scrunch up my nose but smile all the same. “I think I should keep a low profile for now.”
He leans forward, chest pressed right against the brick fence. The way he looks at me sends a jolt through my veins, something I haven’t felt in so long.
“Maybe we could do something sinmagos do. Dinner?”
Say no. I inhale the scent of freshly cut grass and the new flowers in my grasp.
Say yes. He shoves a hand in his pocket and looks down at the ground.
I want him to stay.
I want him to go.
And I know that until I can pick one of those, I can’t go anywhere with him.
“I can’t,” I say. “Not for a while.”
“You know where to find me, if you change your mind.” He flashes a smile that rattles me. “I’ll check in on you guys another time. Make sure the new house isn’t burned to the ground yet.”
“Funny.”
“Bye, Lula.”