“I don’t.” I don’t, but Nova does.
“Alejandra, you can’t—” Mama Juanita drops her cigarillo from her lips. She chokes on black smoke.
“Mama!”
The shadows slither around her neck.
I reach for her, but this time I do grab air. She flickers away, and for the first time in my whole life, I see fear in her eyes.
“Alex!” Nova shouts. It’s like I’m hearing him from the other end of a tunnel.
The water gives beneath my feet. My mouth fills with water. My dreams are of the dead. My family. My friends. Myself. We lie in a field of thorns and turned earth. Over us stands the Devourer. She licks her fingers. Every single one. Then settles her red stare, her face hidden behind that helmet of bone and steel. I feel her hunger. My hunger.
When she takes it off, she’s wearing my face.
30
The oceans sparkle with your tears.
The land aches for your return.
—Folk song, Book of Cantos
I did not travel through a portal and across a strange land only to drown in a pond. I kick up and reach the water’s edge.
“Alex!” Rishi and Nova both shout, running for me.
I’m too busy coughing my throat raw to answer. I brush water out of my eyes and wring my hair out.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I had a vision of my great-grandmother.”
When I look up, Rishi and Nova are staring at me. Nova’s eyes are more green now, like sparkling jade crystals. His cheeks are bright red. He holds a bloody animal in one hand and a knife in the other. His lips move in a jumble of words that end up nonsensical, and then he turns his face to the side.
“Alex,” Rishi says, her eyes wide with wonder. Whatever she’s holding falls to the ground. She looks at me the way people usually look at Lula.
I look down to realize I’m naked and a golden light covers my skin. I hold up my hand and push a blinding light out so they have to look away. I grab my clothes and run behind a tree, their laugher tinkling in the wind.
“Not funny!” I shout at them.
I get dressed. My clothes cling to my wet skin. I could swear that Lula’s apparition is nearby making fun of me. She’d say, “What’s the big deal? That’s how we were made.” Why has it always been easier for Lula to be freer than I am? It’s not like I’m covered in boils and puss. It’s not like Rishi and I don’t have the same parts. It’s not like Nova doesn’t know what a naked girl looks like.
I hit the back of my head against the tree trunk, and I can’t help but smile at how nervous Nova was and the blush on Rishi’s face. I’m not used to making people react to me that way because, for the most part, I’m not used to being seen. My heart races and I think this has to be a different kind of power.
I dust myself off and get ready to return to my friends when I realize the bruises on my arms are all gone. Then, my heartbeat spikes when I see a dark spot on my palm. Fear of Mama Juanita’s words takes hold of me. My mouth goes dry and my fingers shake as I move to touch the mark.
It comes away easily—just a smudge of dirt. It didn’t take long for my witchy hypochondria to start now that I know what happens to brujas who don’t have their Deathdays.
I find Nova and Rishi sitting around a small fire. Nova is skinning a large, rabbit-looking creature and Rishi is sharpening sticks. We sit in complete silence with only the brush of the weeping willow making noise as it slaps the surface of the pond. Rishi hands over one of the sharpened sticks to Nova and he skewers the animal straight through. I’m trying to put together an image of Nova, but it’s hard because there are missing pieces.
“Where’d you learn to skin?” I ask him.
His eyes, more blue now, flick to my forehead, then back to the animal. He smiles. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“He worked in a butcher shop,” Rishi says. “He’s just trying to make you guess the worst.”
“You have no chill, Rishi,” Nova tells her.
She blows him a kiss, and he rolls his eyes.
“So,” Nova says, “what was with all the glowing when you came out of the pond? You looked like the painting of that Greek lady surfing on a giant clam.”
Rishi slugs him in the arm and he just laughs. “Classy.”
“Oh come on,” Nova says. “I’m just trying to make things a little less awkward. We could all go skinny-dipping and then we’d all be on an even playing field.”
“Pass,” Rishi says.
“First of all,” I start, “that was probably one of my most embarrassing moments, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make fun of me.”
“Believe me,” Nova says softly, “there’s nothing to make fun of.”
Heat spreads from my solar plexus across my skin. I push the feeling away and realize there is something I do want to know. “I have a better idea than skinny-dipping.”
Nova’s eyes light up. “Yeah?”
“I want a secret.”
“Psh. That hardly seems like a fair exchange.”
“You’re a Neanderthal,” Rishi mumbles.
“Mankind had to start somewhere,” he says. “At least I can make a fire.”
“You used your magic,” Rishi counters.
Nova turns the rabbit. Juicy fat melts off and pops in the fire. “Magic makes the world go ’round.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you never had your Deathday?” I blurt out, growing tired of Nova and Rishi’s bickering.
Whatever he thought I was going to say, it wasn’t that. He avoids my eyes and cleans my dagger on his pant leg. Rishi looks like she’s about to speak, but I shake my head. I want to give Nova space. I know that’s what I’d want. I’m torn between wanting to know more about him and wanting him to tell me on his own. We sit and watch the fire burn and wait for Nova to be ready. But what if he’s not?
“How’d you know?” he finally says as a nonanswer.
“My great-grandmother appeared to me.” I fill him in on the charm of Mama Juanita and the shadow smoke that attacked her the way it did Lula and my mom. “She told me that power burns our human bodies without the family blessing.”
I look at Nova’s hands. The black marks have spread farther up his biceps. One tendril flows from his stomach to his clavicle and then his shoulder.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Rishi asks.
He shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“Nova, stop. You know I can’t let you keep using your powers.”
“No one lets me do anything.”
“Well, maybe if someone did, you wouldn’t get yourself in so much trouble.”
He shuts his eyes and gives me his cheek. “You guys don’t know squat about me.”
“Then tell us something. Your answer is to act like the world is against you. Believe me, I know. I felt like that every single day. I felt like my magic was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. It broke my family. It breaks so many people.”
“Now you’ve changed your mind?” He’s being defensive.