“ Rishi .”
She shrugs in her I’m-only-just-saying kind of way.
I find myself touching my necklace to feel the familiar weight of
knowing I was connected to someone-the way I used to when I missed my
dad. I’m starting to get that feeling back.
“I take it you’re not coming with us,” Nova says to Agosto.
The Faun King shakes his head. “I must return to my people. Take
them to safety. I fear Xara will retaliate soon.”
He takes my hand and presses it to his lips, then his forehead. “I
hope to see you again, encantrix.”
I don’t wait to watch him go. I take off, running down the hill.
• • •
The temple is bigger than anything it seemed from up the hill. The
stones are great pillars weathered by wind and rain. I press my hand
against the groves and dips in the stone, the carvings of different
moon phases and constellations. Sparks flare between my fingers.
Night falls as the moon and sun pass each other across the sky and
set. Stars emerge behind thinning clouds.
“This is incredible,” Rishi says, standing in the center of the
temple with her hands stretched toward the sky. “My parents do all the
ceremonies in the world, but I never thought I believed in anything.
After this, I might have to reconsider.”
“You’re going to start believing in the Deos?”
Rishi grins. “Or I could just put all my faith in you.”
I get closer to her. Her brown skin is bathed in the starlight.
Her long, dark hair is windblown and wild around her shoulders.
Something in the pit of my stomach falls, and when she smiles at me,
it just keeps on falling.
“You can believe in anything you want,” I say, “as long as it
feels right. Even seeing the things I grew up with, I wanted to
pretend they weren’t real. I have all the proof in the world, while
some people go lifetimes hoping to see a miracle. It was easier to
think I was living the wrong life. It’s easier to want to be someone
else.”
“I would never want you to be someone else.” She coils my hair
around her finger. The ends have started to curl on their own. Magic
transforms you. “I want you to be you. You’re magic, Alex. I always
thought so, even before I knew your secrets.”
Her smile is full, and hearing these things, my heart feels so
full it might burst. I exhale hard, look up at the circle of stones
that surround us.
Then, a bright light explodes, like the flash of a camera. Nova
stands just outside the temple. The worry mark on his brow is gone.
His hands glow with light.
“Find anything interesting?” he asks.
“If you think ancient witch carvings are interesting, then sure,”
Rishi says. She walks toward him and leans on a stone pillar.
“Well?” Nova asks me. “Was Agosto pulling our chain?”
“Not funny,” I say.
“Too soon?” He shrugs a shoulder.
I ignore him and continue tracing my fingers along the stone. The
magic here is strange. It isn’t the dull pulse of the earth I’ve felt
during this journey. It’s like a sigh of relief.
There’s a carving above eye level of a crescent moon lying
sideways. The symbol of El Papa. I touch the necklace my father gave
me. The next pillar has the mark of El Terroz, a square stone. A
feather for El Cielo, an eight-pointed star for La Estrella, an arrow
for El Corazon. I walk in a full circle, looking at all thirteen
pillars-each one is for the High Deos-until I reach the sun, for La
Mama. Here, the grass is wild and overgrown. I try to imagine what
this place would have looked like in its prime. The grass would be
green, not yellow. The stones would be newly etched, not fading.
Brujas and brujos would stand in this circle.
“It feels so forgotten,” I say.
“I don’t get it,” Rishi says. “If the Devourer or Xena or whatever
her name is was also a bruja like the tribes who built this, why would
she kill them all?”
“What do you do with an obstacle?” Nova asks.
I don’t like where he’s going with this. “You go around it.”
“What if it keeps moving in your way?”
“You get rid of it.” If I shut my eyes, the wind sounds like the
ghosts of brujas and brujos screaming for their lives. “My mom
believes in the balance of all things. She says La Mama and El Papa
are a symbol of that.”
“The Deos don’t create the balance,” Nova says. “We do. Their
power is in us.”
“Maybe they should be more careful in giving power to people in
the first place,” Rishi says.
“Then why did they choose me?” I wonder aloud.
“Don’t go down that rabbit hole, Alex,” Nova says.
“I mean, no one should have this much power. No one. But here we
are.”
“It could be worse,” Rishi says. “Your spell could have worked,
and then who would be here to fight the Devourer?”
“I would.”
“But you stand a better chance having this great bruja power.”
I reach down for the earth and push my magic into it. The land’s
weak pulse answers back in greeting. I remember you. It doesn’t speak
it, but the thought pops up in my head. The land aches, as if waking
from a deep slumber. I pull at the dead patches of grass. Right where
my magic met the land, a tiny, green bulb appears.
I place my hands on another patch of earth. The dry, yellow grass
comes away with a snap. It reminds me of Mama Juanita plucking the
feathers off a chicken. It reminds me of pulling at my hair in an
angry fit, alone in my bedroom with the lights turned off while I
listened to my mother crying for my dad.
I remember you , says the earth.
Green sprouts twist from the ground like newborn fingers
stretching. My heart races with the boost of my magic. Instinct, as
old as this place, grips me. I take a step toward the center of the
temple, pulling away the dead plants from the dirt. My fingers touch
something hard. A worn stone tile buried and forgotten. I jolt as
sparks burn my fingertips.
I need light. I raise my hands to the overcast sky.
“La Estrella,” I say, “bless me with your light.”
The air in my chest escapes in a gust. My magic pushes against the
clouds, and they race away across the night sky until there is only
the blazing light of a million stars. They shine down on the circle of
stones.
One by one, the symbols etched at the top of the stone pillars
glow, creating a circle of light that reaches down to the ground. The
newborn grass bulbs spring up higher, alive and lush.
Something’s missing. I can feel my magic, taut like a guitar
string, urging me to take another step. I place both feet on the stone
tile. It gives under my weight, sinking into the earth, snapping into
place. The light bounces off each pillar, then funnels into a single
beam, crashing over me.
“I remember you,” I say as the light fills me. Every cell of my
body snaps awake, and I wonder if this is what it feels like to be
born once again. If this power is a good thing. If I can control it.
The skin at my throat burns where my necklace catches the light
that shines down on the grass in front of me. Yellow grass breaks
away, revealing another stone. The stones glow, and when I step on
them, they sink. The dirt ahead clears, revealing the next step for me
to take-then another and another, leading out of the circle and down a
hill and then up another.
When I look up, I’m filled with so much color and joy and light. I
walk ahead, lighting up the path for Rishi and Nova to follow. The
path is dizzying, and just when I think I’m heading in the right