“Do you know what the Devourer did when she saw me?”
Mama Juanita shakes her head solemnly.
“She laughed . She laughed because she thinks I can’t beat her.
I’m sorry I did this to you. Every step I take, I think about how
everyone I love is going to die because I’m not enough.”
“Listen here, nena.” She clicks her cane on the water, sending a
wave that spills onto the banks. “You listen good. I don’t ever want
to hear you say that. You are the blood of my blood, and you are more
than enough. You think we don’t know the burden of our power? I lived
with it for ninety years. Believe me, I know.”
“You’re the first one who’s actually called it a burden.”
“I can say whatever I want. I’m dead. But burden or gift, this is
who we are. Just think, nena, if you didn’t fear your own power, then
you wouldn’t have respected it enough to rein it in. But you have to
get past that. Magic is an extension of us. Imagine the things that we
could do. Create. Destroy. This Devourer, she doesn’t fear her power.
She fears someone who could be stronger than her.”
I think of the fear in the Devourer’s face when I was able to cut
her. I enjoyed that feeling. I wanted to see someone afraid of me.
“I’m not blaming your mother,” Mama Juanita says in that
passive-aggressive way of hers. “Bless her heart, but if I had been
alive, this whole mess never would’ve happened. You would’ve known not
to mess with cantos you had no business messing with. You would have
memorized every herb and poison in the Book of Cantos.”
“But you weren’t ,” I shout. “Where was the magic when my dad left
us, huh? Where was the magic when my mom had to take two jobs just to
pay the mortgage? How was I supposed to see the good in magic when
we’ve only had suffering? I don’t live in the old days, Mama. I live
in Brooklyn circa now. The only reason this happened is because of me.
Not my mom. Not you. Me .”
Something inside of me just snaps. The earth trembles. Boulders
roll down the hill. Mama Juanita cocks her eyebrow and takes a puff.
The winds around me have funneled into baby tornadoes. Mama Juanita
reaches out her hand to touch one, and for the first time since I was
five, the old woman smiles. Actually smiles with teeth biting on that
cigar.
“That’s my girl,” she says. “You need your family blessing. You
need to hurry and free us.”
Then, her smile disappears. She looks over her shoulder and
winces. It’s only for a moment, and then her sassy, cranky self is
back.
“What happened?”
“I’m sorry.” She shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “I didn’t
come to make you feel guilty, nena.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
She purses her lips but keeps talking. “I came to tell you that
your magic isn’t enough. You’re an encantrix. You’ve been chosen. You
have magic, but all brujas need a way to conduct it. That’s why wands
and charms became part of witchcraft. Our bodies, they’re just flesh
and bone. The Deos are not, but our powers come from them.
“Without your family blessing…” She lets it linger. “That’s what
the Deathday is for: to fortify you, so you can use your gift and not
burn your body or mind so quickly. Have you started feeling it? The
nightmares, the body aches? That’s the recoil, but it’ll get worse. At
least I don’t see any marks.”
“Marks?”
“Without a Deathday, your power starts to consume your body. It
eats away at you. It leaves behind black marks. When you’re covered in
it, well, that’s when you know it’s the end.”
I shake my head. “No, that can’t be right.”
She leans in close, reaches for my face but grabs air. “Tell me
you don’t have marks, nena.”
“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