“Wait. Give me your hands.” I hold out my hands for them to take.
I do something my mother used to when I was younger. “Thank you, La
Mama, for this meal and for lighting our path. El Terroz for the
bounty of your rich, strong earth.”
“And La Estrella,” Nova adds, “for a new hope.”
“And to Alex,” Rishi says, “for this adventure.”
• • •
We keep on going.
I find the stone path again easily. Or perhaps it finds me. The
farther we walk, the more Los Lagos starts to feel familiar. The sky
is violet, and there is not a skyscraper in sight. The grass is tall
and yellow, and wild beasties scurry underground. It is unlike
anywhere I’ve ever been, but somehow it reminds me of home.
You are the blood of my blood , Mama Juanita told me. She believes
my power is enough.
Every now and then, I turn around to make sure Rishi and Nova are
keeping up. Rishi’s face is flushed, but if she’s tired, then she
doesn’t complain. Nova is quieter than usual, his bipolar eyes
searching the sky. I go to check my watch for the time and realize my
watch is long gone. The moon and sun are inching closer as they pass
each other in the sky. The eclipse is approaching, but so are we.
“I’m coming for you,” I whisper, and hope the wind will carry that
to my family.
We stop once more to drink water and eat the rest of our rabbit.
But I can’t sit still for too long. When the moon and sun set, I pull
light from the stars and create three glowing, green orbs, so we don’t
have to walk in the dark. My skin tingles, and I know we’re close. We
rest again, so I can heal the blisters on Nova’s and Rishi’s feet.
When I’m exhausted, my green orbs are extinguished like candle flames.
I’m the only one who can’t sleep, and so I try to make shapes out of
the stars. I wonder if the Devourer can feel us approaching. I think
of the one way she can hurt me-my family. I envision all the different
ways I want to hurt her.
“I’m coming for you,” I whisper before I fall asleep.
The very second the sun and moon rise again, I wake Rishi and Nova
up and we keep going for another half cycle.
“It’s up ahead,” I say.
“I can feel it too,” Nova says.
“I know I’m not a witch or anything,” Rishi says, “but this place
is making my skin crawl.”
“Is something finally scaring you?” Nova asks her.
“It was bound to happen,” she says.
I take her hand and squeeze, just to let her know that I’m here. I
shut my eyes and let the mountain speak to me. Like the rest of this
land, it has a voice. It calls to me, magic to magic.
La luna , the voice whispers in the Old Tongue.
“The moon,” I say. I step away from my friends and line myself up
with the moon. I step on the next stone, and when it sinks, a wave of
energy crashes over me. A moonbeam connects to my necklace, shooting a
prism of multicolored light into the glamour. The veil falls away,
revealing a mountain range that glitters like stars and stretches
higher than the Empire State building.
“The entrance!” Rishi says.
The prism of light that beams from my necklace illuminates a rift
in the mountain that would be easy to miss in the dark. It looks as if
El Terroz took his golden ax and created the gash himself.
When we stand at the entrance, the prism flickers and goes out. I
struggle to bring back the light, exhaustion pulling at my life force.
“I’ve got it,” Nova says. He releases a ball of light over his
head and blows on it. It floats ahead of him.
“Ready?” I whisper to Rishi.
For the first time since we’ve journeyed together, she looks
nervous. I hold her hand and walk with her, a promise that I won’t let
go.
In turn, she stays close and whispers, “I would follow you into
the darkest dark.”
31
They say El Corazуn has two hearts:
the black thing in his chest and
the one he wears on his sleeve.
- Tales of the Deos, Felipe Thomбs San Justinio
The path is full of whispers and loose stones tumbling from the
highest peaks. Our footsteps echo all the way to the top.
“Was that you?” Nova asks.
“Me what?” I say.
“Touching me.”
I scoff. “You wish.”
“It’s probably just a poisonous spider that’s evolved to kill
you,” Rishi tells him.
“Just stop helping,” he mutters.
I’m so thirsty, but without another source of water, the water we
carry is precious. I wonder…
“Nova, if I can conjure fire, would I be able to conjure water as
well?”
He makes a hmmm noise. “Depends. I’ve heard the recoil for
elemental magic is pretty bad. Fire burns your skin. Lightning makes
your heart stop.”
“I conjured lightning at home to fight the maloscuro. I passed
out. Would water just make you get wet? Like maybe a rain cloud
following over your head?” My chuckle echoes to the top of the
mountain and gets lost there.
“No,” Nova says, like it’s the silliest thing he’s ever heard.
“Maybe your lungs would fill up with water. La Ola isn’t exactly known
for being even tempered. I’d rather take my chances with El Fuego
honestly.”
“You talk about these gods like they’re people,” Rishi says.
“They’re not actually flesh-and-blood people are they?”
“You can field that one, Alto Brujo,” I tell Nova.
He gives me a side eye over his shoulder. “No one I know has ever
seen them. We create our gods to look like us, don’t we? Only better.
The god of the butterflies would look like a butterfly, right? So our
gods have human qualities, but also the great power that makes them
individuals.”
“But how do you know?”
Nova sounds frustrated as he says, “I can’t explain belief. I just
have it. I know the power in me comes from somewhere. I know that the
magic in my veins is real. No, I can’t tell you that if I speak to the
Deos, they answer back with words, but there are other ways. When was
the last time Zeus came down for Olympus and hung out just to prove
his existence? Besides, the Deos didn’t create us to interact with us.
We’re just pawns moving across the board. There’s a checkmate waiting
at the end for all of us. At least, that’s what my grandma says.”
Rishi clears her throat. “The more you talk about her, the more
charming she sounds.”
“I’m not exactly easy to love,” he says.
As he says that, stones clatter overhead.
“Watch out!” Nova turns and pushes Rishi and me against a wall.
“I might’ve been wrong about the spiders,” Rishi whispers.
“Whatever it is,” I say, “we’re not alone. Come on.”
I lead the way, our boots pounding down the narrow path. We’ve
come too far to go back, and there’s no climbing up something so high.
“Alex!” Rishi trips and falls on something.
Nova helps her to her feet before I can reach her. He holds a ball
of light over them.
“Oh my Deos,” I gasp. There’s a skull at Rishi’s feet. I hold up
my hands and shoot flares of light down the path. For a moment, it
lights up as bright as day. Bones litter the ground. Some are
scattered. Some are entwined, as if they died together in an embrace.
I bend down and pick up the skull Rishi tripped on. I close my
eyes as an imprint of memory latches onto me. I’ve seen it happen to
Rose. When she touches an object at a garage sale or when we’re
walking in the historic parts of the city. She relives the scene the
way I’m doing now.
There’s a girl my age with dark skin and darker eyes. One minute,