me. I know all your secrets.”
“Good,” my mother says, “because you’re invited to Alex’s
Deathday.”
41
She is the light in the hopeless places.
She is the sky when the night blazes.
- Rezo de La Estrella, Lady of Hope and All the World’s Brightness
Not everyone gets second chances. I’m grateful for mine.
Rishi helps me find a dress. It’s a splash of different purples
and makes a swish, swish sound when I spin in my room.
“You look like the Los Lagos sky,” Rishi tells me.
Lula rolls her eyes and scrapes the bobby pins too hard against my
skull. “Will you guys stop with your Los Lagos bonding? You got to
have all the adventure while were tortured by an evil old bruja.”
“You’re just jealous,” Rishi says.
“She is jealous,” Rose says, lighting a new candle on my altar
beside Madra’s feather and Agosto’s throwing knife.
“Don’t tell me you’re on their side, Rosie,” Lula mutters.
“I don’t choose sides. I just know things.”
“So how come Alex has to do another party? Didn’t she accept the
blessing when she freed you guys?” Rishi flips through The Creation of
Witches . After everything that happened, Lady apprenticed me at her
shop. I don’t mind the extra work.
“Sure, Alex got a blessing,” Lula says, pinning the rose on my
head. “But we didn’t get a party. Plus, everyone is clamoring to meet
the encantrix. We’re getting free stuff every day.”
“Not to mention all the people coming to our door searching for
miracles,” Rose says.
“Wow,” Rishi says. “You’re like a celebrity.”
I wouldn’t call myself a celebrity. But all over town, brujas
talk. They talk about the girl who destroyed the Devourer of the Los
Lagos. They don’t mention that I was partly responsible for banishing
my family there or that four hundred generations of both ghosts and
the living helped right my wrong.
“We can’t turn anyone away,” I say. “Our spare room is like a
magical infirmary. My mom had to quit her receptionist job to take
care of our patients. We take care of people with demonic possessions,
wounds that can’t be treated by a regular doctor, and irregular
births.”
“We had our first vampire ,” Lula says. “My heart nearly fell out
of my chest when he came in with an arrow sticking out of his
shoulder. He was so hot.”
“His shapeshifter friend was cuter,” Rose says quietly.
“Aw, Rosie has her first crush.”
And then we all fall into fits of laughter.
• • •
The second party is better than the first. Everyone sings and
dances and drinks copious amounts of Lady’s rose punch because we’re
alive and it’s a beautiful thing.
I shake the hands of friends, family, and strangers. It’s still
overwhelming. Everyone seems to want a piece of me. They want to look
at my hands, at the marks that refuse to heal. I’ve grown rather fond
of them. A reminder in case I ever lose my way again.
An old bruja brings her child to me so I could bless her. I don’t
think I’m quite there yet, but it seemed to make her happy. No matter
what I say, people think I’m more than what I am. That’s the
difference between Xara and me. I’m quite happy with my slice of
power, doing what good I can.
Rishi quickly becomes everyone’s favorite, retelling our adventure
with details I seem to leave out-the way the sun shone, the way the
water tasted, the beings we met. Rishi even seems to make sense of
Crazy Uncle Julio’s ramblings, and his prediction of a zombie invasion
this summer.
“Let’s dance,” Rishi tells me, pulling me onto the dance floor.
“Is it weird that I miss the Meadow del Sol? And that you could see so
many stars. Sometimes I dream of it.”
“I’ll give you stars,” I tell her.
I conjure the Los Lagos night sky on the ceiling, and I thank the
Deos for making me who I am. An encantrix, a bruja, a girl.
Epilogue
Grita al sol! Grita a la luna!
If the Deos hear, they’ll answer.
- The Creation of Witches, Antonietta Mortiz de la Paz
There is a hard knock at the door. My mother is on the couch,
resting her dancing feet. The house is in shambles after the party.
It’s well after three in the morning. Lula fell asleep on the couch
still wearing her dress, and Rose is reading an anatomy textbook. My
senses are wide-awake.
Knock knock knock.
“I got it,” I say, drawing on my power in case it’s a threat.
“Hey,” he answers.
“Hey,” I say.
Nova stands in a blue hoodie and jeans. It doesn’t look very warm,
but he doesn’t shiver. I instinctively look at his hands. His
fingertips have started to turn black with marks again.
I go to close the door in his face, but he puts his hand on it.
“I know you’ll never forgive me,” he says.
“That’s right.” I don’t look at him. I can’t because I know that a
sick, twisted part of me cares for him. I’ll just never be able to
look at him the same way.
“But you have to know that I wasn’t lying about the way I felt for
you. That was real. Every little bit.”
“I believe you,” I say.
I have so many questions, like: Where have you been? Where did you
go while we were all in the hospital? If you love me so much, then why
did you vanish? If you love me so much, then why did you still hurt
me?
Not all loves are meant to last forever. Some burn like fire until
there is nothing left but ash and black ink on skin. Others, like the
love I feel for Rishi, stay close to the heart so I’ll never forget.
“What are you doing here, Nova?”
He looks to the side, like he’s being watched. “There is nothing I
can do to make you forgive me. But this is a start.”
He turns and runs down the front steps and back onto the street,
leaving his footprints on the snow. I run after him, but he’s quick
and vanishes around the corner.
“Wait!”
I realize there’s more than one set of prints in the snow.
There’s Nova’s and mine-and a third.
I whip around. Inhale so much cold air I think my insides are
frozen. On the porch is a face I thought I’d never see again. It’s
like looking through a foggy window.
From the house, my mom yells, “Shut that door! You’re letting out
the heat!”
But I can’t move. Every part of my body is locked. I think my
heart has stopped beating.
“Alex, what-?”
Lula and Rose run out to see what’s happened, but they scream too.
Lula rubs her eyes as they adjust to the dim porch light, and she
clamps her mouth shut in disbelief.
He looks older, that’s for sure. There’s recognition in his eyes
but also confusion. It’s like he’s trying so hard to remember our
faces, like he’s one of the lost souls in Campo de Almas.
I say the word carefully, like it’s made of glass. “Dad?”
Author’s Note
Alex’s story has been in my heart and mind for a long time.
Labyrinth Lost has taken different shapes and titles, and undergone
many revisions, but the one thing that hasn’t changed is the idea of
family as identity. Alex struggles with who she is, who she should be,
and who she wants to be. I think that everyone, no matter where they
come from, can relate to that. In order for me to create this
matriarchy of brujas, I took inspiration from some Latin American
religions and cultures.
BRUJAS
Bruja is the Spanish word for “witch.” In my Ecuadorian family, we
call each other brujas as a joke. When you wake up with your hair