forbid you need the book all the way at the bottom. The windows are
caked with dust, and spiders have erected a web metropolis on every
available corner. There’s a giant caiman bolted to the ceiling, like
it’s swimming in the middle of a swamp. It’s yellow eyes look so
alive, even though Lady swears it’s as dead as her first husband.
I turn around and come face-to-face with the pickle wall. Rose
picks up a jar of human eyes, each one with a different color iris. A
blue one moves around of its own volition.
“I don’t like him,” she whispers, setting the jar back on the
shelf.
“What’s not to like?” I ask.
Lady, the storeowner, Alta Bruja of the Greater New York area, and
my aunt by marriage, greets us with a smile.
Her dark laugh makes me think of cigarettes being crushed into an
ashtray. “Don’t mind the eyes, Rosie. They can’t hurt anyone from in
there.”
The fringe on her clothes bounces when she waves. Her black
lipstick makes her mouth look like a bruised plum. She stands behind
the register, a rickety, black metal thing with large, white buttons
for the numbers. It probably survived the Coney Island fire of 1911.
Lady has always been an enigma to the younger generation of
brujas. Only the Viejos know her real name. After her second husband
died trying to make the journey back to Cuba, she married an aunt on
my dad’s side. She became part of our community and teaches the
younger brujas everything, from our history to magic realms to cantos.
Lula and her Circle have a bet about how old Lady really is. They’ve
guessed everything from thirty to ninety-one. When we were little, I
had a theory she was a vampire, but Lady likes browning under the sun
like Sunday bacon.
“Alejandra, come here.” Lady refuses to call me Alex. She says the
Deos don’t take kindly to false names. I just hate the way some people
say “Alejandra.” It’s like trying to say it right makes their tongue
have a seizure.
I try to blend into the corner of dusty books, but when I don’t
move, Lady makes a beeline for me. She grabs my hand and spins me in
place. Then she traces the map of lines on the palm of my hand. She
grabs my chin, and one of her long, black nails digs into my skin. I
try to pull back, but she holds on harder. Her dark eyes widen.
“You have it.” Her deep voice is soft as smoke. “It” makes me
think I’ve been diagnosed with some incurable plague. “An encantrix,
like Mama Juanita. The highest blessing of the Deos.”
“What?” I shake my head. I can’t be an encantrix.
Lady turns to my mother. “Carmen, did you know?”
“It’s been two generations since one appeared in the family,” Mom
says. “I thought the gift was lost. Mama Juanita-she could do
everything. Command the elements. Heal the sick. Speak to the dead.
She wrote her own cantos. And she made the best sopa de pollo in all
of Brooklyn.”
“Didn’t she get struck by lightning?” I ask, moving from denial
and on to panic.
Lady waves her hand in the air, dispelling my worries. No big
deal. It’s only lightning .
“How do you know that’s what I am? I just made a few things
float.” I also made a snake of smoke come out of a boy’s throat… I
also killed Miluna. I made my father leave us. That’s not a blessing.
That’s a curse.
“You’re a late bloomer, mi’jita,” my mom says.
“Our magic isn’t as strong as it was when we were free to
practice.” Lady crosses her arms over her chest, and her long, fringe
shawl dances around her. “Nowadays, some brujas are lucky if they can
make a pencil float, even with years of practice. Some can only see
the future in two-minute intervals. Some can only heal shallow cuts.
The gifts of the Deos get weaker with each generation. That’s why you
are so very curious. What you did-what your mama told me-that’s
physical. That takes power . Only an encantrix has that kind of power.
You might be a great one.”
A feather falls from somewhere and brushes my skin. I take a step
back, knocking against an armoire. The knob digs into my spine. I try
to turn around to hold the structure steady, but a small, bleached
skull falls off and smashes on the ground.
“Encantrix or not, you’d better clean that up,” Lady says. She
points to the black velvet curtain that leads to the back of the
store. Lula scoffs and tries on a prex made of sparkling crystals, and
Rose mutters something to the mounted head of a jackalope. My mom goes
over the list of things we need for my ceremony with Lady.
I rush to the back, where she keeps the cleaning supplies. There’s
a door painted dark purple. At eye level is an etching of a golden sun
and silver moon for La Mama and El Papa. The sun is crowned by the
sideways crescent of the moon. It’s the same moon I wear as a
necklace, a gift from my father. I trace the painted symbols on the
door. Directly below the sun is a gnarly-looking tree with thin,
stringy leaves.
“Encantrix.” I sound the word out.
The seashell wind chime snaps me out of my thoughts. I grab a
broom and dustpan and head back out to clean up the mess I made. Some
of the bone dust gets up in my nose and makes me sneeze.
“Gross,” I mutter, dumping the contents in the garbage can near
the register.
“Gross yourself,” he says.
A guy, possibly around Lula’s age but trying to look older, stands
on the other side of the counter. He’s got brilliant diamond stud
earrings and a fresh, buzzed haircut like the boys around the block. I
find myself staring. His hands are covered in tattoos, like he dipped
his arms in solid ink up to his wrists. From there, the ink continues
in swirling lines, like jellyfish tendrils drifting on the sea of his
light-brown skin.
Thick, dark lashes fringe his eyes, which can’t decide between
green and blue. When he sees me, he smiles, revealing a tiny dimple,
like a comma at the edge of his mouth. He licks the cold off his full
lips. Touches his necklace. Blue beads like a long rosary. A prex.
My face burns when I realize this is the same guy we almost ran
over the other day.
He grabs a few things on the way to the counter. I should probably
go to my mother, but I don’t want to deal with Deathday things. So I
stay put and try to ignore the guy’s presence, even though he seems to
take up the whole room with the way he walks right up to me. He sets a
red votive candle, some dove feathers, and a jar of tongues on the
counter. The tongues swim in the murky, green liquid like they’re
mocking me. I flick the bell at the register to let Lady know she’s
got a customer.
“I’ll be right there,” Lady shouts from the front of the shop.
I put the broom and dustpan in the back. When I return, he’s still
standing there. Again, he smiles when he looks at me.
“What?” I ask. I wonder if he’s aware of how his stare makes me
want to turn around and run.
“You look familiar.”
“I just have that kind of face.”
“No, you don’t,” he says, smirking. “I remember you. Red Civic.
Riding with that pretty boy that wore too much cologne.”
“Sorry about that.”
“You weren’t the one driving.” He crosses his arms over his chest,
making his muscles more pronounced. It makes his tattoo appear like
it’s moving. The ends of the inky tendrils stop at the finest points.
“My eyes are up here,” he says, making a V with his middle and
index finger and points them at his eyes.