attack at ninety. Mama Juanita has this way about her, like the world

should tremble when she walks. She could speak to the dead like Rose.

She could recite all the blessings to the Deos, every canto in our

family book. This is the woman who named me. She died before my

sisters and I could grow up. Before my father left. Before my mother

started going crazy from missing him. Before the greatest Circle of

brujas and brujos dwindled to handfuls.

She clicks her wooden cane on the water, then smacks my leg with

it.

“What was that for?”

“Don’t be such a drama queen, nena,” she says. “It’s only a tap.”

“Is that what you told yourself all those years?” I rub the spot

she hit. “Mama, why are you here?”

“Why do you think I’m here, eh?” She takes a puff of her cigarillo

and blows at the sky like she’s exhaling a cloud. Ghost secondhand

smoke can’t kill, but the scent reminds me of late mornings, watching

her strain coffee through a sock and fry cheese on top of plantains.

“I’m waiting for you to come and get us out.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.” She smacks my other leg with her cane.

I hiss, then bite my tongue.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen! I just wanted-”

“Don’t you yell at me, Alejandra.” She points her finger at me.

“You’re not the first witch to make a selfish choice, and you won’t be

the last. I should’ve been there to teach you the ways. Your mother

didn’t want me starting on you three too young. I respect that. The

first time I saw a dead body, I was five years old. Neighbor was

murdered and the cops couldn’t figure out how. So the family brought

him to us. I had the Gift of the Veil, like Rose. Had to sit in a room

with his dead body for three days and wake his soul, ask him how he

died. I didn’t talk for days after that.”

I look up when she says that. She smiles like she knows the

secrets of the world, and in my heart, I believe she does.

“I told you,” she says, “you’re not the only one. I couldn’t be

there for you, but I’m here now. Rose is a fine little bruja. Between

her and me, we can project ourselves to you, but you’re a hard one to

reach.”

“I’ve been told.”

“Don’t get fresh with me.” She smacks her cane on my arm. “Who are

the witches you’re traveling with?”

For an apparition, it hurts like hell. Talking back will just get

me another ghost slap, so I stay quiet.

“There’s this boy. He’s a brujo. He’s got the gift of light.”

She sucks her teeth. “Parlor trick. Human matchstick if you ask

me.”

“ Ma. ” I sigh. Why is it never easy to talk to your family,

living or dead? “He was going to help me get to the Devourer. Then

there’s Rishi, but she’s not exactly a witch.”

“What do you mean ‘not exactly’?”

So I tell her about Rishi and how she followed me here. How we

started at the Selva of Ashes and met the avianas. How we faced the

Devourer and found the Hidden Path.

I brace myself for another slap from the cane, but it never comes.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek.

“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.