Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(2)
2
La Ola, Divina Madre of the Seas,
carry this prayer to your shores.
—Rezo de La Ola, Book of Cantos
When I wake from the memory, I can still smell the dead. My heart races, and a deep chill makes me shiver from head to toe. I remind myself that day happened nearly nine years ago, that I’m safe in my room, and it’s seven in the morning, and today is just another day.
That’s when I notice Rose, my little sister, standing over me.
“You were dreaming about Aunt Ro again,” she says in that way of hers. It’s almost impossible to lie to Rose. Not just because of her gifts, but also because she speaks with a quiet steel and those big, unwavering, brown eyes. She’s never the first one to look away. “Weren’t you?”
“Freak.” I put my hand on the side of her face and push her away. “Stay out of my head.”
“It’s not my fault,” she says, then mutters, “stank breath.”
I reach behind me to shut the window I cracked open when it was too hot in the middle of the night. It’s freezing for October, but a good excuse to bring out my favorite sweater.
Rose walks over to my altar, tucked away in the farthest corner of my attic bedroom, and pokes around my stuff. I rub the crud from my eyes and flick it at her.
“Don’t you have your own room now?” I ask.
My mom went into a redecorating fit over the summer when she suddenly realized our house hadn’t changed in six years. That it was too big and too empty and too something. Plus, three teenage girls fighting over one room was giving her gray hair.
“I could hear your dreams,” Rose says. “It gives me a headache.”
Rose, the youngest of us three, came into her powers much too early. Right now it’s small stuff like dream walking and spirit impressions, but psychic abilities are a rare gift for any bruja to have. We’ve never had the Sight in our family. Not that Mom’s ever heard of, at least.
“I can’t control my dreams,” I say.
“I know. But I woke up with a weird feeling this time.” She shrugs, runs her index finger across the thick layer of dust that cakes my altar. Out of all the brujas in this house, I’m not winning any awards for altar maintenance. A small, white candle is burned to the stub, and the pink roses I bought over the summer have shriveled to dust. There are two photos—one of my mom, Lula, Rose, and me at the beach, and one of my Birth Rites ceremony with Aunt Rosaria.
“Lula said to wake you up,” Rose says, rubbing the altar dust between her fingers. “We have to make the ambrosia before we leave for school. You also might want to clean your altar before the canto tonight.”
“Sure, sure,” I say dismissively. I busy myself in my closet, searching for my favorite sweater. I try to push back the swirl of anxiety that surges from my belly to my heart. “We both know she’s wasting her time, right? We’ve done three spells already and none of them have worked.”
“Maybe this one will,” Rose says. “Besides, you know Lula won’t rest until she gets what she wants.”
Funny how no one asks what I want.
Rose starts to leave, then stops at my door. She lifts her chin in the direction of the mess in my closet. “Lula was already here looking for something to wear, in case you were wondering.”
“Of course she was.” I roll my eyes and mentally curse my older sister. When I get to the bathroom, it’s locked. Now I have to wait for Lula to fluff her dark curls to perfection, then pick out all of her blackheads.
I bang on the door. “How many times do I have to tell you not to go in my room?”
There’s the click of the blow dryer shutting off. “Did you say something?”
“Come on. Hurry up!”
“Well, your fat ass should have gotten out of bed earlier! Chop, chop, brujita! We have a canto to prepare for.”
I bang my fist on the door again. “Your ass is fatter than mine!”
“I’m hungry,” Rose says.
I jump. Knowing how our floor creaks, I have no idea how she walks so quietly. “I hate when you sneak up behind me.”
“I wasn’t sneaking,” she mutters.
I want to get mad. Why can’t Lula be the one to make breakfast for a change? I just want a nice, hot shower to clear my head. I want to go through the motions of the day and pretend like we’re one normal, functional family. I look at Rose’s sweet face and resign myself to the burden of being the middle child.
“Come,” I tell Rose. I bang the bathroom door one last time. “And you better put my sweater back where you found it!”
In the kitchen, I grab all the ingredients I need while Rose sits at the table.
“Mom says if you guys keep fighting she’s going to take your voices with a Silencing Canto.”
“Then it’s a good thing she already left,” I mutter.
There’s a cereal bowl and spoon on the drying rack and a green votive candle next to my mom’s favorite good luck rooster. The candle makes the room smell like a forest, and it’s the only indication that my mom was here.
Since it’s a Monday morning, my mom’s already on a train into Manhattan, where she works at a gynecologist’s office. My mom, whose magical hands have safely delivered more babies than the freshly med-schooled doctors she files papers for, is a receptionist. That’s my mother’s calling: bringing souls into this world. Calling or no calling, a bruja’s got to pay the bills.