Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)(60)

“Sweet, sweet nectar of life,” Rishi says.

I look up at the dark-purple sky, torn between the need to keep going and the toll the journey is taking on us.

“We need rest,” Rishi says. “We’re not going to be of much use if we crawl the rest of the way.”

Nova holds his hand out to me. “Give me your dagger. I’m going to find us something to eat.”

“Since when are you the hunting-and-gathering kind?” Rishi asks.

“Just thank your stars you’ve never been so hungry you hunted squirrels in Central Park at night.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking or not, but the idea of Nova alone and hungry in the dark makes my heart hurt. Then he breaks into that sly smile of his, the kind that makes you forget about all the worries you might have.

“You collect wood,” Nova tells Rishi. Then he turns to me. “You should get your rest. I don’t like being out in the open like this.”

When Rishi and Nova leave, I fill our empty water bottles. I look at my reflection in the pond. My skin is bruised, and I look like I went a few rounds with a heavyweight champion. I take off my clothes. With Rishi and Nova gone, I let myself cry out in pain instead of keeping it in. I wade into the water and submerge myself until my chest burns for air. I let myself float on the surface, and the tepid water washes away the dirt on my skin and more. It fills me with a pleasant warmth that pulls me beneath the surface. I feel myself sink. I let myself sink.

I know I’m dreaming when I’m standing on top of the pond. I jump when I fear I’ll fall straight through the surface, but my feet only create small ripples. There’s a woman standing in front of me. When I recognize her, I want to fall on my knees and weep.

“You always fell asleep during your bath time,” Mama Juanita says. “Even as a baby. I told your mother she gave birth to a fish instead of a little girl.”

Suddenly I’m six years old again, and my sisters and I are running around the yard, pretending we’re part of our great-grandmother’s Circle. Mama Juanita, our favorite person in the world. She had a mean face, but she baked the best sweets and told the best stories—the kind my mom said we were too young to listen to.

“Mama Juanita?”

The glow of her soul is so bright against the violet of the day. She looks just as she did before she died—skin dark as coffee, and the same gray eyes as my dad and Lula. Long, white dress. A ring of orchids around her neck. A prex made of onyx. A thin cigar hanging between her red lips. Mama Juanita was our matriarch before her heart 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.”