Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2)(20)
Maks.
“The bodies,” she says, trembling. “They’re all missing.”
Part II
The Body
9
Through and through
the passage of time.
Upward and downward,
your love will be mine.
—Witchsong #12, Book of Cantos
This could’ve been a love story.
But Maks is dead and I have to come to terms with everything I’ve done.
I hurt myself. I corrupted my magic. I betrayed my mother’s trust. I made my sisters complicit. I have more questions than answers, more regret than hope, and a pain that might never go away. Yet I’m still alive when others aren’t. The world is upside down, but there’s a twisting, unshakable hurt in my chest that just wants Maks back.
Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it’s wrong. But I do.
“Lula.” Rose’s voice brings me back to the present. Her eyes glance toward the news. “Do you want me to turn it off?”
I shake my head and try to smile. She hits the mute button anyway.
I should focus on my visitors.
It’s mid-June and two days since I’ve been home. Our summers are usually spent darkening our skin at Coney Island. But I know this summer will be different because I’m different in ways I can’t even explain.
Today would’ve been prom, but it was canceled out of respect for the families of the dead. My dress is hanging in my closet, wrapped in clear plastic from the dry cleaner. I was going to go to Kassandra’s house to get ready, and Paul and Maks were going to pick us up.
At least you’re alive, a voice hisses at me.
I catch a silent tear from the corner of my eye and try to focus on my guests. I can’t climb the stairs every day, so my parents turned the living room into my bedroom. Ma even brought down my altar, but I can’t bring myself to light any of the colorful, new candles the girls have brought for me. A tall, black taper with gold flecks—to banish evil. A cherry-red candle mixed with white rose petals—to mend a broken heart. Simple white ones in tall glass cylinders—a new start.
The brujas from my magic lessons are here to cheer me up, despite the High Circle warning them to stay away. Adrian, whose dad would have a stroke if he knew his son was here, is having his tarot cards read by Rose. Paloma, Emma, and Mayi regale me with gossip about local brujas, but they circle back to me and the accident when the news replays their breaking story.
“That’s the detective that was here earlier, right?” Paloma points at the screen. She sits crossed-legged on the carpet, her slender fingers toying with her straight, raven-black hair. “Is he still asking you questions?”
Emma sighs, pressing her hand to her chest. She’s got her mother’s blue eyes and russet hair. Her Argentine accent is musical, and her voice is as sharp as her features. “You’re so lucky. Imagine if you’d been caught working real magic. At least they just think you were going to—” She can’t say it, so she points at the bandages on my left arm. “Romeo-and-Juliet yourself.”
A dark laugh leaves my lips, and it scares them. “Yeah, at least I’m that lucky.”
“You know you can talk to us,” Mayi says, but her voice is drowned out by Emma.
“I’m just saying.” Emma lifts a shoulder and drops it dramatically. “The High Circle—”
“Can’t touch me,” I say, holding her gaze until she looks away first.
“No.” She picks at a loose thread on the carpet. “But the Knights of Lavant can. My mom says the hunters will look for any excuse to arrest us. The sinmago police haven’t caught that nurse guy, and a bunch of bodies vanished into thin air. How long before they come looking for you?”
“Let’s hope they catch him,” Mayi says. “Because then you witches are off the hook.”
“We’re not on the hook,” Rose says. She never takes her eyes off the card she flips. The ten of daggers, each one driven through a tiny hare.
I swallow the knot sensation in my throat, but it doesn’t help. I have a terrible feeling. It’s everywhere—my gut, my heart, my bones. Sometimes when I look at people out of the corner of my eyes, I see skeletons instead of bodies. What if La Muerte cursed me? What if the hunters come for us? What if the Alliance locks me up?
“Maybe we should talk about something else,” Paloma says, taking a dulce de leche puff from one of the many sugary treats on the coffee table. It’s amazing how some people can avoid reality so easily, turning to something like self-preservation and denial mixed together. “My aunt Reina is teaching me how to conjure crystals. But I can only get them the size of a bead right now.”
“You look really good on TV,” Mayi says, raising a mirror to check her lipstick. The bright pink is a beautiful contrast on her dark brown skin, but when she presses her fingers to her high cheekbone, her glamour magic ripples.
Mayi was the first person to show up with a bouquet of pink carnations, El Amor’s favorite flower, and a tray of her famous brownies dotted with huge chunks of caramel. I know Mayi means well, but everything she says makes me want to smash the candles on my altar and scream. I remind myself that she doesn’t know what to say to me. None of them do, so they just talk and talk and don’t think of their words. Everyone wants me to be better, feel better, without giving me the time to do so.