Bruja Born Read online

  I was always glad to be a healer like my mom. Rose has the Gift of the Veil. Alex is an encantrix, blessed with all the gifts of the Deos. Dad once had the power to conjure storms. Our power is what we make it, but we all have our limits. At least, that’s what I was taught.

  Now, as my family refuses to heal Maks, I start to wonder if perhaps we set the limits ourselves.

  I can barely stand, but one way or another, I’m going to get to Maks. I use the rail attached to my bed for balance.

  “Absolutely not.” My mother blocks my door. Her black curls are wrapped in a colorful scarf, and her dress is a bright blue—the color of La Mama and eternal hope. My mother holds a white quartz prex in one hand, and the prayer beads rattle when she gesticulates and shouts. “You’re not strong enough to heal the broken wing on a cockroach, let alone the kinds of injuries that Maks sustained.”

  “Maks is not a cockroach!” I yell.

  “Fine. Butterfly, take your pick. My point stands.” I can see in her eyes that she’s wavering between thanking the Deos I’m alive and wanting to throttle me herself. “His body is too weak for even the doctors to try to save his life, and they’ve tried, Lula.”

  “We can do it together,” I say, foolishly hopeful.

  “You didn’t have enough fun almost dying?” Alex asks. She leans against the wall in front of me, and Dad stays close to the foot of my bed, boxing me in. “You ready to try harder?”

  “But you all healed me,” I point out.

  “You’re family,” Alex says plainly. “Maks broke up with you.”

  “So, if he hadn’t, you’d try?” I rake my fingers through my hair, my scalp throbbing painfully. “You literally gave up your power to save Rishi from dying in Los Lagos. Do you remember that? You did it even though it could’ve cost you your entire family. Maks was there for me when I couldn’t talk to any of you. But I’m not surprised you don’t get it, Alex. Everything bad that’s ever happened to me has been because of you!”

  Alex presses her hand to her stomach and gasps like I’ve struck her.

  “Don’t talk to your sister like that,” Dad says.

  “You haven’t been part of this family for seven years,” I tell him, regret twisting into my heart the moment the words leave my lips, but I can’t seem to stop. “You don’t get to tell me how to talk to my sister.”

  “Lula!” Alex’s brown eyes follow a path to where Rose sits by the window, playing with the arms of the stuffed animal on her lap. She bought it in the gift shop downstairs, a bright “Get well soon” stitched into a silk heart. Looking at her sitting there, caught in the middle of this fight, my fight, makes tears sting my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. The ache in my legs wins, and I get back into bed.

  “Maks is in a coma,” Mom says, trying her best to remain calm. “The kind of canto we’d have to perform would be dangerous to more than our family. We might as well turn ourselves over to the Thorne Hill Alliance or walk up to a pack of hunters.”

  “Your mother’s right,” Dad tells me, his eyes mirrors to mine. “The hunters are out there and have little love for our kind. I wish I could take away your pain. But I can’t.”

  When I was little, Dad used to tell us stories about being young and outwitting hunters. He said they fought with silver swords and sprung from the shadows. To me they were just stories. I would face the Alliance and the hunters if it meant making Maks better.

  “But we would be saving a life,” I say. “I’ve read the Book of Cantos dozens of times, and I know there has to be something in there that can help without upsetting the balance of things.”

  “We have laws too,” Mom says, pacing the length of my bed and rubbing the quartz beads in her hands so hard I fear she’ll have nothing but pebbles soon. “This far gone, I don’t know who you’d get back, but it might not be Maks.”

  “Brujas who break the order of things always pay a price,” my father says.

  I can’t—won’t—listen to this. “Then I call a meeting of the High Circle of Brooklyn.”

  “No,” Mom says, a deep ache in her voice. “I can already tell you they’re not going to help.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because we asked them to heal you,” Rose says. “They wouldn’t. That’s why the recoil is so bad for us. We channeled our power through Alex, and then into Ma, because she’s the healer. Even with Alex’s magic you’re not a hundred percent.”

  “But the High Circle is family,” I say. Maybe not all of them, but our aunt Lady is the Alta Bruja. Valeria is Rose’s godmother. The rest grew up with my parents, fought alongside them in their youth.

  “They’re afraid,” Alex says. “There’s too much heat. Between the regular cops and the Thorne Hill Alliance sniffing around—”

  “Why would they be sniffing around?” I ask. “Brujas aren’t part of the Alliance.”

  Alex shakes her head. “One of the boys who died was related to one of their members. They want to make sure there was no foul play.”

  “I want to see the High Circle,” I say, my thoughts racing to form a plan. “I want them to look into my eyes and tell me there is nothing we can do.”

  I’m afraid my mother is going to yell at me again. I’m afraid Dad is going to walk out that door and never come back. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get through the rest of the day.

  Instead, my mom places her hand on my face, tracing her thumb along the scars on my cheek. “If that’s what you need to hear, then I’ll make the call.”

  • • •

  After our parents leave to get coffee, my sisters stay. Rose is wheeling herself around in the chair a nurse brought in case I wanted fresh air. Alex flips through a stack of newspapers, searching for signs of anything strange in even the smallest headlines. She hasn’t spoken a word since our parents left, and I feel a tinge of guilt after the mean things I said to her.

  I clear my throat and look toward the door to make sure the coast is clear. “I have a plan.”

  She squints in my direction. “I don’t like that face.”

  “I don’t like your face either, but I still have to look at it,” I say. She rolls her eyes, and I’m relieved we can still tease each other like always.

  Rose perks up and quirks an eyebrow. “What kind of plan?”

  “It doesn’t matter what kind of plan,” Alex says. “Once you get shut down by the Circle, they’re going to be watching you.”

  “No, they won’t,” I say. “But I need your help. You too, Rosie.”

  “Me?” Rose gets up from the chair and comes closer.

  Alex shakes her head. “We leave Rose out of this.”

  “No way,” Rose says, and it’s disconcerting to recognize the Mortiz-stubbornness in her features. “Don’t forget, my power’s been awake since I was born. Any kind of spirit magic needs me there.”

  “Fine,” Alex groans. “Let’s hear this plan.”

  “I remember a canto,” I say. “It’s in the Book. It’s old. Way old.”

  “Mom old or Great-Great Grandpa Philomeno old?” Rose asks.

  “Older,” I say, and her eyes light up with curiosity. “It’s a blood healing canto. The ingredients are easy to get. The most important part is—”

  “Blood?” Alex asks sarcastically.

  “Aside from that, herbs and mirrors blessed by an Alta Bruja.”

  “Lady blesses all her jewelry,” Rose says, smirking despite Alex’s disapproving glares.

  Alex paces back and forth. Tiny sparks shower over her head like it’s the Fourth of July just for us. Her magic still has a wildness to it. Wild magic can’t be tamed. I’m surprised she kept it together when Detective Hill was here.

  “I’m no one to tell you not to do this.” She wrings her hands. “You know I’m not. But maybe I should be. Don’t make the same mistake I made.”
/>   “Mistake?” I ask her. “The mistake was hiding your secret. The mistake was trying to get rid of your magic and nearly getting us all killed.”

  “I know what my mistake was,” she says, stopping suddenly. “That’s why I don’t want you to repeat it.”

  “But if you hadn’t done all that, you wouldn’t have Rishi. You wouldn’t have met Nova and we wouldn’t have Dad back.”

  “Don’t.” She holds her hand up, as if that’ll deflect my words. There’s a crack in her voice. “Don’t throw that in my face. Rishi and I would’ve found each other eventually. What I did was selfish—I hurt you. You were trapped in that awful place and I wish I could take that pain back. Why do I glamour you every morning to hide your scars? Why do you think I do your chores, Lula? Do you think I like being your personal maid? No, but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything I did to hurt you. Every single day you’ve been distant and sad, and I know it’s my fault. That’s why I take care of you.”

  “You’re right,” I say, solidifying the plans in my mind. I know I’m doing the right thing. “You did hurt me. You owe me, Alex. You owe me. All I want is to try and heal him. That’s it. He’s still in there somewhere. What good is our power if we can’t help the people we love?”

  I can see the war playing out in my sister’s mind, but I know she’ll give in to me. She always has because she loves me.

  “Once,” she says, holding up a single finger. “We’re trying this once. If Mom and the High Circle figure out what we’re doing, it’s over. If it doesn’t work, you have to let him go.”

  “I will,” I say, kissing her hand, knowing a part of me is lying when I say, “I promise.”

  6

  The Deos, too, learned their limits.

  El Fuego extinguished into ash.

  La Ola crumbled into salt.

  El Terroz clove the earth in pieces.

  El Viento fell and kept on falling.

  But from their limits, Lady de la Muerte was born.

  —The Creation of the Deos, Antonietta Mortiz de la Paz

  To a sinmago, the High Circle of Brooklyn looks like a nice group of middle-aged friends and family who bring me gifts.

  But for brujas, it’s bad luck to visit the sickly empty-handed. Valeria brings me her famous apple pie. The spice and buttery smell of it reminds me I still have an appetite. Gustavo brings me a new prex made of onyx beads, customary for when someone is ill. Lady and the other three women bring flowers and candles that my mother arranges into a makeshift altar in the corner.

  “We prayed to La Estrella to guide you back with her light,” Maria tells me, her hands cold and clammy around my cheeks, her puckered smile bleeding burgundy lipstick at the edges.

  “I’m better thanks to my family,” I say, sitting up to get down to business.

  Her lips uncurl from a smile into a taut line. The High Circle exchanges awkward glances, but I don’t care that I’ve made them uncomfortable because they would’ve let me die. My family isn’t in the best standing anymore either. After what Alex did and after my father’s sudden reappearance, the High Circle has been wary of us. Even Valeria, who was my mother’s midwife for Rose and who survived the Trujillo reign in the Dominican Republic, thinks we’re cursed. They fear the curse of the Mortiz family might cling to them. We’ve even stopped going to our brujeria classes at Lady’s shop.

  But despite Alex’s canto gone wrong, I think they fear my father the most. When they walk past, they give him a wide birth. He’s the inexplicable ghost in all our lives, and no one has yet to make sense of him. Dad and Alex, linked by their otherness, linger against the wall as the High Circle sits around my bed.

  “Thanks for answering my call, Lady,” I say.

  Lady Lunes stands at the foot of my bed. She always looks lost in time, better suited for a smoky lounge from the twenties than now. She wears her long, coarse, black hair wrapped in a scarlet scarf that matches her lips and brings out the mahogany of her brown skin. A necklace of a dozen tiny mirrors hangs from her neck, and her dark eyes travel the room, detached and somber. Hospitals scare all of us who have magic. The air is thick with lingering spirits, not all of them good.

  But her voice is calm as she says, “We’ve missed you at classes. It’s been boring without you and Alex fighting all day.”

  “Why did you call us here?” Gustavo asks anxiously. He’s about the same age as my dad, with two sons, one who just had his Deathday. We were not invited.

  With their eyes on me, my sisters have a chance to move on with our plan. Time to draw their attention as long as I can.

  “I know my parents asked you to heal me, and that you declined.” I keep my face stern and my head high, even if every moment of it takes all my strength. At least Valeria and Lady have the decency to look sorry. “And I want you to know that I’m not upset, even if some of us are family. But I want to implore the High Circle to heal Maks and save his life. I’ve never asked anything of you before, and I’m prepared to pay any price.”

  “Selfish,” Gustavo mutters even before I get in my last word.

  “Watch your tongue,” my father says. He doesn’t move an inch, but Gustavo flinches back as if my dad struck him.

  “Stop!” Alex gets up, putting up a barrier between them with her magic. The shield lasts a few moments, rippling like the clearest water. It reminds them of her power, the power none of them have, not even an Alta Bruja like Lady. “If anyone knows what it’s like to confront the darkness, it’s me. I defeated the Devourer, or have you forgotten?”

  “I was there, Alex, of course I haven’t,” Lady says dryly.

  Alex places a hand on Lady’s back and smiles apologetically. Then my sister looks at me and takes a deep, shaky breath. “That’s why I can’t let you do this.”

  “Alex, if you ruin this,” I say, “I swear on the Deos—”

  “What’s going on?” Ma asks, eyes darting between Alex and me.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” Lady points in my direction, her voice fills the room like billowing smoke. “Ever since I stepped foot in this room, I can’t get a read on you. Not that it’s surprising considering the energies surrounding your family.”

  “I’m sorry, Lula,” Alex says. I start to speak, but she holds her hand up, closes it. My throat burns and I wheeze, scratching at the sides of my neck. She’s stolen my voice. A pulsing light is trapped under her fingers.

  “What are you doing?” Mom asks, trying to reach over Valeria to get to Alex, but the High Circle stops her.

  “Let Alejandra speak,” Valeria says, motioning her hand toward my sister.

  “Lula saw Lady de la Muerte. She spoke to her during the accident.”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. It’s like there’s sand in my throat, even though my air passages are clear.

  Some of the High Circle members trade serious glances. Others place trembling hands over their chests. Gustavo whispers a prayer to El Papa, Ruler of the Moon and Father to All the Deos.

  “Tell me what you have seen,” Lady commands me.

  I slap my hand on the bed and point to my throat.

  “Oh, right,” Alex says, opening her hand and releasing my voice. The sensation is like gargling salt. My throat is raw and grainy, and I swear I’ll enjoy the recoil she gets from doing that to me.

  I cough a few times before saying, “Yes. Lady de la Muerte appeared to me.”

  Their collective gasp might as well have sucked out the air from the room.

  Helena holds her hands together. “What did she look like?”

  “How can you be sure it was her?” Gustavo asks skeptically.

  “We have to let Lula speak,” Valeria says, reverent tears in her eyes. She’s got the Gift of the Veil, like Rose. Seers are so close to death, but to see a Deo—that’s almost as rare as an encantrix these days. “Go on, Lula.”
/>   Which is why what I’m doing makes me more nervous than I’ve ever been before.

  “She’s not the way we depict her,” I tell them. “She defies age. Her skin is almost see-through, with names written all over her arms, and everything around her feels cold. Right before the crash, the temperature dropped. She had a spear made of onyx with a metal tip. She used it to separate the souls from the dead bodies.”

  “Incredible. No bruja or brujo has ever seen Lady de la Muerte and lived,” Gustavo says, his features twisting to scrutinize me. “Unless they’re marked.”

  “Gustavo, calm down,” Valeria says.

  He gets up from his chair, as if the floor has turned into flames and he can’t get out of here quickly enough.

  “No!” Gustavo says. “Don’t you see? She was marked by La Muerte. We’re not touching her sinmago. If I could banish your family from the tristate area, it still wouldn’t be enough to get your Mal Ojo from us.”

  Everyone is stunned into silence. The Mal Ojo, the evil eye, is the worst curse you can carry with you.

  “Tell us how you really feel,” Alex grumbles finally. She looks at me and says, “We have enough problems without bringing down the wrath of the gods. I’m sorry, Lula, but I’m not going to do that. Not again.”

  “Right,” I say, venom on my tongue. “It’s all fine when you want to get rid of your magic, but when I need to save the boy I love, you have objections.”

  “Your sister is right,” Valeria tells me. “We can pray for him. We can light candles for him. But we cannot interfere when the Deos are involved. We can only ask for them to listen.”

  “They stopped listening a long time ago,” I say.

  “Watch your tongue, you cursed girl,” Gustavo tells me.

  “And you watch yours,” my father counters.