“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.
When I try to flip my first pancake, it sticks on the pan. My calling is not making pancakes. Unless it’s making bad pancakes, in which case, I’m on the right track.
Rose is already dressed and sitting at the kitchen table. “I want that one.”
“The burned one?” I flip it onto a blue plate and set it in front of her.
“It tastes good with syrup and butter.”
“You’re so odd.”
“That’s why you love me.”
“Who told you that?” I say, adding a smile and a wink.
Rose pulls her staticky, brown hair into a ponytail, but no matter how much we spray it or cover it in gel, little strands threaten to fly away. It comes with her powers—something about being extra charged with other worlds—but it sucks when you’re a poor girl from Brooklyn going to a super-ritzy junior high in Manhattan. Rose even gets a proper uniform. Lula and I never got uniforms. Then again, Rose is a genius, even compared to us. Lula barely passes, and even though I’m at the top of my class, I still got left back a year after—well, after my dad. I have high hopes for Rose to do more with herself. When I went to sleep, she was still awake and reading a textbook that is as incomprehensible to me as our family Book of Cantos.
Just then, Lula comes bouncing down the steps, a pop song belting out of her perfectly glossy, pink mouth. Her curls bounce as if her enthusiasm reaches right to her hair follicles. Her honey-brown skin looks gold in the soft morning light. Her gray eyes are filled with mischief just waiting to get out. Her smile is so bright and dazzling that I forget I’m mad at her for hogging the bathroom. Then I see she’s wearing my favorite sweater. It’s the color of eggnog and so soft it feels like wearing a cloud.
“I want funny shapes.” She pecks a kiss on my cheek.
“You’re a funny shape,” I tell her.
I make Lula’s pancakes, this time too mushy in the center. I throw the plate in front of her and leave a stack for myself.
“I thought you were starting on the ambrosia,” Lula says, annoyed.
She has zero right to be annoyed right now.
“Someone has to feed Rose,” I say matter-of-factly.
Lula shakes her head. “Ma works really hard. You know that.”
“I didn’t say she doesn’t work hard,” I say defensively.
“Whatever, let’s just get this done before Maks gets here.” Lula walks down the hall to the closet where we keep our family altar and grabs our Book of Cantos. It has every spell, prayer, and piece of information that our ancestors have collected from the beginning of our family line. Even when the Book falls apart after a few decades, it gets mended, and we just keep adding to it.
“Yeah, wouldn’t want to keep Captain Hair Gel waiting,” I say.
Rose snickers but quiets down with a stern look from Lula.