So when we rounded a corner and the House of Dreams appeared, I thought it couldn’t be real. I sucked in my breath, nearly slapping the car window.
“That,” said Jupiter, as he slowed the car, “is the Casteñada family home. They named it something fancy and Latin. You know how rich people are.”
My mother cranked down the window and glared at it.
The moment I saw the House, I knew it held magic. That dragons slumbered beneath its floorboards, that the trees on its property grew wish-granting fruit, and that in the highest turret lived a queen and when she combed her hair, jewels clattered to the ground. For the first time, I became aware of what my life looked like in comparison. Greasy and cheap, a construction of cardboard to the wonder baked into those red bricks. If I’d known better, I would have shut my eyes and never looked at the House again. But I couldn’t stop staring.
“All that for one family?” said my mother, wrinkling her nose.
“Not evenone,” said Jupiter. “Parents got drunk on a plane and crashed it.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Now thewholething belongs to some ten-year-old girl with a crazy fucking aunt—oops—” Jupiter paused, as if remembering I was in the back seat. “Sorry, princess.”
“I think it’s tacky,” said my mother, rolling up her window.
Jupiter met my gaze in the rearview mirror. “And what do you think of the house, princess? The little girl who lives there is about your age. Imagine if we were the ones who lived in that place? We could play hide-and-seek for hours.” He smiled, flashing his too-white teeth.
My mother paused. The lipstick tube in her hand halfway to her mouth.
“She hates that game, J,” she said. I didn’t understand why she sounded annoyed, like she’d been left out of something. “She’d probably hide under the bed to read another book. You’d be searching for days.”
“I don’t mind waiting,” said Jupiter, tapping the side of his nose.
The car started moving again.
Every chance I could, I took my bike past the House of Dreams. It wasn’t more than a fifteen-minute walk from Jupiter’s, though it had the air of another world entirely. Everything seemed brighter,betterwhen I was near the House. I could only imagine what it must be like to live there, reading by a massive fire, finding gold coins in one’s teacup, coaxing your pet leopard on an afternoon walk.
I decided to do a little experiment to test the House’s magic. I took two identical strawberries—both scarlet, shiny, fat as a ruby. I ate one in Jupiter’s house, and it tasted sour. I kept the second in my hand as I pedaled to the House of Dreams. I held the fruit up to the sunlight bouncing off the wrought-iron finials. I took a bite. Sweet, fragrant juice spilled over my lips.
It was the first time I understood that beauty has its own power. Beauty transformed. Its presence could coax ambrosiafrom sour fruit or take an ordinary, rained-upon sidewalk and dew it with diamonds. I wanted beauty to touch me, change me, declare me worthy of its notice.
At that moment, the front door clanged open. I jumped, dropping my half-eaten berry, and grabbed my bike. I thought an adult was going to yell at me to leave. Instead appeared a girl my age.
I had only to look at her once to understand that one day she’d be beautiful. She was coltish and long-femured, the joints of her shoulders so tanned and glossy her bones shone. She wore a dress that was far too big for her, and her feet were bare and dusty.
A crystal bowl caught the light in her hands. She had a carton of milk tucked under her arm. I silenced the bell of my bicycle and tried to make myself small behind the brick pillar of the gate.
I watched as she set the glass bowl onto the front steps and poured milk into it. She reached into the dress’s front pocket and drew out a knife. Without pausing, she pricked her palm and squeezed the blood onto the milk’s surface. When she was done, she shoved the bowl of milk and blood beneath a hydrangea bush, stepped back, and closed her eyes.
I knew what would happen next. I’d read all about it. She’d made a sacrifice. The air would wrinkle, a star-flecked hand would grab her wrist and yank her into some new place where I couldn’t follow. A place full of magic. Where she’d become a queen.
“Wait!” I yelled, forgetting all about my bike. “Take me with you!”
The girl looked up from where she stood by the hydrangeas. She tilted her head in acknowledgment, though she didn’t move.In her silence, my face started to burn with embarrassment. I pointed to the bowl of milk and blood.
“I thought you were... going somewhere.”
Her eyes widened.
“Where?” she asked. “Where do you think I’d go?”
Her voice was slightly raspy, each word elegantly articulated. I’d never heard anyone speak like her. I wished I could speak like that.
I wondered what I looked like to her. The October sunlight lacquered her skin and hair. Around her, the trees on the property wore traces of gold, as if they’d donned it just for her, for the moment she’d step outside.
I wanted to tell her about all the books I’d read, the ones my mom had told me we couldn’t bring with us when we moved here. Books about Aztec sacrifices, gods with two heads. Tales where one step into the shadow of an apple tree could yank you out of this world altogether. But I couldn’t fit all of this into my answer.
“Somewhere else,” I said. The girl seemed disappointed. She looked behind her. She was going to leave and I couldn’t let her do that.
“I read somewhere that faeries like bowls of sweet milk... that they’ll come if you leave them something like that.”
