Amá puts her hands over her eyes. “That little connivingbitch.”
I nearly gasp, hearing the curse come out of her mouth. “Um—”
“She took a piece of your soul, Teal! Andyou.” Amá turns to Nadia. “Thisis what you get for trying to teach her the old ways. Going out into the forests to find the footprints of the old ones. Going on, how do you say, soul travels!”
Nadia’s hand is over her mouth, her eyes wide. “I didn’t think she’d steal from her own daughter.”
“Yes? And I never thought she’d leave me, or them, Nadia, but here we are.” Amá’s voice has gone uncharacteristically shaky, and she takes the fine linen napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes. “What are you all looking at?” she hisses, throwing up ahand that gets dangerously close to slapping the side of my ear. “A piece of pepper got in my eye.”
Everyone seems to agree to just let that slide. “Tell them about what you saw in the lightning,” Carter says.
“The lightning from your hand?” Sage asks.
This time, our server reappears, on my right side, next to Carter, clearly as far away as he can get from Amá Sonya. “What’ll it be, guys?”
Since none of us has had a chance to even look at the menu, I groan. “Um—”
Nadia raises her hand. “I’ll have the smoked salmon over the pink salt and pink pepper bagel. Sage”—she points as she goes around the table—“will have the veggie omelet, extra mushrooms and olives, with a side of fresh pineapple for her pregnancy craving, Tenn’s getting the maple bacon BLT on sourdough, Carter’s having the chicken and waffles with the honey dipping sauce on the side, Teal will get the steamed egg bites with kale and Gruyère cheese, and this one”—Amá is the last—“will get the eggs Benedict over asparagus, with a side of sweet potato fries, which she denies liking but in fact adores.” She claps her hands together. “You got all that?”
Our waiter nods and rushes away; meanwhile Carter and Tenn both have their mouths dropped open. “How did she know what I wanted?Ididn’t even know what I wanted, Teal,” Carter stage-whispers to me.
“That’s her gift.” I shrug. Itisimpressive, but I’m a little too emotional to get into it right now.
“Now that that’s out of the way,” Nadia begins.
“Oh, you just had to show off, didn’t you?” Sonya interrupts in a grumble.
Nadia ignores her. “What did you see in the lightning that Cora took, Teal?”
I take a breath. “So…actually. You know how I sprained my ankle the other night?”
“Oh my God, I knew it wasn’t because you were climbing beach rocks!” Sky gasps. “What happened really? Were you”—she lowers her voice—“having enthusiastic, um, marital interactions—”
“No, I really did mess it up climbing rocks like an idiot. But there was a massive lightning storm—I was running, hoping that would help my, ah, emotions.”
Sage narrows her eyes at me. “Wasn’t that the day you had Abuela Erika over for dinner?”
I lift my head. “Why, yes. The very one who married Nadia’s old sweetheart—”
“Okay, I am saying this only once.” Nadia raises her hands like she’s trying to stop a fight. “But Eugenio and I were novios when we were in the eighth grade. All we did was send love notes and once, we held hands. I don’t know why Erika—”
“Oh, you know Erika,” Amá interrupts. “Always a jealous little tramp.”
“Amá!” Sky gasps. “ ‘Bitch’and‘tramp’? You are letting loose today. Frankly, I’m impressed.”
“Anyway!” I shake my head. “Please will someone let me finish this fu—” I glance at Amá, who is scowling at me, despite, like Sky just said, having just saidbitchandtramp. “…freaking story? Lightning struck me that night. Only it didn’t hurt me—”
“Of course it didn’t. You are the witch of wild lightning,” Nadia says.
“Right, but there was…a person out there. A half mile away. And between me and them, there was blue lightning, and it tookthe shape of people. A four-year-old running after her mama, and her mama taking a piece of light from her palm…you guys, I saw the whole thing, but it was done in lightning. Somehow.”
Amá Sonya throws down her napkin. “I knew she was in town.”
“So that figure in the distance, that was Mama?” Sky asks.
“Yes,” Amá says in response, and then she points right at Nadia. “Didn’t I tell you? I don’t have to see her to know she’s near, I told you this one hundred times!”
“Yes, yes, you were right, Sonya, and I was wrong. Cora is back in Cranberry after all.” Nadia leans back and surveys me. “Why didn’t you tell us years ago, Teal? About what she stole from you?”
