I throw my head back and think about saying some kind of prayer to get me through this sudden wave of anxiety. But I’m not really the praying type, so I grab my phone and try to figure out how to white-lie Lani’s un-invitation. I don’t feel like telling her the truth because I don’t want her to actually apologize to Carter and come to Nadia’s spring equinox party. Sky’s right that Sage hates Leilani. If Leilani does come, Sage’ll spend the night making passive-aggressive comments about her and it might piss me off enough to conjure a nasty storm. And if Leilani doesn’t come, I might actually have a fun time with just my sisters for once.
Hey, I type.Sorry but the equinox shindig is canceled
I leave out thefor youat the end of the sentence. That is my version of a white lie.
Omg you’re not mad at me are you??!!?She writes back instantly.
I narrow my eyes.Why would I be?
As soon as I hit send, another text comes through. My heart feels like it jumps right out of my mouth when I see it’s from Carter.Pick you up at 12:40? On Saturday?
Leilani’s next text is as fast as it is unfathomable.No reason, just remember that the universe exhales and inhales, you know?
I send her back a thumbs-up. After a stupid amount of time, I send Carter the same emoji. After that, I’m so jittery, I grab my running shoes even before I hear the distant rumble of thunder, and this time, a creek doesn’t stop me, so I keep running for miles and miles.
3
Since we were babies, sinceeven before our mother took off in an ugly old truck with presumably an ugly-hearted man, Nadia has insisted we celebrate two important events: the spring equinox and Día de Muertos. These dates are more important than any other holiday combined, or at least that’s how it feels with the gravity Nadia gives them. And this is a lady who hasn’t missed Mass probably since before she was conceived into existence.
“What’s with insisting on honoring these two dates?” I once asked her. “Isn’t it a little too witchy? Doesn’t the Catholic Church think that celebrating any equinox is pagan and that Día de Muertos is some evil ceremony from before our ancestors were saved?”
Nadia just raised one of her skinny, auburn-lined eyebrows at me and said, “Everything the Church believes in has been either made up or stolen, mija. If this were not the case, then the Church would have been there the day this Earth was created.” She stuck one of her blunt, bloodred nails in my face. “Pero no. The Churchwas made up by a group of men, and they took ideas and stories from all the religions that came before and were alongside it.” She smirked at the look on my face. I guess I wasn’t expecting a real answer, after her dragging me and my sisters, kicking and screaming, to St. Theresa’s until we were adults.
That was the moment I realized Nadia wasn’tthatkind of Catholic after all.
Nadia’s in the kitchen with Sky right now, and they’re beating a couple of cold flans from their glass pie pans onto serving dishes while I light all the prayer candles Nadia had me carry up from the basement. Almost every single one is of Maria Magdalena.
I was never into religion. I was always the kid who frustrated the Sunday school teachers with my incessant questions, likeHow could people who lived before Jesus be saved if they never knew Jesus would even exist?andWhy did God murder innocent babies when he flooded the world for Noah’s ark?I didn’t even think I believed in God. Which might sound kind of weird, considering my emotions have controlled the region’s weather since I was a child. Not that our family’s gifts automatically mean there is a God, but that maybe I should have had a predisposition toward understanding that this world has some serious mysteries working behind it. But I guess, deep down, I assumed there was some rational explanation for our power, even if, to my knowledge, no one had figured out what that explanation might be.
That all changed when we found Sky.
There is no way science can explain how she was kept in a tree outdoors for eight summers and eight winters, and just walked out of it one day with her skeletal and muscular and circulation systems just fine and dandy. I mean, it makes more sense that what she says happened didn’t actually happen. Like, maybe a human stole her and kept her in their basement or something. Or that theentire town is right about her—she was a runaway, and now she’s back and full of lies about where she had been.
I believe my sister, though. Which means I’m beginning to come close to the fact that there are serious mysteries working behind this world. And even though I don’t want it to, I feel hope flaring in my belly as I consider it. As I light the final Mary Magdalene candle, the flame as hot as a curl of lightning in my palm.
Because if God exists, then that means miracles happen.
And if miracles happen, then maybe I can fix whatever is broken inside me.
My eyes turn to the only framed photo Nadia keeps of our mother. She’s pregnant with Sage in it, wearing a white dress with horizontal green and violet stripes that flare over her big belly. She was sixteen, but I swear she looks no older than thirteen. She must’ve been scared out of her mind.
It doesn’t make what she did right, though.
Not for the first time, I think about what it would take to find her. To make her give back what she took from me.
“You done with the candles, Teal?” Nadia calls. “We need a little help here.”
I leave all the lit-up Magdalenas and find Nadia in the kitchen, trying to pry open a bottle of seltzer water. “We need your muscles,” Sky tells me.
I take the bottle and twist, the fizz of carbonation sounding immediately. Just as the top pops off, there’s a knock at the door. “Why is Sage knocking?” I mutter, but when I open it, it’s not Sage there. It’s Sonya. Nadia’s sister and our grandmother.
My jaw drops a little. She raises an eyebrow and scowls at me. “Amá,” I finally sputter out.
Amá Sonya and I do dinners at her place once a month, and we also meet for brunch every second and third Sundays at thisupscale restaurant downtown that offers complimentary glasses of “orange-essence champagne.” Of all her grandchildren, she and I are the closest, even if with Amá, “closest” means that she spends more time criticizing me than either of my sisters.
It’s not the sight of my grandmother that’s shocking. It’s the sight of Amá Sonyaherethat has me furrowing my brow.
The last time I saw Sonya at Nadia’s, it was after Mama left. Only once. Only then.
