“Oh, he’s fine,” Sage says. “Sky just has some interesting…ideason some things that have transpired today.”
“We need to find Mama ourselves,” Sky exclaims, then puts a hand over her own mouth, looking around, presumably for either Amá or Nadia to jump out to stop her. “I mean, we need to find Mama ourselves,” she repeats with a whisper.
“But—” I shake my head. “Isn’t Nadia the one who, like, knows what she’s doing?”
Sky huffs. “First of all, if it weren’t for A, Nadia teaching Mama magic to start with, and B,notteachingusmagic to start with, none of this would have happened.”
I lift my shoulder. “You’re not wrong, but now she can, you know. Make it up to us and fix this.”
“I’m just saying,” Sky says, throwing her arms about, “that we can totally do it ourselves. We don’t even have to wait till the full moon. We won’t have Amá Sonya’s nasty energy ruining things, and we won’t have Nadia there acting like she wasn’t a neglectful caretaker to us. It would just be us. Sisters.” She lifts the necklace that’s wrapped around her neck, the mossy stone glinting in the sunlight. “Sage, sky, and teal. The whole sisterly landscape.”
“But what if we mess up?” Sage asks gently. “Teal is right. We don’t have the faintest idea of what we’re doing.”
Sky lowers her voice. “I found a book at work. It’s got ancient rituals in it, from the same place in Texas where Nadia says our ancestors are from. In fact, I think this book may have belonged to one of our ancestors. And it has, like, spells in it. Including one on how to find a lost piece of soul.”
Goose bumps ripple over my arms, and Sage glances down at her own hands. “Wow, did you guys feel that?”
“I declare,” Sky says, putting on an unnatural, regal tone while ignoring Sage, “that if we are all wearing our necklaces that Sage made us, then it’s a sign we’ve got to do it ourselves. A sign from the old gods.” She makes her voice drop as dramatically as possible. “That we must do the ritualtonight.”
Sage laughs. “But you can totally see that I’m already wearing the necklace.” And it’s true, I hadn’t noticed it earlier, because under the big moonstone necklace, the moss agate pendant is being eaten alive by her monstrous pregnancy cleavage.
Sky nods. “Which just leaves Teal. Who, may I add, almost never wears her necklace.”
“That’s only because I am constantly working out and I don’twant to tarnish the silver with my sweat,” I respond, putting my hands on my hips.
“So you’re saying you’re not wearing the necklace,” Sage says, lifting her eyebrow.
I sigh and close my eyes briefly. Then I pull the collar of my crewneck and pull up on the chains there. I’m wearing three necklaces, in fact, because I’d read an article about the art of layering from The Beauty Martyr, that white woman homogeneous design store that Leilani’s hawking now. And as dumb as Leilani is, and as ugly as everything in that store is, they made me want to layer jewelry. And then I felt humiliated, because why am I taking advice from these assholes anyway, and why am I still internet-stalking Lani anyway, and I threw a crewneck on to hide all of it.
So the necklaces I procure are in this order: a little gold bee that looks like it was pressed in a gold seal of wax, a small, brilliant-cut topaz set into white gold, and lastly…moss agate.
Specifically, the moss agate that Sage set into silver and told us the stone represented our sisterhood.
Sky squeals and claps her hands and jumps up and down at once. “See? The old gods want us to do illegal shenanigans again!”
“Wait, who said anything about illegal?” Sage asks, but Sky is already walking away.
“Meet you both at the church at six p.m.!” she calls.
“I can’t drive, remember?” I lift my foot up in a big show.
“I’ll pick you up th— Oh! Hello, friend.” She pauses, looking toward the line of evergreens, where a full-grown raccoon begins to follow her as she heads back to Nadia’s waiting car.
“You think she’s going to take it home?” Sage smirks at me.
I nod. “I think she’s going to fasten it in its own seat belt in theback seat, and tonight Nadia’s going to lose her shit when she sees she’s sitting next to a raccoon at the dinner table.”
“She wants us to meet at dinnertime,” Sage reminds me. “I can bring it. Tenn introduced me to this awesome food truck a little while ago.”
I blink in surprise. “Oh—okay. Tacos sound good.”
Sage leans on her hip. “You thought about taking that class yet?”
I shrug. “Um—”
She puts her hand on my arm. “Just think about it, Teal.” She gives me a smile and a wink. “It’s not your job to fix everything, you know that, right? You deserve happiness whether you buy me and Sky shit or not.”
I look down because I feel like my eyes might water and, dammit, I just don’t feel like crying for the millionth time in a row this week. Crying isexhausting. “Okay. I hear you. I’ll think about it.”
