Rogelia's House of Magic (10 page)

Fern gave her mother a feeble smile.

“Let’s go to the Block today,” Marina suggested. “I don’t have to be home until dinner.”

“What’s the Block?” Xochitl asked.

“This really cool outdoor mall,” Marina said. “They have tons of hip clothes stores and usually tons of eye candy.” She took a bite of pancake.

“Eye candy?” Xochitl repeated, bewildered. She felt a wave of guilt wash over her. She and Graciela had planned to shop at American malls together.

“Cute guys!” Fern said.

“But then, Fern already has a favorite eye candy,” Marina teased.

“What’s this?” Fern’s mother asked, setting a glass jug of orange juice on the table.

“Nothing, Mom,” Fern said, casting a warning look at Marina and Xochitl.

Marina kicked Xochitl under the table, and they both burst out into squeals and snorts of suppressed laughter.

“Stop it,” Fern hissed at them. “Mom,” Fern said loudly to cover her friends’ laughter. “Can you drive us to the Block?”

“Sure. I heard Ann Taylor is having a shoe sale,” Fern’s mother said.

Fern rolled her eyes. “Mom, you already have a hundred pairs of shoes. The more you buy, the more waste is jammed into the landfills.”

“Yes, but I just got this beautiful turquoise dress to wear dancing with your father, and I need shoes to match it,” Fern’s mother said. She kissed the top of Fern’s head. “I’ll try to find something biodegradable, okay?”

“They sell those?” Marina inquired.

“Hush,” Fern’s mother said with a sly smile.

Fern’s mother drove the girls to the Block an hour later. “Just pull up to the front, Mom, and let us out before you find a parking spot. We’ll take the bus home,” Fern said.

“Well, I didn’t think you’d go shopping with me,” Fern’s mother said lightly. “I do have a reputation to uphold.”

“Puhleeze,” Fern said as she got out of the car.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fuego,” Marina and Xochitl said together.

They waved goodbye and fell in with the crowds. Xochitl felt a little claustrophobic around so many people. It seemed like everybody and their brother was out today. The busy shoppers crowding the mall kept bumping into her. It was as if she was only half-visible. Xochitl felt only partly in her body, like she was waking up from a really believable dream but hadn’t opened her eyes yet. This had never happened to her before. She considered becoming completely invisible, but then she would surely lose Marina and Fern.

Xochitl looked around incredulously at all the clothing shops, where mannequins wore bright summer clothes and jewelry sparkled in display cases. Music blared from an overhead speaker. Cart vendors stationed in the wide walkways sold everything from cell phone covers to bath salts to dog clothing. She was finally shopping at an American mall with American friends. This mall even had flashing billboards.
This is what you wanted,
Xochitl told herself.
Don’t blow it.
Xochitl steeled herself against her fear of being overwhelmed and lost in confusion.

“Where to first?” Fern asked.

“Let’s go to Planet Beauty. It might not be the MAC counter at Macy’s, but I need to get some new lipstick and some blush,” Marina said, shaking her abundant hair out of her face. “Then we can hit the Hollister store. They’ve just come out with the cutest miniskirts, and I’m dying to pick up a couple.”

“A couple?” Fern asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got some money left over in my debit account this month,” Marina said. “You want me to buy you something?”

“No,” Fern said. “You know I prefer to choose my clothes at vintage shops because I like them, not to follow fashion trends.”

“You don’t have to get testy,” Marina said. “I’ll buy Xochitl something. Okay, Xochitl?”

Xochitl nodded mutely. She stared in awe as they passed the Edwards Theater and the outsized silver strips of movie reels fashioned into benches. A circle of palm trees stood in front of ten-foot-tall images of famous movie stars. Brilliant fuchsia and vibrant orange bougainvillea covered the walls. Jugglers, a bouncy house, a bucking bronco, and a climbing wall provided entertainment for small children in the large plaza in front of the theater.
This is a bit much.

“Whoa. Did the lights always flash like that?” Fern asked, looking up at the blown-up pictures of well-known actors above the theater.

“What lights?” Xochitl asked.

“There, see those lights?” Fern pointed to the billboards and shop signs.

“I don’t see anything.” Marina said. “Is it an aura?”

“How can it be? It’s over a billboard,” Fern replied. “Wow, it’s giving me a headache. Let’s get inside.”

Xochitl sighed with relief as they headed toward the doors of Planet Beauty. At least she wasn’t the only one craving a little peace and quiet.

Fern pulled open the store’s glass doors and was immediately sprayed with perfume by a woman wearing a white smock. “It’s called Diva,” she said with a plastic smile. “Like it?”

“No,” Fern said rudely as she stormed past her.

A man in a business suit rammed into Marina. “Why don’t you like your boss?” she asked Xochitl. “I didn’t know you had a job.”

“What?” Xochitl asked confusedly. The store was just as crowded and noisy as outside. She was feeling really uncomfortable and had to close her eyes to concentrate on breathing properly.

Just then, a frumpy woman with frizzy brown hair bumped past the girls without seeming to see them; she appeared lost in her own thoughts.

“I don’t think you have bad acne, Fern,” Marina said sympathetically.

“Oh my God, what are you talking about now?” Fern asked, laughing. “For once, my face is clear.”

“I don’t know,” Marina said as she arrived at the makeup counter. “I just thought I heard someone say…Oh, forget it.” Marina reached out to take a lipstick.

Dance music piping from the loudspeaker grew louder and louder in Xochitl’s ears. Xochitl tried to calm her breathing. She was beginning to feel consumed by all the noises, sights, and smells, like she had when they were in Guadalajara. She felt like she was falling into a dark pit. Graciela would have recognized the signs. She would have realized that Xochitl was too freaked out to concentrate on turning invisible. Her sister would have seen the growing look of panic in Xochitl’s eyes.

“Let me put some makeup on you, Xochitl,” Fern said. “You’re looking kind of pale.”

“I think I need to rest.” Xochitl sat down on the black metal stool in front of the counter and took a shuddering breath. She needed to calm down. She tried to focus on the advice Graciela would have given her and imagine a peaceful setting.

Fern grabbed a Q-tip and dipped it into chestnut-colored eye shadow. Her hand trembled as she applied the shadow to Xochitl’s eyelids. Fern blinked several times. She bent over Xochitl for so long, Xochitl thought she might scream if she didn’t get some space. Fern finally succeeded in smearing the makeup on Xochitl’s temple.

“Fern, what are you trying to do? Make her look like Count Dracula?” Marina asked.

“My left eye,” Fern complained. “I can’t see out of it very well.”

“Not a good time to be putting on makeup, then,” Marina said.

Xochitl picked up a mirror and looked at her face. There was more color than white in her almond-shaped brown eyes. Streaks of dark eye shadow were smudged all over her lids. She took a cotton ball and with a shaking hand wiped her eye clean.

Marina dabbed rouge onto Xochitl’s cheeks. She leaned back to inspect Xochitl’s face and cringed. “Xochitl, I hate to tell you this, but your face is getting all blotchy.”

“Ooh, I can see a shadow around you, Xochitl,” Fern said. “No color, just waving lines, pulsing like crazy. Speaking of crazy, Xochitl, stop breathing like that.”

Xochitl twisted her cotton bracelet so tightly it almost broke. “I…can’t…help…it!” she gasped. “It’s so stuffy in here. I really don’t like crowds.” She yanked on the bracelet as if she could wrench Graciela back from the cosmos to be with her on earth.

“Maybe we should go,” Marina said. “I’m not feeling so hot myself.”

Once they got outside, Xochitl, Marina, and Fern linked arms, forming a moving wall as they stumbled down the walkway between the stores. Fern staggered toward a guy standing next to a vending cart of massage oils. Xochitl pulled on Fern’s arm just before she crashed into him.

“Watch out,” Xochitl said, and looked back at the cart. She wanted to take some of the oil and pour it over her chest. She felt like her skin was on fire. Her breathing came in rasps. Her legs were like lead weights, but she forced herself to get as far away as possible from the hordes of people, clashing sounds, and blaring lights.

“I’m trying, but I can’t see,” Fern said. “My eyes are burning.”

“Oh my God, the voices are starting again,” Marina whined. “Only…” She paused and stared in disbelief at all the strangers whizzing past her. “I hear them. All their thoughts. It’s so loud.”

Fern gripped Xochitl’s arm and closed her eyes. “These lights are too bright. I can’t make out shapes properly.”

“I…told…you we asked…for…too much last night. Supposed…to ask for…one thing…at a time,” Xochitl panted. She clutched her throat. This had never happened before. They were in big trouble.

“You never said that. Oh man. Your face and neck are really getting red and bumpy,” Marina said. “You look like you have malaria or something.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Fern dug into her purse for her sunglasses, found them, and put them on. “I can’t stand this glare. You don’t think I’m going blind, do you?”

“Xochitl, we need to go see your nana,” Marina said.

“No way!” Xochitl objected. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I will be in? We’ll have to…” She tried to breathe deeply and slowly, but the overwhelming number of people and their jarring energy made it difficult. “We’ll have to hope it goes away once we get out of here.”

Eleven

A
s they weaved through the crowd at the mall, Marina heard snippets of thoughts from every person passing by.

God, these shoes hurt,
complained a woman in a tweed business suit with high heels.

No one remembered my birthday,
sulked a teenage boy dressed in tight black jeans, with straight shaggy hair and eyes darkened with black eyeliner.

The bombarding noises gave Marina an earache. She closed her eyes and reached cautiously to massage the groove behind her earlobe. She moved her jaw from side to side to redirect the pain, but the earache refused to lessen. The intense pain seemed not only to shoot through her ear but also to send a constricting tightness to her heart.

“What are you doing?” Xochitl asked.

“My ear hurts,” Marina said. “And I’m about to lose it.”

You’ll be all right,
came a calming voice in Marina’s head. It was one of the soothing voices she had heard before. This one sounded like an older woman.
You will be fine once you get to Rogelia’s.

“You look like a cow chewing grass,” Fern said.

“What’d you say?” Marina asked loudly.

“Come on,” Xochitl said, picking up the pace. “Let’s…get…to…the bus stop.”

Marina looked over at Xochitl, who was still panting. Fern stumbled and clung to her for dear life. How would they get out of this?

Just then the skies opened, sending heavy raindrops down on them. By the time they reached the bus stop some five blocks from the mall, they were drenched.

Despite her condition, Marina fidgeted uncomfortably, trying to decide the best place to stand or sit. She turned her head from side to side, sending her wet hair flying. She had no desire to be seen at the bus stop. They were a little too close to driving age to be seen waiting to ride a bus, especially in the rain. Marina felt shivers of embarrassment race up her arms. She thought about calling her mom to ask for a ride and laughed to herself. How would she explain the state she and her friends were in?

Fern looked at Marina and Xochitl. “You look like a pair of drowned rats.”

“That makes you a fuzzy drowned rat,” Marina shot back. She laughed nervously. They really did look a mess.

Xochitl had her eyes closed with her hand gingerly pressed to her chest, working hard to calm her breath. A dumpy-looking man with a potato-shaped body stuffed into a too-small suit leered at them.

Marina didn’t wait to hear what he had in mind. “Pervert,” she spat at him as she pulled her friends by the hands to the other side of the bus stop.

Fern fumbled frantically through her purse.

“What is it?” Marina asked. She cupped her hand to her ear, hoping to decrease the sharp pain.

“I can’t find my wallet,” Fern whimpered. “And my eye hurts like hell.” She lifted her glasses and raised her face to catch some of the raindrops in her eyes.

The northbound 43 bus hissed and moaned as it stopped in front of the girls. Xochitl pulled Marina and Fern aside. “You need to look at this.” She pulled down her shirt collar. The scarlet rash racing across Xochitl’s chest shone like Rudolph’s nose against her mocha-colored skin.

“Oh no,” Marina groaned. She turned to Fern. “Ferny, look at me.”

Apprehensively, Fern lowered her face from looking skyward to her friends. Both Marina and Xochitl gasped with horror.

“What is it?” Fern asked.

“The skin around your left eye is practically swollen shut,” Marina said.

Fern peered at her wobbly reflection in the bus mirror. Only a slit of a cotton-candy pink revealed itself underneath her puffy eyelid. “It’s as if I’ve been fighting with Oscar de la Hoya. What if I go blind?”

They were in deep trouble. Marina thought she might go deaf from the high-pitched tone ringing in her ear. “Can we see your nana now?” She turned around wildly, searching for Xochitl, but Xochitl was nowhere in sight. “Xochitl, this is no time to disappear! We need you. Come on, we have to stick together.”

Xochitl slowly materialized. Only the dumpy man noticed, which caused him to keep his distance. Xochitl looked sheepishly at her friends. “Sorry. Okay, let’s get to Nana.”

Immediately, Marina bit her lip. A terrible thought occurred to her. It was almost dinnertime on Friday. Rogelia wouldn’t be working at her house until Monday morning, almost three days away. What if their conditions got worse? Although she knew her mother didn’t like her hanging out in the barrio, Marina didn’t see much of a choice here.

Necessitas la ayuda de Rogelia,
a soft girl’s voice said urgently yet calmly in Marina’s head. It was strange how comforting and familiar this voice sounded, despite the fact that it spoke in a language she didn’t understand.

“We’ll have to take the south bus”—Xochitl took a raspy breath—“to Santa Ana.” She grabbed Fern’s and Marina’s hands and dragged them across the street.

“Slow down, I can’t see straight,” Fern complained, stumbling as she tried to keep pace with Xochitl.

“That’s why I’ve got your hand,” Xochitl explained patiently.

“Guys, I don’t know about this,” Marina said worriedly, reluctantly trotting behind Xochitl.

You need Rogelia,
Marina heard the harmonious voice of the older woman say adamantly.
She will heal you.

Xochitl reached the other side of the street and guided Fern up the curb. She turned to face Marina.
“¿Qué pasó?”
Xochitl panted. “What’s the problem?”

“Nothing,” Marina lied. What was she supposed to say?

I’m sorry, but you see, my mom is going to freak when she finds out I’ve been to your house because, well, you live in the barrio and she doesn’t think it’s a safe or good enough place for me. But for you, it’s perfectly okay.

Xochitl hastily boarded the southbound bus and flashed the driver her bus pass. Marina guided Fern onto the steps.

“I—I still can’t…,” Fern stammered as she fumbled with her purse.

Marina glanced nervously at the driver. She clearly heard him thinking that he should throw them off the bus for disorderly conduct. “I got it,” Marina said, paying both their fares, since Fern had still not unearthed her wallet.

Fern staggered down the aisle to where Xochitl sat trying to catch her breath. She plopped herself down on the lap of a homeless-looking fellow with straggly hair, a dirty sunburned face, and a stained army field jacket. “Ohmigod,” Fern squealed as she jumped up.

Marina took Fern by the arm and led her to the seat next to Xochitl. “What are you doing?” Marina looked at the bum, who groggily looked around him. His only thoughts were about where he could lay his head to sleep.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Fern wailed. “I’m telling you
I can’t see!
”

“What is happening to us?” Marina asked as she helplessly watched the bus pull away from the curb and head toward Santa Ana and the barrio her mother so detested. On the other hand, they were heading for Rogelia, and this provided Marina with a small amount of relief.

Even though hardly anyone spoke on the bus, Marina could hear a jumbled orchestra of their thoughts. She pressed her fingertips to her ears, hoping to drown out the internal dialogue of thirty people. It was as if the voices were inside her head and she couldn’t stop them no matter what she did.

She watched the raindrops race after each other, hoping to distract herself from the excruciating pain in her ear and what she would say to her mother. Thunder boomed in the distance. Before long, many of the signs no longer announced their wares in English but in Spanish. Yellowed newspapers lay scattered against graffiti-marked walls. One garden featured lush banana trees, trumpet vines creeping over cinderblock walls, and jewel-toned flowers.

“This is it,” Xochitl announced. “This is our stop.”

Holding on to Fern, Marina followed Xochitl off the bus. They raced down a few streets until they arrived at the little white and green bungalow-style house where Xochitl lived. Rogelia stood inside the front door, clad in her knitted shawl, as if she was expecting them.

“Come in. Come in.” Rogelia held open the screen door, beckoning them with her hand.

Fern, Xochitl, and Marina scurried up the wine-colored steps and into the house. There was no hallway, so they stepped directly into the living room. Mr. Garcia sat in a patched armchair reading
La Opinión,
the Spanish-language newspaper. Next to him a stack of four or five books lay beside a 1970s reading lamp with a large, tubular goldenrod lampshade. Tattered books were neatly lined on a wooden shelf behind him. He looked up blankly and laid his cigarette in a clay ashtray. “Ai.” Mr. Garcia shook his head in exasperation. “Xochitl, get your friends dry clothes. Mamá?”

“We’ll take care of it,” Rogelia said. “Come on,
niñas.
”

Xochitl dashed off to her bedroom while Marina and Fern followed Rogelia down the stark white hallway into Rogelia’s room. This room looked very similar to the one Rogelia kept at the Peralta house, with the hanging bunches of herbs, wooden crosses, and pictures of the Virgin Mary and La Virgen de Guadalupe. Marina felt she had never truly stepped into a Mexican home until this moment. Despite the pain in her ear, she began to feel that they were going to be okay. Rogelia had lit about a hundred votive candles: on the altar, on sconces, and on the shelf where she kept her crystal skull, her eagle’s wing, and an extra supply of saint candles.

There were also many pictures of the Garcia family adorning the walls. Marina heard a humming coming from the photographs, as if the people pictured were talking to her. She stepped closer to a picture of Xochitl and Graciela with their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, standing knee-deep in a wide river banked by dark green plants. Marina heard the distant echo of laughter and running water. They had been identical twins. Both had long black hair, brown eyes, and heart-shaped faces.

“No one could tell them apart except for their mother and me,” Rogelia said quietly.

Marina contemplated how sad it would be if either of her sisters, Monica or Samantha, died. Especially Monica, since they were only one year apart. She didn’t think she could bear the pain.

Xochitl returned with dry clothes. Marina flinched as she pulled her wet top over her ears. She would faint if this pain didn’t subside soon. Settled into the dry clothes, Marina, Fern, and Xochitl sat huddled together on the edge of Rogelia’s bed.

“What happened?” Rogelia asked firmly as she plucked flower heads from the hanging herbs and placed them in a bowl of water.

“We did a spell,” Fern admitted.

“Why are you girls so impatient?” Rogelia asked. “I still need to have a
plácita
with Xochitl and Marina before we are ready to move forward. I was intending to have the
limpia
next Friday, but obviously we’ll need to wait an additional week so you all can learn the value of patience. Look at you,
mi’jita.
” She pointed to the angry red rash on Xochitl’s chest. It had recently crept up to her neck.

Xochitl’s lip quivered. Marina knew without reading Xochitl’s thoughts that she wanted more than ever to disappear. Marina grabbed Xochitl’s hand and squeezed it. No one spoke. Rogelia set a small black cauldron on a small table covered with a bloodred scarf. She lit a charcoal and placed it in the cauldron. Rogelia leaned close to the charcoal and blew on it until the edges turned chalk white. She sprinkled copal resin inside. The incense smoke immediately wafted into the air.

“It wasn’t Xochitl’s fault,” Marina said protectively.

“What wasn’t Xochitl’s fault?” Rogelia asked. “Spit on your finger and rub your neck behind your ear,” she told Marina.

Baffled, Marina looked at Xochitl for reassurance. Xochitl nodded, and Marina could hear her silently say,
It’s okay, you can trust her.
Dubiously, Marina spat on her fingertips and began to rub her neck. This was bizarre. But if it could help, Marina was all for it. She glanced up at Rogelia.

The healer’s voice resounded in Marina’s head.
What have you done?

Marina didn’t want to answer. But she knew that at the onset, Rogelia had said this journey would require honesty, so she trusted that she wouldn’t get in too much trouble for telling the truth. “We asked for a lot of things during a ritual and we cast several spells.”

Rogelia took a cloth from a shelf on the wall and dunked it into the herb-infused water. “When you open the door to the spiritual realm, it’s like finding another world that has been existing right alongside your world. Every creature, animal, plant, even the planets have their own communication going on all the time. You just haven’t been aware of it until now. You must enter this other world slowly, so that you can grow accustomed to the constant barrage of new information.”

“Lie down,” Rogelia said kindly to Fern, who obeyed without delay. Rogelia picked up the tea-soaked cloth and placed it over Fern’s eyes.

“Ahh,” Fern moaned.

“Where did you learn about this spell?” Rogelia asked as she moved Marina’s fingers directly behind her ears and gently guided them in small circles until Marina could do it on her own.

“From a book I bought,” Marina said. The more she rubbed her neck, the more her earache subsided. As the pain slowly lessened, she felt a quiet come over her. When she glanced around at her friends, she was relieved that she could no longer hear their innermost thoughts. Marina looked into Rogelia’s warm brown eyes and felt immense gratitude.

Rogelia sighed. “Books are wonderful resources,” she said. “But you must allow the information to sink into your mind, body, and soul with the passage of time. If you rush through your learning, stacking spells and magical information on top of each other, everything will collide in one big mess. It’s as silly as getting behind the wheel of a car without knowing the rules of the road.”

“Just like the woman in Moonlight Midwifery said.” Fern whispered as she lifted the washcloth momentarily.

“Continue to read the book if you like, but please do not do any more spells for now,” Rogelia requested. “I will speak with Marina and Xochitl, and we’ll have our
limpia
in two weeks. Please remember to bring something that honors the four directions of east, north, west, and south.”