Chapter 27

27

For brunch, I decided to wear my nicest jeans, deep indigo-stained boyfriend-cut, with ballet slipper shoes. Up top I've got on a silk crewneck the color of peaches and cream, and over that, an earthy brown tweed blazer. Amá is going to kill me for wearing jeans, and she's not going to dig the ballet slippers, either. But I don't want people gawking at my ankle, and there's no way I'm able to wear her preferred shoe choice of towering designer stilettos. I'm carrying the black leather Cartier bag she gave me, plus I put on a solitaire diamond necklace, so hopefully my classy accessories will soften her judgments up a smidgen.

I glance at Carter as he sits in the driver's seat. He's got on a grayish purple dress shirt that is fitted to him in an almost indecent way. I can see the lines of the muscles in his arms, the defined edges of his abdomen. His slacks don't hide his thick thighs and I don't let myself look between his legs, lest I look like there is always only one thing on my mind, even though when it comes to Carter, that is on my mind way too much.

I clear my throat.

He looks at me quick. "You okay? You need anything?"

How can two simple, normal questions make me feel so damn emotional? "Yeah, I'm fine. Just not looking forward to this." Brunch with Amá Sonya isn't usually terrible, but I definitely would rather be at home now, continuing what we'd started while playing Mutant League Football .

"It'll be fine. We got this." He grins at me and I smile back, my heart feeling like it's somehow grown to fill every part of my body.

If I don't watch myself, I might do something unthinkable. Like fall in love with my husband.

On the way to the bougie, orange-essenced champagne-serving restaurant Amá insists on for brunch every month, I wonder what, exactly, Carter and I are doing. He's taken the week off so we can do best-friendship shenanigans—whatever that means—which is what I wanted from the start. But also? Two nights ago, he went down on me so well, I've had to try to re-create the sensation with my fingers and vibrator twice since, but nothing comes close. Plus, you know. I sucked him off just last night.

And who knows what would've happened just now if his brunch alarm hadn't gone off.

Best friends don't do all that, do they? Not the best friends I've had in my life.

My vibrating phone breaks my thoughts away from the sad trail they keep wanting to go down. I hold back a gasp when I see it's Gerald Samuels.

"Hello?" I ask as soon as I accept the call. "Mr. Samuels? Did you find her?"

"Not yet, Teal," he makes sure to say quickly in his cigar-scratchy voice. "I just wanted to give you an update."

My heart falls as he tells me about another gallery showing that featured an artist named Vivienne several years ago, and that this gallery is still open, which means someone working there may have known whoever the hell this Vivienne was, and blah, blah, blah. The rest of the update goes on like that…a credit card opened in Maine. A car sold in Ohio. Nothing concrete, nothing recent.

I knew it was a long shot, but by the time I get off the phone, I feel like I'm never going to find Mama.

"You good?" Carter asks.

I nod, counting my breath the whole while. "I'm fine. The PI is still looking, is all."

He seems to understand I don't want to talk about it and we drive in silence until the restaurant parking lot appears, way too soon for my liking.

Amá Sonya is walking up to the gold-leaf door at the same time we are, so we meet in the middle and Carter opens the door for us after greeting her with a kiss on the cheek. Just like I'd anticipated, she tsks in disapproval when she sees my outfit. "Jeans?" she hisses in my ear, her skinny hand tight on my forearm. "Teal, this isn't the Cheesecake Factory."

"Amá, I messed up my ankle, remember?"

"Sí, which is why you should be in a dress."

"My entire ankle and foot are the colors blue, green, and yellow."

She narrows her eyes at me, like she's weighing the indignity of jeans versus unsightly bruises. Only this woman would consider jeans to be on par with a nasty-looking injury, aesthetically speaking.

She lifts her head and dismisses the conversation. "No matter. We're this way."

She pushes past the hostess with a tight, polite smile, and Carter and I follow, him holding my arm as I do my little limping dance of a walk.

I stop—so abruptly that Carter nearly trips over me—when I see where she's leading us. Not to our usual spot by the large windows overlooking Firefly Mountain. She's taking us to a huge circle table in the darkest corner of the restaurant, where there are already people seated. Nadia, Sage, Sky, and Tenn, to be exact.

"Well?" Amá turns when she sees that I've frozen. "We don't have all afternoon. ándale, Teal Alegría."

"But—why is everyone here?" I begin walking slowly and turn to Carter. "Did you know about this?"

"Baby, I didn't even know you had brunch today."

I can barely notice the way my body responds to him calling me baby —like we were together like that for real, or something—because what the fuck is happening here?

I sit down carefully in the chair Carter pulls out for me, and he sits to my right. Amá is to my left. Sky sits next to Nadia, and Tenn is next to Sage, who is directly across from me, her fingers templed over her chest. She's wearing a black jersey dress with long wide sleeves, and an enormous rainbow moonstone glints at me from the hollow of her throat. She reminds me of an overlord about to pronounce a verdict over someone who's betrayed her.

God, I didn't betray her, did I? I rack my brain. Me not wanting to take a leather class wouldn't result in this bizarre scenario, would it?

"Is this an intervention?" I blurt out before anyone can explain. "Because of the class you wanted me to take?"

"Not exactly," Sage says.

The waiter arrives with five flutes of their orange champagne, and one wineglass of ice water for Sage.

I throw my drink back and down it in two swallows. Beside me, Amá Sonya gasps.

"So I guess the whole family doesn't normally join you for brunch like this?" Carter asks after a few minutes of very awkward silence.

"No, they do not," I respond. "So will someone just get on with it? I'm about to have a panic attack, here."

It's a bit of an exaggeration—there are some dark clouds outside, but it's mostly sunny still—but Carter reaches for my hand under the table anyway. "Breathe, mami," he whispers at my neck. I do what he says, until the clouds lighten softly, so that their dark undersides are now silver.

Sage clears her throat. "Last time we talked—"

"You mean last night."

"Yes, last night. You said something I found very alarming."

I roll my eyes. "I was being dramatic, Sage. My ankle hurt like a bitch"—another gasp from Amá—"and it had been a long day. I was hangry."

"So you didn't mean it when you said you couldn't fix your gift until we found Mama?"

Before the last syllable is out of her mouth, thunder rumbles so loudly, the whole restaurant goes silent for a few tense moments.

Oh shit . Did I actually say that aloud? To someone who is not Carter?

I try to backtrack. "I don't actually remember saying anything like—"

"Teal. Mira." Nadia gestures to the windows, where lightning streaks so closely, a few women to our right gasp in unison. "We know you said it. We know it's true. The weather would not look like that otherwise." She exchanges a glance with Amá, who looks like she normally does—equal parts bored and disgusted. "Cora took something from you, didn't she?"

"Breathe," Carter says, squeezing my hand. I listen to the count of his voice, and in only a couple of minutes, the weather calms down enough that people all around us have gone back to their conversations, convincing themselves it didn't go to hurricane level and back again in the span of sixty seconds.

"Damn," Tenn says, looking around, running a hand over the scruff on his chin. "That was wild. I didn't know it was like that , with the weather."

Sky snorts. "You should see her when she's mad." Then she turns to me. "I've always wondered, though—what happens, when. You know. You"—she then mouths the word orgasm . "Do rainbows come shooting out of you, or—"

"Sky Temple," Amá says, her eyebrows practically to her hairline. "I don't know how you went from an innocent sixteen-year-old to—"

"What do you mean, innocent?" Sky retorts back. "I wasn't a virgin when the old gods took me into their sacred oak tree eight years ago. In fact, I'd totally done it a total of seven times."

"Dios mío," Amá says, dropping her head into her hands. "I am glad that you're dressing like a proper woman now, but, Sky, you need to make your mouth match! No man would respect—"

"Hey, everyone, how are we doing today?" The server appears out of nowhere, like a wraith. But he flinches back when he sees the way Amá glares at him.

"I was in the middle of a sentence, young man."

"Ignore her. She's constipated," Nadia says, ignoring Carter's and Sky's snorts and Amá's gasp of indignity. "Would you mind giving us a few minutes?"

The server doesn't even respond verbally. He gives Nadia a short, fast nod and turns and sprints away.

"Back to the topic at hand." Nadia's voice is firm.

But of course Amá isn't finished. "Even Teal was pure when she married Carter," she says, giving meaningful glares not just to Sky but also to Sage's incriminating baby bump. "You two could learn a thing from her on how to keep yourself without sin ."

Sage is the first to laugh, then me. Carter's shoulders shake as he tries to rein it in.

"What is wrong with all of you," Amá demands, rather than asks. "Is the sacred pureness of the body so hilarious?"

Nadia lets out a short breath. " Back to the topic at hand. " She looks right into my eyes and I squeeze Carter's hand. "What happened with your mother, Teal? Why do you need her to fix your gift? ?Qué tomó ella?"

I look down at the table, made of what looks like shimmery dark chocolate milk spilled over white marble. "What does it matter?" I mumble. "It's not like anyone can do anything about it."

"You don't know that," Sonya retorts, her tone indicating the gravest offense.

"Teal." This time it's Sage addressing me. "I know what you've been up to lately. Trying to buy us things, and doing us favors. You think you're not good and that you have to prove that you are somehow." Her eyes fill with tears. "But you are good, Teal. You don't have to get us cars—"

"Though the car is awesome," Sky interrupts with a beaming smile.

"Though these things are great. They aren't necessary. You are already worthy." Sage sighs and Tenn wraps his arm around her shoulders, sliding his other hand over her belly. "Which means you are worthy of support. You're worthy enough to tell the people who love you what you need. So tell us. What do you need?"

Damn. My cheeks are all wet now, but for some inexplicable reason, the sky has shifted to a bright, topaz blue, the clouds butter yellow in the sunlight. The weather doesn't match me—or maybe it does. Maybe I'm crying because that's the first time anyone in my whole life has asked me what I need. Not what I want. What I need .

"You can tell them," Carter whispers, his breath warm against my ear. "I'm right here, mamita."

I take a shuddering breath and close my eyes, taking one big deep, counted breath. "I was there, when Mama left. I saw her go. I saw the truck…the man in the truck come and get her."

"Damn," Tenn says. "That's fucked up, what happened to you all. And for you to see it when you were that little…"

My laugh is bitter, and not just because it's salty from my tears. "You don't know the half of it."

"So tell us," Nadia says, her voice smooth and warm and comforting.

Carter has pulled me toward him so that my ass is right up on his thigh. I'm practically sitting in his lap. Sonya keeps glancing at us like he's damn near penetrating me, like she's about to retract the only compliment she's ever given me, about my total lie of purity.

"My gift came for the first time that night. A lightning storm, out of thin air. She—this probably is going to sound dumb and impossible—"

Sky snorts. "Remember who you're talking to here." She points at Nadia—"Psychic"—then Sage—"communicates with plants"—then Amá—"can see ghosts but is in denial about it"—then herself—"and creatures are my brothers from another mother."

"Sky. Temple." Amá's tone is hostile.

"Should I have not said ‘mother,' given our conversation? Fine." She taps her chin. "They're my sisters from another mister ."

It probably seems like Sky is being an unempathetic pest, but I know what she's doing. She's giving me a moment to catch my breath. To count my breath, even.

"I get it. Thank you." I smile at her. "Anyway, she pinched a piece of my gift from me. Right from the center of my palm, she took a piece of…I don't know. Light. From my body."

"She can't do that without permission," Nadia growls.

I blink back surprise. I was certain no one would have an idea of what I was talking about, but Nadia sounds like she not only has an idea but understands exactly what had happened that night. "She did ask me for permission. I said yes. But I was four. I thought if I said yes to anything she asked for, she might change her mind and stay."

Amá puts her hands over her eyes. "That little conniving bitch ."

I nearly gasp, hearing the curse come out of her mouth. "Um—"

"She took a piece of your soul, Teal! And you ." Amá turns to Nadia. " This is 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 a hand 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? I didn't even know what I wanted, Teal," Carter stage-whispers to me.

"That's her gift." I shrug. It is impressive, 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 said bitch and tramp . "…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 took the 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?"

I shrug and look down again. "Nothing could be done. Her gift is to be unseen. Invisible. I've hired a private investigator—"

"Why would you waste your money like that?" Amá yelps.

I sigh and bury my face in my hands, willing the tears back in. I've been crying too much lately. When I lift my head, I take one big breath. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want everyone to know how messed up I was, okay?" I turn to Amá. "And I wasn't pure for my marriage, Amá Sonya. I'm sorry, but I wasn't. Because I was with an abusive dickwad who made me do things I wasn't ready for and didn't want to do! And I didn't tell you about that, either, because I didn't want it to be yet another thing you all would know was wrong with me, okay?" The tears have returned. And this time, the weather matches me—all gray and gloomy. "Not that there's anything wrong with having sex outside of marriage."

"Tell that to Jesus," Amá retorts, but her tone doesn't have the sting it usually does, and her eyes keep roaming over my body like she's looking for some kind of injury.

Our server appears and the next five minutes are dedicated to getting everyone their meals, and devouring our first bites, because everyone's gotten extra hungry during this absurdly long conversation.

"So what do we do now?" Sage asks. "How do we get Teal's soul back to her?"

Nadia smiles. "Cora thinks she outsmarted us. But she set up a trap of her own making." She looks right at me. "She has your soul. Which means there is a connection between the two of you. We find your soul piece, we find Cora. She cannot stay hidden, so long as she has stolen from you."

"That…sounds ominous," Sky says.

"We just have to wait until the next full moon," Nadia declares. She glances at her phone. "Which is in…oh, two and a half days. Sage, Sky. Clear your schedules."

"I'm participating, too," Amá Sonya declares before demolishing a sweet potato fry.

"Then you can also clear your schedule. Postpone your HOA meeting or Gucci Bingo Night—"

"What's Gucci Bingo Night?" Amá asks, because of course she is interested in whatever the hell that would even be.

"Okay!" I say, holding up my hand. "What are we doing in two and a half days' time? Where are we going to meet? Do I need to prepare anything, or—"

"I'll get all the supplies. I'll text you the rest once I figure it out," Nadia responds, in a tone that indicates that is all the information we're going to get from her at present time.

I turn to Amá. "Do you know what she's up to?"

Amá shrugs. "You know Nadia. It could be anything from dancing naked in the woods to doing despicable things with broomsticks." You'd think she were talking about fucking a broomstick, by the tone of her voice, but no. She waves her arm across the sky, mimicking flight.

Sage, Tenn, and Carter laugh at her, but Sky and I exchange a questioning look. I think of her words to Nadia only minutes ago. This is 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!

It's clear we've only gotten half the story with regard to our gifts. And that's bullshit.