Chapter 30

30

I didn't want to leave Carter. I wanted to stay in bed with him and see how many times we could make each other orgasm, and then lazily eat takeout lounging on the covers, talking and snuggling until we were making out and dry-humping and then for-real humping all over again.

Alas. I had made plans with my sisters. Important ones I can barely remember when Carter kisses me at the door as Sky honks in the driveway. "I'll be right here when you get back," he says with a big smile. "I want to see what other lingerie your sisters got you."

I grin and wink. "One of the pieces is entirely crotchless."

His eyes go a little hazy, like he can't help but imagine it, and then he shuts the front door as I'm opening it. "Changed my mind, cancel on your sisters and go put it on."

I laugh, gently opening the door again. I know he's messing around but damn, I really want to do exactly that. I don't want to think about my sisters and what we're trying to do tonight. I don't want to think about my shitty mother and the way she fucked me up when I was basically a baby. I don't want to think about how, deep down, I don't think it's possible that I can get it back—my soul. That I will remain soul-broken forever.

But Sky honks the horn again, this time for so long, I'm sure the neighbors want to curse us out now.

I sigh and kiss Carter one more time. "I'll be back in an hour, tops." I don't actually know how long it's going to take to get my soul fragment back, but I don't want to give it more than an hour, not when I have guaranteed orgasms at home with my husband.

"I'll be waiting." He gives me one more panty-melting grin, his dark yellow eyes practically twinkling as I make my way out the door with an enormous grin of my own.

"Finally," Sky says when I contort myself to get in her car with minimal pain. She pauses as she looks me over. "Wait a minute. There's something different about you."

My cheeks instantly turn hot. "Um—"

"Are you high?" Sky furrows her brow as she looks me over. "Your eyes are kind of glassy and your hair …" She wrinkles her nose. "Did you take too much Valium?"

I laugh and shake my head. Sex-obsessed Sky isn't going to guess that I finally banged my husband, and the result was not one but two epic orgasms? "No. I just…Carter and I went to the movie theater. Like for a real date. And it was nice." I don't want to share the sex part yet, or the part in which Carter and I declared our love for each other. It feels too new and precious, like something just for us, for however long we need it to be just for us.

"But to be clear, you didn't get high while watching the movie?"

I roll my eyes and point. "No, Sky, and please start driving. I'm starving and I don't want to eat cold tacos."

"Fine."

She doesn't put the top down, but she does roll down all the windows so the salt-thick wind from the sea rushes through. We can't talk, because it's so loud, but I don't care. My hair is going to look like it's made of twigs when this drive is through, but I don't care about that, either. I'm still riding the high of Carter. Specifically, of me being his and him being mine. And how convenient a marriage of convenience turned out to be.

Sky pulls into St. Theresa's Catholic Church for Wanderers and Pilgrims. Even though we spent a hell of a lot of time here our entire childhood, I can't think of this place as mine. It's Nadia's, and now, maybe Sky's, but only because she works there. I've just never been into this stuff like Nadia or Sage, the spiritual parts of religion. Maybe it's my lack of control and connection over my gift…or maybe it's just me. I think the old gods stuff is real, if out there, and I mean literally out there—beyond my reach, both physically and mentally. But religion—Mass and church and priests and smelly incense and confession booths—that's always been bullshit to me. Other people can like it and that's fine. Just leave the rest of us alone about it, please.

The worship hall itself is massive, made of white and gray sea stone, the kind you can still see fossils stuck inside if you look close enough, with three tall towers reaching up like witch's claws. On the top of the largest of them is a red cross that lights up from its bottom at night, in a way I've always thought was creepy.

Inside, it's all one floor, those tall walls holding just-as-tall stained glass of images featuring Mary Magdalene and various other figures from Jesus's time, including, naturally, the man himself. The floor is made up of polished black tile, and the harmonics are nuts—you can hear the chisme that viejas are whispering to each other on the other side of the room if you wanted.

Sky doesn't stop at the parking lot in front of the worship hall, though. She goes around, stopping the car when we're right behind it, facing a series of buildings—the two-story gray one in which all the religious and Sunday school classes are taught, the offices for various church-business things, and then…the library.

"Damn, I'd forgotten how weird the library looks," I mutter. Someone had the grand idea to put the library in where the old sanctuary used to be. But they didn't exactly remodel it right…if at all. It's on the smallish side, made up of white walls peeling to reveal orangey red brick, with two massive red doors cut in front of the entrance like a wide-open mouth. There are always a few crows hanging out on its roof, too, ever since I was a little kid—like they know it's haunted and are trying to warn anyone nearby with their sharp caws.

Sky gives me a huge grin as she grabs her bag. "Isn't it great?"

"Sure, if we're on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ." I glance at her outfit—a black turtleneck tucked into high-waisted gray slacks, an enormous sunstone silver necklace at her chest, and shiny black, pointed boots. "Actually, you know what? You with the librarian thing you've got going on. You're basically a young, hot female Latina Giles. If Giles were the older version of a tall Shakira."

"That makes no sense, because Giles was rather hot."

I shrug. Point taken. I didn't think it when I watched the show at twelve, but now I can see it, though—the older, kind of awkward guy with the accent and the glasses. Yeah, Giles was hot.

There are two black iron benches facing each other on the walkway leading to the library doors. Sage is sitting on one, already devouring what looks to be her second taco.

"I know you're pregnant and all, but that better not be my taco," I say.

Sage rolls her eyes and digs through the huge plastic bag by her side, and she hands me and Sky a small paper bag each. "Teal, you got three grilled fish tacos with extra guacamole and a side of black bean soup. Sky, you got the fried chicken tacos covered in cilantro and lime crema with a side of maduros."

"How did you know?" Sky gasps, snatching the bag away.

"I asked Nadia. Sometimes her gift comes in handy."

"What did you get?" Sky asks.

"Three four-cheese street-corn tacos with a side of tostones."

"Oh, that sounds good, too. Save me a toston?"

Sage lifts one up—the thing is massive, like, the size of her palm—and tosses it to Sky, who catches it one-handed like she was trained to save delicious fried things from getting ruined on the ground.

Sky and I take the bench facing Sage and dig in. "How much do I owe you?" I ask, but Sage waves me off. That's okay. I'll figure out another way to pay her back.

"So, Sky," Sage says between licking her fingers like a barbarian.

"Yes, Sage."

"Do you have a plan? Like for real? Or are we winging this?"

"I told you, the plan—or spell, if you want to get specific—is in the book. We follow the book. The whole thing is in the book."

I scoff between bites. "Say ‘book' one more time please, I don't think she got it."

Sky sticks her tongue out at me before shouting " Book! " so loudly, I wish I'd covered my ears for it.

Sage grabs an antibacterial wipe from her purse and cleans her hands. "Well, I'm ready when you are."

I stuff the last bite of taco in just as my phone pings with a text from Gerald Samuels. Just a quick update. No one remembers Vivienne at the recent gallery. Going to find former employees to question.

I toss my phone back in my bag and remember to chew my taco. "Ready," I say with an entirely too-full mouth. I know Samuels is doing his best, but I don't think he's going to find Mama. At this point, I've got nothing to lose. Nada. "I couldn't be more ready, honestly."

"Me too." Sky stands with the rest of us.

We toss the garbage in the trash can near the side of the building, then follow Sky to the front doors.

"I always thought this felt like walking into a vag," Sage muses as Sky pulls out what are I am assuming her work keys.

"Like we're fingers! Fingering the giant church vag!" Sky announces as she opens the door and walks in, making that godforsaken "fingering" motion with her hand lifted high above her head.

"God, I hope no one is in there and could hear that," I mutter while Sage cracks up.

"Nope, it's just us," Sky announces.

"And you sure you're not going to get in trouble for…you know. Spellwork after hours?" Sage asks.

Sky shakes her head. "You should see my boss. I'm pretty sure if she caught us, she'd give me a raise."

Sage and I both look at each other and shrug. Whatever that means.

We're all inside now, and it's freezing in here. I shiver and fold my arms over my chest. "Damn, I didn't think I'd need a winter coat."

I haven't spent a ton of time in the church library in my life, but it looks about the same as I remember. Extremely tall bookshelves stuffed with creepy-looking books: check. Small creepy windows that show the dark greenery surrounding the building and nothing else: check. Dark-ass creepy shadows everywhere because of the small creepy windows: check.

Sky leads us to an elevator, which looks like it was installed before elevators were even invented. The doors don't line up right, and when they open, the little yellowed room inside also looks Escher-esque wonky. Like if I look up, I'm going to see our own feet and if I look down, I'll see the tops of our heads or some shit like that.

"Why does it smell like when you solder something in here?" Sage asks.

"I don't know. What does soldering smell like?" Sky says in response.

The doors open before Sage can answer—because hell if I know what soldering smells like—revealing a single-room basement, wide and dark and about one hundred times creepier than the ground floor.

"Jesus," Sage whispers as our footfalls echo around us ominously. "I swear I just felt the presence of, like, sixteen ghosts walking by."

"There was a massacre near here in the late 1700s," Sky responds cheerfully. "That was probably those spirits."

"I was trying to make a joke to lighten the mood, but now sadly, I've made it all worse." Sage puts both hands on her belly, like she's trying to protect the little guy from the seriously now- very Buffy vibes. "How can you work down here all day?"

"Oh, it's not that bad," Sky says, leading us around towers of books and tall, half-empty shelves and even an old, enormous trunk made of what looks like pure silver and gold.

I can see where they're both coming from. On one hand, the basement does resemble a catacomb of books rather than a library, with its long, deep blue shadows, bloodred painted walls, and the general feel of underworldly chaos. On the other, there's also this sense of awe that tends to come when I'm in an old place…like many people have passed through here, many hands have touched this knob, many feet have twirled around this old-as-hell table. It does feel like there are ghosts here and I wonder how much I would have to bribe Amá Sonya to come and tell us about them through her gift that she likes to deny even exists.

And with the little slants of deep afternoon honey light coming in, and the dance of the tiny dust motes in them, and the coolness of being in a room mostly hidden in the earth, well—considering where Sky has spent most of the last eight years, I can see how she'd feel comfortable here.

"This is my office," Sky says, lifting her arms to show an old desk that looks antique, carved from a red-hued wood with feet shaped like those of a cat's.

"This is a desk shoved into a corner of the basement," Sage responds.

"Like I said. My office."

There's a small desktop computer on the top of her desk, alongside a framed photo of us when we were little, in Nadia's backyard some hot summer. Sage and I were both holding baby Sky at once. We were both in our underwear; Sky was in just a diaper. We're squinting into the sun with big smiles, Nadia's roses and cosmos and marigolds blooming all around us.

I frown, picking it up. I was four here, I'm pretty sure. I stare at my dark eyes and huge baby-teeth grin, my small frame and plump, pink cheeks.

I was a baby. I was a baby . My mother stole a piece of her baby's soul and took off without a single fucking word.

I'm not really sure how I rationalized what had happened before. I guess not knowing what she did, exactly, when she pinched that piece of light from my hand…it meant that I could somehow make it so that she was a better person than she was. At one point I even thought that maybe what she took meant she could always find me again somehow. I remember looking out the window of the attic, the one over what would end up being Sage's bed, where I could see Catalina Street all the way down to where it turns, rubbing the middle of my palm, praying to see her. I imagined her walking back, luggage in tow. I imagined running downstairs and jumping in her arms, screaming Mama, I knew you'd come back for me!

"You okay?" Sage asks gently.

I nod forcefully and square my shoulders. "I'm ready to find her now."

I'm ready to take back what belongs to me.