Chapter 31

31

Sage, Sky, and I sit in a circle in the middle of the old-ass and creepy-ass church library basement, and between all of us is a lit candle, making everything glow ever so slightly in orange. Sky has put on her pink cat-eye reading glasses and now she's glossing over the spellbook while Sage and I wait.

"How long is this going to take?" I ask, checking my phone.

Sky doesn't answer. Instead, she murmurs to herself as she reads and I look at Sage, who just shrugs.

"Isn't it some shit," Sage says, looking around, "that Nadia trained Mama in the old religion? But not us? I always wondered why she never took us to go find the old gods' footprints."

"She taught us a few things," I say, thinking of all the Nadia sayings I've heard over the years. There are things older than God. Simple spells are the most powerful. Don't ever reject a gift from a ghost.

"Very vague things. I knew she was leaving stuff out but whenever I asked her to get specific, she'd shake her head and say it was lost to colonization."

"We need a representation of the old gods," Sky announces.

"Uh…" Sage begins, but I raise my hand like I'm in class.

"Thanks to my good-for-nothing ex-best-friend Leilani Rodriguez, I have one right here." I fish in my purse until I find it—the white and gold shimmering bookmark she'd left on the table at the craft fair when she'd huffed away, thinking she was so much better than me because she represses her negative emotions instead of seeing them all across the sky in the form of lightning and clouds and sleet.

Sky smiles. "You finally got rid of her, huh?"

I shrug. "She dumped me, but whatever. I saw with my own eyes what you two kept saying about her."

"She made this?" Sage asks, examining the bookmark. "But this is—"

"Stolen from our ancestors' art? Yes. Yes, it is."

Sage lets out a long breath. "Damn, that girl has some audacity."

I roll my eyes, thinking of the way Lani accused me of being a narcissist because of the very thing I am trying to fix right now. "You have no idea."

"Okay," Sky says. "We have the rep of the old gods. Now we need something that ties the two people together, and something from the earth. And that's it, for materials."

"That's it?" I ask.

"Simple spells are always the most powerful," Sage recites.

"Okay, well, something connecting me and Mama…" I sigh and grab the back of my neck. "She left this necklace. Nadia said I could have it when I was fourteen or something like that, so I've been wearing it on occasion for a while now."

"As for something from the earth." Sage digs through her bag now, and pulls out a small baggie of little black speckles. "Saved seeds from the herb spiral at work."

"Okay, let's put them around the candle," Sky says, and Sage and I arrange the objects so they're equidistant and not too close to the flame. "And now, we have to ask the old gods to help us find the soul-stealer."

We all look at one another for a few moments. "You should ask," Sage says to me. "It's your soul."

I close my eyes and shake my head. "I feel stupid."

"Just do it. If nothing happens, we'll just have Nadia perform the ritual in two days or whatever she said earlier."

I glare at the candle and sigh. "Fine." I imagine the last time I felt close to the old gods. For some reason, I anticipate Sky's arrival home after falling to be the thing that should come to me—but no. Weirdly enough, the memory that pops up is when Carter held my hand against the oak tree and told me to sense the water in the tree's circulatory system. That feeling of connection…it felt similar to when I was struck by lightning.

Like a part of me was opening up to what I had lost without even knowing I'd lost it. The way I could feel the life of the water in the tree. The way the water itself seemed to be a whole spirit, talking to the water that made up my body…and how my body seemed to connect to every single body of water all around me. Every river, every creek, hell, every raindrop, even, that makes up this land. Even the ones long gone, and even the ones that are yet to come. All of that inside me at once, making me feel whole for the first time in a long time.

Now I know that I had briefly connected to a stolen piece of my soul. Which I'm going to get back, dammit. A bit of awkwardness isn't going to stand in my way.

"Old gods," I say, and to my dismay, my voice has the slightest bit of emotion in it. "Um. Please lead me to my lost soul fragment."

We all sit in silence for about thirty seconds, when I throw up my hands. "It didn't work, but that's—"

And then Sky gasps. "Teal! Your hands!"

When I glance at them, they're glowing. They're glowing blue just like at the beach, on the night of wild lightning.

Sage and Sky and I watch, enraptured, as the glow of my hands pours down, and a line, all crooked and alight, flows out from me and along the floor, leading straight through the wall of the basement.

"We have to follow it!" Sky says excitedly as she blows out the candle and rises to her feet. "It's leading us to Mama!" She wrinkles her nose. "I don't like saying ‘Mama,' actually. I'm going to call her Cora now."

"It's leading us to her?" I ask, my voice wavering.

"Yes. Can't you feel it?" Sage murmurs. "Come on. Let's go get her."

We all leap in Sky's car, keeping an eye on the blue line the whole while. It's like my own little GPS connection—wherever I go, the line aligns itself to me, leading me in what hopefully is the quickest way there. "We need to head south," Sky says as she starts the car. And that's what we do.

As the sun lowers itself toward the horizon line, turning the sky into the peachiest pink orange ever, the line spreads out in front of the car, leading us down the highway, past both state parks, toward the downtown beach walk. In fact, it takes us right on the beach strip, and Sage screams, "Left!" in the middle of all the stores and restaurants, leading us to the little parking lot behind one of the art galleries.

"Wait a minute," I murmur, watching the glow of the blue line between my hands and the back entrance to the gallery. "I was here just a couple of months ago. And…the PI said that there was a woman who used a name similar to Mama's, an artist…"

"She's an artist?" Sage asks, wrinkling her nose.

"We're about to find out, looks like," Sky says, opening her car door.

I do the same, only noticing how much my hands tremble when I climb out of the car. I probably need to take some Tylenol or Advil or whatever is next on the painkiller schedule, but I can barely feel the ache, or even just the regular sensations of my body. Instead, it's like there's not just a line reaching my hands, but also reaching my belly, where it fills me with nothing but fear.

Sky marches right on the blue line to the door. She opens it and holds it for me and Sage, waiting patiently.

"You ready?" Sage asks. She looks nervous, too. A little pale.

"I think so. What about you?"

Sage shrugs. "I'm going in, expecting the worst of her. It's all I'm capable of right now."

I nod. "She stole my soul, Sage. I think it's very realistic to expect the worst."

Sage wraps an arm through mine, and she helps me to the door. Sky keeps it open for us, and she follows behind when we're through.

The gallery is a wide-open single room, a square made up of white-as-snow walls. There is a pale blue marble desk in a corner—where I guess transactions are made—but besides that, there are only staged pieces of art and the posters and papers explaining them.

I walk by one wall hanging titled The Lightning Bruja and feel my entire body tingle with apprehension and anger at once.

Vivette Coretta first encountered the sculptures as a result of lightning hitting beach sand in Southern California. The heat of the lightning strike melts the sand into finely textured glass and sand forms. Coretta was enchanted with what she calls "the magic of ocean storms" and began to chase the storms along the beach shores all over the Americas, discovering hundreds of sculptures along the way. "It's a gift," laughs Coretta when asked about how she seems to always be in the right place at the right time. "It's my gift."

"Oh my God," Sage whispers as she reads behind me. "I literally can't believe her." Her voice constricts and I don't have to turn around to know that tears stream down her face. "She's not even trying to hide the theft."

I glance around at the sculptures themselves. The fulgurites, as one sign declares their official name to be, balance atop plain white stands, made of what looks like glittering quartz and beach sand melded together. Their shape reminds me of an amalgamation of undersea coral and little, pencil-sized lightning, frozen in form. They are beautiful and haunted and messy.

"Teal." I turn to Sky, who stands in front of a door labeled FOR EMPLOYEES ONLY . She gestures to where the blue line leads—under the white-painted wood of the door and onward to the other side. "She's in there."

I'm frozen, as still in time as the beautiful and cold sculptures—the result of my stolen gift, my stolen soul piece—all around me.

Sky raises her eyebrows. "Do you need me to open the door?"

I nod immediately.

Sky doesn't hesitate. She throws open the door, and as soon as someone inside says, "Excuse me, this is a private—" Sky throws open her hands and says, "Cora! Do you remember me? It's Sky, your youngest daughter!"