by Ryan Calejo
“You murderer!” I raged, feeling another rush of fury blaze inside me. “You’re nothing but an evil, heartless—”
And that was as far as I got before the witch once again seized me in her invisible grip. My arms were pinned tightly to my sides. My elbow joints began to bend painfully in the wrong direction. I could feel her hold tightening around my body like a lead belt. I tried to scream but realized I couldn’t even suck in a breath!
Less than a foot away, La Cuca stooped to pick up the mystical dagger, her eyes glittering with bad intentions. “I’ll try not to make this too painful, Charlie. . . .” Straightening, she raised the dagger between us, and the sight of its curved, wicked point sent my panic into overdrive. I kicked and bucked and squirmed, straining with every fiber of my aching being. But it was no use. It felt like I’d been wrapped in an invisible straitjacket made of steel!
The witch studied my face for a moment with an eager look in her hungry green eyes. “Cálmate . . . relax.” Her voice dropped, becoming a low, ultra-creepy hiss as she touched the tip of the dagger to the exposed skin of my chest. I don’t know how it was possible, but the crystal felt simultaneously flamethrower-hot and freezing, numbing my skin almost on contact. I hissed in pain and surprise, making La Cuca laugh softly under her breath. “Duérmete, niño, duérmete ya . . . Que viene La Cuca y te comerá.”
My throat tightened. I knew that lullaby. It was pretty well known, actually. My abuela had even sung it to me once or twice, putting me to bed with it when I was little. It basically went like: Sleep, child, sleep already . . . for here comes La Cuca and she’ll eat you up. Something told me this lunatic recited it to all her victims. And just thinking that sent a spear of fear through my heart.
So, this is it, I thought miserably. This is how it ends. How I die . . .
And it certainly looked that way. But an instant before my life could begin to flash before my eyes—before I could even close my eyes—I heard the front door of the house creak open and a voice shout, “Charlie? Charlie, are you here, dude?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Alvin! I felt a powerful rush of relief and then an equally powerful surge of gut-wrenching terror, realizing La Cuca would just as happily kill him, too.
“¡Madre!” La Cuca cursed. “What NOW?” Her furious gaze flew to the doorway just as Alvin stepped into view. He was holding an ice-cream cone in his left hand and licking sugary drippings off his thumb. It looked like vanilla and fudge. Al’s favorite.
“Charlie—” Alvin’s expression jumped from confused to freaked to curious before finally landing on googly-eyed fascination. His jaw dropped and his hand opened, releasing the ice-cream cone, which hit the ground with a sticky splat. “Dude, you’re doing cosplay? Why didn’t you freakin’ call me?!”
In the instant La Cuca was distracted by Alvin, I felt her invisible hold falter and made my move. I lunged forward, swatting her across the face with one of my wings. It connected solidly, bone on bone, and La Cuca slammed sideways into the kitchen counter, sending plates and cups crashing to the ground.
“Alvin, run!” I shouted. “Get out of here!”
“But, dude, I came over to apologize for earlier,” he said. “And how the heck did you just do that? Where’s the fly system? I don’t see the wires. . . .”
“There are no wires! And apology accepted. But you need to leave. Now!”
“But I want to play too!”
“Alvin, go! I’ll explain later!”
“But—”
“Run!”
“Fine,” he grumbled, pouting like a little kid as he bent to pick up his mashed-up cone. “But I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
“Yep!”
As La Cuca regained her balance, she snatched one of the short-handled paring knives from the butcher’s block and sent it screaming at my face. The blade blurred past me, grazing my ear, and buried itself in the wall behind me. Had I been standing another inch to my left, it would’ve taken my ear off. Two inches, and it would’ve all been over.
“I don’t usually miss,” she said.
“And I don’t usually die.” Huh. Not a bad comeback.
With another savage shriek, her mouth opened wide—and I mean impossibly wide, like she had alligator jaws or something—and a cone of purple flames shot straight at me. I dove to my left, just barely managing to avoid insta-death. The wall behind me caught fire. The little breakfast table was instantly incinerated. The stink of burning paint and wood filled my nostrils, scrambling my brain a little as I came up on one knee, preparing to dive out of the way of another blast if necessary.
It wasn’t. Because La Cuca was bent over in laughter.
“¡Idiota!” she sneered. “You think you can avoid my blasts forever?” Her gaze narrowed on me, seeming to burn even brighter. An instant later, the entire house began to tremble, the walls turning transparent . . . and then we were standing in the middle of a huge cornfield, the endless rows of grain swaying back and forth around us in a gust of wind. I blinked, and then we were on the summit of a frozen mountain somewhere. I blinked again, and then we were in . . . Barcelona? I thought I recognized La Pedrera—that famous cultural center in Catalonia.
“YOU CAN’T EVEN FATHOM MY POWER, BOY! I AM THE MOST POWERFUL BRUJA IN ALL THE WORLD!”
The very air seemed to hum and vibrate with her power; I could feel it flowing out of her like something alive and angry. It crackled around me like invisible currents of electricity. The next thing I knew, we were back in the kitchen of the house on Giralda—for the moment, anyway.
“I AM THE MOST POWERFUL BRUJA IN ALL THE LANDS!” she cried, and suddenly her body began to change again. The skin on her arms and face hardened and cracked. Its color ran out, turning first a sickly white, then a darker, muddier green. Bony scales appeared along the sides of her neck. They mashed up against one another, forming peaks and valleys that ran down her back in thick, scaly ridges. Then her head began to swell. Like a balloon. It expanded outward until it was about the size of a giant pumpkin, her eyes glowing so fiercely and brightly that the resemblance was impossible to miss—a jack-o’-lantern. That was what she looked like. A terrifying, maniacal, half-crazed jack-o’-lantern with alligator skin!
“THERE’S NOTHING—NOTHING—YOU CAN DO TO DEFEAT ME!” she bellowed. And she was absolutely right. I couldn’t defeat her. She was too strong. Too skilled. Like the other Morphlings before me—the ones who had actually managed to beat her—I had to find a way to trick this witch into defeating herself.
And just like that, a plan began to form in the back of my head.
“Hey, I was wondering something,” I said suddenly. “Can you fly?”
It stopped her. Like a pie to the face. “That’s—out of the blue. . . .”
“No, I know. I was just wondering.”
She looked confused. “Sí . . . of course I can fly.”
“Well, I was just asking because you don’t have any wings or anything, so it just doesn’t seem like you’d be very good at it—or very fast.”
Her mouth twisted into a humorless scowl. “Think again, runt. I am very good at it. And I am blazing fast!”
“Prove it, then. Race me.”
“Race you?” She burst into laughter. “Actually, I think I’ll just cut your heart out and call it a day.”
I shrugged. “Might as well. I’d probably smoke you.”
“YOU WOULDN’T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST ME!” she roared. “MY POWER IS BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION!”
“Then you shouldn’t even break a sweat, right? In fact, I’ll make you a deal. You beat me in a race—a fair race—I’ll let you cut my heart out. Won’t even try to stop you.”
“And if you win?”
“How could I?”
A wicked grin split her lips. Arrogance and pride oozed out of her like a busted pimple. “Excellent point.”
“Let’s keep it simple. We fly straight up and see who can fly higher and faster. Cool?”
“C
ongelado,” she sneered. Then she raised a hand, and the door leading to the yard tore off its hinges and went tumbling away down the middle of the street. “After you.”
Once we were out in the yard, she said, “On your mark—”
“Too slow!” I didn’t wait for her to count us down—just exploded into flight. I knew that would probably make her raging mad, and raging mad was just how I wanted her. La Cuca was on my heels in a blink, her face twisted into a furious snarl. Perfecto, I thought, and couldn’t fight back a smile. We shot straight into the dark gray sky, twirling around each other like battling hawks as we climbed higher and higher.
My heart was pounding wildly. My entire body thrummed with each powerful beat of my wings. Obviously, I’d never flown before—not with my own wings, anyway—but it really did feel kinda like second nature. Like walking. Or breathing.
“Don’t tell me this is all you’ve got, runt!” La Cuca hissed, and she put on a burst of incredible speed, pulling way out ahead of me. The witch was fast. Brutally fast. Even with my wings I knew there was no way I could beat her.
Fortunately, that had never been the plan.
“I’m just getting loose, witchy!” I gritted my teeth, put everything I had into flapping as the wind battered my face and La Cuca’s shrill cackling echoed in my ears.
I have to push her! I reminded myself. Push her to her limit!
Up ahead, the clouds pulsed with arcs of blue lightning. Icy rain peppered my face and chest. I beat my wings harder, flying higher, faster.
“I hope you’re not gassing out on me!” I called after her. “¡Te ves cansada!”
“I look tired to you? We’ll see about that!”
We charged into the heart of the storm. Thunder rumbled around us like war drums, and gusts of updrafts tore at my wings, my clothes, my chest. Far down below us, through the swirling cloud cover, I could just make out the city of Miami spread out like a world of LEGOs. We must’ve been close to two miles up.
Just a little more to go, I told myself.
“Vamos. Let’s make this a challenge!” La Cuca cried, hurtling through the air with such speed that a bubble of white vapor had formed around her feet.
I sort of remembered something from science class about how vapor cones were created by fighter jets when traveling at high speeds through moist air. This looked a lot like that, except I’d never seen a jet fly anywhere near as fast as she was. We soared higher, slicing through ribbons of wet black clouds. Then my wings caught an air current, shooting me forward like a slingshot.
“¡Hasta luego, muchacha!” I shouted as I blew past her. Higher and higher we climbed, rising so high that the air became freezing cold and impossibly thin. It was like trying to breathe through a straw! Almost immediately the muscles along my back caught fire, making every flap feel like it was my last. But I wasn’t about to stop. Even if it took everything in me, even if it cost me my freakin’ life, I was going to make sure that this witch never got a chance to hurt anyone I loved ever again.
“C’mon, Cuca!” I called tauntingly. “You have to be faster than this!”
With a hellish shriek, the witch tore past me so fast I wobbled in her current. I had to spread my wings out as far as they would go just to keep from being knocked out of the sky.
We were impossibly high now, high enough that my ears wouldn’t stop popping and my chest felt like an elephant was using it as a seat cushion. My lungs were burning, begging for air. Worse, blackness had begun to nip at the edges of my vision.
Don’t even think about passing out! I told myself. Not happening. Not now, not ever!
“C’mon, Cuca, show me the limitlessness of your power!” I shouted, flapping my wings with every ounce of strength I had left. Which, by the way, wasn’t much. Wasn’t anything, in fact. Every cell of my body was in agony. My muscles burned like they’d been doused in gasoline and blowtorched. Still, I sucked in half a breath, sucked in what little air there was up here, and yelled, “Stop holding back, you cowardly old witch!”
“OLD?” La Cuca let out a hissing howl of fury. “I’LL SHOW YOU OLD YOU HAPLESS HALFLING! I’LL SHOW YOU SPEED LIKE YOUR PUNY MIND CAN’T EVEN POSSIBLY IMAGINE!”
There was a mega sonic boom as she shattered the sound barrier and then another one as she shattered some other barrier of physics.
And that’s when it happened: The witch had picked up so much speed that all within a few seconds, she pierced the troposphere, passed through the stratosphere, and entered the mesosphere, where she suddenly began to glow like a miniature sun.
It was right then, right at that very moment, that she realized I had tricked her. That I’d been playing her this entire time.
“Cunning boy,” she said through a vicious grin, and that was all she had time for before she was engulfed in a flash of fiery light.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Up until that very moment, I’d never truly appreciated how important school was. I mean, had La Cuca bothered taking a sixth-grade science class, she would’ve known that flying into the mesosphere is a big no-no because of the gas particles that exist up there. But she hadn’t, and like a falling comet, the witch had been instantly incinerated.
Unfortunately, though, I didn’t even get a few seconds to celebrate my victory, because just then my entire body gave out, and I started to fall. I had a moment to think about Violet, about my parents—even about my abuela and how thanks to her and all of the myths she’d taught me, I’d been able to make it this far—and I smiled. It was a tired smile. An I did everything I could and I hope you guys appreciate it sort of smile.
And then everything went black.
• • •
I woke to the low buzz of conversation. Many voices, lots of people. Something long and wet and rough was being dragged gently across my forehead and cheeks. It felt like someone was doodling on my face with a scratchy paintbrush. Light stabbed through my eyelids, bright and hot. Somehow I sensed El Cadejo was near. I don’t know how I sensed it. I just did.
Then I opened my eyes—and there he was! Licking my face with his beefy pinkish tongue, his blue eyes shining like stars. But as my vision stabilized, his form began to melt away. And by the time I had blinked all the fog out of my eyes, he was gone.
Dazed, I looked around me. I was lying in a crater the size of a swimming pool. The floor beneath me was all cracked tile and hunks of white limestone. There was half of a table to my left. The other half dangled precariously from the lip of the crater by one of its charred-black legs. I recognized it: It was Mrs. Wilson’s—I mean, La Cuca’s—dining table. Which meant that I was back inside the house on Giralda.
For a long moment I just lay there, staring up into the blue, cloudless sky, wondering how so much crazy stuff could have happened on such a beautiful day. Then I sat up—and immediately regretted it. Dizziness washed over me in waves. My temples throbbed. It felt like . . . well, like I’d dropped out of the sky and crash-landed in the middle of a kitchen. I checked my body for cuts or broken bones, but I didn’t find any. No feathers or horns, either. Racking my brain, I couldn’t come up with any possible explanation for how I’d survived the fall, but I knew El Cadejo had something—maybe everything—to do with it. I had to remember to ask him about it . . . that is, if I ever saw him again.
Still fighting dizziness, I pushed to my feet and waddled over to the edge of the crater. The crater itself was about fifteen feet wide and a little more than five feet deep, which meant I could just see over the rim of it. And what I saw were kids—dozens of them . . . hundreds of them. Kids of all shapes and sizes. Girls and boys. Prekindergarteners to high schoolers. They were wandering aimlessly through the house, most forming lines at the front door and filing slowly outside. All of them looked sleepy and confused and completely out of it. I didn’t recognize any of them.
Where did they even come from . . . ?
Finally, I saw someone I did recognize.
“Alvin! Over here!”
Alvin spu
n around. When he saw me, he raced over with all the fleet-footedness of a one-legged turtle. His eyes were the size of melons, and he was panting like he had after our first one-mile run in third grade. Big, gasping breaths that made it sound like he was choking on a Snickers bar. (Which, by the way, had also happened to him in third grade—and only a couple of minutes after that one-mile run.)
“Dude!” he practically shouted in my face. “You were flying—I mean, you were FLYING!”
“Yeah, there are a few things I should probably catch you up on . . . ,” I admitted.
“Oh! You think?” He searched my face, his brown eyes wild. “Dude, so you’re like . . . like some kind of super freak then, huh?”
“Basically,” I said, and realized I wasn’t even the least bit embarrassed to admit it. Funny part was, just a couple of hours ago, I’d been too ashamed to tell him about my manifestations, too ashamed to let him see what I was becoming. But I wasn’t anymore. See, at first (and like most people, probably), I’d assumed my manifestations were turning me into some kind of a weirdo. A freak. But what I didn’t know at the time, what I couldn’t possibly have known, was that it would be that same “weirdo-ness” (if that’s even a real word) that would soon save my life—not to mention the lives of everyone I cared about. It had definitely taken me a little while, but I’d learned something fom all this: Somewhere between almost having my heart cut out of my chest by the evilest witch in history and waking up in the middle of this limestone crater, I’d realized that the things about yourself that make you feel awkward or different or drive you completely crazy are the same things that make you you. And you can’t run away from who you are. You can’t cry it away; you can’t even wish it away. But once you accept yourself—everything about yourself (especially the weird parts)—you’ll finally be free to be you. And that’s a powerful thing. A very powerful thing.
And I guess you could say that I’d finally accepted me.
Still, I was surprised when Alvin said, “Man, oh man, oh man! This is AWESOME!”
