A Mixture of Mischief

by Anna Meriano

  Leo accepted the candle with a nod, grateful that Caroline hadn’t fallen for her dad’s lies about everything being just fine either. “Caroline, I wanted to tell you. The pest problem—”

  “Is really a magical problem?” Caroline smiled. “I got that.”

  Leo smiled. “But it’s complicated. My abuelo from my dad’s side of the family who I didn’t know was alive showed up, and he tried to get me to leave with him and let him train me in powerful but sort of evil magic. My mom’s trying to make sure he can’t come back.”

  “Wow.” Caroline’s eyes widened. “Wait, what? Wait, your dad’s family doesn’t have magic, do they?”

  “Apparently!” Leo threw her hands up. “I’m confused too.” She wanted to say more, but Brent knocked on the bakery window and waved for Caroline to hurry.

  “Tell me more later?” Caroline said. “It sounds scary and confusing. I’ll make another candle. Good luck.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for watching JP; I’m sorry we couldn’t all hang out like I wanted to.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem at all.” Caroline ducked to hide her eyes behind her bangs and twirled her ring. “He seems really nice. And cool. And Ihavetogonow, bye!” She stuffed her books into her backpack and darted out the door with only one strap over her arm.

  Leo shook her head. What was happening? JP was just . . . JP.

  She sniffed the candle, trying to identify the herb scent in the wax. If she weren’t so busy, she could use the molcajete to infuse all the bakery ingredients with herbs to boost prosperity. Of course, Mamá warned about using luck and money spells too often, especially strong ones. Their effects started to weaken when overused, and that could leave a person vulnerable to mal de ojo. Caroline’s candle was a good compromise: subtle like most of her family’s magic, just enough to give things a nudge in the right direction.

  Leo set the candle next to the cash register and hustled back into the kitchen, where Marisol was growling about doing all the work around here.

  CHAPTER 8

  DOWNRIGHT SNOOPING

  Mamá and Isabel came in just before lunch, smelling like herbs and smoke and spicy-sweet magic.

  “That was so cool,” Isabel gushed. Marisol was doing her best to ignore her sister while she lined up trays in front of the oven, but Isabel didn’t notice. “It’s a lot like a summoning spell, which you’ll remember we worked with when we were conjuring portals for the spirits, but we mixed it with baking brujería, because we absolutely want to play to our strengths for this kind of spell—”

  Marisol slammed the oven door shut, and the clang made Isabel jump. Leo shook her head at her middle sister. Marisol would never have wanted to stay home and work strange spells with Mamá, so why was she upset at being left to work in the bakery?

  “I’m so curious as to why Mamá’s warding spell wore off,” Isabel went on, leaning against the counter and staring at the ceiling. “I know there are some spells that weaken over time and others that grow stronger the longer they last. . . . There’s so much to learn.” She sighed dreamily. “I can’t wait to study more.”

  Leo smiled, pulling herself onto a stool to take a needed break from preparing dough. She knew exactly how her older sister felt.

  “I don’t know how much deep magic theory you think you’re going to be studying in the near future,” Marisol huffed, “but I don’t think your college is going to be holding magic lessons. Once you move in, you’ll be way too busy with school to keep training and researching magic.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Isabel huffed right back, losing her dreamy stare to glare at her sister.

  “I know that you’re going to leave, and the rest of us will be stuck here picking up your slack at the bakery,” Marisol muttered.

  “Well, maybe there wouldn’t be so much slack to pick up if you weren’t always trying to do as little work as possible!”

  Isabel’s temper didn’t usually flare so quickly, even with Marisol, but her puffed-out chest and stubbornly set mouth meant she was ready for a fight. Leo, deciding it was better not to get caught in one of her sisters’ squabbles, backed away from the kitchen workspace and headed for the back hall. It was time for her break anyway.

  “. . . as good as Paloma and I could have done, maybe even better. It should hold fine as long as—Luis, are you even listening?”

  Leo paused outside the office as Mamá talked and Daddy hummed distractedly while he tapped keys on his computer. She didn’t want to walk from one fight straight into another one.

  “Sorry,” Daddy said, probably in response to a Mamá glare. “I’m glad Isabel did so well. That’s one less thing to worry about.”

  “What’s wrong?” Mamá asked. “Was everything okay with the girls? JP?”

  Leo pressed her back against the wall so that the half-open door hid her from sight. She was crossing a line from accidental eavesdropping to downright snooping, but if Daddy wouldn’t tell the truth of his worries to the whole family, then what choice did she have?

  “I’m not sure yet . . . can you take a look at this email?”

  Mamá sighed softly. “Why does this landlord write like he swallowed all his fancy law-school teachers?”

  “They’re talking about increasing the rent,” Daddy said. “Look at this.”

  Mamá sighed again, louder. “Well, that’s . . . I guess the new house will have to wait after all.”

  Leo’s heart sank. Mamá had wanted a new house for so long.

  “The increase is exactly how much you and I had budgeted for mortgage payments on the new place,” Daddy said. “Exactly. Does that seem fishy to you?”

  “Like, a curse, or a hex?” Mamá asked. “I don’t know. . . . We knew a new landlord could mean changes. What would your father—or anyone—stand to gain from disappointing us?”

  Leo tried to imagine someone—a fancy landlord or her not-so-nice abuelo or anyone—being mad enough to hurt her family. The idea scrunched up her face and her intestines and made her want to melt into the wall, or maybe punch it.

  “That’s not the only thing,” Daddy was saying. “Have you heard about this new place, Honeybees?”

  Leo listened to Daddy explain his fears, how a new bakery opening would hurt Amor y Azúcar’s business. How that, combined with the new rent, combined with Isabel’s college tuition, might mean worse than just not buying a new house. Leo couldn’t put Daddy’s desperate words together with the happy face he’d shown to her and her friends earlier.

  “You’re catastrophizing, Luis,” Mamá said. “We can try negotiating with the landlord. And are we sure this Honeybees is even a bakery?”

  The clacking of the keyboard echoed through the hall, fast as a racing heartbeat.

  “‘Coming soon,’” Mamá read in a whisper. “‘Organic fair-trade tea and locally sourced raw honey . . . there, bakery, click where it says bakery . . . an upscale take on classic Texas favorites . . . the highest-quality ingredients make up our brioche-like pan dulces and palmiers—’ They’re called orejas! This is our menu. They’re stealing our menu!”

  “Shh,” Daddy warned. “The girls will hear. So it’s not just a bakery, it’s a panadería. Perfect.”

  “An upscale panadería.” Mamá’s voice lowered in volume but not intensity. “Amor y Azúcar has fed this town for generations—we don’t need an upscale replacement!”

  “I know that, and the town knows that,” Daddy soothed.

  “And what are these: clove and hibiscus conchas? What trendy nonsense is that supposed to be? They’re going to ruin pan dulce, Luis!”

  “Now who’s catastrophizing?” Daddy joked gently. “It will be tough for a few months, but there’s no way this place will stay open. Rose Hill locals know how to support each other. We’ll just have to use the house savings to ride out the excitement of the opening.”

  Leo loved how Mamá and Daddy balanced each other, one calming if the other turned frantic, one seeing the bright side if the other was s
eeing the dark one.

  “Are you sure about that?” Mamá asked. “Look at this: “Honeybees is the dream of Rose Hill’s own native Belinda O’Rourke, who is so grateful to return to her hometown to begin her’—” Mamá let out a frustrated growl. “Belinda! That snake! I should have guessed she’d be behind this.”

  Leo winced. She didn’t know anything about Belinda O’Rourke, but she was tired of discovering her family had all these enemies.

  Daddy sighed deeply. “I thought she moved to . . . was it Chicago?”

  “The day after graduation,” Mamá fumed. “And then New York, and she’s been in LA for years now. Don’t look at me like that; the abuelas at church haven’t stopped talking about her since high school. They’re so proud just because she took off as soon as she could.”

  “And now she’s coming back to town.”

  In the long silence, Leo waited for one of her parents to take the cheering-up role. Seconds ticked by, and her heart sank lower and lower, heavy with worry.

  “I’d better go help the girls,” Mamá said finally. “And I’ll wash down the kitchen with manzanilla tonight. Maybe you can try . . .”

  “Emailing the landlord,” Daddy agreed quickly, “Sure. Maybe the business association as well. It can’t hurt.”

  There was a worried hum and the smack of a besito, and Mamá appeared in the doorway, catching Leo off guard still pressed against the wall, with no chance to pretend she was just now passing by. She didn’t want Mamá and Daddy to keep secrets, but she definitely didn’t want to get caught stealing their secrets. Eyes squeezed shut, Leo waited for Mamá to see her, and her sharp voice to reverberate off the hallway walls.

  Instead, Mamá stomped straight down the tiny hall into the kitchen. Leo opened her eyes in surprise. Good thing Mamá was so distracted! Before her luck could run out, Leo ducked into the bathroom on the other side of the hall. She leaned against the locked door, relief and frustration and worry making a marbled batter of her brain. Mamá had mentioned using chamomile, an herb that purged curses—did she think Abuelo Logroño had cursed them? What would happen if the bakery’s customers all started eating Honeybees’ bread and pastries instead? Leo thought about the old pizza restaurant, closed and forgotten, the building now ripped apart to make room for a new store. That couldn’t happen to Amor y Azúcar—could it?

  The colorful straw basket balanced on the toilet tank filled the bathroom with the scent of lavender and rosemary: calm and focus. Tía Paloma’s herb blend, probably boosted with cinnamon power hidden with the molcajete. Generations of Leo’s family members had come to this bathroom to worry, cry, or just rest during a long workday. Leo breathed deeply, the tightness around her heart easing. She and her family would come up with a plan to deal with all these problems. They had to.

  Spirits buoyed, she unlocked the bathroom door and made her way back toward the kitchen.

  And stepped straight into another disaster.

  CHAPTER 9

  ANOTHER DISASTER

  Leo stood at the center of the kitchen, staring at the splatter of batter and dusting of dry ingredients that bloomed across the red tiles. A cooling rack had been upended, and broken puerquito bodies littered the floor. Isabel and Marisol stood with their backs to the counter, heads down.

  “. . . I’ve trusted you to act like young adults and help our family and our bakery be successful. . . .” Mamá’s lecture flowed over the scene, sharp and disappointed and fast. “And that includes working out your differences. This is not how brujas act, and this is not how sisters act, and this is not how my daughters will act!”

  Isabel clutched a metal mixing bowl in her batter-sticky hands, face red. “I’m sorry, Mamá,” she said.

  “It was an accident,” Marisol added. “We were fighting, but I didn’t mean to knock over all this stuff. I’m not even sure how it happened.”

  Mamá crossed her arms. “An accident? Isabel, is that true?”

  Leo’s oldest sister nodded. “Marisol wasn’t anywhere near the counter,” she said. “And I didn’t touch anything, at least not at first. After the rack fell over, I tried to catch it, but . . . really, it was just a clumsy accident. We’re sorry.”

  It would have taken a magic greater than Leo knew of to make her sisters lie to keep each other out of trouble. Mamá must have known the same, because she let out a sigh, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Okay, it’s all right, girls. Let’s just get this all cleaned up.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, Leo, there you are. Would you grab the mop?”

  Marisol swept and mopped the floor while Isabel and Mamá worked to restart the scheduled cake order, a chocolate birthday cake for the youngest Flores toddler, to be picked up at the end of the day. Leo sorted dirty dishes from the counters and the floor into the dishwasher before heading to the front to run the cash register.

  “Thanks for the help, ’jita,” Mamá said as she added conchas to the near-empty shelf and scanned the store for other items that needed to be restocked. “I know you wanted to meet up with your friends and your cousin. We’re almost back on track here—just give it another half hour and you can go. What a wild day!”

  “I know.” Leo sighed. “I don’t mind. I just want to help with . . . everything.”

  Marisol and Isabel would want to help too if they knew the worries Mamá and Daddy didn’t want to share. She didn’t mind working, but Leo felt sour frustration fill her stomach as she thought about all the secrets.

  Mamá smiled. “Thank you, sweet girl. I’d better get started with more bolillos.”

  Leo was helping two regular customers with their after-lunch snacks when the rising voices of another kitchen argument filtered through the swinging blue doors.

  Leo busied herself organizing receipts, hoping whatever had Marisol and Isabel upset would blow over, but when she heard her own name called out, she groaned and left the register to peek into the kitchen.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Mamá and Marisol poked through the dishwasher shelves, muttering as it beeped in alarm at being opened halfway through its cycle.

  “The bolillo mixing bowl is not supposed to go in the dishwasher, Leo.” Isabel’s voice was patient, but that only annoyed Leo more than anger would have. She wasn’t a baby who needed to learn such basic lessons.

  “I know that. I didn’t put it in.”

  “You must have.” Isabel said. “I left it in the sink before you cleared it out.”

  “Actually,” Mamá said as she slammed the dishwasher closed, “it’s not in here. Where else could you have left it, Isabel?”

  Leo considered sticking out her tongue at her oldest sister. It wouldn’t be the most mature or helpful thing to do, but snooty Isabel deserved it for thinking all mistakes had to be someone else’s.

  “But wait, I saw it in the sink too.” Marisol frowned. “Nobody moved it?”

  Everyone looked around the kitchen, the sudden silence dropping into Leo’s stomach as every countertop and corner she scanned revealed no sign of the giant wooden bowl.

  “Don’t panic,” Isabel squeaked, her voice panicked. “Let’s look carefully. Maybe it got shuffled somewhere unexpected in the chaos.”

  They searched counters and cabinets, checked behind mixers and in every cranny of the walk-in fridge, but the bowl was nowhere to be found. Leo couldn’t help thinking about the chaos a saltasombras could cause if he wanted to create a diversion in order to steal something. Could Abuelo Logroño be behind this? What would he want with their family heirloom?

  Leo kept glancing at Mamá while she searched. Was this day full of terrible bad luck, or did all the bad news have a common source? And would Mamá tell Isabel and Marisol what was going on with the rent and the other bakery? Wasn’t it only fair to share problems with everyone in the family, so that everyone could help think of solutions?

  Marisol stopped searching first, throwing up her hands in the middle of the kitchen and then staying there until Isabel, Mamá, and finally L
eo gravitated into her orbit, movement slowing until everyone stood in a frustrated clump.

  “Well.” Mamá looked around the kitchen with troubled eyes. “Maybe . . . maybe we close up early today and focus on prepping to have a calmer day tomorrow.”

  Leo opened her mouth to protest—closing down would mean losing a half day’s profit!—but her voice didn’t seem to be working, so all that came out was a squeak.

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Isabel sighed. “Today needs a do-over.” She shot an apologetic glance at Marisol, who scuffed her black boots against the floor and nodded.

  “Leo, can you go get JP?” Mamá asked. “We’ll probably be ready to drive home in an hour or so. Besides, Rita would hate to hear that we sent him gallivanting around town alone all day.”

  “He’s not gallivanting alone,” Leo said. “He’s with Caroline and Brent at the library, playing Catan.” But she pulled off her hat and untied her apron. She wished she could brush away her worries as easily as she shook flour off her shorts.

  “Don’t worry.” Isabel patted down Leo’s disheveled hat hair. “I’m sure the bowl will turn up. We’re all just worn out and cranky right now.”

  “Why don’t you big girls clean up and start the dough for tomorrow morning?” Mamá asked. “I’m going to update your father and check on something.” She smiled weakly, pulled a mechanical pencil out of thin air, and snagged a bag of dried chamomile on her way past the back cabinets.

  Mamá was clearly suspicious that the disappearing bowl might be the result of bad magic. Why didn’t she say something?

  Leo didn’t want to leave the bakery, but she couldn’t think of anything more useful to do, so eventually she wandered out the front door, helping herself to the last dried-out puerquito on the shelf. She’d had no time to add piñata frosting, but the less-sugary treat was better for eating and walking anyway, since it didn’t make her mouth quite so sticky and thirsty.