by Anna Meriano
“We didn’t,” Mamá corrected him. “It turns out that your victims have seen it performed often enough to know the spell by heart. You never even thought about the danger of teaching the duendes how to sever someone’s magic, did you?”
“Not one of you has the power for something like that,” Abuelo Logroño hissed.
Tía Paloma shook her head. “You still don’t get it. It will never be just one of us.” She nodded to Isabel, who stood closest to the front counter. Marisol helped the oldest Logroño sister collect the pans and pie tins of capirotada that lined the counter, passing them down the circle until everyone held one. Leo inhaled the sweet spice scent and gripped the edges of her tin tightly.
“I hear you’ve been telling my daughter lies,” Mamá said. “Saying that our magic lives in this building, this business. You misunderstand everything our antepasadas created.” She turned her head so that she was looking straight at Leo. “Yes, this kitchen holds great power, like the mixing bowl and the molcajete and the crystal. But the bakery was only a very large heirloom, not an anchor. It was never the source of our power.”
Pride and relief hummed in Leo’s chest at Mamá’s words. Isabel, standing next to Leo but with her hands full of capirotada, bumped her shoulder. “I didn’t know either,” she whispered, “until I told Mamá and Tía Paloma what you told me about the bakery, just before we came here.”
“With no anchor, power cannot be channeled or passed with any meaningful consistency,” Abuelo Logroño spat. “If I was mistaken, it’s because I gave your operation too much credit. You’re as disorganized as the duendes, letting your power grow and wither as it will, failing to properly cultivate it. And that’s why I’m stronger than you.” He moved suddenly, wiping crumbs off his face and chest and raising both hands as he shimmered out of sight.
“Now!” Mamá shouted. Leo dropped her pie tin to the floor and clasped hands with Alma on her right and Isabel on her left. She closed her eyes and held tight as a loud series of crashes rang in her ears.
When she opened her eyes, Abuelo Logroño was back in the center of the circle, his hair ruffled and his face furious.
“This is hardly a binding circle.” He spoke softly, and it sounded even more threatening than a shout. “Cake on the floor? Holding hands like schoolchildren? You even enlisted weak links with no power to help you.” He turned and ran toward the front door, hitting the spot where Daddy and JP clasped hands. There was another crash, and Abuelo Logroño stumbled back from the edge of the circle.
“Isabel.” Mamá nodded. Isabel dropped Leo’s hand and began to walk clockwise around the circle.
“Your powers will fail you when you try to do harm,” she said.
Leo joined her voice with everyone in the circle, repeating after Isabel once loudly, then a second time whispered. When Isabel had circled seven times, she turned and began again in the opposite direction.
“Your lies will unravel. Your cages will crumble. What you hide will be revealed.”
Abuelo Logroño tried to rush the empty space Isabel had left in the circle, but he crashed into it, just the same as before.
Isabel finished her seventh orbit and rejoined the circle. She nodded one, twice, three times.
“Álvaro Logroño.” The whole circle chanted in unison.
“Álvaro Logroño.” A white mist began to rise from the pie tins at their feet, creating a half sphere like an upside-down bowl as it rose, staying inside the boundaries of their clasped hands.
“Álvaro Logroño.” The third chant ended, and along with the rest of her family, Leo raised her foot and stomped down hard on the capirotada on the floor in front of her.
There were nine squelching thumps, and the mist rushed like water down a drain, swirling inward to sink into Abuelo Logroño’s skin. By the time Leo pulled her shoe out of the sticky mess, there was no sign of the mist at all.
Abuelo Logroño sprawled on the floor, breathing heavily, one flip-flop lost and his bare foot sticking out of his robe. He pointed a hand at Mamá, face screwed up with rage, but nothing happened. Leo breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re all naive.” Abuelo Logroño coughed as he spoke. “This was all flash and no substance. Your spell won’t last.”
“Maybe not forever,” Tía Paloma said. “But then again, it might. It has over a hundred wills linked to it. Everyone who took our samples today, all our friends and family, helping to hold up the spell. This whole town is a web, and I feel confident you’ll be tangled for a good long while.”
Abuelo Logroño’s face went slack, his mouth hanging open. He coughed several more times, but he couldn’t seem to speak.
“That part,” Mamá said, smiling, “was Leo’s idea. You were right, you know. She’s going to be a great bruja. In fact, she already is.”
“And I’m going to be a great baker too,” Leo added, heart swelling as she smiled at Mamá. “And part of the greatest family ever. Mine.”
Daddy and JP dropped their hands, leaving the path to the front door clear.
“Go home, Álvaro,” Daddy said. “You’re not welcome here.”
“Get a new hobby,” JP suggested. “It’s the twenty-first century. You can watch Netflix instead of oppressing people.”
Abuelo Logroño staggered to his feet. There was something pitiful in his posture, but Leo didn’t feel sorry for him. For the first time since her first dreamlike encounter with her abuelo, she felt calm and clearheaded. She left the circle to stand in front of him.
“I am going to be a saltasombras,” she said, “and I don’t need your training to do it. I won’t be anything like you. I’ll make my own way.”
Abuelo Logroño turned his face away. He walked slowly, one flip-flop in his hand, across the tiles. The front-door bell rang as he left, and they all watched him through the window, completely visible in the moonlight, growing smaller as he continued down the street.
CHAPTER 21
THE CLEANUP
Leo swirled the mop over the last sticky patch of the bakery floor, watching syrup melt into the dingy warm water. Dishes clanged behind the blue doors, and JP perched on the counter with Alma and Belén, all of them keeping their feet out of the way as they chatted excitedly about the spell, the convention, and DragonBlood.
“I’ll get that.” Daddy walked back into the front of the bakery and took the mop from Leo’s hands. “I was just taking a call from our landlord. Turns out he made a calculation error with our rent increase. No idea how it happened.” He winked. “But it’s all straightened out now.”
Leo joined her sisters and cousin on the counter, kicking her feet and smiling. Abuelo Logroño had cast spells on people to trick then into hurting the bakery, and now those spells were failing, the illusions cleared away like a mopped-up mess. “Can you text Caroline?” she asked JP. “I want to hear if the O’Rourkes came to their senses too.”
“I don’t think I have to.” JP nodded at the window. Two familiar blond figures were walking toward the bakery.
Leo slid off the counter, almost slipping on the tiles below in her excitement. She threw open the front door to let Caroline and Brent in, ignoring Daddy as he cautioned them about the wet floor.
“Sorry, Mr. Logroño,” Caroline said, watching her feet leave tracks as Leo pulled her inside.
“I’ll forgive you if you have more good news,” Daddy said. Mamá, Tía Paloma, Isabel, and Marisol entered the front of the bakery, wiping soapy hands on their aprons, all looking hopefully at Caroline and Brent. “Leo tells us you were checking in on things with Honeybees?”
Caroline twirled her ring around her finger. “We were just at the O’Rourkes’ house, yeah.” She sighed. “We could definitely tell when your abuelo’s spell was broken. We were talking about Honeybees with Becky and her mom, and then suddenly . . . well, I guess your abuelo used magic to make Becky agree to move here? Because the moment the spell broke, she started crying, upset with her mom for dragging her all the way to Texas.”
&n
bsp; “Oh no!” Leo hadn’t imagined there could be any negative consequences to getting rid of mind-controlling illusions.
“Don’t worry,” Isabel said. “It’s good that the spell was broken—using magic to control emotions over long periods of time can have horrible effects.”
Marisol coughed a word that sounded rude.
Isabel scowled. “Over long periods of time,” she repeated. “I never use my power to— Anyway, my point is that even if Becky is upset, it’s best that her real emotions have been released.”
“But what about Belinda?” Mamá asked.
“We had a plan,” Caroline said, a little too quickly. “As soon as we suspected that the spell was lifted, we put the old Honeybees logo where they would find it.”
“Becky saw it,” Brent continued, “and she told her mom she wished they were sticking to the original plan, and Mrs. O’Rourke acted confused for a minute because they couldn’t remember where the idea for starting a bakery came from anyway.”
“That’s great!” Leo said.
“Not exactly,” said Caroline, averting her eyes. “Mrs. O’Rourke . . . she didn’t want to go back to the honey plan. She said that wherever the idea for the bakery came from, it made sense. She said it was about time Rose Hill got an ‘update.’ That her modern twist on everyone’s favorite baked goods would make for a thriving business.”
Leo exhaled slowly, disappointment filling her chest in place of air. After a long pause, Daddy went back to mopping furiously.
“She’s wrong, though,” JP said. “Isn’t she?”
Mamá straightened her apron. “In the interest of modeling more honesty for you kids,” she said, “I’m going to say that we’re concerned. Belinda is a good businesswoman.”
“Our rent staying where it is will help,” Daddy said. “But I think we have to consider the possibility that Amor y Azúcar is in for a tough fight.”
“We should sic a dragon on her,” Alma grumbled.
“Or some ghosts,” Belén said. “I bet nobody wants to go to a haunted bakery.” She hesitated. “Wait, no, that sounds super cool actually. Should we start advertising ourselves as a haunted bakery?”
“What if you put a spell on Mrs. O’Rourke?” Brent asked.
“We didn’t stop a manipulative old brujo just to start playing his same games,” Tía Paloma said. “Hexing people is not what we do.”
Mamá nodded. “I’d rather lose the bakery than teach my girls to step on other people as a way to get what they want.”
Leo walked to Mamá’s side and hugged her. “You’re the best teacher,” she whispered.
“So that’s it?” Brent asked. “You’re not going to do anything? Mrs. O’Rourke just gets to steal your menu and threaten your business because she wants to? That’s not fair. You might not want to use your magic, but I’m going to . . . I don’t know, start a protest or something. We can stand outside the Honeybees building and carry signs and shout things at people walking in.”
“That’s very sweet,” Daddy said. “But I’m afraid that might backfire for us.”
“Well, we should do something,” Brent said.
Leo felt so much fondness for her friends and family, the way they solved one another’s problems and cared about each other. But her mood was soured by the heavy realization that Abuelo Logroño’s plot might still be able to hurt them, even though his spells had been defeated.
“I’d like to circle back to the ghost idea,” Belén said. “A haunted bakery could be a good tourist attraction to make up for lost business.”
“There shouldn’t be any lost business,” JP argued. “I’m with Brent; we should find a way to stop them.”
“Humans.” The soft voice startled them all, and Daddy dropped the mop, almost hitting the poor old duende who had snuck up on them. “Please, find peace, humans.”
Caroline and Brent recovered slowest, gasping and ogling the creature until JP tugged them behind the counter by their elbows.
“Hello,” Leo said. “How did it go? Did you save all your siblings?”
“Thanks to your family, yes,” The old duende dipped its head. “Now we have nothing to fear from the brujo who tormented our family in this town and many others. We have peace, and now we would like to bring peace to you.”
“That’s nice of you,” Mamá said, “but don’t worry. We’re happy to know that you’re safe, and that you’re here. My oldest daughter is excited to research more about our shared history.”
The duende nodded again. “We have made a habit of retreating, to avoid the dangers of the human family, especially brujos who wanted us to side with them against others. We do not like fights. But we recognize that even inaction can cause harm, as it has done now. We knew of the saltasombras’s plot long before you did. We should have warned you. If he had been stopped earlier, he would not have planted a harmful idea so deeply in the mind of your rival relative.”
Mamá shrugged. “I do hope next time you’ll give us a heads-up! But it isn’t your fault.”
“Still, we wish to remedy the harm we have caused,” the duende said.
“I’m sure one day you’ll have a chance to,” Mamá said. “Thank you.”
The duende bowed and tugged the end of its hat, making Caroline shriek as it disappeared.
“Funny little guy, isn’t he?” Daddy said.
“What makes you think she’s a boy?” Alma asked. “She looked like an abuela to me.”
“Cats are hard to gender,” Caroline whispered, eyes still wide.
“Maybe they don’t think that stuff matters very much,” JP said. “They’re supposed to be wise, right?”
“Hey!” Isabel called from the kitchen doorway. “The dishes are gone!”
Leo rushed to her sister’s side, heart pounding. They couldn’t be facing another thief, could they? But she laughed when she saw what Isabel meant.
The pile of dirty capirotada pans was sparkling clean, the sink rinsed, and even the dishrags dry and folded on the counter.
“I knew I liked those little goblins.” Marisol smiled. “Do you think they’ll do this every day from now on?”
“Hey, no fair, that was my new job,” JP said. “What am I going to do to be helpful now?”
Daddy patted his head. “I bet we can find you some baking work,” he offered. “Right, Elena?”
Mamá smiled. “Only if you want to, JP. But for tonight, let’s go home and take a break.”
“Yeah,” Alma said. “We beat the bad guy today.”
Leo wished it felt like more of a triumph.
The next two days of break passed with board games, baking—and a quiet worry that reminded Leo of hurricane season. It was nice to have the twins back in town, but Mamá had to limit them and Caroline to no more than two candles around the cash register after their many prosperity spells almost set a stack of receipts on fire. Tricia and Mai came back from their vacations, and Caroline organized a special mini snack club meeting so that JP and Becky could join in. Leo realized her friends were right about Becky—she was fun to hang out with. Especially now that she was almost as upset about her mom’s business as Leo was.
It was the day before Easter—which was also the day before JP’s mom came back into town—and when Leo flipped the bakery sign from CLOSED to OPEN at seven a.m., she found Belinda O’Rourke sitting on the steps. Mrs. O’Rourke wore stretchy pants and a faded T-shirt, and her hair hung limp over her dark, tired eyes.
“Is Elena here?” she asked.
Leo nodded, too shocked to speak.
Mrs. O’Rourke followed her through the blue doors, past Isabel teaching Marisol her concha assembly-line trick, past Alma and Belén using the returned mixing bowl for bolillo production, and past Leo’s early-morning baking experiment, a batch of special-occasion scones iced with pastel frosting that she wanted to serve for Easter breakfast.
Leo wasn’t the only one with her ear pressed to the office door as Mamá sat down with Mrs. O’Rourke, but she was the onl
y one who could vanish when Mamá stuck her head out and shooed away JP and Leo’s sisters.
“Sorry about them,” Mamá said, closing the door. Leo leaned against it to hear the muffled answer.
“My daughter is the same way. She’s the one who sent me here. Sometimes I think she believes she’s the one taking care of me.”
“I’m surprised to see you here,” Mamá said.
“Yes, well. I moved back a few weeks ago.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Leo couldn’t see what was happening in the room, but she could imagine Mamá’s ice-cold stare. She was using her manager voice, the one she used to calm and quiet an upset customer, the perfect mix of stern and polite. Leo had never seen anyone face that tone and that stare without wilting a little.
But Belinda O’Rourke was not just anyone. “I’m not here to grovel, Elena,” she responded. “We’re not in high school anymore—you can stop acting like a victim.”
“You’re right, we’re not in high school anymore,” Mamá snapped back. “But here you are, still trying to copy off my paper because you can’t think of your own ideas.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” Mrs. O’Rourke said. “I knew you wouldn’t be any help. I don’t know why I let Becky—”
“Help?” Mamá screeched, loudly enough for Leo to move away from the door. “Why would I be interested in helping you?”
Leo bit her lip and rubbed her ear. She didn’t know what was wrong with Mrs. O’Rourke, but she felt certain Becky’s mom hadn’t come to the bakery just to get into an argument with Mamá. She had looked worried and nervous, just like Mamá had been all week, and now they were fighting over nothing instead of talking about their worries.
Making a quick decision, Leo slipped out of the shadows so she was visible again and darted up the hall.
“Isabel,” she said, “does your power work through a door?”
“Not particularly well,” Isabel said. “Why?”
“I just . . .” Leo cast her eyes around the kitchen and found her nearly cooled scones, pastel icing glaze waiting to coat them. Her brain searched through the old lists of herbs, the ones she had studied and memorized with Caroline. She rushed to the last cabinet and rooted out a tiny glass bottle of primrose oil.
