The air conditioner was definitely broken.

Gracey cursed inwardly and made a mental note to call the service company first thing Monday morning. The godforsaken air conditioner broke ever year at the height of summer, no matter how religiously she maintained the unit. She supposed it might be time to replace it altogether, but  installing new appliances was a hassle. She didn’t love the idea of having strangers out to her home.

After all, she never knew when the Prime of Darkness was going to show up, and he was always more than a little difficult to explain.

Changing out of a damp t-shirt into a tank top, Gracey poured herself a glass of iced tea and made for the front porch. It wasn’t any cooler outside, of course, but she reasoned that if she were going to sit around sweating she might as well do so while getting a bit of fresh air. Besides, she enjoyed putting the ceiling fan to good use.

It was warmer outside than she’d hoped. Sighing, Gracey flipped on the overhead fan, plopped down on the porch swing, one leg tucked underneath her while she gave herself a little push with the other. The chains creaked and floorboards groaned. Gracey wondered if it might be time to try another diet. Maybe South Beach this time.

“Morning, sugar!”

Gracey leaned forward, smiled to see her friend Bibi Armstrong walking up her driveway, rivulets of sweat running down the sides of her face. “Don’t tell me you walked over here,” Gracey scolded. “It’s too hot for that!”

Bibi waved the concern away. “I’m too old to worry about what’s gonna kill me,” she said with her usual wry disregard for conventional wisdom. “Something’s gonna do me in one day. Besides, it’d be a sin to drive over here. It ain’t like you’re miles away.”

That was true enough. With the entire country gone crazy about “going green”, Gracey could certainly see her friend’s point, even if she herself wasn’t so sure she’d trade a brisk, air conditioned drive for a healthful walk in the 100+ degree heat. Though maybe if she did, she wouldn’t need South Beach after all.

Gracey frowned. It was a lose-lose situation.

Bibi came up the porch steps, and Gracey scooted over to make room for her friend on the swing. She winked at Gracey and lowered her voice. “I think I saw Marco skulking around your bushes,” she said, waving her hand toward the front of the porch Gracey couldn’t see from her perch.

Gracey cocked her eyebrows, called out. “Marco?”

A brown, scruffy head popped up over the porch railing, a timid smile revealing handsome, crooked teeth. “Hi, Gracey,” he said, cheeks rosy with sun and bashfulness.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Waitin’ for you.”

“Waiting for me to do what?”

“Come outside. So I could get my pie. You said. And Mama said I couldn’t ring your doorbell to ask for it.”

Gracey chuckled and beckoned for Marco to come up on the porch. He scrambled up, still smiling. “Well, in that case, I’m sorry I kept you waiting. Tell you what. Go on inside and get yourself some pie. I’ve got apple and cherry. Get whatever you want and a glass of milk and bring it out here and sit with me and Bibi. Can you do that?”

Marco’s eyes brightened as he bobbed his head up and down. He held up a finger. “I’ll be right back,” he said, darting into the house.

When Marco was out of earshot, Bibi squeezed Gracey’s arm. “You should have kids,” she said.

Here we go, Gracey thought, biting her tongue to keep from saying something she’d regret.  After all, Bibi was her friend, not her mother, and her intentions and motivations were completely different than Annette’s. Gracey knew that at thirty, she was expected to have children, especially in a family town like Love & War. She also knew that Bibi, who loved her a great deal, couldn’t have children of her own and was only projecting her own desires onto Gracey. She knew that these words, though portending a guilt trip when uttered by one’s maternal unit, were meant only as inspiration coming from Bibi.

Still, they stung. The lack of children in the Daylittle home was a sore circumstance, though Gracey had never discussed that situation with anyone. Not even Bibi.

Gracey shrugged. “Well, I think I’d like to. Just haven’t had the opportunity. Never could hang on to a guy for long enough.”

For a fleeting moment she thought of Gabe, snatched away from her before they’d even begun their lives together. After all these years, the memory was still a dull pain.  And then, without warning, Gracey found herself thinking of the magician, Simon St. Laine. Did he want to have kids? Would he make a good father?

Gracey’s breath caught in her throat as she realized what she was thinking. They hadn’t been dating long. Marriage wasn’t anywhere on the table, or even underneath the table as far as she could tell. Still, it wasn’t her fault if she secretly hoped it was the direction they could be heading. She wasn’t getting any younger, and Simon was handsome and caring. She imagined he would make a very good partner.

She blushed, forced herself to stop thinking about Simon before Bibi noticed and intruded on her thoughts. She wasn’t ready to discuss this particular train of thought with anyone just yet.

At that moment, Marco came outside, letting the screen door slam behind him. His mouth made an o shape in surprise as he carried his plate of pie—he’d helped himself to a slice of each—and a tall, plastic cup of milk to the swing. He squeezed in between Bibi and Gracey.

As Marco began shoveling pie in his mouth, Bibi reached over and mussed he boy’s hair. “I heard they found the Fairgood girl.”

Gracey’s head snapped up, her heart seeming to freeze in her chest. “Dead?”

Bibi made a face, motioning at Marco over the boy’s head where he couldn’t see. “Good Lord, Gracey, no! Why on Earth would you say that?”

A wave of relief washed over her even as a healthy dose of guilt hit her for saying something so macabre in front of Marco. Something deep inside her broke as she choked back a sob, hand covering her mouth. Ever since she’d realized the connection between all the recent deaths, she hadn’t believed that anyone would ever see Audra Fairgood alive again.  She was incredibly glad to be wrong. “My god,” she said, blinking back nascent tears. “When? Is she all right? What happened?”

Bibi shrugged, nodded. “She got home late last night. Apparently she’d gone up to Midland to stay with her daddy. He didn’t know that Shira was out of the loop.”

Gracey’s expression clouded with confusion. “Her daddy? I thought Aleister…?”

Bibi chuckled, shaking her head. “Aww, sugar, I love that you ain’t never been much on gossip. Otherwise you’da heard long ago that Aleister wasn’t the girl’s daddy. Folks don’t talk too much about it anymore, but it was a big to-do when it happened, since Shira and Aleister were married at the time. You have to respect a man who’d take care of another man’s child and wouldn’t let loose a cheating wife. He was a good man. A good man,” Bibi said, melancholy and nostalgia rich in her voice.

Gracey said nothing as she mulled over the news. If Audra Fairgood wasn’t Aleister’s natural daughter and wasn’t a natural-born Fairgood, that fact might have saved her from whatever curse had befallen the founding families. Was that possible, or was the whole thing just a coincidence? Was the terror over, or was it still waiting out there, ready to claim more lives at a moment’s notice?

“You okay, sugar? You look a little pale.”

Gracey feigned a small smile, shooing away her friend’s worry. “Oh, I’m fine, I’m just glad to hear Audra’s home safe. I thought…”

“You thought Minerva Katherine Auckland got her?”

Marco had been so quiet during the whole exchange that the women had assumed he wasn’t paying them any attention, so his interruption surprised them both. Gracey looked down at him, smiling. “Who’s that, honey? That a super villain in one of your comics?

Marco’s forehead creased as he swallowed his pie, shaking his head. “Not from my comics,” he said. “Minerva Katherine Auckland. You thought she got Audra Fairgood, didn’t you?”

Gracey didn’t know what Marco was talking about, of course, but something about the conversation sent chills down her spine all the same. Minerva Katherine Auckland. It wasn’t anyone she knew, no one who lived in town, and yet the name was familiar for some reason. A character in a children’s book, perhaps? A movie character? She searched the pages of her memory, flipping through them for an image or a lyric she could hold onto, something that might pin a face to the name, but nothing came to her. She would have to google the name later.

“Well, thank God Shira got her daughter back,” Gracey said, “though I can’t imagine what she went through having to tell her daughter about Aleister.”

Bibi whistled, giving a slow shake of her head. “Fate I wouldn’t wish on nobody,” she agreed.

Comfortable silence settled between them as Marco finished his pie, Gracey and Bibi keeping the porch swing in motion with a gentle push of their toes. Although the fan whirred busily overhead, it offered little relief from the sweltering heat, and under other circumstances, three bodies on a porch swing might have been too much. But at that moment, closeness was a commodity. It made them feel safe.

“I guess I best get going,” Bibi said after a while, pushing herself up out of the swing with a gentle groan. “I got a bunch of vegetables from my garden I gotta take down to the Badlands. Plus I gotta put some more pink dye in that Japanese girl’s hair today,” she said.

Gracey smiled. “You’re a good head, Beatriz.”

Bibi waved away the compliment with a frown. “I’m a sucker with no business sense,” she said. But Gracey knew she didn’t mean it. She was well aware how much Bibi loved lending a helping hand.

“Okay, I’m done. I’m going home, too,” Marco said, hopping off the swing. He pushed his plate and cup into Gracey’s hands. “Thank you for the pie, Gracey. Can I come back tomorrow and have some more?”

Gracey chuckled, nodding. “As long as it’s okay with your mama,” she said. “You can have as much pie as I can make.”

She watched him scamper off, the heels of his sneakers kicking up dust as he made his way down the drive and across the street. When he was safely inside, Gracey stood, stretched, walking languidly back into her house, content now with the knowledge of Audra Fairgood’s safety, even though small doubts and fears still nibbled at her like a hesitant mouse.

She deposited Marco’s dishes in the sink, absently wiping down the counter where he’d spilled a few drops of milk and left a trail of crumbs. What was that name he’d mentioned earlier that seemed so strange? Minerva Something? She rinsed off the rag, wringing it out as she frowned, deep in thought, wracking her brain for the tickle she felt when the name filtered through her mind. She did know it from somewhere. From somewhere strange. From somewhere she wouldn’t expect and eight-year-old boy to reference. But where?

She blinked, shook her head, shaking herself out of her thoughts. She couldn’t remember. She knew if she stopped thinking about it for a while, it would come to her on its own later.

Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window, and Gracey planted herself in its beam, ambivalent to its warmth, but smiling as she looked out across the street. Marco, who was not one to be easily contained (she supposed that was an indigenous quality of most eight-year-old boys), had come back outside, was playing in the yellow-and-brown grass that constituted the Esquivel lawn. He was normally animated, but now he was speaking loudly and gesturing to someone who was not there, and Gracey’s smile widened, remembering the entourage of invisible friends she’d amassed in her own childhood.

“What are you doing?”

Yelping in surprise, Gracey spun on her heel to find the Prime of Darkness standing in the doorway, filling it up, his head cocked lazily to one side, a puzzled expression on his face. Gracey shut her eyes, opened them, taking in a breath. “I’ve asked you a million times not to sneak up on me like that,” she said, her voice unsteady. “You scared the shit outta me.”

“Sorry,” he said. “It wasn’t my intention. I was just curious about whatever it was you were looking at.”

Gracey stepped to one side, a wordless invitation for the demon to sidle up beside her. She pointed to the window, indicating the scene across the street. “It’s nothing, really. I’m just watching Marco play with his imaginary friend. Brings back memories.”

The Prime of Darkness said nothing, his mouth settling into a perfect line as he joined Gracey in watching the boy across the street. Then, “Why do you call his friend imaginary?”

It was Gracey’s turn to look confused. “Because it isn’t real. Kids do that, sometimes. They invent a friend when there’s no one to play with. That’s why it’s called imaginary.”

The demon gave her a disdainful look. “I know what imaginary means,” he said.

She blushed. “Right. Sorry.”

The Prime of Darkness returned his gaze to the boy across the street. “Are both of the children playing with the imaginary friend?”

“Both what children? I’m just talking about Marco. He’s over there playing by himself.”

The Prime of Darkness furrowed his brow. “No, he isn’t. There’s a little girl playing with him.”

Gracey turned slowly, her eyes taking in the demon’s facial expression. As far as she knew, he wasn’t able to joke, or lie, or exaggerate. But there was no one else on the Esquivel lawn. Marco was alone. “Darkness…you see Marco with another child?”

The demon nodded. “Yes. A little girl. Short, brown hair. Pink shirt. Looks the same age as he is. You don’t see her?”

Gracey looked again, but there was absolutely no one with Marco. Either the demon was lying, seeing things, or… “That’s impossible,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t see anyone. I don’t see anyone at all!”

The demon shrugged. “There’s probably a great deal in your world that you cannot see that I can,” he said. “What’s interesting isn’t that you can’t see her, but that that little boy can.”

She was about to ask the demon what he meant by that, but when she turned to him, he had gone, leaving only a chill in the air and an impression of undulating shadows in her peripheral vision to indicate that he had ever been there at all.

She drew in a deep, steadying breath, and looked back out the window. She saw the Esquivel’s front door swinging shut. Marco had gone back inside.

Author’s note: Hover your mouse over Spanish phrases for their English translations.

As his eyes fluttered open, Conchis’s visage slowly floated into view, tongue clucking, eyes smiling. “You’re waking up, huh? How does your head feel?”

Marco blinked, rubbed his face sleepily. He was lying in his bed. “It feels fine,” he said. “Why?”

Conchis giggled, shaking her head. “Sometimes when you drink too much it makes your head hurt in the morning.”

Marco swallowed, trying to hide his embarrassment. “I feel okay,” he said again.

Conchis gave Marco a good, hard look, arms akimbo, head cocked to the side. “What made you drink the pulque anyway? ¡Vas a matar a tu madre, Marquito!You’re going to send your mother to an early grave, Marco! What you was thinking, huh?”

Macro, having no believable defense, said nothing.

“I know your brother and that troublemaker down the street put you up to it,” Conchis said. “After they came in here tattling we put the screws to them. They’re bullies, but they scare easy.” She smiled down at her nephew, but then her face took on a slightly more serious edge. “If you’re not careful you’ll end up like that good for nothing drunk rabbit, Ometotchtli. You don’t want that, do you?”

Marco was about to say that no, he didn’t, when something tugged at the back of his mind. “What drunk rabbit?”

Conchis clucked her tongue again, pouring Marco a glass of water from the pitcher at his bedside. She pushed it into his hands. “Your ancestors, the Aztecs, were fond of the pulque, too. But nobody was more fond of the pulque than that curious rabbit, Ometotchtli.” Conchis smiled as Marco drak thirstily from the glass. “I tell you what,” she said. “I’ll tell you the story another time, okay? You must be hungry. You want me to make you some migas?”

Marco smiled, and Conchis kissed her nephew noisily on the cheek. “Try not to drink any pulque while I’m gone,” she teased.

Marco watched as his aunt disappeared from his room. When he was alone, he spoke the strange name out loud. “Ometotchtli. Your name is Ometotchtli.”  The word filled him with warmth and calm, and in his mind’s eye, Two Rabbit’s kindly face swam up before him, smiling a beatific, if disconcerting, smile. “You have my name now,” he heard the rabbit say. “Keep it close to your heart.”

Marco snuggled down under his sheets, a small smile on his lips. Though he was still afraid of the undertaking that loomed before him, having Two Rabbit’s name filled him with content. He would go see Gracey very soon.

Marco had never stolen anything before. Though the miserable task had fallen to him (as he had known it would) he wasn’t at all sure how to begin.

Heart thumping wildly in his chest, mouth dry, palms clammy, Marco looked over his shoulder, an involuntary response to an imagined sound and a guilty conscience. He stood perfectly still, ears at attention, listening. He could hear the adults murmuring in the livingroom, but he heard no tell-tale footsteps. He was alone in the kitchen. It was now or never.

He opened the refrigerator, wincing at the noise it made as he broke the vacuum seal, and scanned its contents for the beer Chucho had brought home just an hour earlier. He saw a gallon of whole milk, a half-empty bag of coffee beans, some avocado, tomato, orange juice, a beef marinade and three cans of Coke. But he didn’t see the beer.

Closing the refrigerator, he tiptoed to the kitchen’s doorway and peered around the corner. The grown-ups were talking quietly, their faces somber. They’d looked like that for weeks now, at least the women had. Chucho had only returned from his last haul a few days ago, but already the news of the recent deaths had settled into the lines of his face, making him appear older, careworn. Even Aunt Conchita, who was usually a grab bag of laughter and smiles, had replaced her usual merriment with an intense melancholy.

Looking at them made Marco feel sad.

Then he saw what he was looking for. On the coffee table were four tall, frosty bottles of Corona. Chucho and his friend Manny were drinking the other two.

There was no way he was getting to that beer without anybody seeing.

Marco withdrew into the kitchen and considered his options. He could go back to the shed outside and tell Alejandro and Cheehawk that he couldn’t get the beer and suffer their taunts and name calling. That certainly wouldn’t be anything new. But there was another option, and on this night, Marco wasn’t yet ready to concede defeat.

Chucho kept the tequila on the top shelf of the pantry, out of the twins’ reach. But the six pack of pulque that he’d brought back from Mexico last winter sat collecting dust on the  pantry floor, underneath a sack of potatoes, forgotten by everyone.

Everyone except Marco.

He didn’t know what pulque was except that everyone had laughed when Chucho had brought it back from the homeland, saying they hadn’t had pulque since they were teenagers. Chucho had popped open a can, taken a deep swig, made a face that was a cross between revulsion and merriment, and passed it around. Everyone had tried it, shaking their heads, declaring they much preferred beer and that the agave should stick with producing tequila. They’d finished off that one can and put the other five in the pantry where Marco now knelt, silently retrieving a single can from its plastic yolk.

He sighed with relief, glanced around once more, and, finding himself still alone, hid the can under his t-shirt and, triumphant, slipped quietly out the back door.

“What the hell is this?”

Cheehawk held the can of pulque with a look of bewildered disgust on this face. “This isn’t beer. It isn’t even cold,” he complained. “You got the wrong stuff.”

Marco shrugged. “The beer was in the living room with the grown-ups. I couldn’t get it without them seeing me. Anyway, this has alcohol in it, too.”

Cheehawk looked skeptical.  “How do you know?”

“Because when they were drinking it at Christmas they wouldn’t let me and Alex have any.”

Alejandro nodded. “That’s true.”

Cheehawk popped the top open, closed one eye, and peered into the small, dark opening. “I can’t see anything,” he said. “I’m not gonna try this, Marco, until you try it first.”

Marco’s jaw dropped. “I don’t even want any! I got it for you! I’m not drinking that!”

“But you were supposed to get the beer,” Cheehawk said. “So since you got the wrong stuff, you should have to try it first!”

Cheehawk pushed the can into Marco’s hands, and the younger boy sighed, closing his fingers around the warm can. He should have known it would end up like this. He wasn’t remotely curious about the effects of alcohol, but he didn’t want to look like a scaredy-cat either.

He put the can to his lips. Holding his breath, he took a tiny sip.

“Do you feel anything?” Cheehawk asked.

Alejandro elbowed him in the side. “Doesn’t work like that, stupid! You don’t get drunk right away!”

Cheehawk scowled, returned his attention to Marco. “What does it taste like?”

Marco had been prepared for the worst. When they were very little, Alejandro had made Marco taste a cup of black coffee that their mother had left on the patio overnight. It had tasted awful, and had left an oily, acid taste in his mouth that seemed to linger for days. Using that awful experience as a baseline, Marco had sipped gingerly and fretfully at the pulque, steeling himself for the worst.

It wasn’t anything like he expected.

The warm liquid was thick and frothy, and tasted like strawberries dipped in honey. He took a second sip, less fearful, and this time it tasted like tres leches cake with cinnamon and nutmeg. A fuzzy, warm sensation filled his chest and began to spread slowly to his stomach, his cheeks, until suddenly he was warm all over.

“What’s it taste like, Marco?”

Marco set the can down in front of him and shrugged. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “It kinda tastes like a carnival.”

“A carnival?” Alejandro rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Well, I said it was hard to explain,” Marco said. “You can just try it yourself!”

Cheehawk and Alejaandro exchanged looks, and finally the older boy gave a litte shrug and picked up the can. Hellbent on not being upstaged by a weenie like Marco, Cheehawk knocked the pulque back, taking in a large swig.

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he choked, retched, and spit the pulque out. Droplets splattered all over Alejandro, who gave his friend a push. “HEY! Watch it, Cheehawk!”

“It’s nasty!” Cheehawk sputtered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He leaned over, spat a few times on the dirt floor of the shed, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. “Marco, you liar, that’s the worst taste I ever tasted!” He pushed the drink toward Alejandro. “Here, Alex, you try it!”

Alejandro shook his head vigorously. “No, thanks. I believe you,” he sad, shrinking away from the drink.

Cheehawk changed tactics and pushed the drink into Marco’s hands. Marco accepted the drink wit a confused look on his face. “It was nasty to you?”

“Not cool, Marco!” Cheehaw howled. “You made me drink it even though you knew it was gross. You should drink the rest of it,” he said.

Marco chuckled. “I didn’t make you drink it,” he said. “Plus, it doesn’t taste bad to me. I like it.”

To prove his point, Marco brought the can to his lips and took another long, slow drink. This time, the warm, thick liquid that filled his mouth tasted like pineapple sprinkled with brown sugar. That flavor slowly faded to be replaced by another:  roasted almonds and toffee. And finally, thick, hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and drizzled with hot caramel sauce.

When he sat the can down in front of him, the can was empty, and Marco, unbeknownst to him, was drunk.

“He drank it all,” Cheehawk breathed, incredulous. “He drank the whole thing! Marco just drank a whole can of that nasty alcohol!”

While the boys stared at him in frank disbelief, Marco felt his eyelids grow heavy as a pleasant, warm sensation took over his senses. He felt as though he were floating, and he couldn’t stop the goofy smile that was spreading over his face.

Marco’s transformation did no go unnoticed.  Cheehawk turned to Alejandro, pointed an accusing finger. “You said it didn’t happen right away,” he said. “But check him out. He’s gonna pass out!”

Alejandro, though he would never admit it, was impressed. “It’s not supposed to work right away,” he said. “I don’t know! Maybe that stuff is different from beer. Don’t ask me!”

The two boys watched as Marco gazed off into space, eyes unfocused, grinning like an idiot.

“We should tell on him,” Alejandro said, a wicked smile of his own appearing on his face. “We should go tell Mama and Chucho that Marco drank their pulque. I bet he’ll get in so much trouble!”

Marco was nominally aware of what his brother was saying and what they planned on doing to him. He had a vague sense of their betrayal as they scrambled to their feet, giggling at their own mischievousness.  But as the warm feeling enveloped him, and his eyes began to close and he curled himself into a ball on the ground, he found that he just didn’t care. The sweet, heady flavors of the pulque were still fresh on his tongue, and the fringes of reality began to fade and blur as Marco drifted off into his first alcohol-induced slumber and dreamed his second lucid dream.

She seemed to be attending a lot of funerals lately.

Too many.

The evening was still as the very Earth seemed to hold its breath out of respect for the dead. The funeral had been over for the better part of an hour, but Gracey lingered behind, moving slowly down the graveyard’s rows, walking a labyrinth whose passages only she could see. It was a lonely ritual born of confusion, deep grief, and the question that had gnawed at the back of her mind since she’d heard the disquieting news: Where was Audra Fairgood?

The girl had been missing ever since the night Aleister had been discovered dead in his bedroom.  According to local gossip Gracey had been unable to avoid, Audra and her mother had had an argument and Audra had left the house in a fury. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, apparently. Friends of the family indicated that Audra was prone to spending the night with friends when she and her mother fought, but she’d never been gone more than an evening.

Audra Fairgood had now been missing for a week.

Gracey’s flesh pimpled over as she thought of the missing girl and the mother who had lost her husband. She’d watched Shira Fairgood surreptitiously from the corner of her eye—she supposed they all had. She’d seen the way the woman sat, expressionless, red, unblinking eyes unseeing, vacant. She’d watched Nora Goldman hold her daughter’s hand, the solid rock around which everything else crumbled. There they sat in the middle of the storm, a missing daughter and a dead husband. People would talk. In a town this size, they always did.

Gracey shivered despite the heat. So much anguish. So much guilt. So many unanswered questions.

Shaking herself out of her morbid thoughts, Gracey looked up to see Marco Flores skipping toward her at a fast clip, hand raised in the air. He was still wearing the dress shirt and trousers he’d worn to the funeral, but he’d shed the heavy jacket and removed his sock and shoes. His clip-on tie dangled from a pocket. As he came closer, Gracey could see he was clutching a large bottle of bubbles in one hand. In the other he held a bright yellow bubble wand high in the air, giggling as the ephemeral spheres blew daintily into existence and floated slowly skyward.

“What are you doing out here, Marco?” Gracey asked with a smile. Something about the boy always lightened her mood. She was glad to see him. Her mood needed lightening.

“Blowing bubbles,” he said. “What are you doing out here, Gracey?”

It was a fair question. She’d been walking the cemetery grounds for long enough now that her legs, unused to exercise, had begun to tingle uncomfortably. But she’d come to no conclusions, and no answers had deigned to descend upon her. “Just thinking,” she admitted, arms wrapped tightly over her chest. “It’s quiet here. I needed to be alone.” She hadn’t realized the truth of this statement until she’d made it.

“Want me to leave you alone?”

Gracey admired the boy’s respect for her feelings and found his presence comforting. “No. I like having you around,” she said, smiling.

Marco nodded, an innocent wisdom flickering behind his bright, brown eyes. “I try to be alone sometimes. But sometimes it doesn’t always work.” He looked over his shoulder, frowned.

“Does your mom know you’re here?”

Marco shook his head. “No, but she doesn’t care. I’m allowed to come to the cemetery whenever I want.”

Gracey lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “Do you come here often?”

Marco donned a sheepish expression, looked briefly off to the side, avoiding Gracey’s eyes. “Well…not so much anymore,” he said. “But I do sometimes. When it’s not scary.”

The boy’s purity and candor brought a small smile to Gracey’s lips. “How’s your mom? She doing okay?”

Marco shrugged. “She’s sad a lot,” he admitted. “She’s scared something bad’s gonna happen. A lot of people have died. She’s at home right now making salsa and crying.”

Marco lifted the bubble wand to his lips and blew slowly, making a large, heavy bubble that wobbled in the air and began to fall instead of rise. Marco bent his knees and positioned himself beneath the bubble, poked out his tongue until the bubble landed on it, sat a moment, and popped. Marco grinned at Gracey, awaiting her approval.

“Yech,” she said, making a face. “You know bubbles are made out of soap,” she said. “You just ate soap.”

The boy shrugged, dipping the wand once again into the bubble fluid. “It doesn’t taste too bad. Didn’t you ever get your mouth washed out with soap when you were little?”

“Of course not. I never use foul language,” she answered with a prim smile.

But Marco wasn’t persuaded. “That’s a lie. I heard you say shit before,” he said.

“Marco!”

“What! I did!”

Gracey chuckled, shaking her head. “That may be true, Marco, but that doesn’t mean you should say it.”

“I’m allowed to say bad words,” Marco said.

Gracey doubted very much that this was true, but decided not to pursue the matter.

As she began walking again, Marco kept pace beside her, blowing his bubbles and shuffling his bare feet in the dirt. Occasionally he would stop and cock his head to the side as if listening and then would resume his childish ambling. A few times he muttered something under his breath, but when Gracey asked him to repeat what he’d said, he ignored her. Sometimes he would sing a few notes of a song Gracey didn’t know, and sometimes he would laugh. It was unnerving, perhaps, but he was a child, and she supposed children did those things. She wished she knew for certain, but she’d had so little occasion to be with children.

She pushed that thought out of her mind.

But pondering the ways of children brought Gracey’s attention full circle, and once again Audra Fairgood was at the forefront of her brain. Wherever Audra was, was she safe? Was she alone? Was she scared or suffering? Had she gone away of her own accord or had she been taken? This last thought Gracey could scarcely bear—Audra was no more than thirteen, a mere slip of a girl, and though Gracey didn’t know her well, her heart broke each and every time the watery memory of Audra’s face swam before Gracey’s mind’s eye.

She couldn’t imagine the horror Shira Fairgood was living with.

“Where’s your brother, Marco?” Gracey asked. They had fully circumambulated the cemetery, and were once again on its northernmost edge, the oldest part of the cemetery. It was also the most beautiful; most of the graves were still tended with real flowers left by family members and loved ones, not the gaudy, plastic flowers the cemetery attendants left on the newer graves. Holes in the the crumbling stone walls served as tiny shrines within which pieces of hard candy and colored candles whose glass containers bore the faces of saints were placed. When Tiny had first moved to Love & War she’d spent many hours amid the old graves with paper and wax, taking rubbings of the headstones. The rubbings were framed and hanging in the hallways in Gracey’s home.

“I don’t know,” Marco said, stopping to scratch his foot. “I guess he went home with Mother. He’s afraid of the graveyard.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the graveyard?”

It was a moment before Marco answered. “Yes and no,” he said. “I’m not scared of it during the day. But at night…” His voice trailed off, and Gracey thought she saw a small shiver. “But Alma says I got nothing to be afraid of. She says ghosts are not real.”

“Who’s Alma?”

Marco shrugged, indicating the question’s small importance. “Just my friend,” he said.

Gracey, who, given her unusual circumstances and intimate awareness of the occult, had reason to believe in ghosts, also believed in white lies, especially where children and their innocence were concerned. “Well, Alma’s right,” she said. “There are no such things as ghosts, and graveyards are nothing to be afraid of. Still, I do think it’s a place where you should be respectful. Do you understand that?”

Marco was watching Gracey with unblinking eyes. “Yes. Is bare feet not respectful?”

Gracey smiled. “I think bare feet are okay.”

“And bubbles?”

Gracey’s smiled widened and she put her hand on Marco’s head, mussing his hair. “I think bubbles are probably okay, too. After all, bubbles are very beautiful.”

Smiling, Marco retrieved the wand from the plastic container and blew another stream of bubbles. They floated slowly on the still air, catching unseen currents and drifting away toward a darkening sky.

Gracey watched the bubbles float away, noting the reflections they carried across the graveyard. Here they hovered over Buddy Heffman’s grave, there over the graves of Carmen and David Olaya. And now they lingered over the fresh grave of Aleister Fairgood.

Gracey’s heart froze in her chest.

Mentally, she conjured up all the people who had died recently. Rubio Bautista. Buddy Heffman. Carmen and David Olaya. Aleister Fairgood. They did all have something in common. Fear gripped her and pushed her forward, quickening her feet as she moved through the northern end of the cemetery, noting the family names on the headstones. They were all there: Heffman. Bautista. Olaya. Fairgood. The northern part of the cemetery had seen five new graves in a short amount of time.

The south end of the graveyard—the newer end—had seen none.

Gracey closed her eyes against the realization. The founding families. Only members of the founding families of Love & War had died.

Murdered, Gracey thought suddenly. These people were murdered.

Gracey’s throat went dry and her breathing became ragged. She didn’t want to believe it. Yes, Buddy Heffman’s death was questionable at best, and Aleister Fairgood had certainly been a victim of an attack. But Rubio Bautista’s death had been ruled a suicide, and Carmen and David Olaya had died in a car accident.

The logic was sound, the evidence incontrovertible. And yet Gracey knew with steely certainty that penetrated every fiber of her being that all five citizens of Love & War had been murdered.

The realization made her dizzy with fear.

Steadying herself, Gracey knelt in front of Marco, placed her hands on his arms, caught his gaze. “Marco,” she said, her voice faltering only just, “I want you to go home now. Go on home and hug your mom. I bet she misses you. You can come over tomorrow and have pie,” she amended, just in case the boy wondered if he’d done something wrong.

At the mention of pie, Marco’s eyes lit up and he nodded a hurried agreement before running off down the street toward his home. Gracey stood alone in the graveyard amongst the tombstones, a numbing cold boring into her bones even as beads of sweat dotted her brow.

It was only a moment before Gracey realized that Audra Fairgood was the last birth member of the Fairgood clan, one of the founding families of Love & War.

Her vision was blurred by tears as she ran for home.

Past a half dozen trailers and RVs where the edge of the Badlands cozied up to the edge of empty desert, Satsuko led Marco to a gutted, wheelless van raised on cinder blocks, windshield smashed and lacking a door. She ducked down, crouching low, and climbed into the gray, dusty mouth of the van. Turning, she held her hand out to Marco, beckoning him to join her inside the abandoned vehicle.

Marco, however, wasn’t so sure. Looking around, he opened and closed his fists at his side, trying to calm his jangling nerves. “Um, Satsuko? Is it safe to go in there?”

It didn’t look safe. To Marco’s eyes, the van looked precariously balanced, and the inside of the van looked like it might have housed any number of vermin or spiders. But Satsuko’s smile was warm and comforting. “It’s safe,” she assured him. “Mitsuo and I come here before, right, Mits?”

Mitsuo, who lagged a few paces behind Marco, gave a noncommittal shrug of the shoulder. “It’s safe,” he said. Marco didn’t think he sounded sure, either.

“Don’t worry, Marco,” Satsuko said, her voice dropping low. “Mitsuo’s not afraid because the van is dangerous. Mitsuo don’t like what’s in the van. But the cards said you have to see,” she said. Her eyes twinkled with mischief. She held out her hand again. “Come on,” she said.

This time, Marco placed his hand inside Satsuko’s and allowed her to lead him inside. It wasn’t as dark as Marco expected even though the van lacked windows; it seemed to get enough sunlight form the open door and the space where the windshield should have been.

The inside of the van was completely gutted, empty of upholstery or furniture but for a small table at the rear where Satsuko was now crouched. The table was low to the ground, raised on a pair of upright cinder blocks. It was draped in black cloth and in its center stood a small, bronze crucifix. Two tea lights, completely burned out and now devoid of wax, flanked the crucifix. A collection of burned-out matches were littered amongst a collection of curious statues, each more macabre than the last. They were figurines of skeletons clad in robes of every color, from white, to black, to every color of the rainbow. Some of the skeletons carried scythes; others wore flowered shawls about their shoulders and inside their hoods. The skeletons, with their eerie, smiling skulls, sent shivers down Marco’s spine and pimpled his flesh. He shuddered, afraid, but found that he could not look away. As frightening as the figures of death were, he found them strangely alluring. Beautiful.

The statues were arranged near the back of the altar on either side of the crucifix. At the front of the altar were hundreds of blue pebbles arranged in a wave pattern three inches wide, flowing from one end of the altar to the other. The pebbles ranged from sky blue to deep lapis. Some were made of glass, others of plaster, still others of rock, but their pattern was unmistakable. The pebbles composed a river.

With tentative fingers, Marco reached out, stroked the tops of the pebbles. He closed his eyes, heaving a deep sigh. “This is the river from the cards I pulled, isn’t it, Satsuko?”

Satsuko only nodded, her expression somber. She watched Marco with careful, unwavering eyes.

The river of pebbles drew him in, infected him at his deepest level. He didn’t know why the river made him feel such deep sadness, but the more he looked at the small, makeshift waves that traversed the altar end to end, the deeper the sorrow set in his soul. It wasn’t the kind of sorrow that made him want to cry, however; it was instead a kind of helplessness, a deep-seated melancholy that all but emptied him out.

His eyes traveled from the transverse river to the cloaked skeletons. They seemed to beckon to him, their haunting smiles cajoling him. Feet tucked under him, hands in his lap, he settled in, leaned forward, his nose pushed into the middle of the ghoulish scene before him.

It was then that the figures began to sing.

Marco, at eight years old, knew little of death, had never known the feel of its icy fingers upon the heart, or how its foul breath suffocated the lungs. Marco did not know death’s face or the weight of its words, but in that moment, as the skeletons clacked their jaws and delivered into the world their terrible dirge, Marco came to know death’s song.

“Miserere mei, Deus, secundum misericordiam tuam;
et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum
dele iniquitatem meam.

Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea
et a peccato meo munda me.

Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco,
et peccatum meum contra me est semper.

Tibi, tibi soli peccavi et malum coram te feci,
ut iustus inveniaris in sententia tua et aequus in iudicio tuo.”

The skeletons’ mournful melody filled the hollows the sadness had carved from his soul until all else melted away and he was alone alongside the river, waters flowing silently over a bed of black rocks. That he couldn’t understand the words only deepened his fear and grief; the melody alone told him all he needed to know. The robed skeletons on the far side of the water were facing him, eyeless skulls turned in his direction, their unnatural, long fingers pointing at him. Their singing grew louder until the words and ululations reverberated through him, seeming to collect in his knees until they could no longer sustain the weight of his small body. He fell to his knees at the river’s edge, gazed down into the dark waters, and was unnerved to see his face staring back at him times three.

Except, they weren’t his face. At least, not all of them. One face was his own, the second belonged to Alejandro, and the third was a blend of his own face and his twin’s: Alejandro’s smaller nose, his own inquisitive eyes. To almost anyone else, the faces would have appeared identical, but of course Marco could tell himself apart from his brother. He knew the faces in the river were distinct, though their differences were subtle. His own face elicited from him no reaction, nor did the face of his brother, but the third face, the face that was half his own and half Alejandro’s, filled him with a dread ten times worse than the requiem the skeletons intoned.

Afraid and confused, Marco reached into the water, disturbing the images until the water’s surface stilled, reflecting only his own face back at him. He sat back on his heels, brought his fingers to his lips. He tasted. Salt.

He looked up again, and this time, just a few paces to his right, a woman clad all in black was kneeling by the side of the river, supplicant, her face buried in the palms of her hands, shoulders heaving with sobs. Her tears slipped between her fingers, down the backs of her hands and onto the sleeves of her black dress where the saturated fabric dripped directly into the river; Marco surmised that this was the cause of the river’s saltiness. He watched her silently, sensing that she would not want to be disturbed, and when he looked across the river again, he saw that the skeletons were watching her, too. Their singing was for her. And they were laughing.

“Little man? You okay?”

It was Satusko’s voice that yanked him out of his trance, anchored him once again to the real world, the world of flesh, the world in which he was kneeling before a makeshift altar in the back of an old, empty van. He blinked, lifted his head, found Satsuko’s eyes in the dark. He threw his arms around her, buried his face in the hollow of her neck, and burst into tears. “It’s a sad river, Satsuko,” he said, shivering though the air was still and hot. “It’s a river made of her tears.”

His outpour of emotion was unsettling, and Satsuko wasn’t sure how to comfort the small boy sniveling against her breast. But before long, Marco relieved her of her discomfort. Untangling himself from her awkward embrace, Marco wiped his face. “I was supposed to see that river,” Marco confirmed. “I have to stop those skeletons from tormenting that woman,” he said.

Satsuko, who of course had not witnessed the scene at the river, did not know what Marco was talking about, but she knew enough about the mysteries to know not to question him on this point. Instead she said, “We seen a woman come here a few times. Not one of us. Not from here,” she said. “She always dressed in black, and she come back here, to this van. This is her altar.” Satsuko pushed the hair off Marco’s forehead, held his gaze steady. “Do you know what you need to know?”

Marco swallowed, remembering. He saw Two Rabbit in his mind’s eye, remembered the rabbit’s words. He nodded. “I can find her,” Marco said, “once I learn her name.”

The first day of spring break smelled suspiciously like the beginning of summer.

Backpack slung over his shoulder, Marco hopped onto his bike and checked one more time that neither Alejandro nor Alma was following him. In Alma’s case, it didn’t much matter, he knew—even if she wasn’t following him now, it didn’t mean she couldn’t pop up uninvited later if she wanted. She had an eerie knack for it.

But it was Alejandro he was really concerned about. Ever since Marco’s miraculous recovery from near-death and his visit with God, Irma was convinced that her son was protected by Divine providence. It had never occurred to her, of course, to inquire whether the god in question was The Father Almighty, the Holy Triumvirate, I Am That I Am. If she had known that this particular god was an impatient Leporidae with a self-proclaimed penchant for beer and no omniscience or omnipotence to speak of, things would have turned out differently. But for a devout Catholic woman with little exposure to cultures outside her own, the word “god” had only one meaning.  Which was lucky for Marco, for the upshot of her new conviction was that she believed whole-heartedly that her youngest son was immune to the perils of the world. She had largely withdrawn herself from the role of his protector; as long as he was home for dinner, Irma no longer inquired about her son’s whereabouts.

But her leniency toward Marco did not extend to Alejandro, an injustice the older twin sought desperately to right. In the past, Alejandro suffered Marco’s presence grudgingly, but now that Marco had much freer range than he did, Alejandro became Marco’s shadow, stealing opportunity for adventure and trouble.

But a thorough check assured Marco that Alejandro wasn’t following now, so with a smile and a breath of relief, Marco took off for the Badlands, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.

Satsuko and Mitsuo were sunning themselves on a couple of beach towels when Marco rode up. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Satsuko sat upright, smiled brightly at the boy. She waved to him, dropped him a wink. “The prodigal son returns!” she called. “Thought you forgot about us, little man. Thought maybe you were too good for us.”

Marco hopped off his bike, nudging the kickstand into place with his toe. “Naw, I didn’t forget,” Marco said. “I just had school, and my brother’s been following me everywhere even though he’s not supposed to. It’s spring break now, though. I think he got other friends to play with.”

Marco dropped down next to Satsuko, crossing his legs Indian style. He leaned back onto his palms and looked up into the sky. “It’s getting hot,” he said. “Last year for Easter me and Alex didn’t find all our chocolates and they melted in the sun.”

Satsuko giggled, mussed Marco’s hair. “You ready for your tarot lesson? We have ice cream.” She said this last part with a broad smile.

“Cookie dough?”

“Candy jar,” Mitsuo said.

Marco nodded his approval, and the trio gathered the towels and made their way to the ramshackle trailer Mitsuo and Satsuko called home.

Satsuko kept her cards on the top of an overflowing and dilapidated bookshelf. While Marco cleared the paper plates and soda cans off the kitchen table and Mitsuo scooped out three cones of candy jar ice cream, Satsuko retrieved the cards, shuffling them noiselessly in her expert hands. She placed them on the table in front of Marco and pulled up a green plastic lawn chair to sit beside him.

“This,” she said, tapping the deck with her index finger, “is for you.”

She pushed the cards towards Marco, who looked up at her with wide, incredulous eyes. “You’re giving these to me?” he asked. “I don’t even know how to use them.”

“Someone has to give you your first deck,” Satsuko said. “It’s bad luck if you buy it yourself. So I give you mine.”

Marco took the cards in his hands and rifled through them, taking in the strange imagery and the stark primary colors. They felt good in his hands—they had the worn feel of old paper and smelled of cedar. They pulsed with the warm, erratic undercurrent of Satsuko’s energy. He set them on the table, face up.  Mitsuo handed him his ice cream.

He licked around his cone to keep it from dripping, and with his free hand he spread the cards over the face of the table. Satsuko plucked one from the pile and placed it on front of Marco. “This one is the Fool,” she said. “This is where everything begins. You have to start here. Like a baby. Babies don’t know nothing. But not because they are stupid, they’re just new. This is brand new, you get it?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

Curious, Marco eyed the cards, a beautiful cacophony of obscure imagery he didn’t understand. After a moment, he found a card depicting three women dancing together, holding golden cups in their hands. He tapped it with his finger. “This one is friendship,” he said. “This one is us.”

Mitsuo leaned in to get a better look at the cards. “What? No, that’s all chicks on that card.”

Marco picked up the card, pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. He knew the people dancing were all women, of course, but to him it made no difference. All the people he had ever really cared about—his mother, his Aunt Conchita, his grandmother, Alma, all his teachers since pre-school—had been women. Men like his father, or his brother, or that rascal Cheehawk Parker, had only let him down. Chucho, though a decent enough man, was never around. The foundation of his world was built on a bedrock of loving femininity.

He put the card down, unruffled. “It’s us,” he said again.

Satusko winked at Marco and leaned in close to him, keeping her voice low. “That why I don’t teach Mitsuo the cards. Got no imagination.” She tapped at her temple with her forefinger, her smile growing brighter.

Sitting back, Satsuko accepted her cone from Mitsuo, and slapped the table with her free hand. “So! Let’s see our first story. You mix up those cards real good and when you ready you draw three. Let’s find out where your story begins.”

“Satusko,” Marco said, uncertain. “How do you know I got a story? Maybe I don’t.”

Satsuko grunted and waved her hand. “You only eight, little man, but you got a story. Everybody do.” She licked her cone and smiled.

Marco couldn’t shuffle the cards while holding the ice cream, so he handed his cone to Satsuko. “Don’t lick it,” he warned, cutting his eyes at her. He liked Satusko, even trusted her, but you could never be too careful with your ice cream.

“Cross my heart,” she said.

Marco gathered the cards in his hands, tapped them lightly on the table top to help them settle. They were overlarge in his small hands, and he frequently dropped them as he attempted to shuffle them. But Satsuko didn’t seem to mind. Patiently, she licked her ice cream—and only her ice cream—until Marco was satisfied that the cards were sufficiently shuffled. He plucked them down on the table in a neat stack and reached for his cone.

Satsuko nodded once in approval, a brisk up, down movement. “Now choose three cards,” she said. “And lay them in a row on the table.”

Marco slipped the first card off the top of the deck and flipped it over. It was a picture of a man walking along a river, his back toward the viewer.

“The eight of cups,” Satsuko said. “Pull another.”

Marco pulled the second card. It was a man wearing a cloak by a river near a few overturned goblets. He appeared deeply troubled.

“Five of cups,” Satsuko said, brow furrowed. “One more.”

Marco didn’t notice the look of worry that had settled into Satsuko’s expression as he flipped over the last card. It was a image of a large heart, floating in the middle of a rain storm, pierced all the way through by three swords.

Satsuko studied the cards a moment, making up her mind. Then she sighed, turned so she was facing Mitsuo. Her face was full of the soft contours of resignation. “Come on, Mitsuo. We have to show Marco the shrine.”

Author’s note: Hover your mouse over Spanish phrases for their English translations.

It was the middle of the evening when Diane Azuelo brought Marco home, swaddled in a wool blanket. She pushed the front door open without knocking to find Irma, Chucho and Conchis sitting on the couch drinking beer together. Upon seeing her son’s pale face peeping out from under the folds of cloth, Irma jumped to her feet, pulling the bundle that was Marco into her arms.

“What happened?” Chucho demanded.

“He and Alejandro came to my house,” Mrs. Azuelo explained. “They wanted to know if Junior saw the body. Marco was playing in the street with another boy when he just fainted.”

Irma carried Marco to the couch where she laid him across her lap. She rubbed his cheeks, trying to rouse him. “Wake up, papi,” she cooed. “Por favor, Marquito, wake up, wake up. Wake up!”

Marco only squirmed, a flicker of expression passing over his face. Then his face relaxed again into the sleeping mask he’d worn when she’d first seen him, and real fear settled into her heart.

Irma let out a small scream, shaking her head in disbelief. “Es susto,” It’s susto. (Susto is a Mexican folk sickness caused by fear or surprise.)she cried.

Chucho sucked his teeth, crossed his arms over his chest. “Aw, c’mon, mija, that’s just a lot of superstitious horse shit,” he said.

“Then wake him!” Irma demanded, her eyes blazing fire as she looked her husband in the face. Chucho demurred, and Irma, having won, turned to the other women, eyes wide and pleading. “What can we do?”

“There hasn’t been a curandera Folk healer. Often heals with herbs and rituals.in this town for years,” Mrs. Azuelo said. “Not since la Grande died.”

Irma moaned as she rocked her son, cradling him to her chest. She could feel his warmth radiating against her skin, could feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest beneath the wool.

Conchis sat gently beisde her sister-in-law and took one of her hands in both of hers. “Our grandmother was a curandera,” she said slowly. “When I was a girl, I used to watch her work. I even help her a few times. I help her heal my cousin Matilda when she took ill from mal de ojo, the evil eye remember, Chucho?”

Uncomfortable, Chucho gave a curt nod. “I remember.”

Conchis drew in a slow breath, and squeezed her sister-in-law’s hand. “I know I am not a curandera, but for you, I would try. Do you want me to try to help Marco?”

Curandera or no, Irma did not hesitate. “SíYes.”

The livingroom was vacuumed and the carpet where Marco was to be laid was covered with a clean, white sheet. While Conchis searched the kitchen for the appropriate herbs, Mrs. Azuelo and Irma prepared for the ritual. They laid Marco on the sheet, feet together, arms held out to the sides so that he made the sign of the cross. At his head, hands, and feet the women lit small clusters of white candles. Irma thought he looked beautiful, so peaceful, even through the watery veil of her tears.

When Conchis emerged from the kitchen, she carried with her a small bundle of herbs tied with read thread. “You didn’t have any rue,” she said, “but this is good.”

The women arranged themselves around Marco with Conchis at his feet. With a candle she lit the bundle of herbs, bringing it to a slow smolder. When the thin tendrils of white smoke began to rise, Conchis began sweeping her hands over Marco’s body like a broom. Voice low and calm but with the hard edge of urgency, Conchis began to recite the Apostle’s Creed in Spanish as it was done in the old way, as she had seen her grandmother do many times.

“Creo en Dios, Padre todopoderoso, creador del Cielo y de la tierra, y en Jesucristo, su único Hijo, nuestro Señor…”I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord.

Three times Conchis recited the prayer as she wafted smoke over Marco’s body, coaxing his spirit to return to his flesh. Irma cried as they prayed. When they were done, Conchis hugged her sister-in-law and whispered in her ear, “Marquito is a special boy. Do not be afraid; God has a plan for him.”

While Irma kept vigil at Marco’s side with prayers and tears, Conchis kept the household running: she washed the laundry, fixed meals for Alejandro and Chucho, brought Irma mugs of thick hot chocolate and piping hot chile rellenos that Irma did not eat. She held her son’s hand and whispered tearful prayers, planting kisses on his fingers, his cheeks, his forehead. When Marco did not wake up on Christmas morning, Chucho canceled his upcoming departure to stay home with his fearful wife and to help out with his other stepson, who was fit to be tied after finding that on account of Marco’s death-like sleep, Santa Claus had skipped their home altogether.

While Conchis persuaded Irma to drink a bit of tea and swallow a bit of chorizo to keep her strength up, Marco slept for three days.

And during this time, he dreamed.

On the third day, immediately following the third cleansing ritual to bring Marco back to life, the boy opened his eyes. His mother gasped and began a new round of sobs, these sobs of joy. She gathered Marco into her arms, holding him close and kissing the crown of his head. Conchis looked on, eyes full of happiness and pride, wondering if perhaps she, too, had her grandmother’s gift. When Irma finally released her son, Marco looked up at his with wide, brown eyes and asked, in all earnestness, “Mama, did you see me talking to God?”

**
The rabbit art for this entry’s thumbnail has been generously provided by Kate Knutson.

Author’s note: Hover your mouse over Spanish phrases for their English translations.

Smell doesn’t know how to keep a secret. With unabashed indiscretion, smell discloses everything, whether sacred or profane. The smells of suntan lotion and salt on the skin reveal a day spent at the beach. Pine, cinnamon, and orange together conjure images of jaunty gifts stashed beneath the Christmas tree. And the aromas of ancho chiles, onion, pork, rose water, and burning candle wax meant Chucho had arrived home.

Jesús Esquivel, Marco and Alejandro’s stepfather whom everyone called Chucho, was a long-haul trucker frequently gone for weeks at a time. On the nights he was set to leave, his wife Irma would sit by the altar and pray the rosary, crying and asking San Cristóbal to protect her husband on the road. On the nights that he returned, her ritual was much the same, except that she thanked the saint for bringing her husband safely home. Tonight, she had prepared one of Chucho’s favorite meals and had perfumed her hair with rose water in anticipation of their reunion night together.

As Marco and Alejandro entered their home, the smells that greeted them indicated that their stepfather arrived, but it was sound that alerted them to another presence. That they could hear the soft hiss of corn tortillas frying in the kitchen as well as the whispered, melodious chanting of their mother praying the rosary meant another woman was present, for since Irma was sitting at the altar, someone else must have been making the tortillas.

“Hello?” It was Alejandro who called out, throwing his backpack into the hall closet and making his way to the kitchen.

A head popped out from around the kitchen wall. It was a smiling, round head with fat cheeks and two long, heavy braids. When the boys saw her, they ran to her, laughing, and threw their arms around her.

“¡Tía Conchita!” Aunt Conchita!The boys squeezed their aunt’s ample waist, burying their faces in her flesh. “What are you doing here?”

The woman patted the boys on the back, kissing them on the tops of their heads, on their cheeks rosy from the cold. “Dios mio, how big you’ve grown! You must eat like a goat, ah?” Laughing, Conchis handed each of the boys a hot corn tortilla, which they stuffed dutifully in their mouths. “It’s good? I make special for you.”

“Real good,” Alejandro said from around a mouthful of tortilla. “How long are you staying?”

Conchis wiped her hands on her apron and turned off the fire on the stove. “Coupla days,” she said. “I heard your father was back and I wanted to see him before Christmas. I’m spending the holidays in Mexico with my family. I don’t get to see Chucho often enough,” she lamented, her voice thick with regret.

Irma stood from the altar then, crossed herself a final time, and approached her sons. She bent to kiss them, and Marco breathed in her smell—rose, castille soap, cumin. “Do you boys have homework?” she asked.

Marco shook his head. “It’s vacation,” he reminded her. “Where’s Chucho?”

“Se fue al mercado,”He went to the store Irma said. “Why don’t you go wash up for dinner? And put on a fresh shirt; we don’t get to have dinner with Auntie Conchita every day. I won’t have you looking like a pig,” she said, her voice loving but stern. The twins groaned but obeyed with haste. They flashed Conchis a smile before disappearing into the bathroom.

They heard the front door slam moments later and, dressed in the freshly pressed polo shirts Irma had laid on their beds, emerged to see Chucho standing in the living room carrying a six pack of Bud Light.  Manny Larson, Chucho’s buddy, stood idle near the door, clutching his cowboy hat against his chest. Both men looked upset.

“Something’s going on at the Bautista place,” Chucho was saying. “Bunch of cop cars out there; one of ‘em was taping the place off.”

Marco and Alejandro exchanged curious glances as Irma hurried to pick up the telephone. She dialed quickly, holding her breath. “Ay, ¿qué pasa? ¿Por qué la policía está—” What’s going on? Why are the police at—

The twins watched as their mother covered her mouth with her free hand, eyes wide as tears began to well up in her eyes. “Madre de Dios, Mother of God” she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. She covered the receiver with her hand as she indicated for Chucho to come closer. “It’s Rubio,” she said, her voice shaking. “He’s dead.”

***

As the women lit candles and prayed at the altar and the men gobbled down Irma’s meal and finished off the beer, Alejandro and Marco pulled on their coats, snuck out the back door, and took off on their bikes for the Bautista place.

Marco pedaled slowly, unsure he wanted to be part of this particular excursion. “We shouldn’t go, Alex,” Marco whined. “We barely know Mr. Bautista. Barely.” Rubio Bautista taught chemistry at the high school in Placerita and had spoken at the twins’ school once or twice for career day. Inés Bautista frequently spent afternoons with their mother at the Laundromat, but as they had no children, the twins had relatively little use for them.

“Don’t worry, we don’t have to bother them,” Alejandro called over his shoulder. “We’re going to Junior’s. To see if he saw the body.”

Junior Azuelo, surly and prone to troublemaking like most of Alejandro’s friends, lived across the street from the Bautistas. They found him sitting on his porch with Cheehawk and a boy from school. They were huddled together, shoulder to shoulder, when Marco and Alejandro rode up, dropped their bikes on the front lawn, and bounded up the steps.

“Junior,” Alejandro said, lifting his chin in greeting. “What did you see?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Alejandro, who was not known for his compassion for others, wished he hadn’t asked the question. Junior, who caught lizards by the tail just to see the tails come off, who asked for a slingshot for Christmas so that he could stone armadillos, and who had once set Blanca Leonard’s hair on fire in art class, was sitting on his hands, his face pale, snot dripping onto his upper lip. He had been crying, though he was trying to wear a brave face for his friends. His eyes were swollen and red. He looked as though he had been crying for a long time.

“He was hanging from the tree in the front yard,” Junior said, his voice hoarse. That the other two boys did not react meant they’d already heard the story. Marco felt his stomach go queasy. “He was hanging from the tree and his face was all messed up. Like the chupacabra got him.” His shoulders were shaking, but no fresh tears fell.

“The chupacabra got him?” Alejandro’s voice was soft with fear. He was twisting the bottom of his shirt into a knot.

Junior threw his shoulders up, his cheeks quivering. “I don’t know!” He was shaking his head, his voice rising high. “I don’t know if the chupacabra got him; how would it get him up in the tree like that? He was hanging up there with a rope…”  He couldn’t finish the thought. The boys followed Junior’s gaze across the street where the police had quarantined the yard with yellow tape, and where neighbors had gathered on the street to rubberneck or console the widow, or to perform the first by way of the second.

“Were you scared?” Marco sat down on the bottom step, looking up at Junior’s face.

Junior nodded, eyes still fixated on some unknown point across the street. “Mom and me were in the kitchen making cookies when we heard screaming,” he said. “So we ran outside to see what was happening. Mrs. Bautista was standing in the front yard screaming, and we could see something hanging from the tree but it didn’t look real. Mom told me to stay put, but I didn’t listen…”

Junior swallowed, and looked down at the hands he hand balled into fists in his lap. “Mr. Bautista was going to hang the Christmas lights on our house.”

Junior stopped talking. He folded himself in half and buried his face in his lap. The screen door pushed open and Mrs. Azuelo stepped out, holding the door, her face also streaked with tears. “Why don’t you boys come in and have some hot chocolate,” she said. “I’ll warm you up some empanadas.” Sniveling, Junior stood and followed his mother into the house with Alejandro and the boy from school close behind.

Marco lagged behind the others until he heard the door swing shut. Across the street he could see Inés Bautista, the newly widowed, huddled in a blanket on the edge of the lawn, the arms of her neighbors wrapped protectively around her. A woman in slacks, an overcoat, and a button down shirt was asking her questions and writing in a notebook. Every once in a while, Mrs. Bautista would shake her head, her shoulders would heave, and she would break out in a fresh run of heart-rending sobs.

Without thinking, Marco began to walk slowly across the street. He was surprised to find Cheehawk keeping step beside him. “Whatcha doing, Marco?”

Marco lifted a shoulder noncommittally. “I didn’t know you were in town,” he said.

Cheehawk nodded. “Just got in. Today was the last day of school, but Ma said I didn’t have to go since it was a half day. We’re spending Christmas break with Aunt Bibi.”

“Yeah? You’re here for two weeks?”

“I guess so.” Cheehawk checked over his shoulder, saw that no one was paying attention to them. “Where we going, Marco?”

Fifteen paces from the edge of the Bautista lawn, Marco stopped, leaned his head back to look up. The desert sky was black and full of stars. The lack of ambient light allowed Marco to see every constellation, to marvel at the pale smudge of stardust across the sky they called the Milky Way. The sky looked so deep, like he could dive into it. He reached into his pocket and took out a square of paper. He unfolded it carefully and handed it to the older boy. “Do you know what this is?”

Cheehawk held the paper up to his nose. It was difficult to see in the darkness. “Looks like a rabbit,” he said.

“Yeah. Does it look familiar?”

Cheehawk handed Marco back the paper, bemused. “It looks like a rabbit,” he repeated. He spoke the words as though he were speaking to the mentally handicapped.

Marco sighed, refolded the paper, and shoved it in his pocket. “Never mind.” He looked over to the Bautista place, to the tree where the body had been found. He pulled up the collar of his coat against the growing cold of the evening, watching as the tree’s limbs swayed in the mounting breeze. As he watched the tree move, throwing shadows across the face of the house, across the lawn, and out onto the street, the rest of the scenery began to melt away. First to go were the police and Cheehawk, then the neighbors, the houses, and finally the terrible sobs of the bereaved. Before long, Marco was alone on the silent street underneath a canopy of stars, in front of that horrible tree. The wind blew harder and the tree shook in kind, and the watery image of Rubio’s body hanging heavy from a bough like a piñata ripe for the smacking slowly faded into view.

He wore a gray, cabled sweater and clean blue jeans. His cordovan loafers were polished to a high shine. His skin was white and smooth as porcelain, curly blonde hair glowing in the starlight. Around his neck, the rope cut into the impossibly white skin; angry red welts reminded Marco of Halloween zombies from a movie poster. His face was destroyed—there was no sign of the bright blue eyes, the slightly crooked nose, the shy smile that sent high school girls tittering down the hallway. Marco couldn’t look at it. It made every hair on his body stand on end.

Nervously, he reached out to touch the corpse, expecting to feel Mr. Bautista’s presence and kindness, but instead his fingers found stone—cold, smooth, and hard.

He pulled away, fear and sadness filling him up like a water pitcher, and as he clutched his hand to his chest, he smelled it in the air — something familiar yet just out of reach, something visceral, metallic. Just as the aroma of ancho chiles and pork had alerted him to Chucho’s safe arrival home, the smell that now tickled his sixth sense alerted him to a presence of something alien, something unnatural, something he alone knew all too well.

Marco’s stomach flipped and flopped. It gurgled in his ears.

The smell dissipated and he heard a tinkling laughter, like silver bells in the snow. Marco spun on his heel, but there was no one there. And then the laughter faded into singing, and to his intense horror, Marco recognized the voice immediately.

“Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a dead man in a tree.” Her voice felt like oil on Marco’s brain. “You made this possible. Thank you, Marco.”

Marco shook his head, swallowed hard. The words of the Christmas carol echoed in his mind, and Marco felt Rubio Bautista’s death wash freshly over him as he realized with a sick, dawning horror that his man was dead because of him.

This was his fault.

The other houses on the street swam slowly back into view. He blinked, noticed Cheehawk, Mrs. Bautista, and several of the police officers watching him in confusion. His skin felt hot. He tasted something acrid in the back of his throat. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, afraid he was going to be sick.

He felt, in the pit of his stomach, a swirling darkness begin to gnaw. It roiled inside him, rising to press against his lungs. He opened his mouth, greedily sucking down oxygen. He smelled it again—the metallic, burning smell. He squeezed his eyes against it, pushing it away with all his will.

As he opened his eyes, his breath caught in his throat. The houses lining the street ran like watercolor into the night. Cotton filled his ears and Marco stumbled, tried to cling to his waning consciousness before his knees buckled and he fainted dead away onto the dusty road.

Author’s Note: Hover the mouse over Spanish sentences to reveal English translations.

Lying on the hard ground, wrapped in a blanket, Marco stared up into a cold, gray sky as winter moved slowly, shyly, into Love & War.

December is usually a welcome, though eccentric, guest in the desert. After months of a long, dry summer under a scorched sky and unrelenting sun, desert folk breath a sigh of relief as the wind and cold catch hands, breathless, and knock on the door, apologetic and smiling, wondering if maybe, if it’s all right, they could stay for a while. December ushers in, falls in love with the desert, is sometimes beguiled by its warmth and rosy skies, and for a moment forgets what it is, and wraps the desert in its familiar temperatures and colors. But a heartbeat later, without thinking, December falls into its natural ways, and the sky darkens, and the cold settles in, and the desert folk sit and wait for winter to tire of its stay and rustle out and quickly as it descended.

Alma sat next to Marco, legs crossed, looking down into the turtle pond. She was watching one particular turtle, green and yellowed striped with orange near his eyes, stick its nose out of the water.

“Do you know what these turtles are called?” Alma asked. She put her finger to the water. The turtle ducked back underneath the surface.

Marco reached up, scratched his cheek. “Red-ear sliders,” he said. “Our dad got us one for our birthday last year, but it died. I think Alejandro tried to feed it Pop Tarts.” Since there was nothing in the sky for Marco’s eyes to latch onto, he rolled onto his stomach, propped himself up on his elbows. “They like earthworms and carrots,” he said. “And you have to give them vitamins.” A wind blew and he shivered, his hands retreating into the warmth of his oversized, bright yellow jacket. “I don’t know who gives these turtles vitamins. Or carrots.”

Alma leaned forward, peering deeper into the water. “Do you want to speak Spanish?” she asked.

“No.”

“I think you need the practice,” she said.

Marco sighed. “Alma, I understand Spanish just fine.”

Alma found the turtle again, smiled and wriggled her fingers at it. “Sí, pero no puedes hablar,” Yes, but you can’t speak it she said, ruthlessly ignoring Marco’s wishes. “If you don’t learn Spanish, your mother will be sad. I heard her crying last night,” she said.

Marco sighed. That his mother had been crying, while disconcerting, was not surprising. Over the years, Marco had grown accustomed to his mother’s tears. She didn’t cry loudly, or in a way that demanded attention. She didn’t offer herself to the crying the way other women did. She offered the crying no sanctuary. She cried because she had to, because she was born in the wrong month, because the chiles had been too hot, because the world was not as kind as she had been led to believe. She cried sometimes when she made tortillas—little teardrops making their way down round, sienna-colored cheeks, little sniffling sounds in between prayers to la Virgen de GuadalupeThe Virgin of Guadalupe. She cried as her knitting needles clinked together when she watched spaghetti Westerns, the kind she used to watch when Marco and Alejandro were babies and Irma was still married to their father. She cried when she tucked Marco in at night, smoothing the hair way from his forehead, kissing his cheeks and telling him she loved him so much. So, so much. And she cried when his father called. And he had called last night.

“She wasn’t crying because I don’t speak Spanish,” Marco said. “She was crying because she argued with my father. He wants Alejandro to come live with him in Odessa. My mother doesn’t want Alejandro to go.”

“Does Alejandro want to go?”

“Mother says Alejandro doesn’t know what he wants. He’s just a boy.”

“What does Alejandro say?”

Marco’s jaw clenched. “Alejandro says our father will teach him how to be a man.”

Alma made clicking sounds at the turtle, beckoning it to stick its nose out of the water again. “Don’t you want to be a man?”

“I can be a man here, with my mother,” he said, resolution heavy in his eight-year-old voice. “I don’t need to move to Odessa for that.”

Alma sat back on her heels, looked Marco in the eye. “He doesn’t want you, does he?”

Marco quirked his head to the left, a stiff head shake. “No.”

Alma reached out, ruffled Marco’s hair the way she’d seen his mother do. “I think you’ll be a good man,” she said. She smiled. Her adult teeth were too big for her mouth. They made her look oafish and radiant.

Marco liked the turtle pond not because it reminded him of the turtle he no longer had, the turtle his brother had poisoned with Pop Tarts, but because the water was peaceful, even in the dim gray of winter. The tiny ecosystem brought him peace and comfort. He could come to the pond and talk with Alma, away from people who would ask questions, and he could imagine himself the kind of boy other boys played ball with, the kind of boy dads wanted to visit, the kind of boy that knew what to say to a crying mother to make her smile and chase all her sadness away.

He wasn’t quite as fond of the turtle pond when it had other visitors, as it did now.

Mitsuo and Satsuko were ambling up the path to the water, heads down, hands tucked into the kangaroo pockets of their threadbare sweatshirts, tugging them low. Satsuko was wearing a long pink skirt that was not warm enough for this weather. Her wild hair served as a pink and black halo about her head. She was chewing gum and humming.

“You should go, Alma,” Marco said. He flicked his eyes to the teenagers approaching the pond.

“I don’t want to go,” Alma said, her chin jutting out as she pouted. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Go, Alma,” Marco hissed. “Please.”

But Alma only crossed her arms. “You’re not the boss of me.”

Marco groaned. That was one retort there just was no adequate answer to.

The teenagers came to sit near the pond, keeping a socially appropriate distance from Marco. Mitsuo flipped open his sketchbook, began drawing. Satsuko sprawled out next to him. She seemed oblivious to the cold. Marco watched them without looking like he was watching them.

A wind blew, and a loose piece of paper from Mitsuo’s notebook took to the air, tumbled about, skirted past Marco, headed for the water. Marco jumped to his feet and rescued the paper before it fell into the pond. He examined the drawing, smiled. He walked over to Mitsuo and handed to drawing to him. “You drew Gracey,” he said.

Mitsuo blushed, muttered a thank you, and stuck the paper back in the sketchbook. Marco knelt down beside him. “It looks just like her,” he said. “Even the way her hair is always a mess all over the place.”

Mitsuo chuckled a bit self-consciously, nodded. “Yeah.”

“Gracey lives across the street from me. I’m Marco,” he said.

Mitsuo smiled at the boy. “I’m Mitsuo,” he said. “I work at Gracey’s bakery.”

Marco raised an eyebrow. “That’s a funny name,” he said.

“It’s no funnier than Marco,” the teenager replied.

“That’s Spanish.”

The teen shrugged. “Mitsuo’s Japanese,” he said.

Now, Marco looked really surprised. “You’re Japanese? You look white.”

Mitsuo blushed again. “Well, no. I mean, I am white. She gave me that name,” he said, nodding in Satsuko’s direction.

Marco turned to Satsuko, who sat up and opened her mouth to speak when her eyes caught Marco’s. Electricity surged between them. The air around them crackled. Her eyes popped open and she reached out, placed her palms flat against the sides of Marco’s face. She leaned in close, like she was going to kiss him. A soft, slow smile, a disbelieving shake of the head, a serene sigh of bliss. “Do you know what you are?” she breathed.

“I’m a Libra,” Marco stammered.

Satsuko tossed her head back, laughed, didn’t remove her hands from Marco’s face. Her thumbs caressed his skin. “You have it in you,” she whispered. “But you don’t know how to use it.”

“What do you have in you, Marco?” Alma asked. Marco ignored her.

“Aw, leave him alone, Satsuko, you’re freaking him out.” Mitsuo reached for Satsuko, tugged on her sweatshirt.

But Marco wasn’t freaked out. He saw in Satsuko’s eyes a glimmer of something that he knew lived inside him, something unique to him, something he didn’t share with his brother or Alma or anyone. He’d thought it was his alone, a secret sparkle that he harbored, a mystery, a hobgoblin. But Satsuko had it, too. Or something very like it. The realization burned through Marco like fire. He didn’t even feel the cold anymore.

“Do you know how to use it?” Satsuko asked. She pulled her hands away from his face, folded them in her lap.

Marco shook his head. “No,” he said. “Well, only a little. And sometimes I mess it up and bad things happen.” He said this last part in a whisper, rolling the images and sounds from the night of the ouija board over in his mind. He searched Satsuko’s face. “You have it, too?”

Satsuko bit her bottom lip, smiled. “I can teach you,” she whispered. “Would you like that?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Mitsuo and Alma asked their own versions of the question, but neither was answered.

Marco nodded, not trusting his voice. Satsuko clapped her hands once, climbed to her knees and padded over to Mitsuo. She covered one of his hands with hers. “Draw this,” she said.

Obedient, Mitsuo flipped his sketchbook to a fresh page, his pencil hovering over the paper, waiting for Satsuko’s instruction. The girl closed her eyes, her facial muscles going slack. She breathed a few deep breaths, slipped into a trance. She was quiet, utterly still, without so much as a hair on her body bending to a breeze. But then the words started spilling out of her, not quite her own. Marco gave Alma a frightened look. Alma was smiling.

“He has long ears like a hare, but he’s a rabbit. A small body, compact, strong, with long, slender feet, good for jumping. He has bright, black eyes that twinkle, and his face is wise, knowing. He is surrounded by multitudes of others like him; they are brothers and sisters, celebrating. They are frivolous and happy. Eternal. He is called Two Rabbit. He’s waiting for you, Marco, on the other side of the moon.”

Mitsuo sketched furiously, his hand moving over the paper like a man possessed, taking the images Satsuko was feeding him and translating them into lines, arches, shadows. He scribbled madly, his tongue poking out for between his lips as he concentrated. Satsuko was not speaking now, but her hand was still on Mitsuo’s hand, a silent communication bonding them together as Satsuko transmitted and Mitsuo drew. Marco watched, fascinated, and Alma wrapped her arms around him lovingly.

After a long moment, Satusko’s mouth snapped shut, and her face became her own again as the stranger’s mask slipped off. She blinked a few times, smiled brightly at Marco, and beckoned for Mitsuo to hand her the sketch. Gingerly, he separated the paper from the sketchbook and handed it to her. She took the drawing, examined it closely, and then leaned over and kissed Mitsuo on the cheek. He blushed, scowling, but he didn’t push her away.

Satsuko scooted back over to Marco, folding the paper into quarters. She pressed it into his hand. “This is for you,” she said. “This is the first part. You take this paper, and you learn it by heart. Learn everything. Learn what he looks like. Learn what he makes you feel. Learn his name. And then—”

Marco screwed up his face, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. “You called him—”

“Shizukani,” she hissed, shaking her head, bringing her finger to her lips in the universal sign for “be quiet.” “I don’t want to know what I said when I was under,” she said. “It was a message for you, not me. Whatever I called him, that wasn’t his name,” she said. “Do you understand the importance of a name?”

On a warm night in a small Mexican village, October 1st, 2001, a baby, small and pale, the color of coffee drowning in milk, slid between his mother’s bloody thighs, head first into the world, screaming. His fists were balled, his face smashed, the black hairs on his head plastered to his skin as he shook with violent sobs, demanding. La partera, the midwife, handed the baby to Irma, who admired him, eyes wide and disbelieving, so full of the inexplicable rush of maternal love, and ushered him directly to her breast. “Un niño,”A boy the midwife revealed, hands clutching at her heart.

Radiant, Irma caressed his cheek with a finger as the baby suckled. “José Alejandro Flores Guzman,” she said. “Hijo de mi alma.” Son of my soul

A few minutes later, the labor pains came again, and the midwife rushed between Irma’s legs as the new mother writhed in pain. “¡Gemelos!” Twins the midwife shouted. “El segundo viene.” The second one is coming.The mother pushed, and a second baby, identical in appearance to the first, slid into the world, his eyes wide open and curious even as he howled. The midwife handed the new baby to Irma, who accepted him in awe, shaking her head with disbelief, tears streaming down her cheeks. With the midwife’s help, Irma held the second baby to her body, offering him her free breast, watched as he suckled lazily. Irma looked up at the midwife, incredulous, and through her tears exclaimed, “Este se parece a mi papá. Lo nombraré José Maria Marco Flores Guzman, como mi padre.” This one looks like my Papa; I will name him José Maria Marco Flores Guzman after my father. At his naming, Marco paused his suckling and offered his mother his first smile; the midwife crossed herself, muttered blessings and prayers. Marco resumed his suckling, and Irma smiled at her two sons as they nursed hungrily and as she cried.

This was the story Irma had told her sons about their birth. He’d heard the story many times. As he’d grown older and the differences between him and his older brother became more marked, Marco wondered how much of their personalities had to do with their names. If Irma had named the first baby Marco for her father, instead of the second, would Alejandro now be quiet, withdrawn, studious, and thoughtful? Would he, Marco, be a different boy if he had been called Ignacio, Juaquin, Diego, or Andrés? He and Alejandro looked so alike. They came into the world the same way. They shared the same heritage, same family, same food, same bedroom. Yet they were so different. Alejandro had, as far as Marco knew, no hint of the kind of abilities that Marco had seen in himself.

Was it the name, then?

Marco nodded solemnly at Satsuko. “I understand,” he said.

Satisfied, Satsuko sat back on her heels. “Good. When you have this information, you come back to me. But now, I’ll teach you another thing.” She seemed to think a moment. “Can you come to the Badlands after school?”

Marco shook his head. “I’m not allowed to go to the Badlands,” he said.

“He’s just a kid,” Mitsuo put in.

Satsuko nodded. She turned to Mitsuo. “You think Gracey’d mind if me and Marco met at her bakery few time a week? No trouble.” Marco raised an eyebrow at Satsuko’s sudden poor English, but Mitsuo appeared to take no notice.

Mitsuo shrugged a shoulder, noncommittal. “I don’t know,” he said. “Can’t hurt to try.”

Satsuko turned back to Marco, smiling. Marco believed in that moment that he would come to love that smile. “I’ll see you there Monday,” she whispered. “After school. I’ll teach you how to see.”

“It’s a terrible trick for God to allow it to rain on Halloween.”

Tiny was frowning as she poured a handful of candy corn into her mouth. “I mean, I get it. Most years the weather is awesome, right, so I guess that’s the treat. But when we get the trick…”

Tiny, Gracey, and the Prime of Darkness sat huddled together on the porch swing, listening to the rain fall in heavy sheets, waiting for the neighborhood kids to come beg for candy. Gracey was dressed as Rainbow Brite; Tiny, dressed as a belly dancer, had succumbed to the cold and damp and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. The demon wore what he always wore—a molded chest plate of indeterminate material, black leather pants, motorcycle boots, spiked metal pauldrons, and a red cape. He had a plastic cauldron filled with candy balanced on his lap. The flames from the line of jack-o-lanterns perched jauntily on the porch rail threw dancing shadows on the walls of the old house until an ill wind swept through and extinguished half the candles.

It was a miserable Halloween.

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” Gracey said, chewing a Tootsie Roll. “Don’t you remember going trick or treating in the rain, running through the puddles and laughing when your makeup melted into streaks down your face? I remember,” Gracey smiled. “I remember … I wasn’t quite sixteen so you must have been about six. You were a fairy princess. It was raining that year, and Mom and Dad wouldn’t let you wear the ballet slippers that went with your outfit. They made you wear boots, and you threw a fit because you said fairies don’t wear boots.”

“Well, they don’t,” Tiny interrupted. “I mean, I was just a kid but I was going for verisimilitude.”

“Actually,” Darkness said, his face drawn, “I don’t think fairies exist at all.”

The sisters exchanged exasperated looks.

“Anyway, you were mad about the boots, and then when we got outside you were mad about the rain. It smudged your makeup. So you started crying and carrying on until I told you to just tell people you were a Rambo fairy.”

“Oh my God,” Tiny breathed, eyes wide. “I do remember that! You said I looked like Rambo, but I didn’t know who that was. But I did what you said, and everyone laughed and said I looked awesome. Like I planned it.” She grinned, dug into the cauldron on Prime of Darkness’s lap. “Ooh, Butterfinger,” she purred, ripping off the wrapper.

A small group of kids bounded up the gravel drive, making their way to the porch. They were squealing with laughter, their costumes invisible beneath their rain slickers. They produced their candy bags and sang out a chorus of “Trick or treat!”, their smiling, ruined faces upturned and glowing.

The Prime of Darkness reached into the cauldron and grabbed a large handful of candy, dropping pieces into the children’s bags. One of the little boys in front, who might have been dressed as a cowboy, looked Darkness up and down with appreciation. “What are you?”

The demon smiled. “I am a Prime of Darkness.”

The boy cocked his head to the side in confusion. “What’s a prime of darkness?”

The Prime of Darkness faltered. It was a question he wasn’t sure how to answer, not to a child to whom he couldn’t possibly reveal the whole truth. On the other hand, he was incapable of lying. It posed a small dilemma. “Well, it’s a kind of soldier,” he said, after the uncertain pause. “A top soldier, above an ace or a deuce. But, just a soldier. That’s all.”

The boy didn’t look satisfied, but more explanation would have meant less time to acquire as much candy as possible, and his friends were already growing antsy. “Cool costume,” the boy said. “Thank you!” A disingenuous chorus of obligatory thank-yous followed, and the children took off toward the next house.

The wind picked up, and Tiny pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Gracey noticed, took a motherly interest. “Tiny, you should go in the house and put on a sweater or something. You’re shivering,” she said.

“I’m all right.” The redhead shrugged beneath the blanket. “It’s mood weather. We gonna watch a movie tonight?”

“What do we have?” The Prime of Darkness unwrapped a roll of Smarties and began popping them into his mouth.

Tiny counted the movies on her fingers. “Army of Darkness—I got that for you, Darkness, you’ll love it—Serpent and the Rainbow and, my personal favorite, Shaun of the Dead. And I even made caramel popcorn,” Tiny said, smiling.

“I made the popcorn,” Gracey corrected. “You sat on the counter and stuck your fingers in the caramel.”

“I kept you company,” Tiny said.

Another group of children approached, these wearing masks. When they arrived on the porch, they thrust their bags out before them and shouted, “Trick or treat!” It was more a demand than a pleasantry.

The Prime of Darkness handed out the candies, and two of the three kids muttered “Thank you” as they ran away. But the third stayed behind and removed his mask. It was Marco.

“Hey, Marco,” Gracey said, smiling. “Your costume is great; what are you?”

“A demonic overlord,” he said. The mask in his hand was a metallic orange with a pointy chin and horns. He wore a simple black tunic and glow-in-the-dark skeleton gloves.

The Prime of Darkness made a face. “You know, there isn’t exactly—”

But Gracey placed a hand on his arm, squeezing lightly. The demon took this as a cue to discontinue that thought. “Well, you look great,” Darkness finished.

If Marco noticed the exchange, he didn’t let on. He was looking at the Prime of Darkness with concern. “You’re not wearing a costume,” he said finally.

“Oh!” The Prime of Darkness leaned back into the porch swing, clearly taken aback. “Ah. Well, this is a costume,” he said. Even in the dim light, his pauldrons gleamed.

But Marco shook his head. “You wear that every day. On Halloween, you’re supposed to be something else.”

The Prime of Darkness crossed his arms over his chest. “Why?”

“It’s fun.”

The demon and the boy stood in silence, examining each other in earnest. After a moment, Marco took a sheepish step forward. “Well, here,” he said, handing the mask to the demon. “You can have that. You have to wear something,” he said.

Tentatively, with a strange feeling in his chest, the demon accepted the proffered mask and carefully fixed it over his face. It was a little snug, but the eye holes were big enough. “Thank you,” he said. His voice came out muffled.

“My name’s Marco,” the boy said, holding out a hand.

The strange feeling in the demon’s chest grew until it pressed against his lungs. Something caught in his throat. The Prime of Darkness accepted Marco’s gesture, and the two demons, one makeshift and the other not so much, shook hands. “I’m a Prime of Darkness,” he said for the second time that evening. “Ah, you can just call me Darkness.”

Marco smiled, his eyes flicking briefly to Gracey. He saw that she was grinning.

Without another word, he took off. He had some catching up to do.

When Marco was gone, Gracey turned to Darkness and admired his mask. “Pretty,” she said. “Looks like you made a friend.” She was still grinning.

The demon nodded. “Guess I did,” he said, his voice curiously soft.

The strange feeling in his chest was still there. After a moment, he realized the feeling was tenderness.

He didn’t take the mask off all night.