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.

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.

“Oh my God, Gracey. You’re completely crushed out.”

Gracey looked up from her newspaper and offered her sister an innocent look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tiny, ambling into the kitchen in her nightie, motioned toward the vase of pink peonies on the kitchen table. “What’s with the flowers? You’ve got them in here, in the bathroom…where did you even find peonies this time of year?”

Gracey shrugged, looking back down at her newspaper to hide her grin. “Simon left them.”

Tiny raised an eyebrow. “Simon left them,” she repeated.

Gracey bit her lip, pretended to be reading. “I found them on the porch this morning when I set the pie out to cool. Oh, there’s cranberry apple fig on the counter.”

Tiny shuffled to the sideboard, pulled a plate from the cupboard. “You had time to bake a pie already? How long have you been awake?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Tiny cut herself a healthy slice of pie and poured a mug of lukewarm coffee. “So your freaky friend left two dozen peonies—which are not even in season—on the porch, and you made pie.” Tiny’s eyes flew open in bewilderment. “Oh my God, Gracey, you guys didn’t…bow chicka wow wow?” Tiny pumped her hips in a suggestive movement.

“Tiny!”

“Well what am I supposed to think?” With her pie and her coffee, Tiny slid into the chair across from her sister. “I love you, Gracey, and I love to see you happy but I really don’t know what you see in that guy.”

Gracey sighed. “He’s intelligent, he’s charming, he’s polite—”

“He’s corny as hell,” Tiny cut in, scooping a bite of pie into her mouth. “What is up with the hat? And the way he talks?”

“He’s old fashioned,” Gracey sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Tiny echoed. “So you really don’t think that guy’s even, like, a little…” She swiveled her index finger near her temple, making the universal crazy sign. “…Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Froot Loops?”

Gracey grimaced. “Love the cereal references. Very mature.”

Tiny cocked an eyebrow at her sister.

Gracey threw up her hands in exasperation. “Well, what do you want me to say, Tiny? He’s different! I noticed! But that doesn’t make him crazy. I mean, Tiny.” She shook her head, sighing. “I am the last person who could condemn someone for being a little different.”

Tiny shrugged in tacit agreement, chewing her pie thoughtfully. “But it’s not just how he talks and dresses. There’s just something off about him. He kinda gives me the creeps.”

“Just drop it, Tiny. He makes me feel really good about myself. When I’m with him, I feel normal. And I don’t mean by comparison,” she explained before Tiny could interrupt. “I just mean, I feel like I can be myself. It’s very liberating.”

Tiny took a sip of coffee. “You don’t feel like you can do that with me? Or Bibi? Or Darkness?”

“Darkness!” Gracey laughed, rolling her eyes. “Nothing—nothing—about Darkness makes me feel normal. Where is he anyway?”

“Don’t know. I just woke up. Answer my question.”

Gracey sighed. “I’m talking about feeling normal with a man. A real man, not a demon that looks…sort of like a man. I’m talking about a man that I could love.”

Tiny’s jaw dropped, eyes practically bugging out of her head. “Wait, you’re falling in love with Simon St. Laine? Are you kidding me? You’ve been on one date!”

“I didn’t say I was in love, I said…” Gracey shook her head, standing up and clearing her place. She took the dishes to the sink. “You’re right, it’s silly to keep a bouquet of flowers in the bathroom. Let’s take them to the cemetery so more people can enjoy them.”

Tiny licked her fork. “What people? The dead dudes? I don’t know, I kind of like having something pretty to look at while I pee.”

Gracey walked over to the table and kissed the crown of her sister’s head. “Aw. Then you can just look in the mirror.”

Tiny wrinkled her nose. “While I pee? Seriously, Gracey. You are so weird.”

The cemetery was a short walk from the Daylittle house. It had been a long time since Gracey had been there, and she was surprised to see so many fresh graves. She’d known that Rubio Bautista had been recently buried, of course, but as she walked up and down the rows she noticed three graves that had only recently been dug. Two were on the Galina family plot, and the other was a single for Buddy Heffman.

Walking over the Buddy’s grave, Gracey threw her sister a look over her shoulder. “What on earth…? When did Buddy Heffman die?”

Tiny stood, arms akimbo, surveying the cemetery. In the year she’d lived in Love & War, she’d never set foot in it. “Like a week ago, I think? I heard about it when I was visiting Darkness at the salon.”

Gracey separated out one of the peonies she was clutching and laid it on Buddy’s grave. “And you didn’t tell me about it?”

Tiny kicked at a stone lodged in the dirt, shrugged a shoulder. “I’m telling you about it now.” She ignored the look Gracey threw her. “I heard he didn’t have any family left, so there wasn’t much of a funeral. That’s kind of sad, to die alone?”

Gracey knelt down, nodded. “He lived with his sister Evangeline on the far edge of town, but she died a couple three years back. Emphysema, I think. Neither of them ever got married or had any kids.” Gracey chuckled to herself, shaking her head. “When I first moved to town Buddy used to find all sorts of reasons to show up at my house, fix things. Used to hint about how he wouldn’t mind seeing me in a swimsuit.”

Tiny made a face. “You moved here eleven years ago, so Buddy must have been…what, seventy?”

Gracey smiled at the memory. “Randy old fart,” she agreed. “It’s sad he never had kids. I think the Heffmans were one of the original settlers of Love & War. His death is…mildly historical, I guess.”

Tiny looked around, noticed there were no other Heffmans buried nearby. “Where are the others buried?”

Gracey shrugged. “I don’t know; fair question. Lots of families are buried on their own land. I’ve never been out to the Heffman place, but that could be it.”

“I heard Mr. Heffman’s eyes were missing when they found him.”

Startled, Gracey and Tiny looked around and found Lakmei standing behind them, arms crossed over her chest, her porcelain face drawn, hiding behind a curtain of white hair. She was wearing an oversized rugby shirt and jeans. Gracey had never seen her dressed so casually. For that matter, Gracey had never seen her without Lilac at her side. Seeing only one of the two identical women temporarily threw Gracey for a loop.

“Lakmei.” Gracey stood, dusted herself off. “I didn’t see you come up. You look…What was that about Buddy’s eyes?”

Lakmei remained stoic, slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “Horace Green found Mr. Heffman dead on the floor of his garage. His eyes were missing. Not ripped out or dug out. More like burned out. I heard he had a black hole in his face where his eyes should have been.” She paused a moment, shrugging. “I can’t say for sure. The only people to see Mr. Heffman were Mr. Green and the coroner. But it’s what I heard.”

Tiny looked from Lakmei, to Gracey, and back to Lamkei. “I suspect Mr. Green in the garage with the tire wrench.” When Gracey snapped her head around and gave Tiny a horrified look, she changed tactics. “Well, I didn’t hear that,” she said. “How come I didn’t hear that? That’s the kind of thing people would be talking about, isn’t it?”

Gracey returned her attention to Lakmei, her horror still evident in the lines of her face. “Where did you hear such a nasty rumor?”

Lakmei shook her head, clear, blue eyes locking on Gracey’s. “I don’t remember,” she said. “But I heard that’s why he wasn’t buried with the other Heffmans. They’re Catholic,” Lakmei explained. “And what happened to his face was the work of the devil.”

Gracey’s mouth dropped open as she glanced anxiously from the angel to her sister. Finally she asked, “Well…was it?”

It wasn’t what she had planned to say. Until a year ago, Gracey had no reason to believe in Hell or devils or angels for that matter. But the night she and Tiny had found the Prime of Darkness lying on the side of the road, everything had changed. Gracey wasn’t sure what to believe in anymore.

But Lakmei only shook her head, unblinking eyes never breaking contact. “Probably not,” she said simply. “I thought you didn’t believe the Prime of Darkness was dangerous.”

The slight mocking in Lakmei’s voice wasn’t lost on the pie baker. “I never said I didn’t think he was dangerous,” Gracey said carefully. “But I have no reason to think Buddy Heffman would be Darkness’s enemy. Besides. I assume Darkness doesn’t have a monopoly on diabolic acts.”

Lakmei, chagrined, said nothing for a moment as she watched Gracey work through her own inner conflicts. It was no secret to either of the angels that Gracey’s feelings toward the demon were not altogether logical. Lakmei cocked her head to the side, expression evaluative. “There’s something different about you, Gracey.”

Gracey blinked. “Different how?”

Lakmei watched her a second, then shook her head slowly. “I don’t know exactly.”

Breathing an agitated sigh, Gracey nodded toward the other two graves. “Do you know what happened over there?”

Lakmei followed her gaze and sighed. “Car accident,” she said. “Carmen Olaya and her son, ah…”

“David,” Gracey whispered.

“That’s the one.”

“David was just a baby,” Gracey said. A wild shudder ran through her and she wrapped her arms across her chest in the same manner as Lakmei.

“But why is she buried with the Galinas if her last name is Olaya?” Tiny asked.

“Olaya was her married name,” Gracey said. “The Olayas and the Galinas don’t get along. Most of the Olayas have left Love & War by now; they came into money about twenty years ago, I think. Carmen’s husband Christopher was the last of them, if you don’t count the baby, of course, and he left about a year ago when he and Carmen divorced.”

Lakmei glanced down to the flowers Gracey was still holding. “Were you going to lay those anywhere in particular?”

Gracey had forgotten all about the peonies. She glanced at them, suddenly feeling foolish. She shook her head. “No, I just thought…” she shrugged, letting her words trail off.

“Do you mind if I..?” Lakmei reach for the flowers, and as though jarred out of a daydream, Gracey shook herself, handing the small bouquet to the angel.

“Not at all, please.” She handed the flowers over to Lakmei and for a brief moment, their hands brushed against each other. Lakmei drew in a sharp breath, eyes popping wide as saucers. Her lips parted, drew close in a round little O. She caught hold of Gracey’s hand, closing her delicate fingers around Gracey’s strong ones. She leaned in, pulling Gracey to her in a furtive embrace. “Is that what’s different?” She shook her head, blue eyes filling with tears. “Oh, Gracey! Whoever he is, I hope he doesn’t break your heart.”

The sun had already dipped down below the horizon as the boys breached the gates to the Love & War cemetery. The night was still and calm; only a gentle breeze rustled through what was left of the grass that had once carpeted the graveyard. The cemetery was as old as Love & War itself, and although the cemetery had seen a few recent arrivals, the grounds were not maintained as well as they once were. A few graves sported tacky, faded, plastic flowers, but most were bare. Sunbleached and wind-weathered stones dotted now-crooked grave rows amidst a sea of dead grass.

Silence descended upon the boys as they made their way through the cemetery, eyes searching tombstones for the name “Minerva Auckland”. Although they didn’t say so, both Marco and Alejandro, being only eight and having only mastered the art of reading the year before, were a little concerned that they wouldn’t recognize the name even if they saw it, because although “Minerva” sounded like it was probably easy to spell, neither boy had any idea how to spell “Auckland”.

They needn’t have worried, however, for it was Cheehawk who made the discovery. “It’s here,” he said, calling from the far back corner of the cemetery. Cheehawk crouched down low, running his fingers along the the carved stone as he read. “‘Minerva Katherine Auckland, 1818–1853. Bear me no grief, shed me no tear. For as I foresee it, you’ll too soon be here.’” Cheehawk shuddered, shaking his hand as though to shake off the poem. “That’s creepy,” he said.

Marco and Alejandro gulped and exchanged looks. Actually standing at the witch’s grave amid the crumbling walls and dead grass, the whole idea of making contact with her started to seem… less than good. Marco, swallowing hard and clenching his fists, cast a sideways glance at his brother, hoping against hope that his brother would call off the event.

But his hopes were dashed as soon as Alejandro plopped on the ground and said, “Aw, well, let’s get started.” Marco felt his stomach lurch as he settled down next to his bother and across from Cheehawk, who also was beginning to look a little green around the gills. Cheeawk placed the game on the ground and gingerly removed the lid, revealing a water-stained board and a chipped, plastic planchette.

Cheehawk lifted the board and planchette, flicking the box aside. “We all have to sit as close together as we can,” he instructed. “You guys better not have lice,” he said with a sneer.

“We don’t,” the twins chimed. They came together into a small huddle, sitting Indian style, their knees touching. Cheehawk placed the board on the ground between them and put the planchette in position. Following the older boy’s lead, the twins placed two fingers from each hand gently on the planchette.

“Now what?” Marco asked.

“Be quiet,” Cheehawk instructed. “I’ll take it from here. Just keep your fingers lightly on the thingie. And whatever you do, don’t let go!” He gave the boys a stern stare, and they nodded silently.

The ritual began.

“We wanna talk to Minerva Auckland,” Cheehawk said, his voice low and monotone, his eyes closed tight. “Minerva Auckland, if you’re out there, we’re here to…say happy birthday.” He hadn’t rehearsed what he was going to say, or even given it much thought. Marco looked askance at his friend, thinking maybe Cheehawk had fibbed a bit when he said he knew what he was doing.

Nothing happened.

“Minerva Auckland,” Cheehawk said again, this time his voice a little louder. “We want to speak with Minerva Auckland, the witch who burned up in her house in Love & War.”

Nothing happened.

Cheehawk cursed under his breath, and while he cast about for something more inviting to say, Marco had an idea. “Probably gotta ask it a question,” Marco said, his voice only slightly more than a whisper. He closed his eyes, drew in a breath, and said, “Minerva Auckland, Minerva Auckland, can you hear us? Are you here?”

A beat. Two. The boys were so still they dared not even breathe. Then, without fanfare, the planchette wobbled, a slight jerk, before it began gliding across the board, lurching to a stop when it reached the top left corner of the board, which read, “Yes”.

“You’re pushing it,” Alejandro hissed, his voice less steady as he would have liked. But both Marco and Cheehaw shook their heads, their eyes wide with fright and wonder.

“Hush! Marco, ask it another question.”

Biting his lip, Marco concentrated and asked, “Ah, Minerva Auckland, how many boys are sitting at your grave tonight?”

The planchette jerked, stopped, and then glided down the board to the row of numbers, stopping when the clear plastic of the planchette hovered over the 3.

“Oh man, this is freaking me out,” Alejandro said, his voice breaking. He almost sounded on the verge of tears. “You guys sure you’re not pushing it?”

Neither boy answered as Marco prepared his next question. “Minerva, can you tell us anything about the future?”

The planchette moved smoothly across the board, stopped decisively at “Yes”.

Marco looked up from the board, eyes searching. “What should we ask it?”

Cheehawk thought for a moment. Then he said, “Ask her if she knows what the winning lotto numbers are.”

Marco made a face. “Are you sure I should ask her that?”

Cheehawk nodded furiously. “Do you know how many video games we could buy if we won the lottery? I bet I could even get Ma to buy me my football uniform.”

Winning the lottery could buy a lot of video games, and though Marco wasn’t a big a fan as his brother or Cheehawk, even he could see the benefit of having his choice of any game securely locked behind the glass doors at the Walmart in Placerita. And besides, what else was he going to ask? Returning his attention to the board, Marco asked, “Minerva, can you tell us what the winning lotto numbers will be?”

The planchette was still. The boys glanced at each other apprehensively, then back down at the unmoving board. Finally, the planchette began to stir. It moved around the board in rapid figure eight patterns, its speed steady, its movement fluid. Then the planchette stopped. After a moment it began to spell something out. “U-M-U-S-T-I-N-V-I-T-E-M-E.”

Alejandro spoke the words as he read them. “Um ustin vite me?” The confusion on his face was mirrored in Cheehawk’s expression.

But the message was clear to Marco. “You must invite me,” he whispered. “She wants…” He shook his head, concentrated hard on the board. “Invite you where?”

The planchette began to move again. This time, it did not hesitate. It spelled out, “T-H-E-L-I-V-I-N-G-W-O-R-L-D.”

There was no mistaking what the board spelled out this time, and all the boys instinctively snatched their hands away from the planchette as they started at each other in horror. “What should we do?” Marco asked the others.

“What does she mean, invite her? Can she get out? I mean…she’s dead, right? Can the ouija board bring her here?” Cheehawk’s words spilled out of him like candy out of a piñata. His eyes darted between Marco and Alejandro, searching. “I mean, vampires can’t go in your house unless you invite them. So maybe she can’t get here unless we invite her.” He shook his head, waving his hands in front of his face. “Noooo way. She can just stay right there!” Then a thought struck him. “Is she gonna get mad if we don’t invite her? Is she gonna hex us or—” His voice was rising steadily higher as his panic reached a climax. His pudgy face was red and beads of sweat were popping out on his forehead. “What do we do?” he squealed.

“Didn’t you say you’d done this before?” Alejandro asked. “Shouldn’t you know if ghosts can come through the ouija board?”

Cheehawk’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, but no words came out. He’d been caught in a lie, and there was no use trying to deny it. Instead, he slumped down, shoulders drooping, and put his head in his hands, trying not to cry.

They sat in silence a moment, and then Alejandro made a decision. “Can we hang up on her by moving the thingie over the ‘Good Bye’ at the bottom if it gets too scary?”

Cheehawk shrugged his shoulders without looking up. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe. I think so.”

Marco was shaking his head slowly, tears of fear welling up in his eyes. He didn’t care if his brother saw him cry. He didn’t care if they called him names. He didn’t want to go any further. He wanted to leave the cemetery. The tiny hairs at the back of his neck were standing up, and he was beginning to get a Very Bad Feeling. He knew with all his heart that they should put the ouija board away and go home, change into pajamas and watch something funny on television until the bad feeling went away. He could practically hear a voice whispering in his ear, saying, “Cut it out, Marco. Cut it out right now.”

But he couldn’t. Sitting there, perched on the brink of certain, inevitable disaster, Marco became a pawn in someone else’s game of chess—merely an object to be moved around, a means to someone else’s end. Even as his insides reared up and his conscious mind threatened him with every weapon in its arsenal, Marco felt the invisible puppeteer pulling his marionette strings. He felt (though who could say if it were true) locked into a single course of action, predetermined, one his entire life—all eight years of it—had led up to. Propelled forward by forces unseen, Marco moved through his next motions unwillingly, fearfully, and knowing with a soul-deep dread that he couldn’t do anything about any of it.

He couldn’t.

And that was why, though every fiber of his being railed against it, he took a breath and put his fingers back on the planchette. After a moment, the other boys followed suit.

“Minerva Auckland,” Marco whispered, his voice shaking as he blinked back his tears. “We invite you to the world of the living. We—”

But before he could finish his thought, the planchette began to spin under their fingers and then shot off the edge of the board, landing in a patch of brown grass and eliciting a screech from each of the boys. Officially scared out of their wits, they scrambled to their feet, still screaming, and as they ran for the cemetery gates they could swear they heard a peal of deranged, high-pitched laughter that was certainly, definitely, coming from Minerva Auckland’s headstone.

They didn’t stop to see what was happening. Pumping their arms and legs as hard as they could, the boys fled the cemetery like bats out of hell. They didn’t stop running until they’d made it back to the Flores place, their hearts thumping so hard they feared they might explode. Marco was crying freely now, scared and angry at himself. Angry at Cheehawk and Alejandro. And suddenly, so, so tired.

But even in his wild fear, he realized, too late, they never said ‘Good Bye’.

They’d seen the pink Mary Kay mobile hauling ass down the road, which meant Mrs. Parker was in town visiting her sister Bibi, which meant that Cheehawk would be showing up at the Flores house any minute.

Cheehawk Parker, World Renowned Maker of Adventure and Mischief, was from Odessa, Texas, which meant he knew a thing or two about the world that the kids of Love & War simply weren’t privy to. He knew, for example, what a carjacking was, how girls got pregnant, and how to trick a gas station attendant into selling cigarettes to a minor. Whenever Cheehawk came to visit, Love & War got a little bit more interesting.

Of course, Cheehawk knew this about himself. Which made him kind of a pain in the ass.

He was also two or three years older than Marco and Alejandro, which, when coupled with his Big City bravado and acumen, made him a force to be reckoned with.

“Is that him, coming up the street?” Marco pointed toward the oncoming apparition.

Alejandro folded his arms across his chest and nodded. “Yup. That’s him. He’s got something with him.”

The boys watched with growing anticipation as Cheehawk marched up the street. As he drew nearer, the twins saw it was a board game he had tucked under his arm. When he was close enough, he raised his free arm in greeting, and the boys returned the wave. Huffing a little, Cheehawk offered the twins a smile, and then spit on the ground, just missing his feet.

“Hey, you got anything to drink? It’s a long walk from Aunt Bibi’s.”

Alejandro made a face. “It’s not that long; you’re just fat. I thought you were gonna play football at your new school.” Alejandro couldn’t keep the sneer out of his voice. He played soccer, and thought it was important for boys to be active in sports. His father had said so. His real father.

“I was gonna,” Cheehawk said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “But those bastards wanted us to pay $200 for uniforms. Ma said she wasn’t gonna pay that kind of money for nothin’ less it was gold plated. I didn’t really want to play football anyway,” Cheehawk said, his tone unconvincing. “Glad you’re here, Alex; I thought you might be with your pop today.” The relief in his voice was evident, and Marco realized with a sick feeling that Cheehawk was worried he’d have to play with just him.

“He’s out of town,” Alejandro muttered. “Marco, go get Cheehawk some Kool Aid, wouldja?”

But Marco didn’t budge. “What you got?” He pointed to the game under Cheehawk’s arm.

Having forgotten his thirst, Cheehawk drew the boys into a tight huddle and lifted the game from underneath his arm. The battered cover read, “OUIJA: Mystifying Oracle. William Fuld Talking Board Set.” It depicted two sets of hands resting on a strange object.

“What’s oo-ee ha?” Marco asked, the word feeling strange and mysterious in his mouth.

“WEE JEE,” Cheehawk corrected, his eyes sparkling. “I found it in Aunt Bibi’s attic. It’s a board that lets you talk to the spirits of dead people.”

“That’s stupid,” Alejandro said, rolling his eyes. “You can’t talk to dead people, because they’re dead.”

“Do you know how to do it?” Marco asked, ignoring his brother. He was still staring at the floating hands on the cover, bewitched.

“Of course,” Cheehawk snapped, puffing out his chest. “It works best if you have a real perfect conditions. And our conditions couldn’t be more perfect.” He’d gotten that gleam in his eye, the gleam the Flores twins knew all too well: it meant Adventure.

“What conditions?” Alejandro asked.

Taking a quick survey of their surroundings to ensure their privacy, Cheehawk lowered his voice. “Do you know what today is?”

“Friday,” Marco said.

Cheehawk sucked his teeth. “No, stupid, I mean, what day it is. Why it’s special.” When neither of the boys said anything, Cheehawk licked his lips and whispered, “It’s Minerva Auckland’s birthday.”

The news didn’t get the reaction Cheehawk hoped for. “Who’s Minerva Auckland?”

Cheehawk’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Who’s Minerva Auckland? Sheez, don’t you guys know anything about your own town? Minerva Auckland is the famous witch who used to live here. You know that terrible magician who lives on the other side of town, Simon St. Laine?”

Marco snorted. “Sure, we know Simon St. Laine. He did a show at our school last year at the PTA meeting. He couldn’t guess what card Maggie was holding, even though he guessed three times, and then he just went on to another trick to try to cover it up, but everybody knew he screwed up. He’s the worst. And–”

“ANYWAY,” Cheehawk interrupted. “She’s his great great great great grandmother.” He looked pleased as punch as he made the announcement. If he was uncertain about how many greats he should have used, it didn’t show on his face.

“Well, what’s she famous for?” Alejandro asked.

At this, Cheehawk dithered a bit, but his bravado didn’t fade. “Well, Aunt Bibi wouldn’t tell me the whole story, so it probably has something to do with sex. Or politics. Or both.” Marco and Alejandro made gross-out faces. “But she did say that she was such an awful witch and did so many bad things, that some of the local people got together and burned her house to the ground with her still in it.”

Marco exclaimed, “That stinks!” at the same time Alejandro cooed, “Cooool!” Now that he had both boys’ rapt attention, Cheehawk’s expression melted into a veritable cat-ate-the-canary grin. He straightened up and slid the ouija board back under his arm. “Yeah,” he said, a fire in his eyes. “So we’re gonna take the ouija board to the cemetery and call up that dead witch. Maybe we can hear the story of her murder from her own mouth!”

Marco wasn’t so sure about that and was about to say so when he caught his brother’s expression. Alejandro was hooked; in fact, he was nearly drooling with excitement. He clapped Marco on the shoulder and squeezed, his eyes dark and narrow. “You’re not gonna chicken out, right, Marco?”

Sighing, Marco looked down at the ground. “No,” he said softly.

“He’s good,” Alejandro announced, turning his attention back to the older boy, who was practically hopping from foot to foot. “We going now? It’s about to get dark. We’re not really supposed to leave the street after dark.”

With no further ado, Cheehawk hooted, punched the air with his fist, and took off running down the street toward the cemetery. “Last one there’s a rotten egg!” he shouted over his shoulder.

The twins darted after him into the dark.