Rogelia's House of Magic (3 page)

Three

T
he night after Fern and Marina bought
Magik for Teens,
the full moon sent bluish light over the pool in the backyard of Marina’s house. Fern admired the long, mysterious shadows the moonlight created and thought it was an ideal time to cast their first spell. Fern’s parents were throwing another party at their house. Their Colombian parties were likely to last until the sun rose, and her mom and dad did not want her to attend. They seemed to have the idea that Fern might try some of the sangría, because she usually did. So Fern was spending the night at Marina’s house.

Marina and Fern sat on the floor of Marina’s bedroom, hunched over the spell book. Fern had studied it all day and had become completely enraptured by the connection magic had with nature. As a self-proclaimed environmentalist, this was a definite plus, in her opinion. Each of the four directions—north, south, east, and west—was associated with a color and an element, such as fire or air. Who knew?

The book said magic was strongest when you practiced the spell or ritual in a sacred space by honoring the four directions. Fern insisted they scour Marina’s house for materials to represent the directions and their elements. They found long multicolored birthday candles and some Play-Doh, last used by Marina’s five-year-old sister Samantha. They plastered the Play-Doh to the candles’ bottoms to create bases for the candles to stand straight. Fern set the four multicolored candles within a circle of popcorn kernels, since corn is considered sacred.

The ceremonial circle contrasted with Marina’s professionally decorated room, which featured a white four-poster bed, cotton-candy pink walls, nasty olive green and pink wall-paper, and heavy forest green curtains that were peppered with tiny pink flowers and tied back with ivory lace. Marina’s mother did not let her daughter put so much as a tiny picture on her walls.

Fern was extremely grateful that her mother wasn’t so strict. Fern had plastered a Colombian flag to her bedroom wall and painted a mural of a waterfall, a rain forest canopy, flowers of every color, and tons of animals, inspired by her recent trip to Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, where she had met all of her father’s five siblings: Uncle Jacinto, the priest, whose vocation made her paternal grandmother Fuego happy beyond words; the twin bachelors, Mateo and Mario; Carlos, the barista; and her impetuous, sometimes secretive aunt Ibis.

“I don’t know how you can stand sleeping in here,” Fern said, bewildered. “It’s like a hotel room.”

“I know, it sucks,” Marina agreed. “But what am I supposed to do? The last time I pinned up a poster of Orlando Bloom, my mom ripped it down. ’Member?”

“Legolas or Will Turner,” Fern sighed dreamily. “I’d take him with or without the ears.”

“You’re boy-crazed,” Marina joked.

“And proud of it,” Fern laughed.

In addition to being an environmentalist, Fern was a romantic. She believed in passionate Romeo-and-Juliet affairs, in which nothing ever came between two people’s love for each other. So far she hadn’t found anyone worthy of her total devotion, so she contented herself with tons of fantasy crushes on hot celebrities. She was a free spirit, which to her mattered more than being stuck to someone boring or dull.

Fern returned her attention to their candles and smiled. “Okay, let’s get this started.”

“Are you sure this is safe?” Marina said warily. “My mom will kill me if I get wax on anything.”

“Relax, girl. I’m a natural at this.”

“Just don’t burn the house down, all right?”

“Where is your faith?” Fern asked. “Oh yeah, I forgot. You’re a heathen.”

Marina rolled her eyes and pouted. “Whatever.”

Fern struck the match and the smell of sulfur filled the room. She held the flaming match to the wick of the yellow candle, which stood closest to the window and the moon’s ascent into the eastern sky. She ignited a red candle in the south, a blue candle in the west, and a green candle on the northern point. She shook the match, extinguishing the flame, which had come close to her fingertips.

She struck another match and watched the flame dance with deep appreciation before she held it to an incense stick propped in a ceramic fairy incense holder. Smoke swirled in spirals, emanating the deep, earthy scent of sandalwood.

“There are seventy-five spells here. How are we supposed to choose?” Marina said in a hesitant voice.

“You worry too much.” Fern ran her fingers along the flowery images in the book. “Something will come to us,” she said confidently. The grandfather clock down the hall rang out ten times.

“Be quiet,” Marina whispered. “I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

Fern tore her eyes from the book and stared at the closed bedroom door to be sure it was shut. The back of the door was covered with a Nickelback poster, a couple of collages on eight-by-ten-inch poster paper, first-place soccer merit awards, academic certificates, and to-do lists—the only mark of personal expression in Marina’s bedroom, with the exception of her Roxy sweatshirts, designer jeans, and an assortment of Abercrombie T-shirts littering the floor.

Fern looked out the window. The moonlight glowed tenderly on her face. She watched the clouds and the trees swaying softly. “Did you know today, Monday, is named for the moon, like moonday?”

“I had no idea,” Marina said.

“We’re getting close to the summer solstice.”

“What’s that?” Marina asked. She plucked the pencil from Fern’s reddish brown mane and used the eraser to flip through the book.

“First day of summer is the longest day of the year. It’s June twenty-first this year,” Fern answered.

Marina pointed to the book with the pencil, her multicolored, iridescent bangle bracelets clinking together. “The book says to cast spells of self-empowerment for this day.”

“Great, so let’s cast a spell for a magical power!” Fern clapped her hands in glee.

“I don’t know.” Marina twisted a strand of her silken brown hair around her forefinger. A sure sign of anxiety.

“Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?” Fern consulted the book, scanning it for instructions. “Look, we’ll make a god’s eye. All we need is yarn, glue, scissors, and Popsicle sticks. How can anything go wrong when we’re following the rules?”

“Well, okay. My mom should have all that in Samantha’s craft drawer,” Marina agreed.

“Good, and we’ll get some snacks while we’re at it,” Fern said. Whatever Marina might say negatively about her mother, she usually kept the pantry chock-full of food. Fern hopped up to her knees and pulled up the sleeves of her over-shirt, which featured an Alphonse Mucha–style girl holding a sign that read
PEACE, LOVE, AND ROCK’N’ ROLL
. She placed her hands palms down about a foot over the candles.

“What are you doing?” Marina asked.

“Making sure the fire doesn’t spread while we’re gone.” Fern shook her flamelike hair. “As a fire sign, if there’s one thing I can do, it’s talk to fire elementals.”

Fern held her hands over the fire. She flicked her fingers through the flame to see if she coud stand the heat, then held her hands steady. Fern tried to concentrate on telling the fire to keep confined while they scoped out the goods in the kitchen. She didn’t really know what she was doing, but she liked the danger of it. The heat sent uncomfortable prickles racing across her palms. Part of her wanted to stop, but something made her keep her hands exactly where they were. That fire was really getting hot, though.

“Okay, Fern, that’s enough,” Marina said testily.

Fern smiled slyly and lowered her hands closer to the candles. She poked and prodded the flames once again, mostly for the effect, and because it hurt less than holding her hands still over the fire.

“Knock it off,” Marina demanded.

“It’s a test of strength to see if I can get the fire to do what I want,” Fern replied calmly. “I saw a couple of guys from the neighborhood, Ruben Gomez and Salvadore Ramirez, trying it last night. Well, until Mrs. Ramirez caught them. It’s kinda fun. Wanna try it?”

Marina snatched Fern’s hands from the fire. “No thanks, Miss Pyro.”

Fern shrugged and jumped to her feet. Her hands hurt a little, but she didn’t want Marina to know. Actually, she ached to rub her hands on her skirt, but it was the cutest vintage 1960s number she got on a trip to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, and she didn’t want to smudge soot on it.

Marina bent over and blew out the candles.

“Why did you do that?” Fern asked.

“They’re only birthday candles,” Marina said impatiently, flipping back her hair. “They’ll burn down before we get to the kitchen.”

“Oh yeah. Oh well, come on, let’s eat.” Fern marched out the door and almost collided with a small, dark-skinned woman. “I’m sorry.”

“No problema,”
the woman said with a smile. She carried two steaming mugs and wore a housedress with a blue shawl draped over her shoulders. A single gray braid fell to the small of her back. Her deep-set brownish black eyes crinkled into slants when she smiled. Except for the laugh lines, her face was like smooth, tanned leather.

The woman reminded Fern of her aunt Ibis. In whispers of mixed disdain and awe, Fern’s family had told her that Ibis was a seer and that she cured people in the ice-capped mountains where she lived. Now that Fern thought about it, Ibis wore a necklace of bright turquoise and emerald with a charm of the Virgin Mary very similar to the one this woman was wearing.

“Fern, this is our new maid, Rogelia.” Marina quickly stepped into the hall and closed her bedroom door behind her. Rogelia peeked over Marina’s shoulder and looked back at Fern with an inscrutable expression. Marina took a deep breath as she cautiously said, “Rogelia, this me amiguh, Fernanda.”

“Fern,” Fern corrected her with a warm smile. She could have corrected Marina’s butchered Spanglish but let it pass. Inwardly, Fern giggled. Rogelia might be small, and as the maid, she had no authority to demand that Marina and Fern go back to bed, but she had a self-assured, commanding quality about her. She wasn’t mousy like some of the maids who had worked for the Peraltas before. And Marina was so obviously in awe of Rogelia and wanted to get off on the right foot with her. Fern decided to play along.
“Mucho gusto, Doña Rogelia. Espero que usted goce su permanece aquí.”

Besides, Fern loved the soft rolling sounds of the Spanish language, the first language she had learned. It had more descriptive words for her feelings. It was satisfying to speak Spanish with someone in Marina’s house for once.

“Gracias.”
Rogelia smiled and nodded to both girls before heading off to her bedroom in the garage.

“What did you say to her?” Marina asked curiously.

“I told her that it was nice to meet her and I hope she enjoys it here,” Fern answered. It kind of annoyed Fern how much Marina’s family bragged about the Spanish side of being Mexican, but they didn’t speak the language. She couldn’t get over how the Peraltas rejected their culture. Fern was glad she still had family in Colombia; they were proud of their nationality, and so was she. “Why don’t you learn Spanish already?”

Marina gave Fern a steely glare. Then she raised her eyebrows in haughty disdain and with a toss of her golden-brown hair headed down the hallway, past the bedrooms where her sisters, Monica and Samantha, slept, to the kitchen. “You know perfectly well I took one year of Spanish.”

“Then you quit,” Fern reminded her.

“Yeah, well, Mr. Sandoval smoked.” Marina flicked her hand backward like she was batting away a fly. “He smelled disgusting.” She turned on the kitchen light.

Tiles imported from Portugal lay in intricate patterns on the walls of the kitchen, china and crystal gleamed inside polished teak cabinetry with designer cutouts, and an ornate glass lamp hung above the large butcher-block island. Fern almost laughed each time she saw another example of professional decorating in the Peralta house. It was as if having a polished look straight out of
Martha Stewart Living
magazine meant you were a person of value. It was surreal in an emotionless, mechanical sort of way.

Fern’s home was a chaotic celebration of life. Plants grew wildly everywhere. Each room was painted a different color and splattered with pictures or artifacts of the places they had visited. Fern lived with her older sister, Pilar, when their parents traveled. Sometimes they took her with them. Fern had been to Spain, the mother country; Colombia (of course); Mexico, because it’s a neighboring Latin country; and Greece, due to her mother’s obsession with Greek mythology. Fern loved to travel and considered it quite the bonus to speak two languages.

“So you quit Spanish because the teacher smoked?” Fern asked as she looked around at the spotless stainless-steel appliances, without a single smudge. Not a dish lay out on the counter, not a thing was out of place.

Marina turned on her heel, coming almost nose to nose with Fern, who backed away. “Well, the truth is, I didn’t like having to ask questions with everybody else,” she said. “My mom or Grandpy should’ve taught me Spanish at home.”

“You need to get over that someday.” Fern put her hand on Marina’s shoulder.

“It was embarrassing.” Marina turned away. She bent down to a drawer and pulled out a few spools of yarn, scissors, a fistful of Popsicle sticks, and glue. “I mean, obviously I can get by without speaking Spanish, but still, it wouldn’t suck to be able to tell the gardener I need a little space when I’m lying out at the pool.”

Fern thought she should bop Marina for her arrogance, but she decided to drop it for now. “Why don’t you let me teach you?”

Marina paused for a fraction of a second. However, when she spoke there was an edge to her voice, “You know, I don’t even get how to conjugate verbs. And what makes a noun male or female?” Marina yanked open the fridge and grabbed a bowl of orange slices, which she handed to Fern. “And what’s up with the
usted
? Why should there be a whole verb family for your elders?”

Marina strode across the kitchen and flipped on the pantry light. The shelves were lined with food. She grabbed caramel popcorn with macadamia nuts (Fern’s and her favorite snack) and two cans of Hansen’s cherry vanilla creme soda. “I don’t see why I have to show respect to someone like my mom if she doesn’t respect me.”