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“And, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was devastatingly handsome and utterly charming. I’d think I was the luckiest girl in the world to have a boy like that notice me. But since I do know better, he just gives me the creeps.”
“Good.” She nods. “No matter what happens, you must never forget that.”
I gaze down at my hands. Pick at a loose string on my blanket. “I met Dace too, and he’s just like he is in the dreams. And every time I try to get an impression of him…”
Paloma returns to the bed, where she sits at the foot.
“Well, the impression is always … good. It’s the opposite of Cade, and I need to know more about him. We have a class together, so there’s no way to avoid him, though I’m not sure how to handle him.”
She nods, folds her hands in her lap, eyes flashing when she says, “Dace is not your enemy.” She pauses, allowing the words to sink in. “The reason I warned you about Cade and not Dace is because Cade is the one you must watch. Don’t ever forget that, nieta. And never confuse the two, no matter what.” She rubs her hands over her dress, fidgets with the hem, then after rising from the bed, she heads for the dresser, where she stands before Django’s picture and says, “I didn’t tell you earlier because…”
I clutch my pillow and wait—wait for something to happen, for some big revelation. But for a while anyway, all I get is a view of her back.
“They’re only identical on the surface.” She sighs, the sound heavy and deep, belying some hidden meaning she’s not sure she’ll reveal. “They were raised separately, didn’t meet until their first year of high school. Cade grew up with his father, Leandro—while Dace was raised by his mother, Chepi. They’ve had very different upbringings, which makes for very different views of the world.”
“Why were they raised separately? Why didn’t they at least know about each other? This town is so tiny—how’s that even possible?” I ask, knowing she’s hiding something, though I can’t imagine why, much less what.
She clasps and unclasps her hands, debating whether or not to tell me, then she takes a deep breath and says, “Dace grew up on the reservation—he and Chepi rarely left—while Cade lived in town. His father’s family, the Richters, are quite wealthy, they own most of the businesses here and run all the public services, not to mention his father’s been mayor for many, many years. Chepi had nothing to do with their world. When she found herself pregnant with the twins, she was the beautiful young daughter of a well-respected medicine man named Jolon—a truly revered, much-sought-after healer, who was said to work miracles and have a direct link to the divine.”
“So, let me get this straight.” I look at her. “Chepi, the good girl, decides to hook up wit
h Leandro, the bad boy—trouble ensues—she gets knocked up—the news devastates her father who held such high hopes for her…” I frown, trying not to judge, but it sounds like the Django and Jennika story. Except Jennika was never what you’d call good, and Django wasn’t all that bad; still, the stories aren’t without their similarities.
But before I can finish, Paloma’s already shaking her head, saying, “No, nieta, it’s not nearly as simple as that. You see, Chepi was very young, very innocent, and very devoted to Jolon. She never would’ve gone off with Leandro on her own. She was studying as Jolon’s apprentice, and many say she showed great promise. Everyone assumed she’d succeed him someday—but Leandro interfered, making sure to derail all their plans.” She looks at me, gaze clouded with memory. “Leandro is very much the opposite of Jolon. He’s a dangerous sorcerer who hails from a long line of them. The Santoses have been battling the Richters for years … centuries really, and not always here. While we made very good progress for a very long time, while we were able to subdue them and keep them in line, in more recent years, with the arrival of Leandro, things have changed for the worse. They’re no longer happy with just amassing their fortune—their ambitions extend far beyond that. They’re changing this town. It wasn’t always so depressed, like it is now. It used to be a good match for its name—if you can imagine such a thing. But over the past few decades it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep them contained. They’ve messed with so many minds—the townspeople feel alternately awed by them and indebted to them. And without Django’s help, I’m afraid I’m no match for them on my own, their ranks are too strong.” She takes a deep breath—runs both hands over the lap of her dress. “Anyway, Leandro was determined to use Chepi for his own sordid purposes, and so, on the night of Día de los Muertos, he set out to find her, and from that moment on, life as she knew it was over.”
Reading my look of confusion, she says, “The Day of the Dead, nieta. It’s a ritual that’s been celebrated for thousands of years, traced all the way back to the Aztecs. It’s a time when the veil between the living and dead is lifted, as well as a time to honor all those who’ve passed. Here in Enchantment, we celebrate it in place of Halloween, and the whole town takes part. People don masks resembling skulls—they head to cemeteries where they decorate the graves with marigolds, beads, and old photos. And they remain by those graves throughout the night—dancing, drinking, turning the dirt, and communing with their deceased loved ones. Though lately, over the last several years, many have abandoned the graveyards in favor of the Rabbit Hole, which, as you know, the Richters own.”
I stare at her wide-eyed, urging her to continue. It’s the first I’ve ever heard of it, and I’m fascinated by the idea.
“There was a time when death wasn’t viewed so much as the end of life but rather a continuation of life. It was life that was regarded as a brief fleeting dream, while death allowed one to truly wake up. The Bone Keeper presides over the festival. She rules the lowest level of the Lowerworld where she keeps watch over the bones. They say she has a skull for a face, wears a skirt made of serpents, and her mouth is extra wide in order to feed off the stars during the day. And yet, despite my numerous journeys to the Lowerworld, I have yet to run into her. But maybe you will, nieta, who knows?”
“A skull face, a snake skirt, and a steady diet of stars?” I shake my head and balk. “No thanks, I’d prefer to avoid her if it’s okay with you.”
“You don’t always get the journey you want, nieta. Though you always get the journey you need,” she says—yet another sage statement in a collection of many.
“You paraphrasing Mick Jagger now?” I laugh. It feels good to laugh, lessens the creepiness of her story.
Paloma grins, but it’s not long before she tucks a leg underneath her and says, “Now, back to Chepi—while she had no interest in Leandro, no interest in hooking up with bad boys as you put it,” she winks at me, “she was no match for Leandro, whose proficiency in the black arts is unrivaled. The Richters have misused the power of the Day of the Dead for centuries. They don’t so much honor and commune with their relatives as resurrect them.”
I lean toward her, chin tucked to my knees, eyes practically popped from their sockets.
“Oh, not for long, nieta, and not physically. They’re not necromancers, or at least not yet, anyway. It’s more like they call upon the energy of the dead and infuse themselves with the dark power of their lineage—an effect that lasts a few days at best. But, as it turns out, on that day, it proved enough. And that, coupled with Leandro’s ability to alter perception, is what made it so easy for him to seduce Chepi. He knew about the powerful magick that flowed through her bloodline, and he was desperate to harness it and merge it with his. The Richters’ power was beginning to falter. While they’ve never had access to the Upperworld, on the occasions they’ve managed to breach the Lowerworld, they were quick to corrupt it along with the spirit animals, which caused chaos to reign here in the Middleworld, leaving people unprotected, easily misled—becoming both victims and supporters of insane, corrupt leaders. The rise of Atilla the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Stalin, Robespierre, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Hitler…” She looks in my direction, but her gaze remains far away. “It can all be traced to the Richters’ dark influence in the Lowerworld, and it took great sacrifice on behalf of Seekers and shamans everywhere to evict them. The Lowerworld, just like the Upperworld, is populated by loving, compassionate beings that guide us and aid us without our even realizing. We are dependent on their well-being and wisdom in more ways than we know. It’s only the Middleworld that contains beings that both help us and harm us.”
It’s not until she pauses that I realize I’ve been holding my breath, doing my best to take it all in and try to make sense of it.
“And so, desperate to beef up their ranks, Leandro purposely set out to father a son whose blood would run thick with the magick of both sides, hoping that would enable him to infiltrate the other worlds so long denied him. Chepi didn’t stand a chance—he kept her captive for the entire ceremony—and when she awoke, she was nude, battered, and her body was covered in black-magick symbols.”
I’m speechless, haunted by the images that flare in my head. Remembering the night I met Leandro in the office at the Rabbit Hole, the creepy impression I got when he caught my hand in his.
“Leandro wasn’t looking for just any son, he wanted a son with a soul even darker than his own. Knowing the soul contains equal parts light and dark—that a person’s life story and the sort of nurturing they receive often determines which side emerges as the dominant one—he set out to dissect the child’s soul right from the start. He called upon his long-deceased ancestors to aid him, worked terrible magick and ritual to split the soul and nurture the dark part at the expense of the good. Though, in the end, things didn’t go quite as planned. Instead of giving birth to one black-hearted son, Chepi gave birth to twins, one with a light soul and one with a dark one.”
My mind spins with the news—unable to think of one good response.
Twins.
One evil. One good.
The stuff of myth—only in this case it’s real.
