JIMENA UNLOCKED THE door to her grandmother’s small apartment. The air was warm with the spicy smells of baking chiles. She walked through the dark living room to the light in the kitchen. Her grandmother stood over the stove, making tortillas from chunks of cornmeal dough by slapping them back and forth between her hands and cooking them in a cast-iron skillet. A stack of warm tortillas sat on the counter near a line of casserole dishes.
Jimena’s abuelita looked up. Her regal face started to smile, but the smile was lost in a look of astonishment. She dropped a half-formed tortilla on the counter. “¡Parece que hubieras visto un fantasma!”
“I did see a ghost,” Jimena spoke softly. “I saw Veto.”
Jimena fell into her grandmother’s comforting arms. The old woman held her for a long time, and when she pulled away, her black eyes seemed anxious, as if there was something important she wanted to say. She wiped her hands absently with a towel and stared at the rain beating on the window over the sink.
“What?” Jimena asked and gently turned her grandmother back to face her.
“Cuando te caíste del cielo . . .” Her grandmother started, but then a look of astonishment crossed her wrinkled face.
“What?” she asked.
“Your moon amulet,” she said, reaching for it. “It’s shining.” Her grandmother touched the face of the moon, then jerked her fingers back as if she had been shocked.
Jimena looked down at the amulet hanging around her neck. It was glowing. Had the amulet been glowing before when she was with Veto? Could she have been too anxious to notice the electrical thrum her amulet made to warn her in times of danger? Maybe the apparition really had been Veto’s ghost.
Her grandmother looked across the room at the small cross hanging on the eastern wall next to the picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe. “The night you were born . . .” Again her voice drifted away as if she couldn’t find the right words to complete her sentence.
“The night I was born? ¿Qué?” Jimena asked. Always when her grandmother started to tell her about the night she was born, she stopped before telling her the whole story. “Does it have something to do with what happened tonight, with seeing Veto? Tell me!”
Her grandmother opened a drawer in the cupboards, pulled out a book of matches, and walked over to the tiny table covered with flowers, candles, and the icons of saints. Her hands trembled as she lit the candle for La Morena. She crossed herself and was silent a moment, as if she were praying to the beautiful Madonna of the Americas to give her guidance.
Finally she came back to the table and sat down. She motioned for Jimena to take the chair across from her.
Jimena did so. She felt tense with apprehension about what her grandmother was going to say.
“Maybe seeing Veto has something to do with that night,” her grandmother finally confessed. Her tiny black eyes stared at Jimena. “It never surprised me that you can see into the future, because something very strange happened the night you were born.”
“Tell me.” Jimena moved the casserole dishes aside so that she could lean closer to her grandmother.
“I never told anyone before, because I was too afraid no one would believe me.”
Jimena’s heart raced. What was the secret that her grandmother had kept all these years? She laid her hand on top of her grandmother’s cold fingers.
“Your mother and I were crossing the high desert, coming into California from Mexico so you could be born in Los Estados Unidos. We had to hide from la migra and when we did, your mother went into labor early, miles from any doctor. I was sure I was going to lose you and your mother. Venías de nalgas, a difficult birth, and then . . .”
Her grandmother paused and looked back at the picture of La Morena. The candlelight flickered across the face of the Madonna, and seeing her tranquil face seemed to give her grandmother courage.
When she continued, she spoke in a voice so low, Jimena had to pull her chair closer to hear.
“A beautiful woman, like una diosa, came from nowhere. I thought she was a saint who had come to take you and your mother back to heaven, but then I knew she was going to help us. She didn’t open her mouth, but in my mind I knew what she was saying. I could feel her words as if she were speaking. Un milagro. It was a miracle. She gave you the moon amulet that you always wear.”
Jimena looked down at the silver amulet hanging around her neck and studied the face of the moon etched in the metal. It seemed to sparkle back the kitchen light in a rainbow of shimmering colors. Her best friends Serena, Catty, and Vanessa each had one. Jimena never took hers off.
“La diosa said that as long as you wear the amulet, you’ll be protected.” Her grandmother touched the face of the moon lightly with her crooked index finger.
Jimena clasped the amulet and wondered what would happen if she ever took it off.
“So when you were a niña and you told me you feared for your best friend Miranda, I warned Miranda’s mother to be careful. I knew you had gifts. I knew you were different from other children.”
“Abuelita,” Jimena started. Did she dare tell her the truth? What would her grandmother do if she knew who Jimena really was?
“So maybe seeing Veto is part of your gift.
Maybe you can contact the departed. Los difuntos.”
She stared at her grandmother. It was easy for her grandmother to believe that the dead were always around us. Each year during Los Días de los Muertos, her grandmother made an ofrenda for her grandfather, piling it high with marigolds and her grandfather’s favorite foods.
But, Jimena wondered, if seeing the spirits of los difuntos was part of her gift, then why had she never seen her grandfather’s ghost? She loved him as much as Veto.
She looked back at her grandmother. “Do you know who the woman was? La Diosa? Did she tell you her name?”
“Yes.” Her grandmother nodded. “Diana. I asked her her name and in my mind I knew they called her Diana. I told your mother we must name you Diana, but she insisted we name you Jimena, after me.”
Jimena smiled back at her. “I’m glad she did.”
After a moment her grandmother continued, “So don’t be worried that you saw Veto. It’s all part of who you are. If we still lived in Mexico you’d be a strong curandera healing people.”
“Or a bruja.” Jimena laughed.
“Una bruja nunca.” Her grandmother shook her head. “No, your gift is for good. I know this con todo mi corazón.” She placed her hand over her heart.
Jimena wanted to tell her grandmother everything then, to let her know that she was fighting an ancient evil. Her heart beat rapidly, and she started to open her mouth to speak, but before she could, her grandmother spoke. “There, I’ve said too much already. I sound like one of those old women rambling at the bus stop to anyone who will listen.”
Her grandmother glanced at the clock and the moment was lost. “Tomorrow the señoras from the nice suburbs will come on their way home from church and buy the moles to serve for Sunday dinner. I still have too much to do.”
“I’ll help you,” Jimena offered.
“You take a warm shower and put on dry clothes first. I should have made you change your clothes before I spoke but . . .” She shrugged and changed the subject. “It’s easier when your brother is here.” Sometimes Jimena’s brother delivered the food and collected the money, but now he was in San Diego helping their uncle open a restaurant.
Jimena nodded. It was easier for her, too, when her brother was home, because he let her drive his car even though she didn’t have a driver’s license yet. She’d learned how to drive when she was twelve so she could jack cars. It surprised her even now when she thought about the risks she used to take back in her old life. She felt guilty, knowing how much the arrests had hurt her grandmother.
Her grandmother bent over and opened the oven, then took a pot holder and pulled out a tray of black and blistered chiles. She removed the tray from the oven and shook the chiles into a paper bag to steam. She handed a pair of yellow rubber gloves to Jimena. “Hurry. Take your shower, then come back and peel the chiles for me, m’ija.”
Jimena stood.
Her grandmother winked, picked up a chunk of masa and began slapping it back and forth.
“This is the last night of doing this.”
Jimena nodded. Her grandmother was going down to San Diego to help with the restaurant.
Her hands stopped. “Only if you’ll be all right alone. I’ll stay if you need me.”
“Go,” Jimena answered.
“Maybe Tuesday then.”
Jimena nodded.
“Now take a shower,” her grandmother ordered.
Jimena hurried down to the bathroom. She bathed, put on a T-shirt and sweatpants, then came back, slipped on the rubber gloves, and sat at the table. She worked to remove the skin, ribs, seeds, and core from the chiles as her grandmother made the tortillas.
The smells of the moles bubbling on the stove and the rhythm of her grandmother’s slapping relaxed her. Veto drifted back into memory and the ache and longing of missing him took its place in her heart.