I look at myself in the school bathroom mirror and notice a small scratch running along the left lens of my glasses, thankful that no one is in here with me to witness my freak-out. Mami’s gonna be more annoyed than a lobster in a boiling pot when she sees it. She already clicks her tongue whenever I can’t find my glasses in my room. Which is usually at least once a week.
But I’d rather picture Mami’s arched eyebrow and her chin jutting out in the direction of my scratched lens than relive whatever just happened at mariachi practice. My spine shakes when I picture the scrambled sheet music and whipping violin strings.
And I absolutely don’t want to think about the effigy sitting at the bottom of my backpack. Eyeing the trash can in the corner of the bathroom, I resist the urge to dump the doll in there. I don’t want to touch it or look at it. Who knows what would happen?
I take my glasses off and set them on the side of the sink. Turning on the faucet, I splash my face with cold water. My cheeks still burn and my arm aches where the black splotch sits sunken into my skin like a bruise that never fades.
I cram my glasses back on my face and run my fingers under the water coming out of the faucet.
It’s burning hot.
The mirror above the sink fogs up, and I gasp as letters begin to appear on the glass, as if written by an invisible hand.
GOOD . . . LUCK . . . MARI
Hot bile rises in my throat. How is this happening?
I reach to wipe the mirror with my hand, but the glass turns black. A thick shadow creeps along the wall and covers the mirror. Just as I jerk my hand away from it, water explodes from the sink, drenching the mirror and erasing the writing. The shadow along the wall pulls away and moves to cover the ceiling tiles above me. I jump back and slip in a puddle, falling down.
My back crashes into the door of one of the stalls, banging it open. I try to get up, but my foot slides across the tile as my jeans get soaked. That’s when I hear the giggle.
It echoes in the bathroom, skittering off the tiles like a horde of bugs. The high-pitched whine crawls into my ears, and I shiver.
The lights above me flicker with a snap and pop.
The snicker erupts again, gliding over the puddles on the floor. The stall door next to me slams open, a sharp crack making me jump. My mouth drops open as a dark head peeks out, a bony, white-knuckled hand gripping the partition one finger at a time.
Black eyes stare at me, and thin lips stretch in a smirk.
As my shoes slip in the water, I push my feet across the floor, trying to move away from the creature coming out of the stall. I shove myself back until I hit the far wall of the bathroom.
A girl in a sopping-wet blue dress laughs, but her face is stone, glaring at me as water drips down her gray skin. The black mark on my arm pulses, a thousand needles pricking my skin.
Swallowing hard, I clench my fists and stammer, “What . . . who are you?”
The girl’s charcoal eyes dart to my arm and then to my bag sitting on the edge of the sink. “What? No ‘thank you’?” she says, her voice falling flat in the usually echoing bathroom as she stares me down.
I avert my eyes from her gaze, her black eyes narrowing at me. Staring at the ceiling, I spot a shadow creeping around the bathroom lights and slithering down to the sink. A squelching sound comes from the faucet, and a fat, dark green lizard squirms out of the spout and crawls across the edge of the sink toward my backpack and violin case. The pipes in the bathroom gurgle and whine as two more slimy lizards squish their way out of the faucet.
I wrap my arms around my legs and shake my head, wondering if any of this is real. The shadow pushes the lizards toward my backpack, but before I can react, the puddle next to me erupts in a wave, its invisible, watery hand shoving the lizards onto the floor, across the tile, and up into a toilet. The shadow retreats again, resting on the wall above the stall, pulsing and waiting.
The girl smirks, her thin, dark lips stretching. “Nice try, but you can’t beat me.”
“I—I wasn’t trying to,” I stammer, my voice catching in my throat.
Rolling her black eyes, the girl waves a dismissive hand toward the shadow on the wall. “Not you. Him.”
The shadow snakes across the ceiling above me and down the wall toward the sink where my backpack sits, creeping closer and closer. The girl takes her foot and dips it into the puddle on the floor. The water swirls, growing higher and higher in a column. I blink as seaweed and small fish appear. The girl wiggles her fingers, and the water slams into the sink next to my backpack.
A shriek rips through the bathroom, and for just a moment I spot the outline of a person on the wall before the shadow completely vanishes.
The girl brushes her hands together and rolls her shoulders. “Well, now that he’s gone and we’re alone, I can tell you: you’re a complete mess.”
My heartbeat in my throat threatens to choke me, but I manage to blurt out, “What’s happening? Did . . . did you write that message on the mirror?”
The girl hops up onto the sink, her feet swinging back and forth. Her thin eyebrow arches, and I think of Abuelita’s expression when I forget to do the dishes or leave the chicken out to thaw. “Oh, no. That’s a bigger problem you’ll have to deal with. And of course, you don’t know who I am. They never talk about the ones they left behind.” Her eyes dart across my face. “I’m Andaluz,” she says, waiting for me to recognize her.
I suck in a breath. “But you’re . . .”
“Dead?” Andaluz twists toward the mirror above the sink, taking in her gray skin and stringy black hair dripping with water. “Obviously.” She looks me up and down again and smirks.
I pull myself up from the floor and wrap my arms around my waist, shivering from my wet clothes.
“Like I said, you’ve really done it now. But at least you have the gift. That should help.” Andaluz stares at my arm and hops down from the sink. “Not that it ever helped me.”
I edge closer to my violin case next to my backpack, not wanting Andaluz to get near my instrument. Even though it completely sabotaged me today, it’s still my prized possession.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, my throat scratching. I yank up the sleeve of my hoodie, revealing the black stain on my skin. “Are you the one who’s behind this?”
Andaluz’s gaze darts from my arm to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her mouth sags and her shoulders droop. Reaching up to her wet hair, she winds a thin finger around a black strand, a snake coiling around her bony knuckle.
“Oh, that’s not me. That’s one hundred percent him.” She shrugs. “You know, I thought the gift ended when our family came here. That we abandoned our magic in Cuba.”
“What gift? What magic?” I say, inching closer to my violin. “You’re not making any sense. I don’t know who the he you keep talking about is! Is he why my day went so badly? Is he why I keep hearing water everywhere?”
Unwinding her finger from her hair, Andaluz waves her hand dismissively as her lip curls in a snarl. “Of course not. The water was obviously me. But the rest . . .” She shrugs. “It’s all your fault, you know.”
“What are you talking about?!” I ask.
“If I were you, I would be more respectful to the person who’s explaining exactly what you’ve done to yourself, especially when she’s here against her will.” Andaluz takes a step toward me and leans over, bringing her face inches from mine. I’m overcome by the smell of seawater, an acidic saltiness making my eyes water. “You are cursed,” she says.
She raises a finger and points to my violin, but I take a quick step forward and snatch the case off the sink, knocking my backpack to the floor in the process. My diary tumbles out and lands on the wet floor. Water slowly seeps into the pages. The puddles on the floor turn to black ink.
“Oh, you’re going to come to regret that,” Andaluz says as she watches the ink crawl up her legs, wrapping around her pale skin and seeping into her dress.
I take a step back and pick up the diary. The page where I recorded what Papi said about Andaluz is completely wet, the writing vanished from the soaked paper.
“Remember this, Mari: be careful who you call on from our family tree. We’re not all fresh fruit.” Andaluz staggers toward me as the black water travels up her torso and curls around her neck. “Some of us are rotten.”
I stumble back and slip on the floor again. She’s completely covered in murky liquid, and her body fades, the bathroom stall visible behind her as she slowly disappears.
Before I can say anything, she’s gone. I’m left alone in the wet bathroom. The faucet still drips, sounding less like a ticking clock and more like a time bomb.