After school, I trudge up the steps to my house, the beginnings of a headache creeping across my scalp and sinking into my tangled hair. I don’t know how long I can take school days like the one I just had. Thick pill bugs squirmed out of my chicken sandwich at lunch, every pencil I used turned into a biting stick bug, and I choked on a cloud of mosquitoes that seemed to attack only me during P.E.
Abuelito’s seat on the porch is empty. He plays dominoes in the town park most afternoons, but as I pass his chair, I notice three fat spiders with hairy legs crawling up the back. I run through the door and plop down on the couch in the living room, glad that Liset won’t be home from school for a while. The house is quiet, with Mami and Papi still teaching and Abuelita out buying groceries, sewing supplies, or bathtub-size jars of Vivaporu.
I head to my bedroom and reach under the pillow on my bed, grabbing the effigy Abuelita sewed. I trace my fingers along the threads that hold the seams together. They’re stretched tight across the fabric, as if the doll has been inflated with more stuffing than before, but I know that’s not possible. The black splotch on the chest is still the same size, the moldy hue covering the flowers like a disease.
I pull out my phone and drop a message into the Super Ojos group chat.
I think I know how to fix everything and get rid of the bad luck. I’m going to burn the effigy like I should’ve all along.
Juan Carlos texts back a GIF of out-of-control fireworks setting a backyard on fire.
Keisha doesn’t respond. I hope she hasn’t blocked me. I hope I can get rid of the curse before she’s completely fed up with me.
Maybe burning the effigy will make all this bad luck stop for me and Keisha. I don’t even care if Mykenzye is already home and staring out the window. It’ll be worth it.
Walking to the kitchen, I grab a box of matches from a drawer. The effigy squirms in my hand as I go out to the backyard and stand over the firepit.
I hold the doll in front of me and say, “Okay, Abuelitos. I guess your Peak Cubanity is true. So here’s all the bad luck. There’s got to be a ton.”
I scan around the yard and look over to Mocosa Mykenzye’s house. Her window is empty. I’m all alone.
Except for the mango tree in the corner of the grass. A thick black snake is wrapped around its trunk, slithering farther up the tree in a tight coil. I push my glasses along the bridge of my nose and squint. The snake doesn’t look like any I’ve ever seen before in Texas.
But I’ve got bigger problems than an escaped animal from Port Ballí Wildlife Center.
Setting the doll in the pit, I draw a match and light it. The head of the match burns bright, but as I hold it close to the firepit, an unusually warm breeze kicks up and blows out the flame.
Groaning, I toss the useless match into the firepit, pull another match from the box, and light it. Kneeling closer to the effigy, I throw the match directly on top of it and watch as the flame dances, slightly licking the fabric of the doll.
Soon this will all be over. The flames will eat up the doll, getting rid of my bad luck along with Keisha’s. If I can manage to do all this without my family finding out that I set a fire by myself when they weren’t home, I’ll be free.
But the flame goes out. It disappears from the effigy without even blackening the fabric.
“Oh, come on,” I mutter under my breath.
Before I can light another match, I hear a violin playing. Slow and soft at first, but then speeding up. I look up at Mocosa Mykenzye’s window, but it’s closed.
The music swirls around me in the breeze, and I glance at the black snake on the mango tree. It stops slithering up the trunk and coils tighter around the bark, flicking its tongue in and out. Hot pressure rises on the mark under my sleeve.
I light another match, and then another and another, each time their flames blowing out in the breeze that seems to rustle only the avocado trees in our backyard but not the persimmon trees in Mykenzye’s yard.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say, stomping my foot on the ground.
I yank the effigy from the firepit and hold it under my arm. Lighting the final match from the box, I shove the flame directly under the foot of the doll.
A hot breeze tickles the back of my neck and makes my skin crawl as a shiver dances down my spine. The flame on the match head extinguishes in a trail of light gray smoke that curls up into the air.
A voice sits on my shoulder, a low growl whispering in my ear, Not yet.
My head whips around the yard, searching for the source of the voice as my heart beats in my ears. The mark on my skin burns, as if I’d held my last match to it, and I drop the effigy. Cradling my arm to my chest, I breathe hard.
A growl fills the yard, and I fall to the ground as I see a man walk out from behind a mango tree. His eyes are narrowed and dark, his fists clenched at his sides.
“Get out of here,” he hisses, staring at something over my shoulder.
The music speeds up, a violin playing at a frantic pace. It’s so loud, I wince and cover my ears.
The man storms toward me, and I stumble back onto the grass, my fingers digging into the dirt. I think of the person whose shadow flashed on the bathroom wall as Andaluz fought him, and my breath catches in my throat.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I mumble. “I didn’t mean to do anything.”
He stops in front of me and crouches down. His eyes scan my face. I hold my breath.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Wh . . . what?” I stammer. I realize that his voice sounds different from the first one I heard. It’s softer.
“Did he hurt you? Are you all right?”
I shake my arm as the burning feeling disappears. “I think I’m okay. Maybe.”
Looking at the man’s face, I see the same long, thin nose that Abuelito has. Golden brown eyes just like Papi’s stare at me. He flips dark hair off his forehead, straighter than mine but the same color.
“Who are you?” I ask.
The man smiles, and my heartbeat fades from pounding in my ears.
“Baldomero Feijoo. My brother called me Pipo.”
I blink, taking a moment to believe what he just said. And then I remember. Inching away from him, I ask, “So you’re a ghost too?”
The smile on Pipo’s face grows. “Too? Oh, that’s right. You met Andaluz.”
I nod, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs. I stare at the bright yellow paint on Mykenzye’s house, more faded on the south side from being beaten by sun and sand. I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with Pipo.
Pipo sits down next to me on the grass and crosses his legs. I glance at the worn khaki-colored button-down shirt and dark brown pants he’s wearing. He shakes his head. “Don’t worry. I’m not like her. She’s . . . hurt. But she won’t show up unless you call on her again.”
“But I didn’t call on her. She just appeared in the school bathroom. Crawled right out of a stall sopping wet, like from a horror movie. And not one of the good ones.”
Pipo raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I didn’t summon some dead cousin to make me pee my pants.”
I look at Pipo and bite my lip, the realization of who I’m talking to hitting me. My stomach rumbles, and I wrap my arms tighter around my knees. I lean forward, breathing deep.
“You have a gift, Mari. Just like Andaluz and just like me.”
I take another deep breath. “That’s what Andaluz said. What the frijoles are you talking about?”
Pipo chuckles. “Well, think about it. Did you do something before Andaluz showed up in the bathroom? Something that you also did before I showed up?”
I think for a moment. “I wrote about both of you in the diary Abuelita gave me for New Year’s. Is that it?”
Pipo smiles. “What did you write about me?”
I loosen the grip on my legs and relax a little. “You . . . you were my abuelito’s brother. You fought in the Bay of Pigs, but you were captured. And Castro’s soldiers killed you in prison.”
Pipo bites his lip. “Is that all they told you about me?” he asks, his voice floating in the yard. A flock of pelicans fly overhead, sailing on the gulf breeze.
I nod. I don’t know how to tell him that up until yesterday, I didn’t even know he existed.
“I wasn’t just a soldier, you know. I played the violin, like you. I had a dog named Caramelo. I was going to ask Eugenia Vargas to marry me. You should write that down too.”
Taking a deep breath, I run my fingers through my ponytail. “So let’s say I did write that other stuff about you in the diary. What would that mean? You’d keep showing up?”
Pipo points a finger at me and clicks his tongue. “That’s it. The Feijoos on your Abuelito’s side and the Crespos on your Abuelita’s side have been able to call on the dead for generations. It was a fantastic stroke of luck, maybe even fate, that brought two magical families together when your abuelitos married. We’ve all been able to summon our ancestors in different ways. You can apparently do it by writing things down. I did it playing the violin.”
I bite my lip and grunt. “That’s not fair. I should be able to do it with my violin too. My handwriting is the worst.”
Pipo laughs, and his voice carries through the backyard. “Your abuelito didn’t always like my playing. He used to stomp through our house covering his ears and sticking his tongue out at me.”
I try to picture my abuelito as a little boy younger than me, and I can’t do it. We don’t have any pictures of him from when he was in Cuba. “Well, music is like his favorite thing ever now. Right behind Abuelita’s arroz con leche.”
Pipo smiles. “But you’re the first in the family to have the gift since we left the island. That makes you pretty special.”
I groan. “We’re gonna have to disagree on that.”
The mark on my arm itches, and I scratch it without thinking. Pipo watches me with narrowed eyes.
I slowly raise the sleeve of my Houston Aeros hoodie and hold out my arm to him. “So does this have anything to do with my special power?”
Pipo shakes his head, and his gaze grows serious. “I’m afraid that’s something else entirely. Something we’ll have to figure out.”
I pull on the hem of my hoodie. “Is this curse—and all the bad luck Keisha and I have—really because I didn’t burn the effigy Abuelita made?”
Pipo pulls a long blade of grass from the lawn and holds it between his fingers. “I think it might be. We burned effigies in Cuba, too. Your abuelito would always draw a monster face on his. Every year. Our parents told us the effigies absorb all the bad luck and sadness we’d had over the past year. When we burn them on New Year’s Eve, a luck eater consumes them. That’s how he gets his food.”
I think about what Pipo is saying. Burning effigies isn’t just a Peak Cubanity tradition. It’s something that reminds my abuelitos of home.
“But what’s a luck eater?” I ask.
Flicking the blade of grass in the air, Pipo shrugs. “They’re the ones that eat up all the bad luck. When you didn’t burn your effigy, you starved him. Or her, I guess. Maybe this one wants to make you as miserable as possible for it.”
I put my head in my hands. The headache that was crawling across my scalp has sunk in and squeezed my brain. I don’t know if I want to laugh, scream, or cry. I might do all three.
“I think it’s a him,” I mutter. “That’s how Andaluz talked about the Luck Eater when she fought him off. And the voice I heard before you showed up didn’t sound like yours. It sounded like a him, too. A horrible, terrible him.”
“We’ll figure it out, Mari. Trust me,” Pipo says.
But when I look up, he’s fading away. Before I can say anything, he disappears, vanishing from the backyard as the sea breeze picks up.
I’m left staring at the snake, still wrapped around the mango tree, its blackened gaze never leaving the effigy cradled in my arms.