Secretly, she had been afraid when Veto called her gift witchcraft, because she didn’t think she was seeing the future. She thought she was making the dark things happen. The first time she had a premonition, she had only been seven years old. She had been outside playing with her best friend Miranda when a picture of Miranda in a white casket crossed her mind. Then Miranda had touched her, asking her what was the matter, and another picture had played behind her eyes. She saw Miranda walking down Ladera Street as a car sped by. Shots blasted from the car window and Miranda fell to the ground, dead.
The premonition had terrified her. She had tried to keep it from coming true and made Miranda go a block out of her way each day when they walked home from school. But then one day Jimena had come down with the flu and had to stay home. That afternoon, she heard the gunshots, and she knew.
Jimena was scared that she had caused Miranda’s death. After all, she had seen it happen. Sometimes even now it bothered her that she could see the future, especially because she had never been able to stop any of her premonitions from coming true, no matter how bad they were.
She stepped across the street and headed toward one of the brick hotels that lined this part of Wilshire Boulevard. The hotels had been converted into apartment homes for poor people, but the whirling pink-and-blue neon lights with the old hotel names still lit the night sky.
Maggie Craven loved the old neon lighting and had told Jimena stories about going to elegant parties in the hotel ballrooms. Jimena imagined Maggie dancing with some movie star. She loved Maggie as much as she could love anyone, even her grandmother. Maggie had been the first person to explain to her that she had a gift that allowed her to see things that were going to happen in the future. She wasn’t a witch who made the bad things happen.
Now, Jimena didn’t know what she would do without Maggie. But in the beginning it had taken her almost a year to believe what Maggie had told her about her destiny. Maggie had first appeared in her dreams, urging Jimena to come see her. When Jimena had finally gone to Maggie’s apartment, she had been shocked to discover the woman in her dreams actually existed. Maybe that would have been enough to convince others that what Maggie said was true, but to Jimena, Maggie’s words sounded like madness.
“Tu es dea, filia lunae,” Maggie told her in Latin at their first meeting. “You are a goddess, a Daughter of the Moon.”
Maggie had explained that in ancient times when Pandora’s box was opened, the last thing to leave the box was hope. Only Selene, the goddess of the moon, had seen the demonic creature lurking nearby, sent by the Atrox to devour hope.
Selene took pity on humankind and gave her daughters, like guardian angels, to perpetuate hope. Jimena was one of those daughters.
Jimena had been stunned. Goddess? Did such beings exist?
Maggie also told her about the Atrox, the primal source of evil. The Atrox and its Followers had sworn to destroy the Daughters of the Moon.
“Me?” Jimena had responded.
“Yes.” Maggie had explained that once the Daughters were gone, the Atrox could bring about the ruin of humankind.
The words still overwhelmed her. How many people even believed in the mythical world? She’d heard the viejecitas tell stories of other gods who lived in the jungles of Mexico and Guatemala. The old women swore the voices of those gods could still be heard in the ruins at Tikal and Chichén Itzá. But she’d never taken their stories seriously. She didn’t think goddesses really existed and if they did they wouldn’t look like a chola with two teardrops tattooed under her right eye.
Maggie had hugged her dearly when she expressed her doubts and told Jimena that a goddess of the moon had given her many gifts and that someday she would know the truth.
Jimena wished Veto had stayed long enough so she could tell him about her destiny. He had always seen her as someone special. Her gift never frightened him the way it had scared others. Thinking about Veto now made her mind turn back to what had happened tonight. Why had he seemed so terrified? Then an uninvited thought pushed forward. Suddenly she knew his appearance had only been an illusion. Perhaps the intensity of her memory of him tonight had made her imagine him so vividly.
She turned down the walk that led up to her grandmother’s apartment building. Cement lions sat on either side of the porch steps, dripping rain. As she slipped the key into the lock a sudden dread filled her. Maybe she was sensing something about the future. Something so terrible that the only way she could deal with it was to project the fear onto Veto’s ghost.
She unlocked the door to the apartment building and hurried inside. The enormous stairs of the old hotel led up to a gloomy ballroom, now used only occasionally for community meetings. Framed photographs and yellowed newspaper clippings in the entrance behind dusty glass told of the days when the hotel had been what Maggie called a swanky place.
Jimena turned back and stared out the side window. An ominous change had come over the night. She shuddered, but it was more a deep inner chill that caused the cold now. She knew trouble was coming.
CHAPTER TWO
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 fu
ture, 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.
CHAPTER THREE
JIMENA WAITED AT a bus stop on Melrose Avenue. The late-afternoon crowd pushed around her, sipping lattes and bottled water. Kids stopped to gaze at the punk paraphernalia in the shop behind her. Others tried on the trendy sunglasses that a street vendor was selling from a blanket stretched across the sidewalk.
When she saw Serena walking toward her, swinging her cello case, Jimena waved. Serena was wearing red cowboy boots and a lacy yellow sundress.
Jimena had admired Serena since the first day Maggie had introduced them almost a year back. She would never have admitted it then because she had still been kicking it with her homegirls and putting on the máscara of a tough gangster. She had laughed when Maggie had told them they would be battling Followers together. There was no chance Jimena was going to let a wimp like Serena watch her back; that was one sure way to get killed. But Jimena had quickly changed her mind the first time they fought a group of Followers. Serena never backed down. Now Jimena trusted Serena with her life.
Serena sat on the bus bench, and brushed her dark hair away from her face. Her nose ring glistened in the late afternoon sun.
“So what are you haciendo-ing this afternoon?” Jimena asked.
“Music lesson.” Serena carefully fit her cello case between her legs. “You hear the earthquakes Saturday night?”
Jimena nodded. “All that rumbling sounded like thunder to me.”
“Me, too.” Serena pulled the cello case closer as an old woman sat down beside her. “The newspapers are calling it quake thunder.”
“Could be. I didn’t see any lightning.” Jimena thought a moment. “But I can’t believe those rumblings actually came from the ground and not the sky.”
“The seismologists at Caltech are scaring everyone the way they’re calling it an earthquak
e swarm. They’re saying it could be a prelude to the big one.” Serena pulled her student bus pass from her messenger bag.
Jimena nodded. “I don’t want to be around when the San Andreas fault breaks.”
An old woman sitting beside Serena leaned into them. “Earthquake weather,” she whispered. “Look at the sky.”
Jimena looked up at the gray cast and shook her head. “Those are just rain clouds.”
Serena looked at the fast-moving clouds. “What’s earthquake weather?”
“Just superstition,” Jimena answered. “The old ladies where I live say they can tell when there’s going to be a big earthquake because days before the sky turns gray and the air feels still and heavy on your skin.”
“It’s earthquake weather,” the woman insisted with a crooked smile.
Jimena continued, “But the same viejas say you can’t have an earthquake when it’s raining and it was definitely raining Saturday night.”
A bus pulled up to the curb and the woman hobbled onboard.
“Where were you yesterday, anyway?” Serena changed the subject. “I tried to call you to make sure you got home okay but no one answered the phone.” Serena didn’t need to say she had been worried. Jimena could see it from the look in her eyes. Serena glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “I thought maybe the Followers had caught up to you.”
They had gone over to Hollywood Saturday night and run into Cassandra and a pack of Hollywood Followers.
Serena continued. “Then you weren’t at school.”
“I was at school. I just got there late. I had to help my grandmother with the food on Sunday and then I had things I had to do the rest of the day.” How could she tell Serena that she had spent Sunday looking for a dead person? She had gone to all the places where she and Veto had hung out, hoping his ghost might reappear to her. She shrugged. “And this morning, I overslept.”
“What is it you’re not saying?” Serena asked with a sly smile.
That was Serena’s gift. She could read minds. Like Jimena, she hadn’t understood her power when she was little. She only knew then that she was different. Sometimes in the excitement of playing, she’d forget her friends weren’t speaking and she’d answer their thoughts. Even now, if she became too happy or excited, she’d answer people’s thoughts as if they were saying them out loud.