"Too much?" she asks, knowing the answer.
"Depends. It's okay if you're going somewhere fancy, but if you're just hanging out, it's not really you. You look pretty, but a little too chi-chi. He might as well know right off the bat that you're edgier than that."
Maria nods and gives Veronica a quick hug. She kicks off the heels, adds black leggings and floral patterned Doc Marten boots.
"Now there's my girl," Veronica says, beaming with satisfaction. "Those Docs were worth saving up for. You look great."
This time of year the night comes early. The rains usually arrive in October or November, but the skies have been clear for days. The days have been warm, the nights cool.
By the time Maria arrives at the taquería, the shadows are lengthening. The sun has almost dropped below the horizon. Jack is waiting for her outside the restaurant. He leans with his back against a patio railing, his skateboard on the ground by his feet. He gives her an appreciative smile as she approaches, but her own smile dies when the pleasure in his eyes turns to steel.
"The cops have Lucia," he says.
Maria feels as though she's been punched in the chest.
"What…how did they find her?" Maria asks.
"We were casing a way into Silver Canyon."
Silver Canyon. Another gated community. Open to anyone who can afford the starting prices of three million.
"Did they get any of the others?" Maria asks.
He shakes his head. "Just Lucia. She was doing a walk-by while we were waiting in the brush across from the gatehouse. The guard must have gotten suspicious and called the cops." He puts a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry, Maria. We should have been more careful."
"They can't hold her for nothing! When is she being arraigned? Does she have a lawyer?"
"You know they'll hold her as long as they can."
Maria shakes her head. "They can't do that. She has rights."
"No, she doesn't. None of us do. We're not rich enough."
Maria just stares at him.
"Come on," he says. "How do you think the D.A. and sheriff got elected? It's the rich who fund their war chests, and if the people we robbed want someone in jail, that's what the sheriff's going to give them."
Maria thinks of something Luz once said to her.
If you're rich and white, you can do whatever you want. You're always in the right. It's the brown-skinned girls like us who are always wrong.
"Then what can we do?" she says.
"Ti Jean wants to break her out of county."
"Can we do that?"
Jack raises an eyebrow at her use of 'we,' but all he says is, "Sure. If we had an army and guns and enough explosives to blow our way in."
"Don't make fun of me."
"I'm not. I want her out as much as you do."
Maria studies him for a moment.
"But you've got magic," she says.
He shakes his head. "No, I don't."
"Luz told me you were spirits—that she called you up—and spirits have magic."
"Maybe they do. But we're not spirits. We're…" He sighs. "I'm not sure what we are. I only know we used to live in a green wood and something brought us here. To this life."
"You mean Luz."
"I don't know who or what brought us here," Jack says. "Half of me remembers growing up in the north of England with Will, and then moving to South London where we hooked up with Ti Jean. We met the Glimmer Twins in Venice Beach. Then we found Lucia, or she found us.
"But at the same time, we all remember another life in the green wood. Or maybe it's merely a dream we all share because a lot of it doesn't make sense. The trees were more than shelter. I think we slept inside them and our…vitality rose and fell with the passing of the seasons."
Maria doesn't like the lost look in his eyes.
"Luz said you're an archetype," she finds herself saying.
"Huh." He considers that for a moment before he asks, "What do you think?"
"I don't know what to think. I'm not even sure I know what that means."
"Well, I can tell you this much. If there's any magic around, it belongs to Lucia." He waits a beat, then adds, "And maybe to you."
"To me?"
Jack nods. "That's what Lucia says."
"How would she know something like that? Luz hasn't seen me in years."
"Yet here you are, willing to drop everything to help her."
"She's still my friend," Maria says. "She was my best friend."
"I admire loyalty in a person. In the end, our integrity is the only thing of value that no one can take from us. It's the reason we support Lucia's cause."
"Which seems really complicated."
"Actually, it's not," Jack says. "It's simple, really. A banker uses deceit to rob you and he gets rewarded with a bailout from the government and a bonus from his shareholders. You or me? We go to jail. Since the law isn't on our side, we have to take matters into our own hands. It's up to us to balance the wealth."
"It's not that simple."
"Of course it isn't," Jack says. "But we have to start somewhere. Lucia says that the first thing we have to do is get their attention. So we've left messages behind in all the places we hit. We also sent letters of explanation to the papers and television and radio stations."
"The Occupy Wall Street people aren't robbing houses to get attention."
"No," Jack says. "But they're treated as a joke, just as we are when they call us Los Murrietas. Nobody takes our messages seriously. They make us sound like just another gang, robbing honest, hard-working citizens instead of the bankers and CEOs."
"Why wouldn't the media report that? Wouldn't it make a good story?"
"I don't know, but the banks hold a lot of sway and even reporters don't want to get on the bad side of them. Everyone needs their banker to be on their side. So the truth is being suppressed.
"Somehow, we have to make the public really sit up and take notice of why we're doing what we do."
Maria's torn. She's spent her whole life trying not to be noticed. And what has it gotten her? A job as a maid. Maria doesn't necessarily agree with the gang's methods, but at least they're doing something that has real meaning.
"We have to get Luz out," she says.
Jack nods. "But we can't do it legally."
"And we don't have an army."
Maria doesn't say anything more.
Jack prompts her. "Which leaves only…"
The impossible, Maria wants to say. But then she thinks of a black pebble on a bedspread.
And she thinks of a tin cigarette box.
"Brujería," she says.
"Broo-what?"
"Magic."
Maria leads the way through the barrio streets to where the last buildings meet the desert, Jack at her side. The rest of his gang has joined them, and are trailing slightly behind. Without going into detail, Maria explains that she and Luz have a pact to fulfill and she needs to retrieve a talisman to do it. She'd like to share the whole story, but Luz said that it would only work if they told no one.
Any other part of town and the desert scrub beyond these adobe buildings would have become a swath of gated communities and shopping plazas. But here, right on the edge of 66 Bandas territory, nobody's stupid enough to try to build. Past the city limits, a few ranches and adobe houses make a patchwork buffer zone between the barrio and the national park in the foothills of the Hierro Madera Mountains.
Maria is not happy. The only good thing about tonight is having Jack beside her holding her hand. She wishes they could just keep walking and leave everything behind. That her companions weren't robbers. That Luz wasn't in jail. That it wasn't her responsibility to try to make things right.
But the past is like the desert lying hidden under the green lawns and streets of the gated communities like Silver Canyon and Desert View. You can disguise it with a cover of manicured grass and pavement, but the desert doesn't go away. It's still there underneath, waiting to be free again.
When they reach a dry wash, she turns south along its sandy bed and they all follow suit. That her companions took her story at face value doesn't surprise her. After all, how odd can magic be to spirits?
But while they can just accept the notion of seeking a talisman, what fills them with wonder is the appearance of the bottle man's tree: all its glass vessels dangling from the widespread branches of the old mesquite, each glowing in the moonlight so that it seems to hold rather than reflect the light. Across the yard, a small sea of glass pebbles shimmers between the wash where they stand and the bottle man's shack.
Even after all these years Maria is pretty sure she remembers the general area where the tin would be—if it's still there—but she needs to gather up her nerve to actually enter the yard to look for it. She takes a breath, but before she can take that first step, Jack puts a hand on her arm.
"Wait," he says. "I've seen places like this before. Well, not exactly like this. The ones in the green wood were mostly stoneworks, half covered by forest growth. But this feels the same."
"How so?"
"Prickly. Full of magic. Protective magic. We should ask permission before we enter."
Maria bites her lip. She doesn't like this place any more than she did the last time she came.
They hear a soft scuff in the dirt behind them.
"I was wondering when one of you would show up," a gravely voice says.
Maria turns to find a stranger standing on the bank of the wash. He's an old man wearing raggedy cotton trousers and a flimsy grey T-shirt that is so tattered and faded, its logo is no longer recognizable. His hair is grey, too, and hangs in long thin ropes on either side of his dark brown face. It flows down his back like strands of mistletoe falling from the branches of a palo verde tree. He has more wrinkles than sun-baked mud, and his eyes are so dark they seem black. His mouth is a straight line, neither smiling nor frowning.
This can only be the bottle witch.
Maria starts to say something, but her throat has gone completely dry. Jack gives her fingers a light squeeze.
"Wh-what do you mean?" she finally croaks.
"Did you really think I wouldn't know when something new is added to my collection?" the bottle man says. "The only reason I let it remain is that I like the taste of your magic." He runs his tongue over his lips and leers at Maria.
"Can I please get it back?" she asks. "I need it to help my friend."
"What if I say no? Did you bring these caballeros to make sure you get your way? To keep you safe from me?"
"Oh no," Maria says.
"Why?" the bottle man says, edging closer so that she can smell his foul body odor. "Don't you think I'm dangerous?"
Maria feels like she's stepped into quicksand. That no matter what she says, she will sink.
"Everybody knows not to bother you," she tells him. "My friend and I meant you no harm when we buried the tin box here, and I mean you no harm now. I only came to get it back."
"And why should I trust you—an intruder who travels with a pack of foreign foxes?"
Maria can only stare at the bottle man in confusion.
"I'm not sure what you mean," she says.
"He means he can smell the green wood in us," Jack says.
"And," Ti Jean adds, stepping up beside them, "he's working up to telling you what he wants in trade for having stored that box of yours for all these years."
The bottle man nods toward Ti Jean and a slow smile creeps across his face. His whole body seems to vibrate with anticipation.
"But I don't have anything to trade," Maria says.
"That's not true." Jack says, "but what you have, I won't allow him to take. Neither your body nor your soul."
The bottle man spits on the ground and scowls at Jack. "She's not yours to bargain with, fox."
He turns back to Maria, the smile returning. "Come inside. I merely want one night with you and then you can take the box."
Maria cringes in horror. "Never," she says.
Jack put his arm around her shoulders and juts his chin toward the bottle man. "You heard her. So why don't we wager, you and I? Some contest of skill to decide how this will go."
The bottle man shakes his head. "I know a marksman when I see him. I don't have such skills."
"Then appoint a proxy."
The bottle man shakes his head again. "I have a better wager. Tell me my name in three guesses or less and you can have that box. If not, it stays with me."
He looks at Maria and licks his lips again. "Unless you'd like to change your mind, chica."
Maria only shudders and shakes her head. Her new friends appear to know nothing of the bottle man. Brujos are always dangerous—more so when they're provoked.
The witch extends a bony finger toward them. "Then leave. I'll keep the box. You have nothing to offer me."
"But we haven't even agreed to a wager yet," Jack says. "Something you could certainly gain from, should you be the victor. What have you to lose?"
The bottle man's face swivels back and forth as he tries to read Jack. It's clear that his interest is piqued. "I don't have all night," he says.
Jack smiles. "Finally, some common ground because neither do we. But let me propose another option that requires neither skill nor wit. Let us pay for the box."
"I have no need for money."
"Did I say money? I thought instead that we could earn your goodwill. Have you some chore that needs doing? At a later date, of course, since we've already agreed that time is pressing for both of us tonight."
The bottle man shakes his head. "A trick if I ever heard one. And who's to say you would keep your end of the bargain?"
Jack stands straighter and places his palm against his own chest.
"Now you wound me," he says. "I may have neither home nor riches, but I have my honour. As a man of my word, I resent any implication to the contrary. You insult my integrity."
"But—"
Jack holds up a hand. "One moment. We cannot continue our earlier business until we address this besmirchment of my good name. I name Ti Jean as my second. You, sir, as the challenged party may choose the weapons and, of course, your own second."
"Wait a minute…"
"Unless," Jack goes on, "you wish to tender something else in exchange for the apology that you now owe me."
"Owe you?"
Jack smiles. "Surely you see my predicament? You are indebted to me for my honour."
The bottle man returns his smile. "What I see is that you think if you talk fancy enough and long enough that I'll give you what you want because I'll be too exasperated to do anything else. It's not going to work."
"Fair enough," Jack tells him. "Since we can't come to a reasonable agreement between the two of us, we'll have to seek council elsewhere. Isn't there a wise woman living here in the barrio?"
The bottle man frowns. "Maybe you didn't notice that I'm not inclined to socialize."
Jack goes on as if the bottle man hasn't spoken. "A Señora Esmeralda? I believe the people call her Abuela." He smiles. "Just as they call you Abuelo. But we both know that women are always more powerful than men—especially when it comes to brujería."
Maria looks at Jack and wonders where he learned these things.
The bottle man spits again on the dirt. "Don't try my patience," he says, eyes narrowed.
"I don't mean to," Jack assures him. "The sooner we get this settled with an impartial third party, the sooner we can get back to our earlier negotiation. And time is pressing."
The bottle man grunts. "Señora Esmeralda has no business in this."
"So you'd prefer to duel?"
"I'd prefer you to take that damn box and never return to bother me again."
Jack arches his eyebrows. "No strings attached?"
"No strings."
"You are indeed a gentleman," Jack says.
"And you are plainly a cousin of Coyote."
"I will take that as a compliment," Jack tells him.
The bottle m
an shakes his head and turns away. He walks across the sea of glass pebbles as steadily as he might on solid ground. A few feet from his shack he reaches down into the glass with his fingers. He retrieves the cigarette tin and removes it from its plastic bag, which he stuffs in his pocket. The scowl on his face could sour milk, but he makes his way slowly back across the yard toward the wash.
"Thank you, señor," Jack says, reaching for the box.
But the bottle man shoves it toward Maria instead, grabbing hold of her fingers in the process. His black eyes are narrowed and his rough hand squeezes hers until it hurts.
"Now go away," he says, releasing her fingers." And take these annoying foxes with you."
Maria nods. "Gracias," she murmurs, "gracias." But he's already turned and shuffling back toward his shack.
Maria's hand is still aching from being squeezed, but she gets a nail in under the edge of the lid. As it pops it open, she starts to fall. Ti Jean is closest and catches her, gently lowering her to the ground. Will catches the tin as it tumbles from her hand. Jack starts for her, but then turns and yells at the bottle tree man.
"You said no strings! What did you do to her?"
The bottle man turns back. "I did nothing. Those girls did it to themselves. But why are you surprised? When it comes to magic, we both know that women are always more powerful than men."
Chuckling at his own joke, he turns away again.
Jack wants to go after him, but he takes a steadying breath and kneels down beside Maria.
He puts his lips to her ear. "Where have you gone?" he whispers.
"What do we do now?" one of the Glimmer Twins asks.
The others all look at Jack.
Jack sits cross-legged beside Maria. He folds his hoodie and puts it under her head.
"Let's see that tin," he says to Will.
He puts it in her hands, then cups them with his own.
"Maybe closing it will undo the spell," he says.
But when the tin snaps shut there's no change. Jack sighs and puts the tin in his pocket. He takes Maria's hands again and looks at his men.
"I guess we wait," he says.