Page 18 of Everything She Does Is Magic

“Don’t,”I say, almost reaching for her face.

“Don’t what?”

“I just…I like when you smile, is all,” I say.

After about an hour, I’m out of cards, and so is Anya. We’ve stopped to watch the parade. It’s an endless stream of young kids in costumes, smiling and waving and begging for candy.

Grace spots me.

“Hey, bitch,” she says, grinning. She has on a disco ball minidress, sparkling silver tights, and matching silver boots. One of her tamer looks. It’s too early in October for her to bust out the more elaborate costumes in her collection. She notices Anya and immediately straightens up. “We use that term affectionately. It’s our love language. It’s kind of like a subversion of sorts. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly,” Anya says, her stare unflinching.

Grace half laughs, giving me one quick, urgent glance.

“Anya’s been helping me pass out these scavenger hunt cards, sincesomeonedidn’t want to be involved,” I say. Grace literally screamed when I told her my plan, then started holding up the sign of the cross, telling me she’d rather swim in a pool of sharks than betray my parents with this scheme.

“Hmm,” she says now, tapping her chin. “That person sounds really gorgeous and smart. Probably the most interesting, intelligent person you know.”

“Probably,” I respond. “Where’s Maddie?” Maddie is Grace’s four-year-old sister. The youngest Manalo, and the only one in their family still participating in the Fableview parade.

“My mom just texted, saying Maddie should be coming around the corner soon. She’s dressed as a manananggal. My mom wouldn’t let her be too scary with it, though. She was afraid it would freak out the other little kids. So she just kind of looks like Dracula with wings.”

Grace’s whole family is Filipino, and I know from her that the manananggal is sort of the Filipino folklore equivalent to a vampire but much gorier. A few months ago, Maddie snuck out of her room and watched a horror movie with Grace and their thirteen-year-old sister, Claire. Ever since then, Maddie has become obsessed with scary stuff. She was begging for something scary to sleep with at night, so her mom got her a teddy bear that had stitch marks across its eyes and mouth. But even that wasn’t enough for Maddie. So Grace brought Maddie to the art shop. Maddie and I picked out some paints and random scrap materials, and we covered her teddy in fake blood and sewed on oozing organs made of felt. It was genuinely grotesque-looking. Grace says Maddie drags it everywhere in the house now, completely obsessed.

That’s the kind of thing I love most about working at the art shop—getting to help other people make their creative visions come to life.

Maddie appears, tiny and always a little disheveled, her long black hair in tangles I can see even from here. There’s bloodspattered across her light brown skin, and huge plastic fangs poke out of her mouth, with large, bat-like wings perched on her small back.

She is sobbing.

When she sees Grace, she runs over to her. “Look!” She turns to the side, showing Grace where the fabric on her wings has ripped. “It got stuck on a tree!” Her crying turns into big, dramatic sobs again as Grace wraps her in a hug.

“Maddie, you look amazing,” I tell her. “I never would’ve noticed that.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she tells me, snot rockets falling onto Grace’s shoulders.

Iamjust saying it to make her feel better, so she’s got me there.

“Can I look at it?” Anya asks.

There’s something about Anya that makes Maddie stop crying almost instantly. Maybe it’s her stillness. She never makes you feel rushed, or even worried. Or it could be the warmth of her eyes. There’s an unmistakable, inviting gentleness there.

Maddie stares at Anya in the way only a four-year-old can, with unshielded curiosity, patiently making her own judgmentcall.

She releases her hold on Grace and walks up to Anya, deciding to trust her.

I want to ask Grace if she still thinks Anya is sinister, but this moment is too fragile for all that.

“I’m really good at fixing things,” Anya tells Maddie, holding the broken part of the wing in her hands. “I think I can put this back together.”

Still awestruck, Maddie takes the wings off her shoulders.

Anya turns her back to all of us, huddling in the corner. Less than thirty seconds later, she spins around again. And somehow, the wings are good as new. The fine, gauzelike fabric shows no trace of a rip. There isn’t even a seam.

“How did you do that?” I ask.

“What? That literally took you, like, twenty-three seconds,” Grace overlaps, her jaw hanging open.