Page 159 of Love Spells: And Other Non-Refundable Magic

I could tell her Merry is funny, although that seems inadequate. That she’s smart in ways that people around her have spent years overlooking. That she owns a house in this neighborhood. That she also has a younger sibling. That Merry talks enough for both of us and somehow, instead of exhausting me, makes silence feel like something I can choose rather than something I have to protect.

There are a ton of small things I could offer as proof that I know her.

And now, after three days, there are many more.

“She works for a candy company,” I say finally.

Maggie turns toward me. “That’s where you’re starting?”

I shrug. “I need somewhere to start.”

Mamá smiles. “Okay.”

“She just got promoted.”

The pride comes through before I can stop it, and I know my mother notices. I can tell from the slight change in her expression, the way her eyes soften as she studies my face.

I tell them about The Spindle. How Merry started coming in. How we kept running into each other after that, including at the Japanese Garden. My mother sighs dreamily when I say that, mumbling “I knew it” under her breath as if she were solely responsible for us meeting.

It feels strange to talk about her here, in this room, where she has never existed before except as a pair of earrings upstairs and a collection of excuses I’ve made to myself about why there was no reason to mention her yet. It feels especially strange to talk about her in a room where everyone witnessed Alison.

But the more I tell them, the more ridiculous everything I’ve kept guarded becomes.

Merry has been real for a while, spreading slowly through the edges of my life without pushing anything else out.

Nothing disappeared.

I hadn’t really thought about that until now. And I know it’s because I’ve spent so much time watching out for the moment when it would.

“So what happened?” Mamá asks eventually.

I look at Maggie. She already knows the answer, or at least the version I’ve managed to give her over the last three days.

“We found out something about each other that neither of us was expecting,” I say.

It’s vague enough that Fausto immediately looks suspicious, but my mother only waits.

“And now you’re fighting?”

“No.”

“Did she do something?” she presses.

Maggie clears her throat, and I don’t know what she’s trying to tell me with that sound effect.

“No,” I finally say, blinking a few times, trying to understand where this line of questioning is going.

“Did you do something?”

“Also no.”

Mamá’s eyebrows draw together. “Then I’m confused.”

“Welcome to the club, Estela,” Maggie says, and the corner of her mouth tips up just a tiny bit.

“It’s just…” I cross my arms, then uncross them. I straighten in my seat. I feel interrogated, and all my instincts tell me to put up that damn wall again. “We both knew things about each other that we didn’t realize we knew. Personal things. Things we probably would have told each other eventually, but we hadn’t yet. And finding out all at once was…” I search for the word and give up. “A lot.”

“And you miss her,” my mother says, getting off her seat and walking to the kitchen. “Three days is a long time.”