American Chica by Marie Arana Page B

eight, was almost as tall as she was. He was sober, grim-mouthed, standing there with his chin thrust out, a pointed promontory in a freckled field.
    “Come, gringo,” she told him, “hold my braids while I see into tomorrow. One in your left hand, papito, one in your right. Good.”
    For the next few moments, Billy looked himself, a simple boy in a noonday game. He took the braids and his face relaxed, so that for a fleeting second he looked like his sweet-eyed mum, the gentle Scots lady who lived next door. Then suddenly it was as if a charge was shooting through him. His back arched. The bruja’s braids undulated like snakes. Carlitos shimmied back into Margarita at the sight of them, but the girl pushed him away and stood erect, her eyes wide, mouth in a tight, thin line. Billy, too, seemed frozen from head to toe; only his arms moved tortuously, in waves that appeared to issue from the witch’s hair. George and I shifted from foot to foot, turning nervously and searching each other’s face to see who would cut and run. But we’d witnessed these things before, and though I could see George’s face furrowed with worry, I could also see determination in his stance. He stood his ground in line. Quickly, I squirmed in behind.
    “Ya, ya,” the bruja said to Billy, her voice high and silky as a little girl’s. “You have the face of a leopard, papo. Eyes of a puma. Heart of a bird. The spotted face will never change. The other two you yourself must change. See like the bird, gringito. Make your heart beat like a puma’s. You must work at this. Work.”
    Billy dropped the braids, let out a grunt, and stumbled back against George. I took the big boy’s wrist and pulled him behind me. He wafted back like a feather.
    George stepped forward and grabbed the woman’s braids. Her eyes focused and then squeezed shut. Her chin was still as granite. George did not move.
    After a while, her lips began to pulse as she sucked on her delicately moored teeth. She ceased to look like a witch, more like a rag doll, her braids jutting comically from behind.
    “Come another day, boy,” she said at last, shaking her head. “I see night, I see stars, I see a path. But nothing more. The spirits in you are sleeping. We must not wake them now.”
    I loved George with every bone in me. He had a noble brow,straight and clean, and hazel eyes that squinted up with a golden glow. His lips were full and rosy, pouting from his face like guavas. He was as agile and impish as I was lumpish and slow. He’d walk on garden walls like a trapeze artist; swing bananas from his pockets as if they were pistols; lob balloons full of water from a second-floor window. All I could do, in my fat little self, was look on his antics and giggle. If I could have had but one wish from the bruja, I would have asked her to make me like him. Seeing him now, disoriented and fortuneless, I could feel my heart slide through my chest.
    “Marisi! Georgie!” I heard a woman’s voice call out from our garden. It was Claudia, the cook; she was circling the house looking for us. Anxiously, I stepped forward and took the heavy hair. The witch’s eyes were mantled with clouds, and I wondered if she could even see me. But she wasted no time in telling me what she saw.
    “A root is stirring under your house,” she whispered. “It is thick and black, with branches that grow while the condor sleeps. You will think the leaves pretty. You will pay it no heed. You will wake every day like the condor and fly. But, chica, someday that vine will reach your window. It will fly inside and grab you by the throat. Prepare yourself.”
    For days after that, the bruja ’s words played in my head. What could they mean? A vine? Under my house? The image crept into my dreams. I found myself reaching for my neck in alarm. I imagined black snakes, as fat and tense as a witch’s braid, making their way up our pristine walls in the cover of dark, reappearing each night infinitesimally