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Copyright © 2015 Belinda Vasquez Garcia

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Angevin

Angel of Wine

After World War I ended, a mob stoned the famous witch Carmen Esperanza. My

maternal grandma lay bleeding to death on a San Francisco sidewalk and Mama fleeing for her

life.

My other grandma, Dima Rozanov, hid Mama in her beat-up Russian trunk. Dima is 132

years old but looks nineteen, due to her shape-shifting stone. Dima and I carried the trunk,

zigzagging flinging rocks, barely escaping to the train station.

Huffing and puffing with the arms of a ten-year-old, I helped Dima shove the trunk on

board to smuggle Mama out of the city.

The torch-carrying crowd screamed at the train with me shivering on Dima’s lap as rocks

pelted the window. Bottles crashed against the glass.

“Die witches!” the mob yelled as the train pulled out of the station.

I stuck my tongue out and flipped the ugly people off with a dirty finger.

After a long trip, our train chugged into the La Grande Station of Los Angeles. Except for

palm trees swaying in the breeze, the station resembled the Russian buildings in St. Petersburg—

now called Leningrad since the Bolsheviks took over Russia. Dima felt right at home. My

babushka is the bastard daughter of Elizabeth Alexandrovna Alexeeva, who was the bastard

daughter of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias back in the 1700s.

Dima and Mama carried the trunk from the train, with me riding on top like a half-breed

princess with my raggedy shoes crossed. We had only the trunk and clothes on our back, but

Dima and Mama are resourceful businesswomen with a wealth of witchcraft at their fingertips.

Indeed, our trunk jiggled with magical items, tools of our family trade. Mama is Solange Rosa, a

famous Italian / Spanish witch in her own right. Dima has been practicing magic for 129 years,

since she was three. As an infant, I was suckled on magic. Starvation was the least of our

worries, assimilation our biggest.

Mama smacked my head and said, “The City of Angels is a fitting place for you,

Angevin.” The Spanish word for angel is Ange. Mama always thought it a great joke to begin my

name with Ange because I am descended from many generations of witches.

Mama has a hideous, scarred face because she is a survivor of the San Francisco fire.

Dima still calls it the Great Fire like the newspapers did, but only because her daughter-in-law,

my mother, burned. To make my family life even more hellish, we three have lived together in

Los Angeles now for ten years as a Turf of Witches. Mama and Dima have stayed together to

combine their powers and protect our territory, but it is more to keep an anxious eye on what the

other is up to.

My babushka is now 142 years old, and I am nearly twenty years old. Dima appears as

young as I look and hints that we should double date. The newspapers call these days the

Roaring 20’s, because of sexual liberation of women; but even I cannot stand to see my own

grandma necking in the backseat with a young man.

The best thing about the Roaring 20’s is that liquor is illegal, and Dima brews the best

homemade whiskey, which I then sell door-to-door for a hefty profit. Mama’s prediction for me

did come true. She looked into a crystal ball at my birth and knew that I would be a bootlegger

so she named me Angevin, which means Angel of Wine.

Chapter One

Brooklyn Heights, East Los Angeles

May, 1927

Mama and Dima giggled like schoolgirls with a secret.

“Where are we going?” I whispered.

The moon rose in the sky. Mama yanked off her wig, leaving her head bald. “To visit

someone we can’t hide from, one who abhors disguise.” She wiped off her lipstick, and then

erased her drawn eyebrows. Mama yanked at her false eyelashes, leaving her face bare of hair

and looking like scrambled eggs. She cussed at the burn scars visible on her face now that she

wore no makeup.

Mama yanked my hand and dragged me to the car, flinging me in the back and slamming

the door in my face.

She sat at the driver’s wheel, ignoring a trolley rumbling by. She puffed on a long, onyx

cigarette holder, blowing smoke out the car window. She turned the key in the ignition, growing

impatient for Dima to join us. Like usual, Mama was dressed to the nines in a shimmering

flapper dress, her fashionable, red high-heel resting against the gas pedal.

I slouched, embarrassed by our enchanted tree which seemed to sweep the darkening sky.

The tree was visible across East Los Angeles, even taller than Linda Vista Hospital.

Finally, Dima ran down the steps of our house, her colorful, Russian shawl flapping

behind her. My father, Vasya, had been pure Molokan Russian and my babushka looked her nose

down upon Mama and me because she was of royal bastard blood. With a lift of her nose and not

even a nod at us, Dima plopped down on the front seat. “He wants to say hello,” she said,

throwing her shape-shifting stone at me—hard.

I caught the piedra imán with stinging hands. Since the rock was magnetic, items often

flew across the room, latching onto it. “Dima should not be so neglectful. I’ll clean you up,” I

cooed, picking heavy nails off its back.

The rock, whom I call P.I., for Piedra Imán, purred beneath my touch, grinning

flirtatiously. The shape-shifting stone was the size of my fist and resembled a pile of dog feces

someone poked eyes into, and then formed the bridge of a nose with pug-dog nostrils. The

conceited stone thought it was a rather dashing rock.

Mama drove recklessly, headed north on bumpy Mission Road. Her fire-eaten hands

clung to the steering wheel. Her mouth pressed to a thin line, and her jaw clamped so tightly, her

bones protruded.

Dima’s eyes were wide open with a frightened look on her face.

A butterfly sensation fluttered my belly. If Dima and Mama were scared, just whom the

heck were we visiting? I tore holes in the back seat, bouncing and holding my breath.

Women are proud of having earned the right to vote seven years ago. They next

conquered driving. It was all over the news that the American Automobile Association

proclaimed women drivers as skilled as men, but they had not ridden with Mama behind the

wheel.

Trolley tracks ran down the street middle, the rubber tires of our car squealing against the

iron rails. The magical rock fell to the car floor, electrifying and zapping to a hot-pink shade. I

threw my sweater over the piedra imán, hiding it from prying eyes.

Mama drove a 1922, black and red Pierce-Arrow, that has a nose about as long as hers.

She dodged the Model-T’s on the road, the owners honking. The Model-T was the most

affordable car for the middle classes, and came in only one color—black. The drivers were

inclined to show off by dancing their wheels on the road, crossing the trolley lines in a daredevil

race with the streetcars.

Mama occasionally waved her hand, forcing a car onto the sidewalk and out of her way

with magic. “Inferior Model-T’s,” she screamed, “Get out of my way!”

Mama slowed on Mission Road, keeping to the shadows.

She stealthily parked.

We three witches sat in darkness at the southeast corner of Lincoln Park.

A long, black Overland drove by with four Tommy guns sticking out the windows. The

outline of five fedora hats was visible in the car as it drove slowly down Mission Road.

“Are they Iron-Man’s men?” I whispered. Iron-Man Ardizzone was boss of all the Italian

gangsters in Los Angeles and Mama’s boyfriend.

“It’s best if you don’t know who the thugs are, Angevin,” she said.

A jitney drove up to a house across from us.

The driver got down, opening the car door for his passenger. She paid him a nickel for

the ride, the going rate.

He carried her suitcase up the stairs to her front porch. They stood there, talking.

We were in pitch-black darkness, except for the lit tips of our three cigarettes.

Dima sighed impatiently.

Mama flicked the lit ashes of her cigarette.

Dima muttered an incantation, turning the lit ashes into five lightning bugs. Mama waved

her hands towards the jitney, and the lightning bugs surrounded the ride-for-hire Model T.

Dima’s chin dropped to her chest. She appeared to be sleeping, but her eyes were merely

scrunched. She made a cawing noise, transforming the lightning bugs to lightning bolts.

The driver tripped down the steps to his lightning-struck car.

His customer slammed the door of her house, pulling her shades down and leaving the

rooms in darkness.

The jitney driver yanked the door of his car open, jumping behind the wheel.

“Minimal damage,” Mama said.

“Just the fender was struck. It will fetch a good price,” Dima added.

“Go get it,” they both ordered me.

My fingernails dug into the rumble seat, the car doors riddled with bullet holes put there

by mobsters.

He drove out of sight, and I snuck across the street, dragging the fender to our car. I

uncomfortably shared the back seat with the greasy thing.

Mama and Dima jerked their bottom eyelids down, digging with their fingers in their

sockets and snatching out their eyes. Plunk! They dropped their eyes in a solution in two small

jars. “Give us our sight,” they sang, holding out their palms.

A blind witch is powerless. I imagined pushing them from the car and driving off with

their eyes. However, I did not know how to drive. Besides, Mama would not be blind, due to the

middle eye buried deep in her head that always spied on me.

Sighing, I handed them two other jars, each containing a pair of cat’s eyes.

They popped in the eyes and blinked, adjusting to a cat’s vision. They winked their lids

slowly, like cats.

“The moon vanished,” I grumbled, stumbling from the dark car.

“Ah, you young women are lucky these days,” Dima hissed. Talking about youth put my

babushka in a bad mood. She shoved me.

I fell, scraping my knee. I bit my lip to keep from crying out because a show of weakness

meant a double blow, and I hoped to escape this night with minimum bruises.

I shone my flashlight on Dima. Except for her odd cat eyes bulging from her sockets, she

looked like a teenage Russian gypsy. She was barefoot, with a white hand on her jutting hip. She

wore a low cut peasant blouse, showing off her bosom.

“You must remove your skin-deep disguise,” Mama snapped at her.

Dima rolled her eyes and held out her hand to me.

Unfortunately, her shape-shifting rock would turn me to stone if I refused to return it. A

piedra imán chooses its protector and this one chose Dima years ago, though it could pick

another protector at any time. Dima did not see me stroke the rock lovingly. Nor did she notice

the rock shudder beneath my fingers.

Snarling, she gripped the piedra imán, her short legs twirling. The stone grinned at me.

When she stopped spinning, I flashed my light brighter and she screamed, blocking her

face with her hands. “There you are, Babushka,” I said, because she turned into my real grandma

with hair no longer flowing, thick locks but balding with wisps of white hair. Her short, straight

lashes were not curly, thick, and long. Saliva dribbled from her lipless mouth, her skin so loose,

her cheeks flapped in the breeze. She wiped her pointy chin with the back of a hand resembling

tree bark. Dima stunk like a vacuum sweeper bag filled with dust mites and maggots.

She smacked my face, nearly knocking my head off because I addressed her as grandma

in Russian. Dima’s greatest fear was looking old, and to see her trembling as a 142 year-old hag

was worth a beating.

I shifted my eyes so she would not catch me gawking.

“I don’t like this old shell. I am disintegrating from the inside. Wrinkles weigh one down,

like family,” she said.

I hiccupped, rubbing my cheek.

Dima leaned on me as we shuffled up an avenue lined with palm trees that made an eerie,

whishing noise. Dima always drew close to me when she felt her true age. For all her grumbling

about family, bloodlines meant everything to Dima.

It was near midnight and the park deserted.

“Oh, dry up! Don’t tell me we have to cross here,” I said, aiming my light at stepping-

stones in the middle of a lake. A boathouse rocked at the end of the lake. Rowboats moved in the

water, pushed by a breeze growing stronger by the minute. A bandstand rose from the lake near

the boathouse. There had been a celebration in the park and it stunk of boiling hot dogs.

“Climb on my back,” Dima said hunching over at me.

I clung to her neck, my legs around her waist. Surprisingly, she was still strong though

her limbs skinny with sagging muscles.

Mama ran across the stones, her back pushed by the wind. Her foot struck the last stone

like a match. Bam! She flashed into fireball and whirled across the sky.

Dima carried me piggyback across the stones.

Dima sprinted towards the boathouse with me bouncing on her back. I would burn to

death when she turned into a fireball, or smashed like a bug against the boathouse.

I closed my eyes as she stepped on the last stone, burying my face in her egghead to

shield myself from the boathouse wall.

She skidded to a stop, toppling me from her back and into the water. Dima laughed at my

soggy hair and muddy ankles.

She held her piedra imán out, and the rock smirked at me. Show off!

Dima spun on the last stone, clutching the shape-shifting rock and growing enormous

black wings from her back so she resembled a dark, crusty angel. Age ravaged her wings. The

ends were ragged and a few pieces of feather missing here and there.

Dima stood like a big, ugly bird and motioned for me to climb on her back.

I held onto her shoulder blades, her bone cutting into my skin.

“Don’t get my wings muddy,” she said, in a better mood now that I looked a mess from

her dunking me in the Lake.

We lifted, soaring over the boathouse. The soles of my boots brushed the treetops of

Lincoln Park. We headed northeast, flying across the houses of City Terrace. As we soared

higher, it was tricky avoiding the crisscrossing lines delivering electricity and telephone service.

Intermixing with the spaghetti wire was the lines of the Los Angeles trolley system, the biggest

in the world. During rush hour, trolley cars traveling across the tracks shook the houses.

Sisters of the Black Rose covens can travel with the speed of fireballs. We flew what

seemed like hours instead of minutes. We descended into an area with pointy, white, and brown

formations. “Is this another planet,” I yelled in Dima’s ear.

“Don’t be silly. This is Death Valley. See the Salt crystals,” she said, flying lower over

salt peaks.

She stopped flapping her wings, landing with a thud on her ankles.

I jumped from her back, pounding my shoes and rubbing my arms to offset the cold.

Mama’s fireball fell straight down and her flames quickly burned out. She was all

business. “It was over a hundred degrees at Death Valley today, but the night desert is cold.” She

zipped her bag open and flung a coat at me with a bold pattern of stripes. She threw a man’s

overcoat especially hard at Dima, who threw the coat back. Dima’s wings would never fit in that

coat.

My babushka pinched Mama until she cringed. The two witches hated each other,

especially since Dima believed Mama killed her son, my father Vasya. Mama was High-Witch of

our coven but Dima earned the title Usurper because she highjacked Mama’s rank, due to her

shape-shifting stone making her more powerful.

As for me, I am Fledgling, a common name for an apprentice witch. I am not yet a full

member, but have a coven seat reserved for me after my initiation. Like all witch covens, our

Black Dragon Rose had room for 13 members, and 13 covens made up the Sisterhood of the

Black Rose. There was just the three of us tonight from the Black Dragon—High Witch, Usurper

and Fledgling.

Hexagonal, honeycomb shapes with salty crusts surrounded a pool of water, no deeper

than a few inches. Mama and Dima knelt by the water, moaning at their faces. They both

howled—Mama at her scarred flesh and Dima at her old age. My image reflected prison bars

surrounding me, and I whimpered at my fate.

A powerful thirst gripped me and I cupped my hands.

“This is called Badwater Basin for a reason, fool. Drinking from the pool is lethal,” Dima

said, shoving me away.

“But salt is necessary to sustain life,” Mama said, pointing at the shallow water.

They held their hands above the pool, chanting, “It is the time of day when the dead rise

from their slumber and walk the earth once more.”

The pool bubbled with air pockets.

Something scratched beneath the water, digging from below.

An arm rose triumphantly and a woman’s head burst through the pool. Her face was

drenched with mud, her hair a soggy mess of salt crystals. She struggled to breathe, pulling mud

from her nostrils, lifting her head and crying.

“Morena,” Mama muttered.

“Russian goddess of witchcraft, winter, and death,” Dima mumbled.

Since she signified the rebirth of nature, Morena had the gift to return from the dead

when summoned by High Witch or Usurper. She could come back on her own, but only when a

full moon lit her way to a portal to this world.

Dima and Mama both stepped back, neither willing to assist her.

I stupidly reached out a helping hand to the goddess.

Morena snarled, gnashing her teeth. She forced her other hand to the surface, pushing her

palms against the earth. She yanked her chest from the pool so she was waist deep in mud. She

twisted and turned, trying to free her body from her muddy grave and roaring her frustration.

Morena lifted her right foot from the water, stomping it on the ground.

With one final heave, she pulled herself free from her watery grave.

We all three bowed before the goddess.

Morena was dripping wet, but the dust of Death Valley filled her mouth, and she had a

coughing fit.

Dima smacked her back.

“Don’t touch me, slut,” she said, wringing out her floor-length veil and then slapping

Dima in the face with it. The moonlight exposed her complexion of dried, cracked mud and her

haughty eyes.

Dima stepped back, bowing her head.

Mama fell prostrate before Morena. Mama looked almost as monstrous as her

benefactress did. Mama was fifty-one years old and besides her burn-scarred face, her neck was

lined like a roadmap, from smoking. Usually, a cloud of smoke enveloped her, but the goddess

had not given her permission to smoke. Instead, Morena inspected Mama’s fingernails and

grunted, satisfied Mama removed her army-green polish she always painted in the center with

the tips and half-moons left natural, as was the fashion.

“Get rid of your wings or I shall tear them from your back,” Morena growled at Dima.

Quick, Dima spun clenching her piedra imán, but in her panic forgetting the magic words

to remove her wings.

Morena grabbed at one wing, ripping it with a sound of tearing skin.

Blood dripped down Dima’s back. She squawked like an injured bird.

I stared at the ground, avoiding Morena’s disturbing eyes glowing in the dark. Now how I

would get home since Dima was minus a wing and she did not dare use her piedra imán in front

of the goddess.

All at once, black roses seemed to sprout from the other witches’ heads, from the

fontanels or soft spots that normally close when babies are 18 months old. Morena’s rose was

dewy, shimmering with mud drops. I had never before seen Dima’s rose, looking like it was

pressed in a book a century ago, nor had Mama’s rose ever looked scarred and half-eaten away,

as it did now. She was without her wig and the right side of her bald scalp raw so that the rose

made her look lopsided.

Mama massaged my head, trying to bring forth my black rose. The fact that my head

bones never closed, leaving the diamond-shaped, two-inch wide fontanel intact, was one of the

signs that I was fated from birth to be a witch.

“She’s defective,” Mama said, her fingers trembling on the itsy-bitsy rosebud poking

from the soft spot on my scalp.

“Ah, a lovely angel,” the goddess cooed.

“My daughter, Angevin Anastasia Rosa Rozanov,” Mama said.

“Such blood,” Morena said, kissing my cheek.

Her lips felt like a cold fish and left salt on my itching skin. I may have been the

offspring of a witch and a warlock, but I longed to run away.

“Do you know why you are here?” she said.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“You naïve young woman, tonight you learn to fly as a fireball. What better place to

teach you than my vacation grave, the scorching earth of Death Valley. You will leave behind

your weak earthly body, pass through death to catch on fire, soar through the sky, and then return

to your natural form.”

“Sounds dangerous,” I said through chattering teeth.

“Remove your clothes, Fledgling,” Dima demanded, elbowing Mama out of the way so it

was she who stood behind me, while Morena stood in front. The power to fly as a fireball was

major so Dima chose to usurp Mama’s position as High Witch in this training, just to embarrass

Mama in front of the goddess.

Mama rubbed her scarred cheeks, a sign she was nervous. “Your nakedness is only until

you learn else if your clothing burns, you may catch fire instead of transforming to a fireball.”

She was lucky to be alive, having survived the San Francisco fire which caught her unawares

while she was sleeping, leaving her no time to use magic to flash into a fireball.

“Hah! You don’t wish to end up ugly like my daughter-in-law?” Dima said, laughing and

pointing at Mama.

Morena punched Dima’s head. “And what about you, crone? I am centuries old yet look

younger than you do. It’s all in the below-surface moisturizer, idiot.”

“But you are a goddess,” Dima said, shifting her eyes to the ground.

I peeled off my clothes and stood naked and cold, shielding my privates with my hands.

Morena pushed open my arms, examining me and pinching me everywhere. Finally, she

grunted, satisfied with my bruised pedigree.

“Now, we begin,” she said, folding me in two so that my chin touched my toes. I peeked

between my ankles at Mama and Dima piling tumbleweeds around me.

The three witches took their places, forming points of a triangle, the symbol of absolute

power.

I trembled in the eye of the triangle.

Dima zapped her fingers, igniting the tumbleweeds.

“Repeat my spell,” Morena said.

I repeated her words, nerve wracked at the smoke and crackling fire around me. At least

it was Friday when witches are most powerful, so perhaps I will not burn to death.

“When the heat becomes unbearable, jump from the ring of fire, and run south, repeating

the incantation. Don’t stop or it will be at your peril,” she said.

I nodded, rubbing my body as instructed, as if my torso was a piece of flint.

All three walked backwards, increasing the size of the triangle, while muttering the

charm. The witches pointed their fingers to the blaze, causing the flames to turn green.

Embers licked my ankles, the heat growing to an inferno

When the fire became life threatening, I jumped over the flames, running as fast as my

rubbery legs allowed, and yelling the magic words until I became hoarse.

I turned my head and green smoke chased me. The flames were shaped like a roaring

dragon, its red tongue licking my back, toasting me.

Flames encircled my head like a princess crown.

The tongue of fire wrapped around my waist, lifting me.

Bam! I burst into an inferno, floating above the witches. I felt weightless and was subject

to the whims of the wind. The spell had transformed my body into sparks, but my spirit was the

same as I foolishly thought about how to land without a co-pilot to instruct me.

As soon as I thought of landing, I tumbled from the sky, shouting for help.

The witches merely hugged their bellies shaking with laughter.

I landed with a whoosh and rolled around the ground, catching some desert foliage on

fire.

“Let her burn,” Morena said to Mama and Dima.

Finally, my flames extinguished and though I was bodiless, there was a sensation of lying

on a featherbed stuffed with rustling swan feathers. “Help me,” I squeaked.

The witches simply pointed at me, wiping tears of laughter from their cheeks.

My eyeballs rested on my pile of ashes and the ends of my lashes. If the wind picked up,

I would scatter across Death Valley.

My ashes fluttered as I let out a heartfelt sigh.

After what seemed like forever, my eyes cooled.

My feet and hands began to form into flesh, but the rest of me was still ashes. I helplessly

wiggled my toes and waved my fingers.

My wrists and ankles began to change into bones. The transformation was torturous. I

must have fainted. I came to naked with soaked hair, staring into my reflection in the Badwater

pool. A chain shackled my ankles to a stake in the ground like a circus elephant. Small,

transparent wings grew from my back, like a dark fairy. I had two sets of wings, one pair about a

foot in length, the other pair six inches long. My pairs of wings attached as one unit at the top of

my back, yet I could flap each pair of wings independently. I resembled a glass-winged insect, a

dragonfly.

I screwed up my forehead and concentrated on this new sensation of having wings. I

could point each set of wings right and left. Finally, I mastered the nerve and flapped both pairs

at once. However, my wings were not big and black like Dima’s wings. My wings would not lift

me even an inch from the ground.

Sighing, I sat on the desert of Death Valley with my chin on my knees, hiding my

modesty with my freakish wings drooping between my shoulder blades.

My wings fascinated Mama and Dima, as if they never saw such a thing before.

Mama examined me with a scrunched-up face so she looked like raw meat. “I told you

she is defective,” she said apologetically to the goddess.

“Angevin is perfect, a natural because her blood is pure, the product of two black roses:

Rosa on one stem and Rozanov on the other stem. This is why she has grown wings without

using a piedra imán. When she burst into a fireball and flew across the sky, her wings sprouted,”

Morena said.

“But her wings are so light, they are useless,” Mama added with satisfaction in her

jealous voice.

“Never underestimate bloodlines. Is that not why you bred with Dima’s son? Angevin is

a young woman. Perhaps her wings will grow.” The goddess kissed my forehead. “Do not listen

to these hags. You are priceless, my child.”

“Thank you, goddess,” I said respectfully, but cringed at her corpse-like touch.

Mama handed me a mirror and I examined my clear, small wings. I flapped my wings,

getting used to the sensation. I concentrated, frowning and biting my lip. I sighed with relief

when my wings retracted into my back, no longer visible but leaving the feeling of wearing a big

bandage on my back. I took a deep breath and my wings stuck out once more from my shoulder

blades.

“Remove her shackle. She can’t fly away yet with those baby wings,” Morena added.

Mama and Dima clenched their hands into fists, revealing anger at my blossoming

powers yet they had been instructing me in magic since I was six years old.

Morena beckoned me to come closer.

I knelt before her.

“Beware of rich handsome men. They will drown you in sorrow,” she said. Tears filled

the tributaries of her cheeks.

She placed her withered hands on my head, closing her eyes, and chanting.

Surges of electricity seeped through my body. My hair stood on end, crackling with light

flashes.

Mama and Dima watched this ritual, green with envy.

Morena released me and a light went out inside me. She walked backwards, holding her

arms out from her sides.

Though the air was still, her filthy gown billowed around her ankles. Her eyes bulged like

a fish. The tip of her tongue darted between her teeth, and her cheeks puffed as if she had gills.

Morena twirled on her toes so fast, she spun into flames. She lifted her burning arms like

a swimmer, diving into the ocean of the dark sky.

She left a trail of sparks as her fireball whirled across the sky, headed east.

“What did the goddess do to me just now?”

“We don’t know,” Mama and Dima answered, looking at me suspiciously.

Dima gripped her piedra imán, slowly turning until she transformed into a lovely young

woman with piercing, emerald eyes and a small nose. She reminded me of the animals at the

Selig Zoo. She was thin, yet had ostrich breasts. She wore a brown dress with leopard spots,

flaunting the fact that, like a leopard she could change her spots, courtesy of her piedra imán.

“Grandchild, let’s double date,” she said, yet again.

“No,” I said, panicking at the thought of my babushka climbing all over some young man

in the back seat, and me and a stranger riding in the front seat.

“Bring some young men home so I can choose one,” Dima said, cackling like an old

prune.

“What does Angevin know of men? She is such a flat tire,” Mama said.

“Necking in the back seats of jalopies is all the rage. We can go to the speakeasy where

your mother works and dance the newest dance craze, the Charleston,” Dima said, kicking her

legs up and dancing.

I did not even know how to dance last year’s dance craze, the Breakaway. It hurt my

stomach to think that Grandma wanted to double date with me, regardless of who the young man

was. How demeaning. “What about your secret lover?” I spat.

“What of him?” she snapped.

Mama said, “You’re lucky you’re too old to get pregnant, that’s what.”

“And you’re so ugly, to get a man in bed, you must zap him with a love-spell,” Dima

said.

Mama bopped me in the head. “What are you staring at, good-for-nothing? It’s because

of you we’re stuck here.”

In typical fashion, Dima’s insults cascaded to me. After Dima’s wish to double date, I

could understand Mama’s hatred of Dima, her mother-in-law, who looked thirty years younger

than she did. Mama lusted after the piedra imán to become beautiful and young but Dima

mistrusted her to borrow it.

“Now our work begins, perfecting your takeoff and landings,” Dima muttered, removing

my shackles.

They meant to strand me at Death Valley—fly or be left behind!

They burst into fireballs, some sparks setting my coat on fire.

Yipes! I yanked my arms out of the sleeves, smacking the coat on the ground and

extinguishing the flames.

Two fireballs rolled around Death Valley, setting small fires here and there, which I ran

around, slapping with my coat.

The fireballs rolled with breakneck speed, until Mama and Dima lifted slowly upward,

and then flashed across the sky, headed west, towards Los Angeles and home.

My knees knocked together at the thought of the sun rising in Death Valley and the

unbearable heat of the desert.

Well here goes, fly or die in the desert!

I lifted my arms and called on Volos, a Russian supernatural force of magic.

I ran, holding my arms out like wings.

Gaining speed, my feet pounded against the earth, flames licking my ankles.

Voila! I transformed, shooting into the sky like a burning rocket.

My takeoff was perfect, which I attributed to whatever powers Morena bestowed on me.

Laughing, I sped up like a shooting comet, passing Mama and Dima. My fiery tail licked

their fireballs as they lost altitude for a few seconds, stunned at my prowess.

Good grief! What have I done? Quick! Slow down. Allow those witches to pass.

Thereafter, I stayed obediently behind with my tail of fire between my legs.

(This has been a preview of Angel of the Black Rose. The book is available for preorder.

See Link Below.)

Other Books by Belinda