Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls by Kaela Rivera (online e book reading .txt) 📕

of a student admiring a mentor, and her descriptions made one thing clear—Grimmer Mother was the teacher an apprentice bruja needed if she wanted to win the Bruja Fights and enter Devil’s Alley.

The woman tugged me indoors. Immediately, a plume of charcoal and the smell of burning candles hit my nose. My eyes watered, but I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me. I ended up coughing anyway.

She pushed me down into a cushion on the floor and moved around, shoving blankets, books, and random animal skulls off of the cushion opposite me. Smoke hung in the room like a bad dream.

“You are Catrina’s blood,” she whispered, leaning forward. She took my hands in hers. The moth eyes looked at me again.

Fear traipsed up my back like a cluster of spiders. I shivered. “So, you really are the one who taught Tía Catrina.”

“Yes,” she said, petting my hand. I resisted another shiver. “You have her eyes. And I see,” she tapped the journal, “you have her words too. Now, do you want to travel her path?”

Not even a little bit. But I did want my sister back. So I said, “Yes.”

She didn’t look bothered by how quiet my voice was. “Ay, que bueno!”

She turned away, hunting around the room for something. I let out a shaky sigh. Her grip had been so hot, I could still feel it in my palms.

“You’re cutting it close,” Grimmer Mother said. “The Bruja Fights start in just two days.” She opened a hulking chest and burrowed through it. “You have much to work on. Do you have a criatura yet?”

“Um—no.” I was suddenly very itchy.

She made an annoyed sound. “Just like your tía. A procrastinator.”

Probably shouldn’t bring up the fact that I’d just decided to become a bruja this morning then.

She turned around. Something shone in her moth’s grip. I stiffened as she walked over to me.

“Here,” she said and offered the object. I took it hesitantly. It was a knife, its obsidian blade sharp as winter wind and black as the shadows of a well. “This is the knife I made your aunt use to shave her head. Each apprentice bruja selects a portion of her hair to cut off. It is how you first step into your new life. Your tía cut away the bottom half of her hair.” She eyed me. “Your hair makes your face kind. For you, I suggest removing it all.”

I gawked at her. “All of it?” I’d never cut my hair before, and it was long enough for me to sit on. Papá called it my one great beauty. What would I be without my hair?

“All of it,” she said, with satisfaction this time. “Then you will seem more predator than prey. You can grow it back after you win the Bruja Fights and become a true bruja. Then no one will question you, regardless of your soft eyes.”

But—my ears were going to be so cold. I closed my hands around the knife and tried desperately to keep my expression even. Like I wasn’t dreading the idea.

“You have much gentleness inside you, Cecelia Rios,” she said, and I really wished I knew how she’d found out my name. “You will need more stone inside you to get a criatura’s soul to bow to your control.”

That was going to be a problem since I didn’t have any stone inside me. I almost sighed. No matter where I went, my soul didn’t seem to have what people wanted. Not enough fire for my familia. Not enough stone for brujas. Was water welcome anywhere?

She leaned forward. “Your tía had softness in her as well. But it shriveled quickly once she no longer fed it. You will no doubt be the same.” She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “Go to the old dried-up silver mine to the south, and travel through what hides beneath. There, you will find the criaturas lurking, and there you will test yourself. Make sure to catch a criatura before Friday night, when the first round of Bruja Fights begins.”

She stood and moved to leave. I jumped up.

“Wait!” I said. “What if I’m not strong enough to control a criatura’s soul once I find one?”

She paused in her doorway, and her mouth split in a grin. “Then the criatura’s teeth will prove you are not worthy to enter Devil’s Alley.” She turned away. “If you survive, return to me. I will teach you how to bend your criatura’s will, body, and soul to your own.”

She left me alone in her house, surrounded by eye-watering smoke. I frowned, stooped, and put out one of her candles. There. Take that, you not-at-all-comforting bruja mother.

“I saw that,” she called.

I hurried to light the candle again.

7

The Makings of a Bruja

A few hours later, secluded in the narrow outhouse behind our home, I dropped Grimmer Mother’s knife in the steel basin.

My hands shook as I lifted them to my head. The thick strands of heavy hair were gone. My neck was cold and free. I ran both palms over my skull, and a wave of coarse prickles scratched my fingers.

Tears filled my eyes as I looked in the old mirror balanced across the sink.

I pumped my breath in and out. “You’re fine. This is fine.”

I shook my head and swallowed most of the tears down. Even if my head looked like a cactus, this new haircut was exactly what I needed. I looked like I could be a bruja now. That was the first step to actually becoming one.

But a haircut alone wouldn’t make me look like a bruja. I scrambled out of my frilly white dress and serape and tossed them to the side, yanking on my old, roughest, wool shirt instead. Next, I pulled on Papá’s old red buckskin pants. They weren’t exactly flattering, but they were rich in color and attitude, two things I needed. To top it all off, I tugged on Papá’s worn green jacket and played with the holes that riddled