I didn’t tell them who’s magic, but I told them that I’m not alone. I told them that I found people like me, and that we support each other, and that I’d trust those people with my life. I told them about recognizing something different in each other, something special. Something magic.
I think they knew who I meant, but they told me not to tell them any names. They said that I shouldn’t ever share someone else’s secrets without their permission. They said that they were proud of me for honoring other people’s identities.
My dads listened to me in a way that I don’t think they’ve ever listened to me before—it didn’t feel like they were waiting to give me advice or instructions, and it didn’t feel like they were humoring me. It felt like they respected me. They took in everything I was telling them, and they asked questions as if I were teaching them things they’d never even imagined before. Which I guess I was.
Really, it couldn’t possibly have gone better. Except that they talked to me like an equal, which means that they didn’t really talk to me like they were talking to their daughter. They talked to me like they were getting to know me, which means that they didn’t act like they’d known me my whole life.
I felt like a stranger. A stranger they respected, but still—a stranger.
“Okay,” Marcelina says. She sits back on her heels, and when I look into the shallow pit we dug, there’s a little fire going. It’s small, but it’s crackling and growing every second. It climbs quickly up the twigs and paper curls, and before long, it’s leaping at the larger sticks she’s stacked onto the outside of the pyramid of kindling.
“Wow, nice!” I sit beside Marcelina and admire her handiwork. As usual, she wastes no time preening—she starts carefully placing wood, building a pyre that looks like a little house for fire to live in. She directs careful loops of magic to the fire, twisting threads around the kindling like she’s twirling a lasso.
“Paulie taught me this,” she says without being prompted. “I have no idea how it works, but it always makes the fire hotter.” Sure enough, it’s not long before the fire is so powerful that we both have to back away from it. Sweat soaks Marcelina’s black tank top, and she lifts the hem to wipe at her streaming face.
“Where did you get all this wood?” I ask. Marcelina’s house doesn’t have a fireplace, and I’ve never seen a woodpile around her place.
“I did it this week,” she says, and she sounds breathless but proud. “I asked a few trees to drop any branches they didn’t need, and then I directed the water out of the wood and into the roots to dry it out.”
“You can do that?” I ask, impressed.
“I guess so,” she says. “This was my first time trying it and it seems like it worked okay. Remind me to tell Iris so she can add it to her research?”
“Yeah,” I say. “There’s a lot she should probably add, at this point.”
We sit and watch the fire grow. Marcelina is really good at tending to it—holdover Girl Scout skills, I guess, plus whatever experiments Paulie has been sharing. She blows on glowing embers to make them blossom into flames, and she nurtures those tiny petals of fire until they engulf whole logs. The woodsmoke smell mingles with the turned earth and summer air. The grass is soft and thick and the woods are quiet and everything feels as perfect as it possibly can. I breathe it in, try to hang on to the feeling of peace and contentment. I try to capture the moment in my mind, so that later, when I remember how much I’ve ruined everything, I can come back to it. One peaceful minute.
When she’s satisfied with the size of the fire—or at least satisfied enough to trust me alone with it—Marcelina pushes herself upright and walks to the house. I stay behind to watch the fire. When she opens the door, Handsome and Fritz come barreling out to see me. They race across the grass, ears flapping, going fast for no reason other than that running is fun. Fritz gets to me first, skidding to a stop and slamming into my legs with nearly enough force to knock me over. I brace myself on his back, fingers buried in his fur, and wait for Handsome to knock into us both. When he does, I’m overwhelmed by the two of them. Good outside good hot??? Good friend yes smells good smells.
I sit on the ground and let them wash over me, all wagging tails and musty farm-dog smell. They tell me about the thing they found to roll in, and the mole that’s burrowing underneath us right now that they can never seem to dig to, and the pig ears that Uncle Trev brought home for them. By the time Marcelina comes back, carrying the backpack with Josh’s liver in it, I’m lying on the ground with a dog on either side of me, their noses next to my ears.
She laughs when she sees me. “You look like you just had a spa weekend.”
“These guys always know what to say,” I respond without lifting my head. Handsome boofs in my ear. “Also, Handsome needs the water warmer when you give him a bath tonight. It makes his hips hurt more when it’s cold.”
“I’m not giving him a bath—”
“Yeah, sorry, but you are. He’s been rolling on a dead toad,” I say. Marcelina glares at Handsome. “So has Fritz, but I think Handsome got to it first. He got the squishiest bits on him.”
“You guys are gross,” she says, patting Handsome on the rump. He wags his tail at her. “That’s not a compliment,” she mutters, and Fritz lifts his nose to see if he can get a pat too.
“I think the fire is
