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Mama’s yellowed drapes. Her next-door neighbor was eight with hair like vanilla ice cream, a dimple she liked to stare at when he wasn’t looking, and a lightsaber he carried everywhere he went. Trailing it behind him, he made shapes in the dirt lot the family next door deemed a backyard. He made sure to make the lightsaber sound with every swirl, figure fours on an exhale. Round and round, circles and squiggles and laughter until something leaped from the ground: long and quick and better at slithering dirt than the boy ever was.
Luz bolted from her hiding spot, not needing to be concealed anymore. She didn’t call for help; no one was home. It was just her, and her energy, and her quick feet carrying her to the boy and the abandoned lightsaber.
Thinking back later, she didn’t remember doing anything special. She didn’t cast a spell or use a magic word. But one moment, the boy was sobbing, small hand putting pressure on an already swollen snakebite. Then, as he passed out, Luz was holding whiteness, lighter than the cotton balls her cousin used to clean up red nail polish their mothers called a shade of the devil’s kiss.
She held the cloud in her hands, cherished it for second before wrapping it around his ankle, tightening the wisps until they knitted themselves into his skin.
Luz sat with him, mouth dry and hands clenched until he woke up. He gave her his lightsaber. He didn’t ask questions. She gave him her magic. She cried when he moved away.