Page 13 - GRANADA

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Luz stayed over her Tío Martin’s house every Wednesday while her parents went to night classes at the local community college. When she’d wake up each Thursday, her Tio would sit down at the wooden kitchen table, a hot pot of coffee right in the middle of the plastic, yellow gingham tablecloth and breathe in the fumes.
So there, with the smell of comfort floating through the early morning sunshine, Luz confessed the moment with the snake and the cloud and the boy. And her Tío started training her how to call the clouds.
Tío Martin told her it started by concentrating on the thing that made you take a second look at a stranger: a mole, a scar, beautiful eyes. At least that’s the way he learned. When Luz pressed about the magic and the clouds and who could summon, he didn’t have answers.
Maybe others could call the clouds down too, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that she could. And this was how she would learn.
Her Tio said he would look at her nose and she would look at his. After weeks and weeks of nothing but Luz crinkling it up or trying to lick the tip with her tongue, her Tio yelled at her in Spanish clipped and harsh she felt in her bones.
He whispered about concentration and smelling condensation and the way air patterns whipped around the needs of each person.
Luz thought he was probably just fascinated by noses.