When the Moon was Ours Read Online Free

and blame. At night, they came to her, asking her help for their worn-out hearts. During the day, they whispered that she was a witch, or blamed her for the powdery blight bleaching out an orchard’s harvest, or held her responsible for the storm that might rain out that year’s lighting of the pumpkin lanterns.
    They gave her the same inconsistency they might give a lover, adoration at night, disavowal in the morning. How indebted they were to her meant they offered her either scorn or respect, depending on the time of day and how many people were watching.
    Miel had learned to live with the self-conscious feeling that Aracely could sense the weight of her heart. This morning, she was sure if she let Aracely look at her for too long, she’d know. The fact that Aracely liked Sam made it worse. Miel imagined Aracely thinking of them more like brother and sister, recoiling at the idea of Miel digging her fingers into Sam’s back.
    Aracely poured coffee into heavy mugs, and Miel flushed and looked down. She’d never noticed that the color of these cups, blue-green as eucalyptus, was only a little off from Sam’s bedroom walls.
    â€œShe’s back,” Aracely said. She half-sang the words, drawing out each syllable until it was almost a trill.
    Miel licked the honey off the spoon. It tasted a little like tea, the flavor from the stalks of pink flowers that dotted scarred land after a fire. “Who?” she asked.
    â€œLa última bruja.”
    Miel gave Aracely a laugh. This was one of a thousand reasons Miel loved Aracely. So often, Aracely was called a bruja herself , a witch, and still she didn’t flinch at calling someone else the word.
    Miel’s smile vanished the second she realized who Aracely meant.
    Aracely was trying to make a joke of it, sipping her coffee like this was any other morning gossip. She was all charm and assurance. It was what made her so good at curing lovesickness. Less skilled curanderas left their patients stricken with susto, a fright so deep they wandered the woods startled and blind. But Aracely never left a lovesick man or woman sobbing on the wooden table. She placed her palms on their shoulders, whispering to them, so they barely noticed the lovesickness leaving their bodies.
    Miel knew Aracely’s voice better than those men and women. She heard each catch and hitch. It wasn’t that Aracely was afraid of the Bonner girls. Aracely wasn’t afraid of anything; she had pity for Miel’s fear of water but little patience for her fear of pumpkins. Each fall, on the night that half the town came out to set carved, glowing pumpkins floating on the river, Miel hid in her room, and Aracely stood outside the door saying, “Oh, for God’s sake, they’re fruits not hornets. Get out here.”
    But even Aracely was wary of the fire-haired girls. She’d always thought their nervous mother and father pulled them from school less because of what happened with Chloe, and more because if they taught them at home, it was less obvious that the girls had no friends but one another. That they never invited anyone over. That they flirted with boys on crowded streets but that even those boys were not their friends, would not last the next frost or blossom that marked a new season.
    Miel left the spoon on the counter and went back upstairs.
    â€œDon’t do it,” Aracely called up.
    Miel heard the smile in her voice, but that smile didn’t veil the warning.
    â€œI mean it,” Aracely said. “Don’t do it. You’ll just torture yourself.”
    Miel listened.
    She listened until about four that afternoon, when she stood at the edge of the Bonners’ farm trying to keep away the echo of Aracely’s words.
    If Mr. or Mrs. Bonner saw her, she could always say she was there to see Sam. She could say he was going to show her how he used the pollination brushes.
    No. Something else. Not the pollination brushes.
    Miel kept