Rogelia's House of Magic Read Free

that and you never do,” Marina said tartly. She knew she was going to lose this battle. She gave in to Fern way more often than she cared to admit.
    “I promise I will this time.” Fern flipped open the book to the table of contents. “Wow, there’s even a spell in here to boost your confidence.” When Fern smiled again, Marina was caught like a fish on a hook.
    The woman returned to the counter. “Well?” she asked.
    Marina gave her both the chart and the
Magik for Teens
spell book. “We’ll take the book, too.”

Two
    X ochitl Garcia lay asleep on a small bed in a tiny room next to the only other piece of furniture—a secondhand lime green dresser. In her dream, the bright blue sky shone down upon her and her twin sister, Graciela. They strolled along the cobbled streets of their hometown, Santa Anita, a little village outside of Guadalajara, Mexico. Both girls were long-legged with waist-length raven black hair, dark complexions, and thick eyelashes trimming coal black almond-shaped eyes. The only difference in their appearance was the mole on Xochitl’s right cheek.
    Actually, the dream was more of a memory, a memory of a terrible evening that Xochitl would never forget. Only a few short months ago, Xochitl and Graciela, along with their nana, Rogelia, left Guadalajara to join their father, Sebastian, in California. Driven by Xochitl’s irresistible desire to attend an American college, her father had secured work as a floor manager at an electronics plant in California, similar to his employment at a
maquiladora
in Mexico. Sebastian Garcia left at the first of the year to investigate the area; the girls and their nana followed. Mamá would come with the younger siblings, Tano, José, Amelia, and Pepito, in a few more months. Xochitl had been eager to review the right college-track programs at the Orange County high schools. But things rarely work out exactly as planned.
    In her dream memory, Xochitl recalled a wrinkled old woman sitting in front of a blanket that displayed colorfully woven cotton bracelets. “Buy one of my wishing bracelets,” she said. With a mischievous sparkle in her eyes, the crone held one up for inspection. “Whatever you wish for will come true when the bracelet falls off.”
    “Just like magic.” Graciela winked.
    Xochitl laughed at her sister’s enthusiasm. Graciela loved anything mysterious.
    Graciela’s long black hair fell over her face as she leaned down to pay the woman for two bright bracelets. Afterward, she asked Xochitl to put out her hand and tied a green and yellow bracelet around Xochitl’s wrist. “For a safe journey,” she said.
    Xochitl tied a pink and blue bracelet around Graciela’s wrist. “For a chance to go to an American college.”
    The dream fast-forwarded to the Tijuana airport, where Xochitl, Graciela, and Nana Rogelia got inside a delivery truck from her father’s company. Most often the truck was used to transport electronic parts from the factory in Santa Ana to the factories in Mexico, but tonight it would be taking Xochitl into a whole new world.
    “This will only take a couple of hours,” Nana promised Xochitl and Graciela, “and then we’ll be with your
papá.
”
    Xochitl felt excited but nervous to be going. Finally she was following her dream to go to an American college. Graciela gripped her hand reassuringly. Although she was only ten minutes older, Graciela always acted like the big sister.
    In the next flash—she saw the bright lights of an oncoming van swerving into their lane. The driver of the company truck turned sharply to the left and ran over thousands of pebbles on the far left side of the road that bordered a small cliff. The driver tried to regain his position in his lane, but another fast-approaching car zoomed straight for them. He swerved back to the left and hit a bump in the road. Everyone screamed. The truck teetered on its right wheels, fell on its left side, rolled over, and plummeted into the ditch.

    Cold