Free Tarnished and Torn by Juliet Blackwell

affordable.” I selected a gown that was perfect for Rosa: a deep sapphire blue with colorful floral embroidery at the yoke. Best of all, its vibrations were warm and calm. “This would look great on you. It’s too long, but that’s an easy fix.”
    She held the dress under her chin and looked in the mirror. The silk dragged on the floor, ruining the line, so I knelt and folded it so she could get the full impression. As I leaned over, the medallion fell out of my neckline.
    “What a beautiful necklace,” said Rosa. She reached down and lifted it up to look at the medallion. “So unusual. Where’d you get it?”
    “I, uh . . .” I trailed off, thrown off balance by Rosa’s intense gaze. Suddenly I was seeing danger everywhere.
    “Oh, hey, that’s the one the old lady was showing us at the fair, right?” said Shawnelle, who had emerged from the dressing room in the cerise taffeta and was twirling as she looked at her reflection in the three-way mirror.
    “Yes, it is.”
    “I love opals,” said Rosa. “I’m a Libra, so I can wear them. That one in the center is a nice example of a fire opal.”
    The center stone was a deep, translucent yellow. Most opals are green and blue, or white with flashes of pink and gold.
    “What’s a fire opal, exactly?”
    “They’re similar to other opals—they’re the same stone in terms of their makeup. But fire opals are a yellow or orange or reddish brown, and come from Mexico instead of Australia, which is where the blue ones come from. There’s even an Aztec legend about a fire opal.”
    “You and your legends,
Mamacita
,” said Metzli affectionately to her mother. “You also said the
última muñeca
part of the
quinceañera
ceremony was from an old Mayan tradition.”
    “It
is
,” Rosa insisted with a smile. “I know to you and your friends it’s just an excuse for a big party and a pretty new dress, but really the
quince
is a way of holding on to traditions and passing them down through the generations.”
    Metzli rolled her eyes in my direction, looking for commiseration.
    “Don’t look at me,” I said with a smile. “I have to side with your mom on this one. A
quinceañera
is very special. You’re very fortunate.”
    Metzli gave her mother a bear hug from behind.
    “
Gracias, Mami
,” she said in a slight singsong.
    Rosa squeezed her daughter’s arms affectionately. “Anyway,
la última muñeca
means ‘the last doll,’ and it refers to a girl putting away childish things and becoming a woman. The
quinceañera’s
supposed to be the first time a girl wears makeup, though these days . . .”
    She looked askance at her daughter, balanced on the cusp of womanhood. Metzli giggled and rolled her eyes again. She was wearing mascara, eyeliner, and blue eye shadow, and had covered her acne with concealer and powder.
    Still, it was clear that their teasing and banter was based on a firm mother-daughter bond. I wondered what it would have been like to have that kind of relationship with my mother. I was fortunate Graciela took me in and cared for me after my magical talents emerged and I became too much for my mother, but my grandmother was never one to indulge in foolishness like elaborate parties. She would scoff, telling me the money and energy were better spent on nailing down protection spells. Given how my life had turned out, she had probably been right.
    Abandoned by my father, kicked out of my childhood home at the age of eight by my mother . . . no wonder I had issues.
    Pushing aside these gloomy thoughts, I realized Marisela’s
abuelita
was speaking. Spontaneously, as though she did this often, Marisela started to translate.
    “My grandmother says there’s a famous story about a magical fire opal. The Aztecs called it
Ojo del Fuego
, which means ‘Eye of Fire,’ and had the finest jeweler in Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital city, set the stone in a silver ring after it was discovered in the very depths of the mines. It was considered