The blonde security guard slinks past us, and the shaking starts again. I can’t believe it. Are they going to keep me?
Then I see it. My phone and passport, safe and sound in Hollander’s hands. She follows my gaze and nods. “I made them give them back to me. You have every right to be here. They kept saying it was fake.”
“Look, Ms. Hollander, we said we were sorry,” Meanie says. “There have been a lot of fakes lately, and ICE has put a high alert on certain countries and regions, especially areas like Kashmir. It’s just protocol and we have to follow orders.”
“Your protocol does not apply to a sixteen-year-old American citizen traveling alone.”
“Yes, it does.” Meanie’s voice is firm, and he has a fake smile plastered to his face, which is now a livid red. “I don’t make the rules. But I do follow them. And so should you, if you don’t want to escalate this further.”
The threat in his voice shuts Hollander right up, and I can’t bring myself to open my mouth either. I just want to get out of here.
“Well, if everything is in order now, I think we should get moving,” Hollander finally says. She takes my arm as the blonde brings my bag, which she’s apparently repacked. “Check your stuff now, make sure you’ve got everything. Everyone’s waiting.”
“My mom—”
“Let’s call her on the way to the gate,” Hollander says. But I can’t make myself move. What if they stop us again? What if they don’t let me come back? I can see it now, all those years ahead of me, living in fear.
“Is there a problem, miss?” It’s the blonde, her mouth still the same, disinterested, flat line. She literally could not care if I live or die.
I can’t let her have the satisfaction.
“Yes,” I say, using my best, take-no-prisoners debate voice. “We’ve got to hurry. We’ve got a flight to catch.”
Hollander grabs my bag, and we race through the crowd toward the gate. “They’re holding the flight,” she says. “We have to be quick.”
I hold fast to my boarding pass, passport and phone, unwilling to let them out of my sight again.
The man at the gate scans and lets us through immediately, his face concerned and apologetic.
And then we’re on the plane, luggage stashed. Hollander takes a seat next to Andy, and nods toward the next row. “That’s yours,” she says. “Get settled.” She pulls out her phone.
The empty seat is next to Rajan’s. He stands, smiles, and hugs me really tight. I should be excited, but I still can’t quite stop shaking. “Sorry you had to deal with that,” he whispers into my hair. “It’s happened to me before, too.” He sighs. “Especially when I don’t shave.”
He stuffs my backpack under the seat, and Hollander leans across to pass me her phone. I can already hear my mom babbling at me in tearstained Hindi. My hands shake as I take it. “Beta, we were so worried. Ms. Hollander was so panicked. I thought—” My mom’s voice breaks. “I thought—” I can hear her breathing hard, trying to get the words out. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “I’m on the plane now.” My voice sounds far away, kind of like I left it that dark, cold room. “I’m not okay yet. But I will be.”
I say goodbye and hang up as the flight attendant walks down the aisle, closing overhead bins, instructing passengers to buckle up.
I breathe in deep as we take off, watching as the earth sinks below us and we start to float above the clouds. And that’s when I realize what’s missing. My throat is bare, and it feels like everything’s lost again.
“Oh,” Rajan says, startling, reaching for his backpack. “I grabbed this from the bin earlier. I didn’t want you to forget it.” He combs through the outside pocket and pulls out a little tangle of gold.
And I’ve never been more grateful. For who I am. For who I might get to be.
My Ganesh. The god of new beginnings.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author of the YA doc dramedy Symptoms of a Heartbreak, Sona Charaipotra is not a doctor—much to her pediatrician parents’ chagrin. They were really hoping she’d grow up to take over their practice one day. Instead, she became a writer, working as a celebrity reporter at People and (the dearly departed) TeenPeople magazines, and contributing to publications from the New York Times to TeenVogue. These days, she uses her master’s in screenwriting from NYU and her MFA in creative writing from the New School to poke plot holes in her favorite teen TV shows, like The Bold Type—for work of course. She’s the co-founder of CAKE Literary, a boutique book packaging company with a decidedly diverse bent, and the co-author (with Dhonielle Clayton) of the YA dance drama duology, Tiny Pretty Things and Shiny Broken Pieces, soon to be a Netflix Original TV series. Forthcoming are the psychological thriller The Rumor Game (with Dhonielle Clayton) and the contemporary YA comedy How Maya Got Fierce. Find her on the web at SonaCharaipotra.com, or on Twitter @sona_c.
THE CURANDERA AND THE ALCHEMIST
Maria E. Andreu
The first snow falls on a Tuesday. Tuesday is the day I teach English as a Second Language classes, a deeply improbable thing for me to be doing for a bunch of reasons. Like, because I once needed ESL classes. Like, because ESL for people like me, and my mom, for the men in the group I teach...well, maybe it’s a bit of a tiny bandage on a heavy bleed. It makes no sense, but I want to do it anyway. Which I never would have imagined the day Ms. Scofield roped me into it.
The day of the first snow, I’m on my way to the library carrying my favorite book. The snow’s tinkly magic lights the orange-blue sky and makes the whole world hold its breath. But, like all held breath, I should have known the moment couldn’t last for long.
* * *
It is two months before the first-snow Tuesday. The intercom crackles to life. “Luisa Diaz, please come to Ms. Scofield’s room.”
Crap.
I check the time on my phone. Oh, not good. I had wandered into the library at the start of my free period. I meandered over to this dark part of the stacks in a blind corner where a bulb has gone out. I ran my finger over the spines slowly, willing them to speak to me. One did, its dark green cloth alive with promise. The Alchemist’s Confession. From a glimpse at the author’s name, I could tell it was mis-shelved. Maybe someone stashed it here so no one would find it. Or maybe they wanted only a certain kind of someone to find it, the kind of someone who gets lost in the dark nooks of libraries.
I turned to its first page.
It is the rare person who can withstand transformation, although so many think to wish it. Magic should be summoned only by the hardiest among us. I tried to explain this to her, but I loved her too dearly to do a good job of it. That’s why things happened as they did.