Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

powers. What will my family say? Lula and my mom, they don’t see themselves the way I do. They see themselves as beings of a higher calling. Chosen. All I see is their bruises from the recoil. It has to end somewhere, and it has to end with me.
    Rose watches me curiously on the ride home. I wonder if she can see my intent. But as Mom drives down the Brooklyn streets, Rose shakes her head and keeps watching the night fall.
    â€œAlejandra, are you even listening?” Lula says.
    â€œ What? ” I ask.
    â€œI’m just saying how cute it is to see you flirting.”
    I scoff. “I wasn’t flirting.”
    â€œIt’s okay, mi’jita,” my mom says. She turns on her signal and makes the right onto our street. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. He seems like a perfectly nice young brujo.”
    There’s no use arguing with them. I lean my head against the cool glass window. It helps the throbbing pain that starts at my temples and travels down my neck.
    â€œWhy is it so dark out?” Lula asks. “It’s not even five.”
    Then Lula shouts as a dark shape slams into her side of the car. My mom swerves to the left, narrowly missing two cars at the intersection. Rose knocks into me, and I hold her in case it happens again.
    â€œWhat the hell was that?” I shout.
    â€œI don’t know.” Mom white-knuckles the wheel. She turns back, but the street is empty. We make a hard left into our driveway, crashing into the garbage bins. She shuts off the engine; her keys rattle in her hands. The streetlights down the block explode one by one. Long shadows move across the quiet neighborhood houses.
    â€œControl yourself, Encantrix .” But even as Lula says it, she knows I’m not doing this.
    â€œIt isn’t me!”
    â€œGet in the house,” my mom shouts at us. She opens the glove compartment and riffles through the junk until she finds a flashlight.
    The street is so quiet all you can hear is our heavy breathing and quick steps. Rose grabs Lula’s hand and I grab Rose’s. We start to run up the narrow driveway to get to the kitchen entrance. I hold out my hand for my mom, but she’s still standing at the car, shining a flashlight at the side where we were hit. I let go of Rose and go back to my mom.
    â€œI said get in the house!” She starts to push me away, but I’ve already seen it. The car is dented. A black substance, like moss, covers the damage.
    â€œWhat is that?” I ask.
    Something lands on top of the car. In the dark, I can’t see its face, but I can hear the scratch of metal and snap of teeth. The smell of a thousand corpses lives in its mouth. It breathes me in, like a hound on a scent.
    The outdoor lights turn on. Lula and Rose are banging on the windows, screaming for us to run inside. The creature hisses at the flash of light and jumps back into the shadow before I can see the rest of it. My mom grabs my wrist and pulls me all the way into the house. We slam the door and bolt it shut.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” Lula shouts, pacing circles in the kitchen.
    Rose presses her head against the wall beside the sink, rubbing her temples over and over. “We have to go.”
    I turn to my mom. “What is that thing?”
    She doesn’t answer me. Her dark eyes are fixed on the door lock as she mumbles a prayer to La Mama.
    â€œMom!” I’ve never shouted at my mother. Not ever. But I have to so she’ll snap out of it.
    â€œI think it’s a maloscuro. They’re shadow demons.” She squeezes the bridge of her nose, like she’s trying to remember more details but fails. “I need the Book.”
    â€œIt’s right here,” Lula says, flipping through the Book of Cantos. “Maloscuro. Once they were brujos who broke the Mortal Laws of the Deos. El Papa broke them until they were nothing but charred skin and bone. Yet he didn’t let them die. They