When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

that’s the same thing she wants to ask the guy.”
    Miel elbowed her, and Aracely pressed her lips together. Only Aracely could make those kinds of jokes without sounding cruel.
    â€œI meant why didn’t you tell me to come down,” Miel said, her voice still low. “I always help you.”
    Aracely’s eyelids pinched. “You had a long night last night. I thought you might be tired.”
    Miel felt the unease of slipping from a place she’d claimed as hers. She always handed Aracely the eggs and the oranges. Aracely always signaled to Miel to open the window at just the right time to let the lovesickness out. They both carefully shooed the lovesickness out the window, watching so it wouldn’t fly back, or end up stuck in a bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers, the ceramic trembling like a wasp’s wings. Or worse, rush back into the body it came out of. To visitors, curing lovesickness seemed all instinct and flourish. But Aracely treated it as a craft that took as much patience and method as cutting raw opal.
    And Miel had been part of that for almost as long as she’d lived with Aracely.
    â€œI’m fine.” Miel stood up straight. “I can do this.”
    The kettle sang, and Aracely took it off the burner. “Are you sure?”
    â€œIt was just bad dreams,” Miel said. “That’s all.”
    â€œThat’s not what I hear.”
    The gossip had already bubbled through the town about the newest glass pumpkins in the Bonners’ fields, deep and bright as topaz and bloodstone.
    â€œAre they saying I did it?” Miel asked.
    â€œNo.” Aracely poured the hot water. “Why would they?”
    Miel felt the tension in her fingers pulling back toward her heart. No one but the Bonner sisters knew they had brought the stained glass coffin back from its distant place in their family’s stories. No one but the Bonner sisters knew they had locked Miel inside it.
    No one but Miel saw those jewel-glass pumpkins as the threat they were.
    Miel handed Aracely the hard cone of piloncillo she always grated into Ms. Owens’ tea.
    â€œI can do this,” she said.
    Aracely took the piloncillo. “Are you sure?”
    â€œI always help you,” Miel said.
    â€œI’ve cured her more times than I can count. I know her heart better than mine. If there’s one you had to miss, this isn’t a bad one.”
    â€œBut it’s important,” Miel said. “You’re always saying keep the repeat customers happy.”
    Aracely eyed the door Ms. Owens was behind. The sound of the sink running came through.
    â€œFine,” Aracely said. “But take it slow. You don’t have to get me what I ask for so fast you throw it at me. I can wait. So can Emma. If it takes an hour, so what? I don’t want you handing me a pink egg when I want a green one.”
    â€œDeal,” Miel said.
    So they spread a sheet over the table in the indigo room, and Ms. Owens came in, clutching a pocket square that must have belonged to whatever man she had last fallen in love with. It looked like it cost more than any dress Miel owned. The candles turned the silk the color of Aracely’s Spanish rice.
    Aracely tried to take the pocket square.
    Ms. Owens held on.
    Aracely ran her fine-boned fingers through a lock of Ms. Owens’ hair. “Let go , ” she whispered, her voice warm with the assurance that everything was good and right, that it was the golden hour of afternoon and not night, that there was no fear in the world.
    Ms. Owens shut her eyes, and opened her hands, and Aracely took the pocket square.
    Miel folded her elbows, hands gripping her upper arms. All the heat in her body pulled to her wrist. She could almost feel the weight of Ms. Owens’ heart, how she wore her disappointment like wet clothes.
    â€œLie down,” Aracely said.
    Ms. Owens did. The almost-white blond of her curls fanned out from her head.