I’m not sure who was more surprised: Amos or me.
“That’s near here,” Amos said slowly. “But...” He picked up a handful of sand, murmured a spell, and threw the sand into the air. Instead of scattering, the grains floated and formed a wavering arrow, pointing southwest toward a line of rugged mountains that made a dark silhouette against the horizon.
“As I thought,” Amos said, and the sand fell to the earth. “Las Cruces is out of our way by forty miles—over those mountains. Phoenix is northwest.”
“Forty miles isn’t so bad,” I said. “Las Cruces...” The name seemed strangely familiar to me, but I couldn’t decide why. “Carter, why there?”
“I just...” He looked so uncomfortable I knew it must have something to do with Zia. “I had a vision.”
“A vision of loveliness?” I ventured.
He looked like he was trying to swallow a golf ball, which confirmed my suspicions. “I just think we should go there,” he said. “We might find something important.”
“Too risky,” Amos said. “I can’t allow it with the House of Life on your trail. We should stay in the wilderness, away from cities.”
Then suddenly: click. My brain had one of those amazing moments when it actually works correctly.
“No, Carter’s right,” I said. “We have to go there.”
It was my brother’s turn to look surprised. “I am? We do?”
“Yes.” I took the plunge and told them about my talk with Geb.
Amos brushed some sand off his jacket. “That’s interesting, Sadie. But I don’t see how Las Cruces comes into play.”
“Because it’s Spanish, isn’t it?” I said. “Las Cruces. The crosses. Just as Geb told me.”
Amos hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “Get in the boat.”
“A bit short on water for a boat ride, aren’t we?” I asked.
But I followed him on board. Amos took off his coat and uttered a magic word. Instantly, the coat came to life, drifted to the stern and grasped the tiller.
Amos smiled at me, and some of that old twinkle came back into his eyes. “Who needs water?”
The boat shuddered and lifted into the sky.
If Amos ever got tired of being a magician, he could’ve gotten a job as a sky boat tour operator. The vista comin
g over the mountains was quite stunning.
At first, the desert had seemed barren and ugly to me compared to the lush greens of England, but I was starting to appreciate that the desert had its own stark beauty, especially at night. The mountains rose like dark islands in a sea of lights. I’d never seen so many stars above us, and the dry wind smelled of sage and pine. Las Cruces spread out in the valley below—a glowing patchwork of streets and neighborhoods.
As we got closer, I saw that most of the town was nothing very remarkable. It might’ve been Manchester or Swindon or any place, really, but Amos aimed our ship toward the south of the city, to an area that was obviously much older—with adobe buildings and tree-lined streets.
As we descended, I began to get nervous.
“Won’t they notice us in a flying boat?” I asked. “I mean, I know magic is hard to see, but—”
“This is New Mexico,” Amos said. “They see UFOs here all the time.”
And with that, we landed on the roof of a small church.
It was like dropping back in time, or onto a Wild West film set. The town square was lined with stucco buildings like an Indian pueblo. The streets were brightly lit and crowded—it looked like a festival—with stall vendors selling strings of red peppers, Indian blankets, and other curios. An old stagecoach was parked next to a clump of cacti. In the plaza’s bandstand, men with large guitars and loud voices played mariachi music.
“This is the historic area,” Amos said. “I believe they call it Mesilla.”
“Have a lot of Egyptian stuff here, do they?” I asked dubiously.