Omega Morales and the Legend of La Lechuza Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2022 by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Illustrations copyright © 2022 by Vanessa Morales

  Cover art copyright © 2022 by Vanessa Morales. Cover design by Karina Granda.

  Cover copyright © 2022 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Edition: September 2022

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  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kemp, Laekan Zea, author. | Morales, Vanessa, illustrator.

  Title: Omega Morales and the legend of La Lechuza / Laekan Zea Kemp ; illustrated by Vanessa Morales.

  Description: First edition. | New York ; Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 2022. | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Summary: “A girl must learn to trust herself—and her ancestral powers—when she comes face-to-face with the Mexican legend La Lechuza.”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021056721 | ISBN 9780316304160 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316304481 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Empathy—Fiction. | Emotions—Fiction. | Witches—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Supernatural—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Hispanic Americans—Fiction. | LCGFT: Novels. | Paranormal fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K463 Om 2022 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056721

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-30416-0 (hardcover), 978-0-316-30448-1 (ebook)

  E3-20220819-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Para mis primos.

  Blood and beyond.

  THE TREES ARE TALKING TO ME AGAIN. Mami tells me it’s because I’m too willing to listen. My cousin Carlitos tells me it’s because I don’t practice controlling my empathic abilities enough. But I think it’s because I’m cursed.

  It’s not the trees’ fault they’re so chatty. You try standing in one place for hundreds of years without anyone to talk to, collecting memories since you were just a tiny seed. The moment you finally have an audience, it makes sense that you’d want to put on a good show.

  “Excuse me.” One of the pecan trees lining the park path tosses an unripened shell at me. “But are you trying to say we’re making this all up?”

  Did I mention trees can also read minds? At least the ones in Noche Buena can, and that’s not even the strangest thing about this place. Which is why our family has been practicing magic here for centuries. On this little patch of dirt where horny toads grant wishes, cats have way more than nine lives, and the ghosts are more obnoxious than the living.

  “You think you see with eyes stronger than mine?” The pecan tree hurls one at Carlitos next.

  “Ouch!” He rubs his scalp. “¿En serio? I’m not the one who thinks you’re lying.” He turns to me. “Why do you keep letting them in, Omega?”

  I jam an elbow into his side. “Gee, thanks for your help.” And I can’t help it, I want to tell him.

  Carlitos has always been better at controlling his powers. Ever since he woke up on his ninth birthday and was suddenly able to stop his little brother Chale’s crying with the touch of his hand. When my ninth and tenth birthdays came and went, I didn’t even think I had powers. But it’s been almost a year since they finally showed up and I’m still trying to figure them out.

  I turn my attention back to the trees, pretending to be interested. “Okay, we’re listening. Describe it again.”

  “It was a curse incarnate.” The oak tree above me splays its leaves, stretching and twisting its gnarled branches into shadow-puppet shapes. “First the breeze blew in, so cold that in an instant I knew it didn’t belong here. Not under the harvest moon.”

  “Then that disappeared too,” the pecan tree says, “covered up by something giant, its wings black as oil.”

  “It landed right on one of my branches. Almost snapped it in half.”

  “Swooped down like a storm cloud.” The pecan tree shakes its leaves, shivering. “I thought I might burst into flames.”

  “And its face.” The bark of the oak tree turns pale. “It was vile. Hideous.”

  “The face of a monster,” the pecan tree adds.

  “The devil!” the oak tree wails.

  This time Carlitos is the one who shivers, the trees’ whipping branches creating an unnatural breeze that shouldn’t exist in the middle of September in south Texas.

  I just roll my eyes. “Okay, so you’re telling me you think you saw el Diablo last night….”

  The pecan tree slaps a branch against the trunk of the oak tree. “She still thinks we’re making this up!”

  “I don’t think you’re making it up,” I say. “I just think you spook easily. Remember that time you swore a demon was stuck in one of your branches and it turned out to be a cat?”

  “Cats are demons,” the oak tree corrects me, twisting its trunk to flash me a patch of scratched bark. “It tried to kill me!”

  Carlitos and I both laugh, but it only makes the oak tree angrier.

  Its leaves stretch like it’s throwing up its hands. “Fine. Don’t believe us.” It jabs a branch at us. “But you’ve been warned.”

  “Ya,” I wave a hand. “Hasta luego.”

  “Adiós, árboles,” Carlitos adds once we’re far enough away. “If we took every one of their ‘warnings’ seriously, we’d be stuck in the same place for a hundred years just like they are.”

  “Yeah,” I say, even though I still feel their fear like a pit at the bottom of my stomach.

  I reach for the moonstone I always carry in my pocket, enchantment keeping it cold like a block of ice, and I squeeze it in my palm until the fear lets go of me.

  But it’s quickly replaced by dread.

  “Oh no, there’s Abby.” Carlitos nods up ahead.

  Next to her, Naomi Davis and Joon Lee are taping flyers to the accessible parking signs, the word MISSING beneath the black-and-white photo of a calico cat.

  “Maybe she won’t see us,” I say, lugging Carlitos behind me. “Just don’t look in her direction.”

  As Carlitos and I pass, all three of them look up, laughing at us, and I get that fire-in-the-belly feeling like they’ve been talking about me.

  Few people in Noche Buena know my family’s… special. But all of them think we’re strange. Despite the fact that Noche Buena has a reputation for the supernatural, it’s not one the townspeople carry with pride. According to my abuela, there was a time when those of us marked with magic could be more open about it, but over the centuries invisible borders have fenced us in, turning us into something to fear.

  I should be used to the whispering, but being an empath, a mediocre one at that, means it’s a lot harder for me to just brush it off. Instead, every snarky comment, every paper taped to my locker scribbled with the word freak, sticks to me like glue.

  That’s how the bullying started with Abby. First, she taped mean things to my locker.

  Then she made an entire Instagram of photos of me doing perfectly ordinary things while looking absolutely hideous to prove I’m the spawn of Satan. Me drinking from the water fountain and replacing the water with blood. Me eating lunch and replacing my sandwich with human guts.

  Things so cruel, I seriously don’t even know how she thinks of them. Unless it’s her who’s actually the spawn of Satan.

  I’ve tried talking to teachers about it. Abuela even marched down to the principal’s office one day to complain. But the problem is, it’s not just the other kids who treat us like we don’t belong, and when it’s adults who are the bullies, who do you call for help?

  Abby clutches a stack of flyers to her chest and bats her lashes. “Well, what do you know? Returning to the scene of the crime, Omega?”

  Naomi and Joon move on to taping flyers to a park bench.


  She glances at them and I can tell she wants their attention. That’s when I realize what this whole thing has really been about. She just wants an audience. For someone to see her. And it’s so pathetic that I almost feel sorry for her.

  Almost.

  Abby clears her throat, raises her voice. “You know, there’s only one way to get rid of that guilty conscience.” She holds up her phone, recording Carlitos and me like she’s some kind of modern-day witch hunter.

  Carlitos turns to me and gags. “I can’t believe she used to spend the night at your house.”

  “Just tell us what you did with them.”

  This time she’s flanked by Naomi and Joon, their arms crossed. “What is she talking about?” I hiss.

  Joon silently shoves the flyer at me.

  “It’s Doña Maria’s cat,” Carlitos says, pointing out the spots.

  “Mrs. Villarreal’s went missing too,” Naomi says, her eyebrow raised.

  Abby crosses her arms to match her posse. “Yeah, any idea where they might have gone?”

  Naomi smirks. “Maybe their family ate them for dinner.” She turns up her nose. “You two do always smell like boiled meat.”

  Abby laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.

  Joon just yawns. “I’m bored.” He grabs Naomi by the wrist. “Come on, I need some more photos with these flyers for my Insta before my makeup melts off in this heat.”

  Abby scrambles for her things. “Wait up, guys.”

  They don’t, laughing together as they head in the opposite direction, leaving her behind.

  “Guess they’re not in need of a third wheel,” Carlitos says with a smile.

  “I’m not a third wheel,” Abby shoots back.

  “It’s not always so bad,” I say. “You used to not mind it.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Yeah, until I found out there were actually four of us.” She means Clau. My best friend who also happens to be a ghost.

  When I first told Abby the truth about my family and she didn’t run away scared, I was so relieved. I thought I could trust her. But then her mom died, and when she begged me to help her communicate with her, I said no. I told her it was against the rules. The truth was, I didn’t know how.

  Maybe if I’d told Abby that she could have forgiven me. Maybe if I hadn’t lied, she wouldn’t constantly be trying to get back at me. But… maybe I shouldn’t want a friend who’s only nice to me when I do what she wants anyway.

  “It’s not right, the kinds of secrets your family keeps,” she says. “It’s not right what y’all are.”

  “It was all right when you thought I could help you. When you wanted to use me to…” My throat clenches.

  She’s misty-eyed as she says, “And now I know that your family doesn’t use magic for good.” She shoves another flyer at me. “Your family uses it for things like this.”

  I look her right in the eye, searching for the girl who used to braid my hair. Who used to pass me notes in class. Who used to laugh at my jokes. But all I see, all I feel, is how much she hates me. And buried even deeper, how much she dislikes herself.

  “Forget her.” Carlitos grabs me by the arm.

  As he leads me toward home, all I can think is, I wish I could.

  “It won’t be long before people start putting two and two together. They’re going to find out it was you.” Abby huffs, trying to keep up just so she can keep tormenting us. “You and your weird family!”

  We finally reach my front door, Abby still going on and on about the cats. But when I push it open, cold air rushes out, the draft so strong it knocks Abby back onto the street.

  It swirls in her hair, her eyes wide. “What’s happening? What are you doing to me?”

  “Don’t worry, Abby.” Carlitos laughs, holding up his phone. “I got you. Everyone at school’s going to love this.”

  The breeze musses her hair, making her scream. She finally runs off, yelling something about our house being haunted.

  I roll my eyes. “Clau… get back here.”

  Clau can’t help but sneak up on Carlitos next. He shudders as she traces an invisible hand up his back.

  “Clau!” He scrapes at his arms. “I thought we had a deal. No sneaking up on me when I can’t see you.”

  Her edges soften, fuzzy, before getting sharper and sharper. She slips into her less invisible skin and leans against the door as if this is her house and we’re just some guests she’s having over for dinner.

  “All right, all right,” she says. “Now take off your shoes before you come inside.”

  We do as we’re told, even though this is my house and Clau only lives here because she’s dead. The reason for which is still a mystery—even, it seems, to Clau.

  All we know is she showed up in our living room one day nine months ago and once she realized we could all actually see her, she has made absolutely zero effort to leave.

  Inside, my abuela is watching Amor Eterno while she pretends to dust. Abuelo snores in the recliner by the window, probably having another one of his prophetic dreams.

  “Hola, mijitos.” Abuela comes over and gives me and Carlitos each a kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad you’re home. Clau has been driving me up the wall.”

  Everyone in my family is strange, but our empathic abilities tend to manifest a little differently. My mother can shift a person’s energy through potions she forms into candle wax. Abuela can do the same thing through food. Abuelo influences people through their dreams, and my tía, Carlitos’s mom, channels emotions through her embroidery.

  Like the rest of them, Carlitos has the gift of Touch and can shift people’s emotions just by resting a hand on them, but it’s weak without a tool to channel it. Abuela says not to worry, though. He’ll find it when he needs it most.

  Unlike me. I’m still stuck with the basics, able to read other people’s emotions but not able to change them.

  Clau casts an overdramatic glance in Abuela’s direction. “While I’ve been grounded, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking….”

  Clau has been housebound ever since she ruined the school talent show a few weeks ago. When she saw the pink boas, she couldn’t help herself, throwing one over her shoulders as she shimmied under the spotlight. Of course, all everyone else saw was the boa, seemingly possessed by a ghost. They had the ghost part right.

  My godmother, Soona, who is also our second cousin, our school librarian, and the oldest person in our town (even though she barely looks thirty) had to spike the punch with a fast-acting potion to erase the event from everyone’s memories. Everyone except Abuela’s. She’s been making Clau do chores, which takes a lot of energy for a ghost. But not enough energy for Clau to stop scheming completely.

  I raise an eyebrow, waiting for her big reveal. “You’ve been thinking…?”

  “Yes.” Clau wriggles her eyebrows in response. “I’ve been thinking… about our Halloween costumes!”

  Carlitos and I exchange a look.

  Clau is constantly trying to pretend like she’s one of the living. It’s why she hasn’t crossed over to the other side yet (and also why she’s always ruining talent shows and getting into similar kinds of trouble). I know she can feel its pull, trying to sing her over the threshold. But her heart sings a different song. Most young ghosts have a hard time making the transition. Clau downright refuses.

  “What do you guys think of”—she waves her hands around, trying to paint a picture—“discotheque vampires.” She grins. “We’ll wear giant seventies Afros and platform shoes with glitter fangs and—”

  Carlitos wrinkles his nose. “What’s wrong?” Clau says.

  When Clau goes off the rails with her whole pretending to be living schtick, neither one of us ever has the heart to tell her that she’s wrong or ridiculous or dead. Even though she is, which means that she won’t be wearing a costume or going trick-or-treating or gorging on candy all night.

  She’ll be following us around, the sadness slowly creeping in with every person who ignores her and every piece of candy that falls right through her hands.

  Then she’ll spend the next couple of days crying to herself in the attic until Abuela talks her out of her despair. When she hears about the fall dance or the Thanksgiving Day parade, the cycle will start all over, and Clau will be reminded again that she doesn’t belong. But she still won’t cross over.

  When no one says anything, Clau just shrugs. “Well, I thought it was a good idea.”