Cemetery Boys(26)

“Holy shit,” Julian laughed, the deep kind that came from his belly. “That’s one messed-up looking cat!”

“Shut up!” Yadriel snapped, pulling Purrcaso close. “Don’t make fun of her.” Her enthused purrs reverberated against his chest.

Julian held up his palms in defense. “Hey, hey, hey, didn’t mean any disrespect! But, c’mon—” The chuckles started again, and he did a very bad job of holding them back. “She is pretty funny looking.”

Yadriel glared, but Purrcaso was unfazed. She wiggled out of Yadriel’s grasp and clumsily leaped to the floor. With a trilling meow, she hobbled over to Julian.

He sucked the sugar off his fingers. “What’s up, little one?” he asked before looking up at Yadriel. “She can see me?”

“Cats are like little spirit guardians,” he said with a shrug. “They hang out in the cemetery all the time. My mom said they were good luck. Cats can see spirits and sense them nearby, just like us.”

Julian reached down, and when his fingers brushed against her fur, a wide smile split his face. “I can pet her!” He scratched her behind the ears, and Purrcaso’s eyes slid shut, leaning into the touch.

Yadriel was surprised at how quickly she took to him. Usually, Purrcaso was uninterested in anyone other than him and his mom, but here she was, drool gathering at the corner of her mouth as Julian scratched her furry chin.

“Never had any pets growing up, but I always liked cats,” Julian told him.

A thought occurred to Yadriel. “What about your family?”

Julian’s shoulders tensed. He didn’t look up. “What about ’em?”

“Don’t you want me to talk to them, too?” Yadriel asked. As uncomfortable as that sounded, it was weird that Julian was so worried about his friends but hadn’t mentioned his family at all. “You’re not worried about your parents?”

“Don’t got parents,” Julian said, his words curt. Gruff. Purrcaso batted at the unraveled end of Julian’s shoelace.

Yadriel blinked. “Oh…” Growing up in a multigenerational household and being part of a huge Latinx community, the concept of not having any family was both foreign and distressing. “But you mentioned your brother. Isn’t he going to be worried?”

Julian let out a sharp, bark-like laugh. “Trust me, me being dead is a good thing for him. Probably a weight off his shoulders. Best thing that could’ve happened.” He spat the words out like they were bitter.

Yadriel frowned. That sounded … awful. His own family was far from perfect, but would he be better off without them? Or vice versa?

“When can I start moving stuff?” Julian asked, finally looking up. The discussion about family was clearly over.

Purrcaso limped over to one of Yadriel’s hoodies on the floor and curled up, settling in for another nap.

“Moving stuff?”

“Yeah, you know—” Julian stood and paced the room. He couldn’t sit still, and he couldn’t stop himself from trying to touch things. He thumbed a stack of books on the desk and rapped his fingers against the closet door. “Like slamming doors, stacking chairs, stuff like that,” he explained, coming to a stop before the altar on Yadriel’s dresser.

The altar was three steps tall, covered in an orange, magenta, and royal-blue shawl that had once been his mother’s. It was adorned with half-burned candles of different colors and sizes. The bottom step had black-and-white photos of his relatives—his maternal grandparents standing outside their yellow-painted home back in Mexico, his paternal grandfather squinting through his glasses at the new cell phone they had gotten him for his birthday.

Julian bent down to sniff the unlit incense.

Yadriel snorted. “You’re really taking this ‘ghost’ stuff literally.”

Julian tilted his chin and grinned in a way he could only describe as preening. “I’m very committed to my new lifestyle.”

A surprised laugh bucked in Yadriel’s chest.

Who was this guy?

“Practice,” Yadriel answered with a shrug. He thought of the large metal shears Tito used to tend to his precious marigolds. “You’ve got to concentrate and focus.”

“Mm,” Julian hummed, pressing his lips together. “Not exactly my strong suits.”

“I’ve gathered.”

Julian looked up. “What?”

Yadriel cleared his throat. “Lucky for you, the closer it gets to Día de Muertos, the more powerful the dead become,” Yadriel said. “It’s only a couple days away, so you’ll be moving stuff around in no time. Don’t touch that,” he added when Julian reached for his statue of Lady Death.

Julian snatched his hand back. “I know her,” he said, pointing. “Santa Muerte, right?” he asked, turning to Yadriel.

Yadriel blinked, surprised. “Uh, yeah.” He stood and came to a stop next to Julian.

On the top step stood a small painted statue of Lady Death he’d gotten during a trip to Tepito, Mexico. She was made out of white clay and wore a white huipil with rainbow-colored flowers along the neck. Her skirts were layers of red and white. A gold sash was tied around her waist, her oily-black hair braided over one shoulder and accented with tiny painted marigolds.

“We call her Lady Death; she’s our patron,” Yadriel explained, affectionately straightening the skeleton dressed in her huipil and skirts. “She’s the one who gave us our powers. She looks after us, and we help her maintain the balance of life and death.”