Cemetery Boys(6)

The fire in the bowl glinted in her eyes, a huge smile on her face. “There’s one way to find out.”

Laughter bubbled in Yadriel’s throat, relief and adrenaline making him half delirious. “Right.”

If Lady Death had blessed him, granting him the powers of the brujx, that meant he could summon a lost spirit. If he could summon a spirit and release it to the afterlife, then he would finally prove himself to everyone—the brujx, his family, and his dad. They would see him as he was. A boy and a brujo.

Yadriel got to his feet, holding his portaje carefully against his chest. He sucked in his lips, tasting the last traces of blood. His tongue stung, but the cut had been small. It hurt about as much as when he burned it trying to drink café de olla fresh off the stove.

As Maritza gathered the candles, pointedly steering clear of the flaming bowl of blood, Yadriel approached the statue of Lady Death. At a little over five feet, he had to crane his neck back to look up at her in her alcove.

He wished he could speak to her. Could she see him for who he really was? What his own family couldn’t? Yadriel had spent years feeling misunderstood by everyone except for Maritza. When he had told her he was trans three years ago, she hadn’t batted an eye. Ay, finally! she’d said, exasperated but smiling. I figured something was up, I was just waiting for you to spit it out.

During that time, Maritza had been his reliable secret keeper, smoothly going back and forth between pronouns when they were alone, versus when they were around everyone else, until he was ready.

It took him another year, when he was fourteen, to work up the courage to come out to his family. It hadn’t gone nearly as well, and it was still a constant struggle to get them and the other brujx to use the right pronouns and to call him by the right name.

Other than Maritza, his mother, Camila, had been the most supportive. It took time to relearn old habits, but she’d caught on surprisingly fast. Yadriel’s mom had even taken on the task of gently correcting people so he didn’t have to. It was a heavy burden, small instances piling up, but his mom helped him shoulder some of the weight.

When he felt especially raw, from the constant fight to be who he was—either at school or within their own community—his mom would sit him down on the couch. She’d pull him close, and he’d rest his head on her shoulder. She always smelled of cloves and cinnamon, like she’d just made torta bejarana. As she gently ran her fingers through his hair, she’d murmur, Mijo, my Yadriel, slowly coaxing the pain away to a dull ache that never completely vanished.

But she’d been gone for almost a year now.

Yadriel sniffed and dragged his fist across his nose, the back of his throat burning.

This would be the first Día de Muertos since she’d died. Come midnight, November 1, the church bells would ring, welcoming back the spirits of passed brujx to the cemetery. Then, for two days, Yadriel would be able to see her again.

He would show her he was a true brujo. A son she could be proud of. He would perform the tasks that his father and his father’s father had as the children of Lady Death. Yadriel would prove himself to everyone.

“C’mon, brujo,” Maritza called gently, waving him forward. “We need to get out of here before someone finds us.”

Yadriel turned and grinned.

Brujo.

He was about to bend down and pick up the bowl from the ground when the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Yadriel froze and looked to Maritza, who had also stopped mid-step.

Something was wrong.

“Did you feel that?” he asked. Even in a whisper, his voice seemed too loud in the empty church.

Maritza nodded. “What is it?”

Yadriel gave a small shake of his head. It was almost like sensing a nearby spirit but different. Stronger than anything Yadriel had felt before. A sense of unexplained dread swarmed in his stomach.

He saw Maritza shiver just as he felt a tingle shoot down his spine.

There was a beat of nothingness.

Then searing pain stabbed into Yadriel’s chest.

He cried out, the force knocking him to his knees.

Maritza fell, a strangled cry lodging in her throat.

The pain was unbearable. Yadriel’s breath came in sharp bursts as he clutched at his chest. His eyes watered, blurring the vision of Lady Death standing above him.

Just when he thought he couldn’t stand it any longer, that, surely, the pain would kill him, it stopped.

Tension released his muscles, and his arms and legs went limp, heavy with exhaustion. Sweat clung to his skin. His body trembled as he gulped air. Yadriel’s hand clutched his chest, right above his heart, where the throbbing pain slowly faded to a dull ache. Maritza knelt on the floor, one hand pressed to the same place. Her skin was ashen and covered in a sheen of sweat.

They stared at each other, trying to catch their breath. They didn’t say anything. They knew what it meant. They could feel it in their bones.

Miguel was gone. One of their own had died.





TWO


“What happened? What the hell happened?” Maritza panted at Yadriel’s side as they raced through the cemetery. She kept saying it over and over again, like a haunting mantra.

Yadriel had never seen her so shook up before and it made everything so much worse. Usually, he was the one panicking under tense situations while she just shrugged things off with a joke. But this was no laughing matter.