by Aiden Thomas
Julian stormed off toward the field, leaving a rush of cold wind in his wake.
“What the hell was that?” Alexa demanded, trying to comb out her wind-tangled hair with her fingers.
Yadriel leaped up from his seat. Maritza looked at him, eyes wide with surprise.
“I gotta go,” he said.
As he rushed after Julian, he heard Maritza say behind him, “Must be those Santa Ana winds! It is that time of year.”
“They’re so crazy!” came Letti’s voice. “One time, they blew through and knocked my tío right off the roof when he was cleaning the gutters!”
Yadriel chased Julian out to where the blacktop met the field. He slowed to a stop where Julian crouched by the bleachers, his arms folded over his knees and shoulders hunched up to his ears. He pressed his mouth into the crook of his elbow, obsidian eyes staring out over the football field. Tiny gusts of wind swirled around him, sending leaves and cigarette butts rustling.
“Are you okay?” Yadriel asked gently after making sure there was no one around to overhear him.
“Yes,” Julian snapped, his voice muffled against his arm.
It was entirely unconvincing.
Yadriel shifted his weight between his feet. “Do you … want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Yadriel wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, but Julian was a spirit, and his hand would just pass right through. Instead, he sank down and sat, at least offering Julian his company, even if he didn’t have any words. He fiddled with blades of grass, stealing glances at Julian from the corner of his eye.
His heavy brow was bunched, deep lines pressed into his forehead as he continued to stare off into the distance. This close, Yadriel could see the frayed edges around the neck of his white tee. Julian’s buzzed haircut was uneven and a bit sloppy, like maybe he’d done it himself. He had a scar that curved through his dark hair behind his ear, down to the nape of his neck.
Everything the girls said about Julian, his friends, and his family bounced around in Yadriel’s head. He wasn’t sure he bought it—that Julian was part of some gang and dealing drugs, one step away from ending up in jail. He thought about Julian’s reaction. That look on his face, and his burst of anger. Sure, Yadriel barely knew him, but the guy in front of him just didn’t fit their description. Julian told him he didn’t have any parents, but that didn’t mean they were in jail or killed by a rival drug cartel. If it was just rumors, well, Yadriel knew plenty well what that was like.
And even if the rumors were true, did that matter? Would Yadriel change his mind about wanting to help him because he was a gang member or drug dealer? It did make him a little anxious, but still.
Right now, Yadriel could see him as he was; just a dead boy who was worried about his friends. He wanted to make sure they were okay, and probably wanted nothing more than to go home.
Yadriel could at least help him with one of those.
In the distance, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.
“Hey,” Yadriel said.
Julian’s eyes finally flickered to his face.
“Let’s get the rest of school over with so we can go find your friends,” Yadriel told him. “Okay?”
Julian stared at him, and for a moment, Yadriel was convinced he wasn’t going to budge or even reply. But then he dragged the back of his hand against his mouth and stood up. “Yeah.”
Yadriel stood up, too, and jerked his head back toward the school. “Come on, math class is this way.”
Julian followed without protest.
EIGHT
The rest of the day went without incident. Julian was unnaturally quiet, so much so that Yadriel found himself wishing he’d go back to his mischief making. Ms. Costanzo, the math teacher, had to remind Yadriel twice to keep his eyes on his own test. He kept glancing to where Julian sat at the back of the classroom, knees bouncing as he silently stared out the window.
When school finally let out, they met up with Maritza and started the walk back home.
Julian wandered up ahead. Yadriel exchanged worried looks with Maritza. He really couldn’t take Julian’s silence anymore.
“So, uh…” Yadriel jogged a couple of steps to catch up to him. “Your friends weren’t at school, huh?” he said, trying to nudge him into conversation.
“They’re fine,” Julian said, and his pinched expression told Yadriel that this was not the way to lighten his spirits. “They just ditch a lot, y’know?” Julian nodded, as if trying to encourage himself. “They’re fine.”
Yadriel looked back to Maritza for some guidance, but all she did was lift her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug.
“It was pretty cool that you were able to kick that soccer ball,” he tried.
Julian blinked, as if he’d forgotten.
“Soon you should be slamming doors and moving furniture around,” Yadriel told him with an awkward laugh. “What with Día de Muertos a couple days out, you’ll be full ghost mode in no time. Though,” he added as an afterthought, “maybe no more outbursts in front of the non-brujx?”
Julian’s grin was back, albeit sheepish. “Yeah, my bad.”
He wasn’t back to 100 percent, but he was getting there, and Yadriel would take what he could get. “Maybe work on the impulse control while you’re at it.”
Julian let out a short laugh. “Noted.”
“Great, now that the pity party is over—” Maritza slipped between them. Julian rolled his eyes at Yadriel over the top of her head, and he couldn’t help but grin back. “We need to stop by my place so I can drop off my crap. Can’t go running the streets of East LA like hoodlums if I’m weighed down by my chemistry textbook,” she said, hitching her backpack higher on her shoulder for emphasis.
Luckily, Maritza’s family lived one block over from the cemetery, so it was a quick stop on the way. It was a squat yellow house with a chain-link fence wrapped around it. The gate had a BEWARE OF DOGS sign, and both her parents’ cars were parked in the driveway.
“You stay here,” Maritza told Julian, pointing to her mom’s silver minivan.
Julian made a disgruntled noise. “How long is this gonna take?”
“We’ll be in and out.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“Stay out of sight,” Yadriel told him. “And if anyone looks at you, then they’re probably a brujx, so just act like a spirit—”
Julian squinted. “But I am a spirit—”
“Just don’t look suspicious, okay?”
Julian looked around, clearly not sure what to do with himself.
“Never mind, just”—Yadriel flapped his hands at him—“just hide behind the van and we’ll be right back!”
Julian rolled his eyes, but he did what he was told and crouched down behind the dusty van. “I don’t see how this isn’t suspicious, but okay,” he muttered.
“We’ll be right back!” Yadriel repeated as he shoved Maritza toward the house.
“I’m home!” she shouted once they got inside, chucking her backpack onto the couch.
“In here!” Maritza’s mother called.
Yadriel followed Maritza into the kitchen. Tía Sofia stood at the stove over a pot of brown syrup that smelled sticky and sweet. Another large metal pot sat covered next to it, spilling steam from its sides.
Maritza’s older sister, Paola, sat at the kitchen table. She had two huge textbooks opened up, along with a notebook. Paola was a med student at the nearby university. No matter how much of a rush she was in, Paola’s hair was always styled into a flawless wash-and-go. Black curls fell across her face as she bent over a notebook. She furiously took notes in between highlighting and placing color-coded Post-its.
The other half of the table was filled with portajes Tío Isaac was either repairing or building for various brujos. There were simple daggers scattered among the more elaborate choices of the younger brujos. Loud, rhythmic clanging cut through the air. The open door to the backyard revealed Tío Isaac, standing at his w
orkbench as he hammered out a blade.
“How was school?” Tía Sofia asked, sparing them a glance as she grated piloncillo into the syrup. On tin foil next to her sat orange cubes of calabaza en tacha—candied pumpkin.
“Lame, as usual,” Maritza said, making a beeline for the tray. She snatched up a piece of pumpkin and tossed it into her mouth.
“¡Ay, ten cuidado!” Tía Sofia warned, but it was too late.
Maritza danced in place, waving at her mouth. “Ah, hot!” She spat the scalding pumpkin out, and it fell, with a wet plop, onto one of Paola’s textbooks.
Paola gasped, her pretty face twisting into a snarl. “Seriously, Maritza?!” She smacked Maritza on the butt before scooping off the offending pumpkin and throwing it in the sink.
“Ow! I didn’t mean to!” Maritza scowled.
“Yeah, sure you didn’t!” Paola brushed the glob of syrup off the page.
“You are taking this way too seriously.”
“You don’t take school seriously enough!” Paola shot back. “What exactly do you plan on doing after you graduate if you can’t even heal?”
“Take up forging portajes, like Dad,” Maritza replied, as if it were obvious.
Paola rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“Would you like a piece, Yadriel?” Tía Sofia asked, turning to Yadriel with a smile, holding up a piece of candied pumpkin on her slotted spoon. Her daughters bickered ferociously behind her.
“No, gracias,” Yadriel said with a small smile. His tongue had been bugging him all day and the pain was only now starting to fade. He didn’t want to aggravate it again.
“Of course you do!” She laughed warmly. “Here!”
Yadriel knew better than to decline an offer of food from a Latinx mom more than once. Carefully, he took a bite, shifting it to his cheek to avoid the cut.
Tía Sofia waited expectantly. “Good?”
Yadriel nodded and smiled, because of course it was. The pumpkin was tender, and the syrup had just the right amount of brown sugar and the faint zest of orange.
“Good!” Tía Sofia give him a pat on the cheek before going back to her cooking. “Are you excited for Día de Muertos? Ay, of course you are! Tu mamá will be there!”
Yadriel tried to return her bright smile, but it was difficult to muster her level of enthusiasm.
“Yes, it’ll be a good year, indeed—”
“No fighting by the portajes!” Tío Isaac called, pausing for a moment on his work. He’d learned the trade from his own father back in Haiti. Tío Isaac scratched at his bushy beard, sweat glistening on his earth-rich brown skin. He huffed a big sigh, his broad chest heaving.
“One of these times their bickering is going to turn into a knife fight, I tell you,” Tío Isaac told Yadriel in conspiratorial exasperation. In a house full of hardheaded boricuas, he was vastly outnumbered but never complained about it. Even when all three Santima women broke into a fight, Tío Isaac would just sigh and shake his head. He was a kind man with a deep well of patience.
“You’re probably right,” Yadriel agreed, eyeing the portajes carefully laid out. He used to watch Tío Isaac work all the time, staring at the portajes with longing, wishing he had one of his own.
Now, he didn’t have to wish anymore.
“Are you staying for dinner, Yads?” Tío Isaac asked. The blade he was hammering sizzled as he dropped it into a bucket of water.
“I’m making ta-ma-leees!” Tía Sofia sang, gesturing to the steaming pot.
“No, actually—”
“I made you some rajas con queso ones, Itza,” her mom said, lifting the lid off the large pot. The smell of sweet masa filled the room. “Hopefully that vegan cheese melts this time,” she added, poking at the wrapped corn husks with a doubtful expression.
Tamales were a staple for Día de Muertos and prepared in obscenely large batches. In ancient times, they were soaked in blood and presented as offerings to Bahlam, the jaguar god of Xibalba. Luckily for Maritza—and everyone else, really—there was no longer a blood sacrifice involved.
“Save them for me to zap in the microwave when I get home!” Maritza told her.
“I make you tamales from scratch and you’re just going to microwave them later?” Tía Sofia demanded, clutching her heart. “And last night you missed out on your papa’s diri ak djon djon! He even made it without shrimp!”
“We got stuff to do, we’re not staying for dinner,” Maritza explained.
Tía Sofia huffed before waving her hand dismissively at her daughter.
“Oh yeah, what kind of stuff?” Paola asked.
Yadriel could tell by the looks the sisters exchanged that this wasn’t going to go well.
“Just to go hang out, nosy! Mom, where’s my rain jacket?”
“Esta allí,” she said, waving toward the living room.
“That’s not helpful!”
“I don’t think you two should be going off on your own after school,” Tío Isaac said, his large form filling up the doorframe as he wiped off his hands on a rag.
“Your papá is right,” Tía Sofia agreed. “It’s too dangerous, especially after Miguel—” Unable to finish her sentence, she crossed herself.
Yadriel’s stomach twisted into knots. “We still haven’t found anything?” he asked.
Tío Isaac shook his head solemnly. “Not yet.”
Yadriel just didn’t get it. How was that possible?
“Not to mention”—Tía Sofia propped her fist on one hip and shook her spoon at her youngest daughter—“you still haven’t tried on the dress I got you for your aquelarre, and you said you’d take those colors out of your hair before Día de Muertos, too!”
Yadriel shot Maritza a hard stare. They needed to find Julian’s friends, get answers that would satisfy the stubborn spirit, and wrap this whole thing up before Día de Muertos.
Maritza nodded, reading his look loud and clear. “Ugh, you guys!” she whined. “I’ll try on the dress later, and I definitely never said I’d re-dye my hair—”
Tía Sofia opened her mouth to argue, but Maritza cut her off.
“I said I’d think about it, and I thought about it, and I decided not to.”
Yadriel pinched the bridge of his nose. Arguing with her mom about dresses and hair was definitely not going to put Maritza’s mom in a lenient mood. “Maritza,” he hissed.
Maritza looked at him like she’d completely forgotten that he was there and what the real matter at hand was. “And the sun’s still up until like six!” she argued, getting back on track. She paused for a second and then walked her fingers toward one of the blades on the kitchen table. “I guess if we had a couple of these to defend ourselves—”
“No!” her parents answered in unison.
“They could take the boys?” Tío Isaac suggested, looking to his wife.
Maritza’s eyes went wide. “Dad, no—”
Tía Sofia nodded in agreement. “Yes, mi amor!”
Yadriel always liked how a Puerto Rican accent turned soft r’s into l’s, so it sounded like mi amol.
“I like that idea!”
“Mom!”
Paola snorted a laugh.
Maritza growled and spun to Yadriel. “You go home and grab—uh—your stuff. I’ll meet you there.” With that, she turned back to her parents, fists firmly planted on her hips. “I’M NOT TAKING THEM WITH US! THEY ONLY GET IN THE WAY! AND THEY SMELL!”
Yadriel slipped out of the kitchen before it was too late.
Outside, Julian was right where he’d left him, leaning against the van and looking bored.
“Where’s Maritza?” he asked, glancing back toward the house where Yadriel could still hear arguing.
“Uh, she got a little tied up,” Yadriel told him. Julian looked amused. “Come on, she’ll meet us back at the house.”
Worry dug under Yadriel’s skin. If Maritza’s parents were any indicator, they were going to have a hell of a time
sneaking out after school. As a whole, Yadriel’s dad didn’t like him out on the streets after the streetlights came on, but now? The adults were bound to instate a curfew after what had happened to Miguel, especially because they still didn’t know what happened. It seemed like just a matter of time.
Not to mention, it was the end of October, which meant the sun was setting earlier. They had only a handful of hours to work with.
He led the way around the corner and across the street to the cemetery. He checked to make sure the coast was clear before they slipped through the gate. There weren’t any brujx between the front gate and his house, though he could see a couple of figures off in the distance tending to the graves.
“Let’s go,” Yadriel said to Julian, keeping an eye on the brujx as he waved him forward and picked up the pace. “Before someone—”
“Wait, Yads!” Julian’s hand shot out, in an attempt to grab him, but, of course, it went right through his shoulder, hitting him with a shock of cold.
The next second, Yadriel ran into something. The crash sent him stumbling, and he landed on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Around him, things clattered. Yadriel groaned.
He looked up, and Julian was standing over him, his hand clamped over his mouth as he laughed.
“Dude, are you okay?”
Yadriel glared up at him.
“I’d offer you a hand, but…” Julian let out another chuckle.
“Glad to see my pain puts you in such a good mood,” Yadriel griped as he pushed himself back onto his feet.
“Did you hurt anything?”
“Just my dignity.” He dusted off his pants and turned to see what he had tripped over. A stack of milk crates had been knocked over and large bunches of marigolds lay scattered across the ground. Tiny orange petals were everywhere.
“Uh-oh,” Julian said, stepping behind Yadriel.
“My cempasúchitl!” Tito fumed as he stomped over. The air around his translucent body rippled like heat waves. He looked down at his beloved flowers and got on his knees, gingerly gathering the bouquets into his arms.
“I’m so sorry, Tito!” Yadriel apologized. “Here, let me help!” He bent down to pick up one of the crates, but Tito shooed him away.
