Page 7 of Cemetery Boys

But this was different. Whatever had happened to Miguel was not a gentle passing.

There had to be some sort of mistake. It didn’t make sense. Even though he’d felt it, even though he knew exactly what it meant, there was no way Miguel was dead.

Miguel was Yadriel’s cousin and only twenty-eight years old. Yadriel had just seen him earlier that night when he stopped by the house to snag some of Lita’s concha before he started his graveyard shift.

Had there been an accident? Maybe Miguel had left the cemetery and had been hit by a car? There was no way he could’ve been killed while in the cemetery, was there?

They needed to get home and find out what had taken Miguel so violently from this life.

Maritza’s legs were longer than Yadriel’s, and his binder hugged tight around his ribs, making it difficult for him to keep up. The weight of his portaje tucked into his backpack felt especially heavy.

They rounded the corner and ran into chaos unfolding. Loud voices. People running in and out of the house. Shadows moved back and forth behind the curtains.

Maritza wrenched open the gate in the chain-link fence and bounded up the stairs, Yadriel right on her heels. He nearly got knocked over by someone rushing out the front door, but he managed to wedge his way inside.

Their house was small enough to begin with, and in the weeks leading up to Día de Muertos, “cramped” was putting it lightly. Every surface was used as storage for the impending celebrations. Precariously stacked boxes full of prayer candles, silk monarch butterflies, and hundreds of colorful, meticulously cut papel picado were piled on the worn leather couch. The dining room table had been pushed against the wall and was covered in white sugar skulls waiting to be decorated.

It should have been a scene of preparation for their most important holiday of the year, but instead it was frenzied panic. Maritza clung to the back of Yadriel’s hoodie, sticking close as they got jostled around.

Miguel’s mother, Claudia, sat at the dining table. Yadriel’s abuelita was at her side, flanked by other brujas. They rubbed her arms and spoke gentle words in Spanish, but Claudia was inconsolable.

Grief rolled off her in waves. Yadriel could feel it in his bones. The deep wails of primal mourning made him wince. He knew those cries all too well. He had experienced them himself.

Yadriel could only watch as his abuelita worked her magic.

She continued to speak calmly into Claudia’s ear as she pulled her portaje from under the neck of her black blouse embroidered with colorful flowers. It was an old rosary of wooden beads with a pewter sacred heart hanging at the end. With deft fingers, Lita unscrewed the top and smeared chicken blood across the sacred heart. “Usa mis manos,” she said in a soft, steady voice, calling to Lady Death. As she murmured, the rosary shimmered with golden light. “Te doy tranquilidad de espíritu.”

Lita pressed the end of the rosary to Claudia’s forehead. After a moment, the sobs began to subside. Claudia’s pained expression ebbed away, smoothing the pinched lines in her face. Yadriel could feel Claudia’s pain slowly fade to a dull ache. Her shoulders sloped until she sat back in the chair, limbs heavy. Her hands came to a rest in her lap, and though her face was flushed and tears steadily fell, her suffering was far less severe.

The glowing light of Lita’s rosary faded until it was back to pewter and wood.

Yadriel’d once asked his mom why they didn’t just take all of someone’s pain when they were sad. She had explained it was important to let people feel grief and mourn the loss of a loved one.

Yadriel respected his grandmother, and all the brujas, and the incredible powers they possessed. Those powers had just never been his.

Hiccups racked Claudia’s chest as Lita removed her rosary, leaving a smudge of red on her puckered brow. One of the brujas handed Claudia a glass of water, another dabbed gently at her cheeks with a tissue.

“Día de Muertos is only a couple days away,” Lita reminded Claudia in her heavily accented English. She gave Claudia’s hand a squeeze with a small smile. “You will see Miguel again.”

She was right, of course, but Yadriel didn’t think that would provide Claudia with much comfort right now. Lita had told him the same thing when his mother had died. He understood they were lucky in that way, to be able to see their dead loved ones again, but that didn’t make him feel better in the moment. A visit for two days once a year could never make up for the loss of having them around all the time.

And there was another problem: If Miguel hadn’t passed to the land of the dead—if he was still tethered to this world—he couldn’t return during Día de Muertos.

What had happened to him?

Someone rushing out of the kitchen bumped into Yadriel, and the sound of his father’s voice snagged his attention. He tore his eyes away from Claudia and wove through bodies to get to the kitchen, Maritza following close behind him.

Inside the kitchen, a handful of brujos stood in a group, their eyes on Yadriel’s father. Enrique Vélez Cabrera was a tall man—genes that Yadriel had decidedly not inherited—with an average build. He had a bit of a gut, which pressed against the red-checkered shirt he wore tucked into his jeans. Enrique had kept the same modest haircut and bushy mustache for as long as Yadriel could remember. The only difference now was the salt-and-pepper hair at his temples.

After Yadriel’s grandfather passed away, Enrique had taken up the position as leader of the East LA brujx. Lita was his right hand, serving as the matriarch of the family and spiritual leader. Enrique was well respected and looked up to. All the men in the room gave him their undivided attention, especially Diego, Yadriel’s older brother, who stood at Enrique’s side, nodding vigorously at every instruction his dad gave.

“We need to find Miguel’s portaje. If he hasn’t passed on to the land of the dead, he’ll be tethered to it,” Enrique told the group, gripping the edge of the small wooden table. His voice was low and gravelly, his eyes intense. Yadriel looked around, and every brujo’s face held varying degrees of shock.

“People are already searching the cemetery—he was on shift tonight—but I need more to go to Claudia and Benny’s house,” Enrique told them. Even though Miguel had been in his late twenties, he’d still lived at home to help his disabled father. Miguel was kind and patient, and he’d always been good to Yadriel. A lump lodged in his throat. Yadriel tried to swallow it down.

“Someone get one of Miguel’s shirts and go wake up Julio; we might need his dogs,” Enrique added, and another brujo ran off.

Julio was a cranky old brujo who raised pit bulls and trained them to track by scent. It was a skill that came in handy for locating bodies and tethers of lost spirits.