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.”
“So, she’s your patron and your patrón.” Julian grinned, quite pleased with his own cleverness and ignoring Yadriel’s groan entirely. “She’s one of our saints, too,” he told Yadriel, head bobbing in a nod. “Bunch of folks have little altars for her. Someone’s always pouring out mezcal for her at parties. One of my friends got a big tattoo of her across his chest. My brother’s got one on his arm.” He tapped at his own bicep. “I’ve always been more partial to St. Jude, myself…” Julian’s eyes slid to Yadriel’s neck, his brow puckering.
St. Jude. Yadriel had nearly forgotten. He pressed his fingers to the medal at his throat—Julian’s medal. Yadriel remembered how possessive he’d been of it back in the church. It clearly meant a lot to him.
“Who’s that?” Julian suddenly asked, pointing to the picture of Yadriel’s mom. It had been taken the Christmas before she died. She was mid-laugh, wearing a red dress with the Christmas tree lights behind her. Delicate earrings made of multicolored hummingbird feathers dangled from her ears. She had a heart-shaped face and brown hair that she’d always worn down in natural waves.
Yadriel took a large step back. “My mom.” The words were clipped, making it, hopefully, clear that it wasn’t a topic for Julian to play another round of twenty questions.
Julian quickly withdrew his hand and stuffed them both into his pockets. “Oh.”
Yadriel steered the conversation back to Julian’s original question. “Well, you won’t have long to try it out—going all Paranormal Activity, I mean. Hopefully we’ll get everything sorted out—make sure you’re friends are okay, figure out what happened—soon.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the desk. “Like, before Friday.”
“Halloween?” Julian smirked and nodded his approval. “Awesome. Very on theme.”
“Día de Muertos kicks off at midnight, the night of October thirty-first,” Yadriel explained. “We clean up the graves in the cemetery to prepare for the spirits to arrive, like cleaning up the house before family comes to visit. Everyone takes special care of their portajes—”
Julian nodded along as if he understood perfectly. “Right, right, right.”
“We set up ofrendas for the spirits of the returning brujx. We put out pictures of them, their favorite foods or toys, little mementos, stuff like that. They lead the spirits back to the world of the living, that’s why we use candles and bright colors, like the marigolds. And the smell of the food, of course.”
Julian rubbed his stomach, as if remembering the taste of the pan de muerto.
“Then at midnight, the bell tolls, officially starting the celebration and signaling the arrival of the spirits. They get to stay until it ends at sunset on November second. It’s like a two-day-long party and you get to see everybody.”
“Like your mom?” Julian asked, his gaze shifting back over to the picture.
Yadriel’s stomach twisted. “Yeah.” He was both excited and anxious to see his mom again in just a matter of days. There was a lot he needed to accomplish before then.
Julian studied the altar with an intense expression. “Is it like … for anybody?” He didn’t look at Yadriel when he spoke.
“How do you mean?” Yadriel asked, not understanding the question. It was hard to keep up with Julian’s constantly shifting train of thought.
Julian’s hand went to his neck, his fingers searching at the dip of his throat. “Like do normal people come back, too?” A frown pressed deep lines into his forehead. “Non-brujx?”
“Oh—no.” Yadriel shifted uneasily. “It’s just brujx.” Was there someone he wanted to see?
Julian nodded. “When you raised me from the dead—”
“Summoned your spirit, you’re not a zombie—”
Julian rolled his eyes. “Right, that. You thought I was someone else. Miguel?”
Yadriel’s heart clenched. “Yeah, my cousin,” he said.
“How’d he die?” Julian asked.
“We don’t know,” Yadriel confessed, lifting his shoulders in a shrug.
“Wait,” Julian shook his head. “Then how do you know he’s even dead?”
“It’s a brujx thing. If one of us dies, we can all feel it.”
Julian still looked confused. “But you don’t know what happened?”
Yadriel shook his head. “Only that it was … bad.” He remembered the sharp pain he’d felt. How it’d ripped through his chest. Goose bumps skittered down his arms at the thought. Yadriel frowned at himself. He felt helpless and frustrated. He was supposed to be helping the brujx find Miguel. “Hopefully they find him. We need to find him,” he corrected himself. “He could be anywhere, for all we know. If we’re wrong and his spirit didn’t get tethered, and he managed to cross over to the afterlife, at least his spirit will return during Día de Muertos, so he’ll be able to just tell us himself,” Yadriel said. “But still, the sooner we find him, the better. It’s not good for a spirit to be wandering around alone.”
Julian sat up straighter. “Why not?”
“Spirits can go maligno—turn dark and evil—if they stay in the land of the living for too long.” The thought of that happening to Miguel made him feel queasy all over again.
“How long?” Julian asked with an edge to his voice.
“It varies,” he said, knowing it wasn’t very helpful. He’d never seen it happen up close. The brujos kept on top of it, and it wasn’t like Yadriel was allowed to perform the releasing ritual, anyway. “Sometimes it happens quick—the spirit loses themselves and they turn violent,” he said with a shrug.
Julian had a strange look on his face, and, at first, Yadriel couldn’t place it. His jaw was flexed and his body rigid; his mouth in a hard line, nostrils flared as he stared at Yadriel.
Then it hit him—Julian was scared.
“But that won’t happen to you!” he said quickly, trying to backpedal. “I mean, sometimes it takes years and years for that to happen!”
Julian didn’t look reassured.
“That’s why we’ve got to find your friends tomorrow,” Yadriel rushed. “The sooner we do, the sooner I can release your spirit before anything goes sideways.”
Julian’s expression was doubtful. “Yeah, well, you be sure to use that knife of yours on me before I go full Exorcist,” he said gruffly, cocking an eyebrow. “Deal?”
Yadriel exhaled a laugh, but he agreed. “Deal.”
Julian’s shoulders relaxed a little. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything and Yadriel felt like a real asshole for being so insensitive.
Yadriel cleared his throat. “Nothing more we can do tonight, though. Everyone else is out looking for Miguel.” Hell, maybe they’ve even already found him and by morning the mystery would be all cleared up. “I’ll get you something to sleep on.” Yadriel went to his closet and dug around for his old sleeping bag.