church and graveyard. But as the community expanded, so did the cemetery, and eventually, the original church was just too small to hold them all. Finally, a couple of decades ago, the new one had been built, along with Yadriel’s home.
In comparison, the old church looked like an ancient ruin. Wild vines had overrun the two brick walls that met behind the church, giving the building a backdrop of dense, shadowy green. There weren’t many street lights nearby, but it was East LA, where the sun never seemed to set. Hazy pollution and city lights washed everything in an orange glow, even in the middle of the night.
The church itself was made of a variety of differently shaped and colored stones, all patched together with clay. There was a small bell tower on the roof, directly above the wooden door, that didn’t seem to house an actual bell anymore. A small wrought iron fence about waist-high surrounded the church. A few headstones lined the inner graveyard.
“Mira, there.” Yadriel nudged Maritza and pointed to the back wall. There was a spot through the veil of ivy where the old entrance to the cemetery was located. Yadriel couldn’t help but grin as he jogged around the edge of the fence to the gate.
“See?” Yadriel shoved a fistful of ivy out of the way. The iron bars towered over them. Two handles met at a very sturdy-looking lock meant to keep non-brujx out, and their secrets safe. “Shortcut!”
Maritza let out a low whistle. “Good thing I’m not in a skirt,” she grumbled to herself before wedging her foot onto a crossbar and hoisting herself up.
Yadriel tightened the strap on his backpack, ready to climb up after her, when he got the feeling someone was behind him. It wasn’t an all-at-once realization, more like a slow creeping on the back of his neck. Yadriel turned, but there was only the old church and graves. The hum of traffic and the far-off sound of a car alarm drifted from the distance.
With a shake of his head, Yadriel turned back to the gate. He needed to focus on the task at hand. He gripped the ornate handle to pull himself up, but as soon as he applied pressure, it turned.
He scrambled out of the way as the gate swung open. Maritza yelped. Yadriel clamped a hand over his mouth, laughter leaping from his throat as Maritza nearly toppled off. When the gate groaned to a stop, she was halfway up and holding on for dear life.
“It was unlocked?” she hissed angrily through the ivy, her face pressed between the bars.
“Guess so?” Barely contained chuckles shook Yadriel’s chest, but his brow furrowed. He examined the lock, jiggling the handle up and down. “Wait, why is it unlocked?”
The brujx went to great lengths to keep outsiders from getting into their cemetery.
Maritza landed next to Yadriel, a little less than graceful. “Some idiot probably forgot to lock it up,” she grumbled, bottom lip jutting into a scowl.
“But why would anyone even use this gate?” Yadriel asked. People were supposed to come in or out of the cemetery only at the main gate by his family’s house.
Maritza turned to him, arms folded across her chest, an expertly lined eyebrow arching. “Uh, you mean aside from sneaking out in the middle of the night?”
Yadriel threw her a withering look. “But—”
A chill dropping down his spine sucked the breath out of Yadriel’s lungs.
He and Maritza spun toward the abandoned church at the same time. Yadriel’s eyes skipped across the windows, half expecting to see someone staring out at him, but they were just black, empty cutouts in the wall of stones.
“Did you feel that?” Maritza asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Yadriel nodded, unable to pull his eyes away from the church, afraid to blink and miss something. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and goose bumps ran down his arms.
Maritza shifted closer to his side. “Is it a spirit?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “It doesn’t seem quite right…”
It was normal to feel spirits: the cemetery was crawling with them, after all. It became background noise, kind of like the hum of Los Angeles traffic; after being around it long enough, you stopped noticing.
But this feeling was something else. It was an odd tingling, one that felt like the presence of a spirit but also pricked at that certain spot in his head, suggesting pain.
“Is it Miguel?” Yadriel wondered, squinting as he tried to latch on to what he