Days of the Dead

By Kersten Hamilton

By the critically acclaimed author of Tyger Tyger, a warm, magical story of a girl’s struggle to keep a promise to her dead mother.

Glorieta Magdalena Davis Espinosa is happy that Papi married Alice. She’s happy that he can smile again after years of mourning Mamá. But the urn containing Mamá’s ashes disappeared into a drawer the day Alice moved in.

If everything about Glorieta’s life is going to change, then she wants one thing to go her way: She wants to hear stories about her mamá when the family gathers on the last night of los Días de los Muertos. And that can only happen if Tia Diosonita will allow Mamá to be buried with the Espinosas in holy ground. If she will allow people to speak Mamá’s name.

With the help of her best friend, River, and her cousin Mateo, Glorieta sets out to convince Diosonita that Mamá is not burning in Hell. To do so, she’ll have to learn to let hate go—and to love the people who stand in her way.

In prose that sparkles with magical undertones, author Kersten Hamilton weaves a tender story about grief, faith, and the redemptive power of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sky Pony
• Release date: Sep 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9781510728592

Kersten Hamilton

Kersten Hamilton is the author of several picture books and many novels, including the middle grade Gadgets and Gears series and the critically acclaimed YA trilogy The Goblin Wars. She splits her time between her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and her farm in Kentucky. For more about Kersten, please visit www.kerstenhamilton.com.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Glorieta Magdalena Davis Espinosa, you are losing your mind. I leaned farther into the cabinet, digging through ancient oats, stale crackers, and bags of ramen noodles. My excavation ended at the back wall. It had to be here. But it wasn’t.

Magic flows through Epoch, New Mexico. It seeps from the bones of Puerta de la Luna, a village that was hundreds of years old before the United States invaded Mexico and took this territory for its own. Epoch swallowed the old village whole, but Puerta de la Luna is still alive. Things happen here. Magical things. Things science is not big enough to explain.

But cereal boxes do not just disappear, even in Epoch. Not without help.

I pulled my head out of the cabinet. Lilith Wilder, my new stepsister, was talking on the phone—the one attached to the wall with a cord. Her short, black-dyed hair was spiked above her silver-studded dog collar. Apparently, if you are from L.A., a short black skirt, torn fishnet stockings, and clunky, lace-up, black boots with four-inch-thick soles are the perfect choice for school.

Or maybe all sixth graders in Hollywood tried to look like those thin, pale goth dolls you can buy at Walmart: big-eyed, with faces painted the colors of a bruise.

If I didn’t need money for the Greyhound, I wouldn’t be giving these reeky-butt Epoch kids this chance, Lilith was saying.

As if she needed to make her own money for a bus ticket. Her dad, Dutch Wilder, had plenty of money. I’d seen him give her a hundred dollars.

Lilith studied her fingernails as she listened, then said, They should be happy to pay for it.

She had to be talking to Benita Cooper, who lived next door.

Pay for what? I asked.

Why are you eavesdropping? It’s none of your business, step-turd.

Only it was. As an Espinosa, I had responsibilities. I had promises to keep.

Lilith turned away from me. Yeah, Benita, I’m back.

I bit my lip. It had taken Lilith two days to meet Benita at the convenience store, and three more to convert her into a mindless minion who paid for Lilith’s snow cones and magazines or just handed over money if Lilith wanted it. Three days to convince Benita to turn her back on old friends. I wasn’t going to let my stepsister do that to anyone else.

I need someone everybody likes. Someone who’ll look good on camera. River Mahboub? Seriously? That trash-picker kid doesn’t have any money. Hmm … She tipped her head, considering. He does have style, though. Okay, he’s the one. I’ll give him a discount or something.

No. No, she wouldn’t. She wasn’t going to use River for her plans, whatever they were.

"Hang it up, Cheeky Monkey, I said softly, so Benita wouldn’t hear. We need to talk."

Lilith’s carefully shaped eyebrows rose just the teeniest bit. I’ll call you back, she snapped and slammed the phone down. You know about that?

"If you don’t quiet down, everybody’s going to know."

People who live behind cinderblock fences have secrets. Trailer-park people don’t. The walls here are so thin Mrs. Cooper brings over Sudafed if we sneeze. So if Lilith didn’t lower her voice, everyone in Las Palomas Park would know that the dimpled baby bottom seen waddling, diaperless, in all its full-moon glory across the commercial on the TV was eleven-year-old footage of chubby, naked, infant Lilith Wilder.

Does your cheeky monkey’s diaper leak? Get Snuggy-Poo! They never do!

Lilith was the most famous person who had ever come to Epoch. But I was betting she didn’t want anyone to know about that part of her fame.

How did you find out? she demanded.

I’d heard my stepmother and papi talking about it, that’s how. I’d felt really sorry for Lilith then. But that was before I knew her.

She moved toward me, and I almost took a step back. Lilith uses people. She’d take things if you let her. Space, or anything else she thinks you value.

Who else knows? She leaned down until we were nose to nose. We’re the same age, but Lilith is an inch taller, even without the boots, and she likes to rub it in. Don’t move, I told myself. You are an Espinosa. People are depending on you. Don’t move. No one, I said. Yet.

Lilith nodded slowly and backed away a little. Okay. What do you want?

"Two things. First, not taking any money from the ‘reeky-butt Epoch kids.’ You’re going to leave them alone."

And if I don’t? she demanded.

Then everyone is going to find out about your own reeky butt, that’s what.

Lilith sucked her breath in through her perfect teeth. Why should I trust you? You’re going to tell them anyway.

Because I promise I won’t, I said. Espinosas don’t break promises.

Lilith’s eyes narrowed to ice-blue slits. Seriously? You’ve never broken a promise?

I just looked at her. If she’d been from Epoch, she’d have known what it means to be an Espinosa.

Fine. What’s the second thing?

Give me back my cereal. I needed that cereal. There might be magic in it, and I needed magic now more than I’d ever needed it before.

"The kids’ stuff that was in the cabinet? Angus likes that crap, so I gave it to him. Alice told me to feed him, Step-turd."

Where is he?

I heard a splash under the table and got down on my knees to look. My new stepbrother sat with his back against the wall. He had a large, yellow mixing bowl between his little-boy legs and a milk jug beside him. The bowl was so full that cereal sloshed over the sides every time he dipped his big wooden spoon in.

I reached for the box. Angus couldn’t have poured all of it into the bowl. Mamá had shown me the magic on my first day of kindergarten, just like Tía Diosonita—one of the two aunties who’d raised Mamá—had shown her on her first day of school.

The magic might not be there at all, because today wasn’t the first day of school. It was just the first time we’d had Alpha-Bits since school had started. I’d saved up and bought them myself.

Every bowl of Alpha-Bits is filled with words. But the power is in the word you find in the very last spoonful.

Dios mío, Magdalena! Mamá had said as she’d pointed to my spoon that first time. Your spoon says ‘libros.’ Now, you choose, Glorieta. If you swallow it down, then you will learn about books! I swallowed it, and that year I’d been the first kid in class who learned to read. I learned about big books, thick books, their smell, their feel, the letters gathering into words and the words into stories. Mamá and I had read together every night, in English and in español.

In third grade, I’d had to find the word in my Alpha-Bits on my own. I’d used an extra big spoon, one that could fit all the letters of mother. Or even Mamá, come home.

The word had been hoggs. I’d known that was too many g’s for a real word. I’d swallowed it anyway and cried because I thought my mamá’s magic had gone away with her.

Then, one month into the school year, a new editor for the Epoch Rattler had come to my school to interview me about a poem I’d written for the paper. His name was Hogg. That hadn’t made me feel any better—you can’t knock off one letter and say it’s close enough. That’s not magic. It’s cheating.

But just after Christmas, my teacher Miss Dotson, who’d met Mr. Herbert Hogg the day he interviewed me, had married him and become Mrs. Hogg. Two Hoggs. Pieces fitting together. The magic still worked.

I shook the box, and something rattled inside.

I got a bowl and turned the box upside down over it. Letter pieces and cereal powder rained out. I poured in some milk, and three perfect letters bobbed to the surface.

Are you looking for a word in your Alpha-Bits? Seriously? Lilith was leaning over my shoulder.

Go away.

Lilith laughed. As she walked across the room and picked up the phone again, one more letter struggled to the surface of the milk-sludge. I stared at the bowl. This couldn’t be right.

I’d wanted the magic to help me keep my promise to Mamá. I hadn’t wanted this.

Now, you choose, Glorieta …

We’re on hold, B, Lilith said. I’ve got to work out something with my stupid step-turd first. See you at school.

Did I want to swallow this down?

O-D-I-O? Lilith was back, standing too close, leaning over my shoulder. That isn’t even a word, loser.

It was a word. Lilith just didn’t know it because she doesn’t speak español. If this word wasn’t right, it was because Lilith had broken the magic.

You choose, Glorieta.

If it had been about anyone else, it would have been wrong. But this wasn’t about anyone else. It was about Lilith. Someone who’d gotten in where she didn’t belong and messed up everything.

I could feel her breathing on the back of my neck as I scooped the word into my spoon and lifted it to my mouth. I would learn it the way I’d learned to read, studying the pieces and the parts and how they fit together, and it would make her go away.

Lilith took a step back, and I couldn’t feel her breath anymore. It was working already.

Shivers raced up my spine as I chewed.

Odio. Hate.

My broken-magic word for the sixth grade.

CHAPTER 2

Lilith’s mom, Alice, had married my papi, Gregory Davis, six weeks ago. Everyone had acted surprised even though Alice had been giving him free smiles with every cup of coffee he bought at the truck stop for two years. But I liked Alice. Papi hadn’t been happy for a long time. Alice made him happy.

Lilith hadn’t come to the wedding, but Alice had shown me a picture of a girl my age with big, blue eyes and long, blonde hair held back by a pink hairband. She wasn’t smiling. Her arms were around her four-year-old brother, Angus, who studied the camera through thick, round glasses. Alice had talked about getting custody of her kids since the first day Papi met her. Whenever she worked a double shift, she put a little money in her lawyer-up fund. I was going to meet her kids when they came out to visit for winter break.

Papi and Alice were probably thinking about a new family when they stood at the altar and said their vows. I was thinking about my mamá’s ashes.

The day before the wedding, Papi had taken the funeral urn down from the mantle, where we’d kept it for three years, and locked it in a drawer. He said that putting the urn away didn’t mean he would forget Mamá. He said that we’d never forget. She would always be in our hearts.

But I didn’t want to hide Mamá’s ashes away. I was tired of hushed voices and lowered eyes.

As Papi and Alice said their vows, I had bowed my head and promised my mamá that I would bring her ashes to the camposanto behind Our Lady of the Desert before los Días de los Muertos—even though we had been forbidden to bury her there. I promised that this year, everyone who came to the camposanto would remember her.

After the wedding, Papi and Alice had headed to Mexico for their honeymoon, and I had gone to the casa of my tías for a week. The place where Mamá grew up.

The Espinosas have lived in Casa Espinosa ever since it was built four hundred years ago. The house is low and flat, and wraps around a saltillo-tiled patio. It is all the colors of New Mexico—dark brown adobe, turquoise door and window frames, red chile ristras and white braided ropes of garlic hanging from the vigas.

Tía Adora is a curandera-partera. Sometimes miracles happen when Tía Adora’s around, but mostly she delivers babies and takes care of people who have things like croup, menstrual cramps, and broken hearts.

Tía Diosonita takes care of everything else. After she gave up being a nun so she could come home to help raise my mamá, she’d become Doña Diosonita Espinosa, La Patrona of Puerta de la Luna. People ask for Diosonita’s blessings for every first communion, every quinceañera, every wedding. Politicians visit her before they run for office. To the old families, La Patrona’s word is more powerful than the law.

I love my Tía Diosonita with all my heart, and I know she loves me. But Diosonita was the reason my mamá was in a desk drawer. She said that people who died in mortal sin, people who had no hope of ever getting into heaven, could not be buried in holy ground. Father Tim had told her many times that the Church did not agree. Even the Pope would say Mamá hadn’t died in mortal sin. La Patrona would not allow Mamá to be buried in the camposanto.

The only way to keep my promise to Mamá was to convince Tía Diosonita that she was wrong.

I had tried, the whole week I stayed with my tías after the wedding, to talk to her about it. I hadn’t been able to open my mouth. I still didn’t have the courage.

The first time I had gone to my tías’ house after Mamá had been cremated, I had climbed up on Diosonita’s lap and cried. She held me close, but when I started to talk about Mamá, she put her finger to my lips and shut her eyes as if she were locking all her tears away. All her memories. For just a moment, I felt her shaking with sobs that could not come out. Then she pushed me away and spoke with all the authority of La Patrona.

You will not speak of Magdalena, not ever again. Not to me.

No one disobeys La Patrona’s commands. No one.

It had been three years, and I was sure I would never talk about Mamá with Diosonita again. Until Papi hid Mamá’s ashes away.

The only way to keep my promise to Mamá was to convince Tía Diosonita that the old ways were wrong. That she was wrong.

And so I had tried. But when Papi and Alice came back from their honeymoon, I still hadn’t managed to open my mouth.

It was hard enough needing so badly to talk to my tía and being so afraid to do it. Then Dutch Wilder, Lilith’s dad, had roared into our trailer park in a red Hummer with a blonde lady beside him. They were both TV-star good-looking. Lilith, wearing her new Walmart-doll look and hardly recognizable as the girl in Alice’s photo, was sitting with her brother in the back seat.

Oh my God, what are y’all doing here, Lili? Angus? Alice had sounded as confused as she was happy. Nobody even called to let us know you were coming! She held out her arms to Lilith. I’m so glad to see you, baby!

Lilith backed away.

Mr. Wilder pulled a little suitcase out of the back hatch of the Hummer.

Wait, Alice said, letting her arms fall. What exactly is going on here, Dutch?

I need help, he said. I need you to keep them for a while.

Keep them? Alice looked confused. You didn’t pull Lilith out of school, did you?

Hadn’t enrolled her yet, he said. She can just start the year here, right?

It’s the middle of September, Alice said. School started weeks ago!

That’s why I brought them, Dutch ran a hand through his wavy hair. Lili’s got to get into school. I’ll be back for them as soon as the shoot is over.

And what shoot is that? Alice demanded.

"Mind Games, the blonde said, pulling Angus from the back seat. We’re right in the middle of filming the new season."

Dutch Wilder made two kinds of shows: infomercials and bad reality TV. Mind Games was the bad reality kind, but it was crazy popular.

When did you say this shoot would be over? Papi had asked.

I didn’t. We’re way behind schedule. But let’s say the end of November. Will that work for you, buddy?

"You should have asked that before you drove out here, buddy," Papi said. Alice gave him a pleading look.

Angus, who had been sniffling when the blonde dropped him beside his suitcase, started sobbing. Snot ran down his face and tears steamed up his glasses. He looked around