The Making of Yolanda la Bruha

by Lorraine Avila

Genres: YA Fantasy; YA Contemporary; YA Paranormal

Synopsis

Elizabeth Acevedo has said that reading Lorraine Avila feels like an "UPPERCUT to the senses." We couldn't agree more. We have never encountered an author with prose of this sensitivity and fire.

Yolanda Alvarez is having a good year. She's starting to feel at home Julia De Burgos High, her school in the Bronx. She has her best friend Victory, and maybe something with Jose, a senior boy she's getting to know. She's confident her initiation into her family's bruja tradition will happen soon.

But then a white boy, the son of a politician, appears at Julia De Burgos High, and his vibes are off. And Yolanda's initiation begins with a series of troubling visions of the violence this boy threatens. How can Yolanda protect her community, in a world that doesn't listen? Only with the wisdom and love of her family, friends, and community – and the Brujas Diosas, her ancestors and guides.

The Making of Yolanda La Bruja is the book this country, struggling with the plague of gun violence, so desperately needs, but which few could write. Here Lorraine Avila brings a story born from the intersection of race, justice, education, and spirituality that will capture readers everywhere.

 

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Release date: April 11, 2023

Publisher: Levine Querido

Print pages: 378

Sample

Chapter 1

I am panting, sweat accumulating at my edges, hands eagerly searching for the water bottle inside my Telfar bag. Thank God, I put on that edge control that keeps my baby hairs laid no matter what. I pat the small crown of cornrows on the front of my hair as I gulp down some water. Victory did them just yesterday after school, so they’re still a bit tight. The bright lights turn on as we step into the small school bathroom.

“Come on girl, just read ’em for me,” Victory says. She looks at the old deck of tarot cards Mamá Teté handed down to me two months ago in preparation for my sixteenth birthday. “Is this white boy sus or nah?”

Although we can’t be in the bathrooms during lunch, we’ve snuck to the third floor of our school building again. The cream, glossy paint has long been chipping off of the bathroom walls, revealing the old brown color the walls used to be. There are messages written on the walls in Sharpie.

Taking another big gulp of water, it hits me that I’ve been giving myself a reading every morning, but this might be the first time I’ve brought them to school. I play with the water in my mouth before swallowing. I can’t think of another time I’ve brought the cards outside.

But this morning was kind of a hot mess. Papi called early, which they never let him do in prison. Before he asked to speak to Mamá Teté, he sang me happy birthday, and then said he had good news: his lawyer told him he’s on a list of early releases due to good behavior and overcrowding. It was the only birthday gift I needed, and I spoke with Papi way longer than I should’ve. I had no choice but to plan for my daily reading at school.

“Girl bye!” I say playfully, turning my back to Victory’s request. “How I’m supposed to be reading you when it’s my birthday?” I hang my medium, dark-olive bag on a hook. I touch it with pride. Then, I place my black and red North Face puffer jacket down on the cold bathroom floor. Victory sits on her knees in front of me. I grin wide sitting with my legs crossed.

“OK, you love your Telfeezy, we get it,” Victory smiles. I nod. Mami gifted me the lightly used bag two days ago, saying she purchased it from a houseless person who comes into the supermarket selling things sometimes. “So,” she says. Victory knows better than anyone that I don’t bother the Bruja Diosas for nonsense—especially not about no boy.

“Why don’t you just watch how I do my own reading? Then, you can read for yourself,” I say, noticing her eyes are hopeful. “WITH YOUR OWN CARDS, that you can easily purchase, and ask whatever unnecessary questions you wanna ask.”

I twirl on my bottom and face her. In this friendship, Victory is always in the teacher position—helping me through my struggles with chemistry and algebra—and reading tarot cards or la taza to her is kind of my thing. Pero not today, especially, because I’m not about to potentially ruin it just for that new kid. I dig into the secret pocket at the bottom of my jacket and retrieve the red satin scarf holding my deck, small lighter, and a stick of palo santo. Lighting the palo santo, I pray the smoke detector doesn’t go off. The sweet aroma of burning wood envelops us, and I close my eyes.

“May all past energies be removed from these cards, for the clearest reading today,” I whisper, starting my reading. I run my hands over the cards. Many of the cards are folded, bent at the center, and worn at the edges, while some have even been taped back together. But I hold them to my chest as if they are a gift the Gods have left for humanity. Mamá Teté does not like that I praise them like this. The cards are simply a tool, she says, and they should not be idolized, especially because they were given to us by a dead white man. “I’m sure he was as good as they’ll ever be, but he was still a colonizer and a businessman. Selling the cards as the only tool people could use to divinate and erasing the fact that many of us had been doing it very well without any tools at all,” she likes to remind me.

“After clearing the energy, I start off with a little prayer,” I look at Victory. “It can be anything you want, and to whomever or whatever you believe in.” I close my eyes again. “Thank you Bruja Diosas, Guardian Angels, Goddesses, Gods, good-hearted Ancestors, Unknowns, Universe, and all that is wiser and greater than humans, for another day of life in this body and for the messages you will deliver.” I begin to shuffle the deck. These cards have been in the Alvarez family since the Europeans started settling in Ayiti, and it sends chills up my spine

to think of the voyage they have taken through space and time to be in this stuffy, small, paint-chipping girls bathroom. At first, the momentum of my hands is timid, but then my shuffle is quick, almost hasty, as if the Bruja Diosas have been trying to communicate with me all morning.

“Let me know, Bruja Diosas, let me know.”

I flap open my eyes to see the Tower fall out.

“Ooooh!” Victory reacts. I playfully roll my eyes at her.

The Tower is just that—a large tower on top of a mountain that doesn’t seem that stable. It is in flames, and two people have dove out of its windows to meet their death. There is lightning and flames. “When Mamá pulls this out for clients, it almost always points to a sudden redirection ’cause of surprising or new information,” I say.

What will I learn today?

I shuffle again, deciding today will be a three-card pull. “May the reality of what is to come be revealed for the highest good of all involved, Bruja Diosas.”

The Devil jumps out.

Hmmm, well that’s not good. The Devil is a hairy creature with horns and a five-point star at its head. This card hardly ever comes out for me, and although I know no card is “bad,” my stomach knots up because—thanks to Hollywood and the Church— the image of anything related to the Devil gives me the creeps. The man and woman shackled together underneath the creature look like they are OK being submissive; the woman dangles a vine of grapes and the man holds fire. I take a deep breath. “Mamá Teté”—I clear my throat—“once told me, this card can be interpreted by highlighting unhealthy attachments people might have to the material world that do not serve our highest good.”

“Well I hope it’s just that. The Devil, however way we put it, scares the hell out of me, no pun intended, girl,” Victory says. Her eyes are wide as she stares at the card.

The shackles stand out to me, and I wonder if the cards are trying to communicate that I am some sort of prisoner. But to what?

I shuffle again. Please Bruja Diosas, come through and be straight up—

The Death card spills onto the inside of my leg.

“Oh shit, girl, these cards just don’t look too good,” Victory says.

“OK, Ms. Obvious!” I snap quickly. I look at her apologetically and turn to focus on the card.

The Death card is that of a skeleton in full armor sitting on top of a white horse. It holds a black flag. The flag has a waning white flower.

“Hmmmm, well, death can mean a lot of things: rebirth, new beginnings, and actual death, but what I am feeling is this flower.” I take a deep breath. “We fall, but we rise again,” I say, smiling nervously. “When it’s upside-down like this, it means a change must happen, but we might be trying to avoid it leading to chaos,” I say. Bruja Diosas, speak to me. I am sorry I was in such a rush this morning that I did not have time to reach out, but right now, I need to know—

Your ideas about your role in the world must change. Your don cannot always keep you

safe in this physical realm.

The words ring gently inside of me like a soft bell.

“Alright, so I’m walking from this reading feeling like there is some sort of change that needs to take place due to the Death card. This is connected to someone or something toxic I might be attached to. And there’s about to be a huge shift—for multiple folks,” I say.

“Girl, I’m all the way good. I don’t need no more readings today,” Victory laughs nervously. “Especially not about that white boy.”

Loud banging coming off of the radiators connected to the school’s old heating system startles us both.

“Be quiet! You mad silly,” I say, standing up. I unhook my bag and step towards the sink. Right above the mirror is the Julia De Burgos quote I’ve learned to love: “Don’t let the hand you hold, hold you down.” Setting my bag down on the sink, I look at my face in the mirror and reach up into my ears. Other than the cornrows in the front, my curly afro stands proudly in all directions of my face, ending under my breast bones. My hair is a shield on days when it’s out, without the front cornrows, because it makes my sound processors invisible to the world. But today all the external parts of my cochlear implants show. I’m not ashamed of having the implants—I know my parents worked hard for me to have them—but sometimes I don’t want to be treated like the pretty smart-and-basically-deaf girl.

“It’s damn near the end of fall anyway, Yo. Plus, who transfers their senior year? It makes no sense why he is even here.” Victory has asked these questions fifty eleven times in the last twenty-four hours.

“It’s the end of Libra season, girl. We still got two whole ass signs to go through before it’s the end of fall. Stop exaggerating,” I laugh.

“Have you seen some people swooning over him?! I mean he’s kinda eye candy if you’re into the quiet and mysterious kinda dude, but I am not buying the story that his daddy wants him to be in a ‘diverse school.’ ” She ignores me.

“I mean—” A bit of my curls have looped around the wire between the transmitter and the processor and I pull on it to free it up. Ouch! When I finish, Victory repeats herself:

“No kid goes to boarding school their whole, entire life and then is transferred to a public school in the twelfth grade.”

It’s a heavy time right now. Black and Brown folks being killed or harmed by a racist person, or police—at the supermarket, at a festival, in a church, at the movies. Plus, I saw on CNN that so far this year there has been at least one school shooting per week. It makes perfect sense that it feels like there is nowhere we can go to be fully safe anymore. So, I get it. It doesn’t feel good to have random kids put into our safe spaces out of the blue like that. I’m with Victory on this one. But, I can’t be letting her run with some of her ideas sometimes. If she runs with them, I run with them, and that’s a whole lot of anxiety I’d rather not deal with. At the end of the day, if we become tense balls of anxiety, who is that going to help? It’s also my birthday, and I just don’t want to deal.

“Maybe his dad is clout-chasing, I don’t know,” I say. Victory sucks her teeth at me, and goes into her bag.

“You know how I live my life, Victory: give everyone a chance until they prove you wrong. And even if they prove you wrong, Mamá says that’s why we gifted with community and spirit for—to be able to deal with it. Also, remember what Mrs. Obi taught us about community justice just t

he other day? If the person wants to change, people have to give them a chance, right? Maybe he is here for all the wrong reasons, but maybe he’s trying to start over fresh? Let’s give him that for now.” Learning about community justice had me thinking of the way our communities would be different if justice was left to us, and not to all the systems that try to categorize us into “bad” and “good” from the moment we enter schools.

“But he isn’t part of our ‘community,’ ” Victory makes air quotes. “You think they got spirit, Yoyo?” she whispers. We look at each other like we’re scared of who is listening, and then we burst out laughing.

“They don’t got our spirit, but shit, if it comes down to it— for the greater good of humanity, I’d be willing to include some of them, you know?” I shrug.

Victory shakes her head. “I swear to God you be reckless sometimes. Why would we share the one thing they’ve tried to take from us but can’t?” But I know enough to know that she don’t want my answer. I don’t even know if I believe my answer truly.

“You right, we’ll keep the sauce to ourselves,” I say.

“The sauce and the juice—all ours, OK?” She takes out her new Fenty lip gloss and brushes her lower lip before pressing her lips together. “Girl, this lip gloss is EVERYTHING! Look at this brush,” she says, passing it to me like I never seent it myself. As I reach for it, she snatches it back. I roll my eyes with a joyous grin.

“Guess what? I’m tired of sharing everything with your ass,” she continues, going into her bag. “So we not sharing lip glosses anymore!” She takes out a small Sephora bag. I hug her as she hands it to me. The new Fenty lip gloss Holiday set and a small perfume. There is a birthday card too. I throw my hands around her again and hug her as hard as I can.

I open the first lip gloss, Fu$$y. It is a light-toned medium pink with a jewel finish—so fire! I brush my lips with the gloss wand. The brush is wide enough to completely apply gloss onto thick lips, like ours, in one pass.

“It’s like Riri knew it was gon’ be us buying this, you know?” Victory smiles at me, her hazel eyes beaming through the mirror. She takes out her phone and opens up the camera app. I apply some more gloss on my upper lip and pose, blowing her a kiss. She snaps the picture and hugs my shoulders from the back. “Happy birthday. Keep getting older for the both of us ’cause I cannot live without you, Yoyo,” she says. Her eyes fill with tears. “You my mejor amigaaaaaa in the worlddddd!” she sings, shaking off the tears and clearing her throat.

“Best frienddd,” I sing back, “for ever, ever!” I go in for another hug. “On God. Thank you, V, forreal.” I smile.

We quickly put everything into our bags and open the bathroom door. I poke out my head, looking to the left and the right first. My heart rate accelerates. I’m not trying to get caught up in nothing on my birthday. Seeing nothing, we tiptoe out of the bathroom.

***

“CRC coming up, ladies,” a voice says, just a few seconds later. I don’t gotta look to know it’s Mr. Leyva, the school dean. His voice is warm even when he’s calling people out. That’s why students, most especially me, respect and love him. He’s one of the adults in the building who just gets us.

When we turn, Mr. Leyva comes out of the stairwell door. Damn, he’s good. He leans against the hallway wall, his left foot up. He picks at his nails with one of his hundred and one keys. CRC stands for Conflict Resolution Conversation, but it’s literally just detention. Victory begs a little, lying and saying we had some girl business to take care of. Usually, Mr. L lets us off, but today he is not budging. He’s holding a light brown folder, which complements his off-white sweater and his red jeans. Mr. Leyva has to be at least fifty-five—he’s older than all of our teachers and even the principals—but he is the only person I know who can still rock red jeans like that.

“Come on, Mr. L. I can’t go to CRC,” I say as he walks us to the stairs leading downstairs. “I’m the leader of the Brave Space Club, and it’s legit my birthday today, you really gonna do that to me? You haven’t even said happy birthday or nothing to me.” At this, his face softens.

“Happy birthday, Yo. I wish you a long, long life,” he says. I nod gratefully his way. “Alright, Yo, you want a break? How about you take Ben Hill on a quick tour of the building—”

“Oh nah, I’m good,” I respond.

“You what?”

“I. AM. GOOD.”

“Ms. Alvarez, you coming out your neck a lot since you found your voice,” he begins. Mr. L has seen my come up. In ninth grade, I was dique shy and came out of my shell to fight or yell when I was not heard, or when clowns tried to come at me over my processors. “Listen, you a whole sixteen-year-old now. I ain’t got the time to play these games with you.”

Last year, when my dreams became vivid, my anxiety got real bad. I had this recurring dream that I was walking from school to the train, and when I boarded the train, it just went on forever. It didn’t make no stops. When I tried to talk to people on the train, they couldn’t hear or see me. After the fourth time I had this dream, I started to walk home in my dreams, but then I was walking forever down empty streets, never getting anywhere. I told Mr. L I had a feeling something strange was going to happen to me on my way home. We walked to the train together for three whole weeks—me, him, Victory, and a bunch of other first-year students.

“Make a choice: it’s either the tour or CRC. You choose. Make it quick, I have to run and go get my lunch and my hot chocolate. I’ll get you something from the store too if you want. A birthday present.”

Julia De Burgos High is in a building shared with two different other schools, so getting around when you’re new is complicated. The tour, although not official, is given to first-year students every year on the first week of school by Mr. L. I look at Victory as we go down the stairs. Mr. Leyva’s keys make their own song as they jingle off his pants. Just do it, she mouths.

“Right now?” I ask.

Mr. L nods. “He should be in the lunchroom.”

***

I open the heavy double doors of the lunchroom, and the heat from the boiling water they use to warm up the nasty school lunch immediately fogs my glasses. I take them off and the students who were as clear as day are now a compilation of burgundy, gold, and black, our school colors. A bunch of classmates walk past smiling or nodding. I return the greeting and continue towards the back of the lunchroom.

“Yolanda, hey!” I feel a tug on my arm. I look up and my stomach immediately drops. José is holding three birthday balloons and a gift bag.

“Happy birthday,” he says.

“Thank you,” I respond, looking at my arm, and then back up at him—communicating with my eyes that he should let go. Regardless of our kiss at the park last week, José must’ve lost his damn mind to think he has the right to demand my attention by putting hands on me in public. I repeat my staring process again when I find his hand still on my arm. I make sure to roll my eyes deep into my head this time.

“I just wanted to give you a birthday gift and talk,” he says, letting go. “You’ve been straight up avoiding me.” José is a senior, good-looking, and captain of the basketball team. It seems like the entire Bronx is praying on his success in the sport. In other words, in this school, he is used to getting what he wants. He’s been trying to kick it to me since I was a first-year student last year. Although I like him, I don’t want to be something else he could just have. To complicate everything, up until September’s back-to-school night—when parents were invited to come in— neither of us knew that our mothers were low-key friendly. Apparently his mother worked for a couple years at the supermarket where my mother does the books.

“Listen, I haven’t,” I look up at him. The butterflies immediately start doing their thing as I look into his soft eyes. I suck my teeth to shake them off. “I haven’t been ignoring you. I’m just busy, José,” I lie. The only place I’ve seen him lately is Brave Space Club. Other than that, I take the long ways to avoid him because the feelings are so overwhelming. “Thank you for the gift though.”

He bends down and hugs me. He’s wearing his basketball jersey over his school uniform shirt, and I suddenly catch a whiff of his cologne.

“I have to go do something for Mr. L. We can talk later,” I say. I peel my eyes off of him before the urge to kiss him becomes unbearable. Maybe this is what the Devil card was hinting at. But I don’t feel scared—I feel seen by him. That’s scary, too, but not the Devil card-type scary.

I turn towards the tables lined up against one another in the cafeteria, but I can’t spot where Victory went. I look and look but nothing. I take a deep breath, knowing that I have to find her first; I’m not about to go give a tour with a bunch of balloons.

“Yerrrrrrrrr!” I hear the call. I turn and it’s all of my friends from the Brave Space Club, including Mrs. Obi, with a cake and a gift bag.

“Happy birthday to ya! Happy birthday to ya! Happy birthday! Happy birthday!” They sing loudly and the rest of the cafeteria joins in. As I look at all the faces around me, my heart feels big in my chest. The people I know and love at this school are filled with joy, like my birthday isn’t just a birthday, but a whole moment. I can’t help but smile widely. Victory is cheesing too, and I know it must’ve not been easy for her to keep this secret away from me. I spot José shuffling over quickly, leaving his friends behind. Cindy is clapping mad loud and a couple other students are snapping in unison. Yeah, there are faces of students I don’t really talk to too much, but I couldn’t imagine a school experience without seeing them. Deadass. Even though they don’t do anything for me, per se, them being alive and present does something for the school. Their voices are so loud, my head hurts a little, but I’m OK with this loud. I love this kind of loud—an overflowing noise of good things. I feel so special, and it causes every part of my body to have its own heartbeat. Mrs. Obi walks up to me with the birthday cake; she lights up the candles with a lighter.

“Hurry up and make a wish before I get fired for using fire outside our science class,” she whispers, smiling mischievously. I close my eyes.

I hope this next year of my life brings me closer to being the person I was born to be. If I have to fold, may I never break. May I remember everything is leading towards the making of me.

I blow and open my eyes. Mr. L is now next to Mrs. Obi, clapping along with everyone else.

“Of course I knew

it was your birthday, Little Miss Libra Sun, Aries Moon and Gemini Rising,” Mr. L says, handing me a small giftbag that I know he didn’t just get from the bodega.

“You didn’t have to, Mr. L,” I say with a smile.

“Now you open that up when you’re by yourself. I don’t want nobody saying I got favorites again.”

“But you do, and it’s me,” I laugh, hugging Jay, who nods and is wearing dope ass lime-green eyeliner in lines, the spaces between them filled in with red eyeshadow, and baby blue dots under their eyebrows.

“It looks so good!” I tell them.

They step back, opening their arms around their jersey. “To celebrate you,” they say.

As soon as everyone who was gonna hug me is done, some folks disperse, and mainly the club stays put. I set the balloons and bags at the center of the table near Victory.

“You still gotta go do that thing I told you to do,” Mr. L winks, taking the cake from Mrs. Obi, who has a meeting.

“Go,” Victory says. “I’ll start cutting the cake,” she says.

I nod, turn from my friends, and start looking around the cafeteria for Ben.