Page 119 of Castle of the Cursed
“I’m continuing my family’s manipulation of the people here.”
“You are giving him a place to store his grief,” he says, and I remember what Bea said about why my parents kept Antonela’s existence from me: They chose to carry the grief for you.
“It is what you came here hoping to find,” says Sebastián. “A dark fairy tale you could sell to yourself to help make sense of the unfathomable tragedy that befell you.”
“A place to store my grief,” I repeat. Is that what this castle is? Not just for me, but for all of Oscuro.
Our collective shadow.
I scan my blood on the tablet to gain access to the journal room. Sebastián is at my side as the bookshelf door opens.
He’s already reading a journal by the time I make it up the stairs. He sets it down and picks up another before I’ve even opened one. At this rate, he’ll get through the entire collection tonight.
“Here is something,” he says after a stretch. “An ancestor your age, Araceli, writes that they see smoke every time bad luck befalls them. A second entry tells of their discovery of a twin sister, Isabel, whose childhood death had been kept a secret. That is all. Araceli did not write again.”
I remember how Matilda wrote just the one entry, too. By the time I pick up a second journal, Sebastián has finished reviewing a couple of rows’ worth.
“Look,” he says, showing me a drawing of a figure standing in front of the mirror in the room with the chandelier. Two other figures stand behind the person, and a speech bubble over their heads says: No hay luz en Oscuro.
“That’s the memory spell that let me see Antonela’s past,” I say, reaching down to turn the page.
The next drawing shows the room we’re in now. A figure holds a book open. It has a red cover.
“Manifestation spell,” I read. “This will bind your twin’s energy to yours if they are on this plane.” I swallow. “That’s what I did.” The admission comes out a whisper.
Bea was right. I shouldn’t have listened to Teo. “Bea’s death is my fault.”
“No, it is your sister’s.”
My sister’s.
The word still sounds strange. My whole life, I would have given anything for a sister. Someone to share the back seat with, fight with over the radio station, play with when we got to a new place—a built-in friend.
But our own family sent her to Hell, where they ruined her. They molded her into a monster who’s murdered everyone I love. And now she’s coming for me.
I’m just about to give up on the journal I’m reviewing when I spot something on the page I recognize. The drawing of a book with la Sombra’s crest on the cover.
“I’ve seen this before. It’s the Book from the thirteenth tale. The one Felipe says his family is hiding.”
Sebastián comes over, and I read the entry out loud:
The worst day of my life started like any other.
Abuelo tended the jardín de sangre, Abuela cooked, and Mamá was resting her very pregnant belly in bed. Papá should have been watching me, but he was more interested in reading the newspaper.
My aunts lived with us, but they were vacationing in France.
I was by the dining hall when the lights on the walls started flickering. All of them, all at once. I had seen that happen before, but no one else ever said anything, so I assumed it was normal. Yet now for the first time, it occurred to me that maybe the others could not see it.
The lights seemed to be leading me deeper into the castle, toward the jardín de sangre. Except before I reached the door to the cathedral, something broke through the stone floor, spraying chunks of rock into the air.
I fell back and shrieked as a large shape crawled up from underground, and all the lights shut off.
In the blackness, I could barely breathe as the intruder moved closer. I felt them hand me something—a book—and they whispered one word:
“Run.”
The lights blasted back on, and the intruder was gone. Yet the book remained.
