Page 59 of Castle of the Cursed
“You said you might have brought a book?” I ask, eager to change the subject. I lean over to peek inside the basket.
“Oh, right.” His voice is muffled as he chews. Swallowing, he says, “After the tour.”
“Then let’s keep moving,” I say, and we pack everything inside the basket.
Beatríz could be back any moment, and if I want to get answers from her, the first thing I do probably shouldn’t be to piss her off. “You should head home soon, before my aunt gets back,” I say to Felipe as we’re cutting across the mirror room.
“The tour isn’t over yet,” he complains, and when we approach the fork to the east wing, he turns in that direction. I walk through the string of empty rooms to the windowless cathedral for the fourth time, and I wonder if Felipe will say anything about the red rug that conceals the trapdoor to the purple room… but he doesn’t mention it.
“There’s nothing more to see,” I say. “I really think you should go before—”
“Catch me!”
Felipe breaks into a sprint, and after a moment’s shock, I dart after him. “Felipe!”
He cuts down the crimson corridor toward the front of the castle. “Stop!” I call to him.
As he races past the dining hall, his hand digs into the basket.
“Felipe!”
He starts up the grand staircase, and when I follow him, a cracker strikes my head. He laughs, and I shout, “Are you serious?”
I dodge another cracker as I chase him up the left side that leads to the moon temple. As we’re running down the hall, he grabs a handful of grapes to lob at me.
“Don’t you dare!” I shout, but the fruits slip from his fingers, and he steps on them, sliding forward in a funny dance and falling on the basket.
I crack up so hard that I fall to the floor, too, and we’re both cackling in the dim lighting. When we calm down and get up, I say, “There is a room here worth seeing before you go.”
I lead him to the moon temple with the stained glass windows. As soon as we step inside, Felipe falls into a deeper, more reverent kind of silence than even the library. He approaches the wall and touches the words carved there.
“From the spell,” he says to me, his eyes wide and sparkly. “No hay luz en Oscuro.”
I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, and I regret showing him this room almost instantly. “Time to go,” I say, hanging by the entrance and not moving any closer.
“Do you remember anything about your childhood in Oscuro?” he asks, walking over to me, and I’m glad he’s moving in the exit’s direction.
“Like what?” I ask, wondering if this is what he was getting at earlier, when he asked about my childhood memories.
“Like me.”
I want to work my legs, but I can’t. “What?”
“We met,” he says, standing just a couple of feet away from me. “When we were little.”
“But—what?” I sputter. “Why didn’t you mention it—?”
“My earliest memory is of this castle,” he says, his voice so low that despite his proximity, I strain to hear him. “I remember running toward it, until my father caught me in his arms and carried me away. I don’t know how old I was, or if the memory is even real. I just know I’ve been trying to get here my whole life.”
He turns from me and starts pacing the room, his fingers trailing along the wall, touching the words etched there.
“I was five when I tried again. I ran from our front yard. I made it all the way up the castle’s front garden. That’s when I saw you.”
“Did I see you?” I ask, my legs still leaden.
“You did,” he says, his tone growing tender. “You came up to me, and you gave me a flower.” He flashes me his crooked smirk, and I feel my own features softening to learn how far back my connection to Felipe goes.
I just hope he knows it’s a friendly connection and nothing more.
