Page 54 of Castle of the Cursed
Felipe’s great-grandmother Gloria is feeding the birds. She’s talking to them, and hearing her gravelly voice, I remember how Felipe’s parents seemed worried about what she might say in my presence.
Gloria is whistling to a dove as I approach, and I watch as it lands on her wrist and eats the birdseed from her palm. “Hola, angelito.”
I think she’s speaking to the bird, until she looks up at me, and I realize she’s greeting me as little angel. That’s what she called me at Felipe’s house, too.
“Hola,” I say, hating how round the o sounds in my voice.
She gestures for me to sit, and I perch on the lip of the fountain. “Qué lindo volver a verte,” she says. How nice to see you again.
Since I lack the vocabulary to communicate everything I want in Spanish, I weigh my words carefully. “¿Usted me conocía de bebé?” I ask if she knew me as a baby.
“Claro,” she says genially. “En este pueblito, todos nos conocemos.” In this town, we all know each other.
Raul’s Rule #7 is Consult the experts, which is what I thought I was doing with my research at the bookstore. Yet it strikes me now that Gloria is an expert as well. She’s an Oscurian time capsule.
“¿Por qué mis padres se fueron?” I lack the fluency to finesse my inquiry, so I ask her point-blank why my parents left Oscuro.
“Ay, tus padres,” she says with a pitying sigh, obviously thinking of their passing. Her face pulls together, tears welling in her eyes, and she grabs my arm, her long nails digging in like claws. “Pobrecitos.”
“It’s okay,” I say, wishing she would let go.
“Pobrecita tú,” she goes on, shifting her pity from my parents to me. “Condenada a la oscuridad.”
Did she just say I’m doomed to darkness? I ask for clarification: “¿Qué quiere decir—?”
Her bony hand pulls me in so close that I can see every wrinkle of her face, and I flash to the sand dunes of Arizona. “Por siempre serás nuestro angelito sobreviviente.” You’ll always be our surviving little angel.
“Pero antes que eso,” I insist, urging her to think back before the subway, to when my parents and I lived here. “¿Qué pasó aquí?” What happened here?
She blinks her glassy eyes, looking lost, like a computer hard drive crashing. I wait for what feels like a few minutes for her brain to reboot, but she just keeps holding on to me in silence.
“Bueno,” I say, wresting my shoulder free. “Adiós—”
“Parecía que todo el castillo estaba envuelto en llamas,” she says softly, looking up at la Sombra.
I don’t know what that means. Something about the castle and llamas?
“No entiendo,” I say, frustrated.
Actual tears are dripping from Gloria’s eyes, and I’m not sure what to do. I shouldn’t have bothered her with this. “¿Está bien?” I ask, checking if she’s okay.
She stares up at the sky above the castle. “El fuego era negro.”
The fire was black.
“Creí que el castillo se derretía.” I thought the castle was melting.
It’s only when I swallow that I realize my mouth is hanging open. My throat is dry as I ask, “¿El fuego estaba afuera?” The fire was outside?
She nods, eyes wide, like she’s seeing it now. How could the flames have reached the outer walls of the castle when the purple room is in the basement and nothing else was scorched? It doesn’t make sense.
“Y luego—” Gloria snaps her fingers, jolting me back to attention—“se apagó. Así, sin más. Y el castillo quedó intacto. Ni una marca.” The fire went out and the castle was intact is all I get from that.
“Esa misma noche, tus padres desaparecieron.” Your parents disappeared that night.
“¿Qué pasó después?” What happened next?
“Tus abuelos no duraron mucho más en este mundo. Imagínate cómo sufrieron. Fue un golpe muy fuerte para ellos.” She’s talking faster now, making it harder for me to follow. My grandparents suffered and weren’t long for this world—?
