Page 75 of Castle of the Cursed
Beatríz says nothing. She stares down at her fingers, and I’m reminded of Lady Macbeth and her bloodstained hands.
“How could they keep this from me?” The question comes out a whisper, and I can’t stop the tears from streaking down my cheeks.
I’m enraged with my parents.
I wish they were here mostly to scream at them and call them out for the liars they’ve been. The salty water falls more forcefully, and I have to dig my nails deep into my palms to keep the dam from breaking.
“How”—a sob escapes my throat—“how could I forget I have a twin? Where is she?”
“Let’s sit down,” says Beatríz at last, her voice as thin as mine. “You look like a corpse.”
Look who’s talking.
I want to defy her, but she starts moving toward the dining hall, and I have to follow if I want answers. Once she enters the kitchen, I drop into a chair at the long table. It feels like the hole in my chest is widening, letting out all my oxygen. I can’t make it any farther.
My aunt comes back with two glasses of water, and this time she sits next to me, not across the table. There’s just a couple of feet of air between us.
After a while, I realize she isn’t going to speak first. So I start at the beginning. “I know about the fire,” I say, my throat dry even after drinking from the glass. “I found the purple room. And my death certificate.”
I take another gulp of water before I ask, “Is it my sister’s? Was Estela her name?”
Beatríz shakes her head, but her lips stay sealed, almost pursed together. Like a lock.
“Then the certificate is mine?” My hand trembles on the table as I say it.
Beatríz stares at my fingers as she says, “It’s a fake.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your mother sent it after she disappeared. I believe your father forged it.”
“But why?”
Today I can make out the small lines in my aunt’s face. It feels like her mask is finally cracking. Yet as the silent seconds march past, I realize she still can’t talk about it.
“Why revisit the past?” she whispers. “There’s nothing good to be found there.”
“Everything good is there,” I say, the words slicing me on their way out. “The past is all I have.”
My aunt’s hands reach out to grip mine. They are nearly as cold as Sebastián’s, but her breath feels warm on my face as she leans in.
“That’s not true, Estela. You still have your whole life ahead of you.”
This is the first sign of affection she’s shown me, but her warmth means nothing if she’s not going to tell me the truth. “Everyone around me dies. What kind of life is that?”
Beatríz shakes her head, her eyes round with horror. “It’s… it’s my fault.”
“Yours?”
“Ours. My brother’s and mine.”
“I don’t understand,” I say for the second time.
She shakes her head like she doesn’t want to explain.
When I was little, Dad would take me with him to meet with sources at public places like parks and shopping malls, because he said a child’s presence lowers a person’s guard. I remember he didn’t let any silences creep into those meetings.
If a source stopped speaking, Dad jumped in and moved things along with his own theories, no matter how unformed they were—in fact, the more off base, the more likely the source was to start talking again.
