Page 80 of Castle of the Cursed
“But you didn’t believe the spell to send her to the other castle was real, and it worked!”
“It doesn’t take magic to ki—to make a person disappear,” she says, choosing different words. “Magic would be reviving them!”
It’s clear where she stands on this, so I switch subjects. “I met Teo my first day here. He was the driver who picked me up from the airport.”
She looks at me in shock. “That’s why the driver didn’t wait for me to pay! I called the company the next day, and they told me the trip had been canceled. I just assumed the center in DC had arranged your transportation so you didn’t meet my driver.” She shakes her head in a kind of awe. “He must have been keeping watch over me ever since the subway, expecting you would come home eventually.”
We reach the front doors of la Sombra, and Bea slips the key in the lock and looks at me. “Be ready.”
“You think he’s here?” I whisper.
“Just in case.” She shows me what’s inside the fabric bag, and I see a dozen syringes. They’re the sedatives I saw on my tour of the clínica the first day. Holding one up to demonstrate, she removes the plastic cap over the needle and says, “Stab him with the pointy end, then press in to inject.”
She hands me one. “Put it in your coat pocket.”
My eyes feel like they take up my whole face as I accept. This still doesn’t feel like real life, and I ask her, “Why aren’t we calling the police—?”
“Shh,” says Beatríz, opening the door.
We search the front part of the castle together, our bedrooms, the grand hall, the kitchen—but there’s no sign of him. “Should we check the hidden rooms, like in the basement and the tower?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I was being cautious, but I think since he left us a note, he wants us to come to him. He’s waiting for an answer.”
I follow Beatríz to the kitchen, where she washes her hands before pulling out a pan and eggs. “I’m going to make you a Spanish staple,” she says, reaching into a cupboard for a bag of potatoes. “Tortilla de papas.”
“I’m going to get comfortable,” I say, and this is the first time I’m actually looking forward to a meal with my aunt. “I’ll be back.” When I get to my room, I call out, “Sebastián?”
He isn’t here. I hide the blood bags I just stole from the clínica under my bed, since I can’t put them in the fridge. Then after pulling on my sweats, a top, and my hoodie, I head back downstairs.
“Can I help?” I ask, joining my aunt in the kitchen.
“Sure. Whisk eight eggs.” She plucks a bowl from the cabinet.
I open the fridge, and while she starts peeling potatoes over the sink, I start cracking eggs. “Was your mom—my grandmother—a big cook?” I ask.
Beatríz lets out a yelp of a laugh that startles us both, and I drop half a shell into the bowl. “My mother did not cook,” she says as I fish it out with the whisk. “She had a household staff for that. It was the same with her mother, and her mother’s mother. You and I are breaking with tradition. ¡Salud!”
She holds out the potato peeler, and I clink it with my yolky whisk, smirking. “Dad was always the cook in our family,” I say. “Mom was allergic to the kitchen.”
Smiling, my aunt looks so much like Mom that just breathing hurts. “Your mother wasn’t allowed in this kitchen after she snuck in early one morning when she was nine and tried to make breakfast,” says Beatríz, some color returning to her face. “It was as bad as you’re imagining. After that, she was banned, so whenever she wanted a snack, I had to go in and get it for her.”
I whisk the eggs, wondering more about Mom’s childhood. “What was Mom’s favorite part of the castle?”
“The library. She was a born writer. Her little hands always reached for pens and crayons, and she’d leave her markings everywhere.”
I bring the bowl to Beatríz, who is still peeling potatoes. “What was Antonela like?” I ask in a lower register.
My aunt’s hands stop working. She doesn’t look at me, but her chest rises and falls faster.
“She was an explorer. You liked to sit still, like your dad, but she had more of your mom’s restlessness. She loved to play outside and didn’t mind things like dirt and bugs.”
A blade slices through a potato, and after Beatríz finishes chopping, she instructs me, “Cut these two the same way.” Then she turns on the heat and drizzles olive oil into a pan.
By the time we sit to eat, it’s dark out, and I need to decide what to do. As soon as Sebastián sees Beatríz, he’s going to have a reaction. I just hope it won’t be to kill her on sight.
“What do you think?” she asks me.
“Of what?”
