Page 79 of Castle of the Cursed
I pop open an eye. “What?”
She tilts her head back, and I stare at the ceiling. The lights are flashing on and off.
I sit up. “Let’s go.”
We open the door slowly, so its creaking won’t give us away. Out in the crimson corridor, the lights are blinking, calling to us.
We follow the trail down the stairs and deeper into the castle. We pass through the string of doorless rooms leading to the windowless cathedral, only now the walls are adorned with artwork and the spaces are appointed with furniture. It’s only when we reach the spot with the trapdoor to the purple room that the blinking stops.
Then the lights turn up to full blast, illuminating the hall.
“Now what?” asks Antonela.
“Maybe we wait here.”
“Or maybe there’s something hidden we have to find.”
By the way her eyes grow round, I know this is the version we’re going with—which suits me fine because I love mysteries. So we begin to look around, inspecting every corner we can reach and casting a close eye along the rug, which looks much brighter and cleaner.
There’s a coffee table at the center of the rug, and I jump in a wide circle around it to see if the floor feels loose anywhere.
“Just pull it back,” says Antonela, grabbing the edge. I join her, and we fold it over together.
Our wide eyes meet. Wow, we mouth at the same time as we spot part of the outline of a trapdoor.
It takes our joint effort to lift the coffee table and open the trapdoor. We climb down a set of steps to a basement where all we see is an empty hall of rocky walls, and I blow out a frustrated breath.
“There’s nothing here!”
Yet Antonela doesn’t seem upset. She gets close to the wall, as if she hears something on the other side. “It’s like a heartbeat,” she says vaguely. Then she reaches up and touches the stone that activates the hidden door.
“Ow!” Blood trickles out from her finger onto the rock.
“Are you okay?” I ask, coming over.
A rectangular outline expands across the stones. “Look!” she says, her voice high-pitched with excitement.
Together, we open the door a sliver, enough for our tiny bodies to squeeze through.
“Purple!” we squeal in unison. It’s our favorite color.
We giggle madly and hold hands as we dance round and round and round, high on the castle revealing this secret just to us, a buried room where we can hide without anyone finding us, and we drop to the floor in a bundle of laughter.
“This room is our secret,” Antonela says to me once we’ve calmed down.
“Our secret sister space,” I say in agreement.
“Forever,” she says.
“Forever.”
We pinkie swear, and then we spring up and go back to dancing. Like we truly have forever.
CHAPTER 18
“BUT WHAT IF IT’S TRUE?” I ask yet again, as we climb the overgrown garden to the castle doors.
“I already told you, I’m a physician,” says Beatríz, carrying a fabric bag that she didn’t have with her earlier. “You can’t revive the dead. Especially when there isn’t even a corpse.”
