Page 8 of Castle of the Cursed
And I saw the same black smoke as on the subway.
When I awoke, my skin was slick with sweat and my heart raced. I thought I was dying. Only as I kept breathing, I realized it was the opposite.
I was feeling.
I wrote down the dream for the medical staff the next morning. They said my aunt’s letter had likely surfaced a repressed memory, and the black smoke was a metaphor my childish mind conceived to cope with trauma I experienced at an early age. They even theorized that I must have seen it on the subway because that imagery is how my brain interprets danger.
They said I’d had a breakthrough.
It was then I decided to stop taking their medication. The numbness wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to hear my heart again.
Withdrawal symptoms like lack of appetite and fatigue are easier to handle; it’s the amped-up volume of the world, of my thoughts, that’s harder to hide.
A car’s engine purrs closer, and the driver pops his head out the window. The sun’s fiery final flames reflect against his sunglasses.
“¿Lista?” he asks.
I sigh.
To move into a cursed castle, turn the page.
CHAPTER 4
THE CAR COMES TO A stop in front of shut iron gates flanked by twin gargoyles, and the driver whispers something that’s either a prayer or a curse. I can’t tell.
He springs out of the car and pops the trunk. By the time I click my seat belt and climb out, he’s already back inside the vehicle. I find my duffel on the ground.
He books it out of here like he’s terrified just being on the castle’s property, and I assume my aunt must have prepaid for the service. Is that why the driver kept his face concealed? Did he think he was protecting himself? Does he believe in the castle’s curse?
I turn toward the gate, which is shut with a thick chain and heavy lock. I don’t see a doorbell or a box to buzz in.
My stomach does a funny flip, and it dawns on me that in this instant I’m freer than I’ve ever been. I could turn and run and never look back.
Like my parents did.
I stare between the black railings, across a tangled and overgrown garden that reminds me of Miss Havisham’s from Great Expectations. The foliage is dry and untended, and above it stands the castle, with doors as tall as trees and knockers the size of manatees.
Questions claw at my skin in the voice of old Estela. Why did Mom keep this place a secret from me? What really happened in the room from the photograph? Who is my aunt and what does she want from me?
If I leave now, I’ll never know.
I pull the duffel strap across my chest and walk alongside the iron bars, stepping on unkempt wild grass. Why did my aunt bother bringing me here if she wasn’t even going to let me past the gate?
I spy a handle that nearly blends into the fence and turn it, expecting it to be locked. The door hinges inward.
I cut across a cobblestone path that’s been nearly swallowed by weeds, until I reach the giant arching double doors that look twenty feet high. Closer up, I trace the outline of a set of smaller, human-sized doors embedded in the larger pair.
The wooden doors are as jet-black as the stone used on the rest of the construction. Like they were chopped from a tree the color of midnight.
I stare at gargoyle knockers that look like goblins with fangs. Before I can reach up, the door cracks open on its own.
The castle exhales old air. And as I inhale its familiar breath, I’m overcome with bone-deep nostalgia.
The sensation is one no image could hope to capture or convey. It’s the musk of something ancient and powerful and alive.
Not a shadow castle, but a shadow creature.
The past is more than just a feeling here. It’s a presence.
