Page 94 of Castle of the Cursed
Bea enters the room and looks at me pleadingly. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I nod in assent, nauseated with anticipation. “What do I have to do?”
“Look in the mirror, and wherever your reflection leads, follow it,” says Teo. “Think of it as a high-security vault. You’re the only one who can access your twin’s memories because you share the same DNA, so the lock can’t differentiate between you two.”
He holds out his hands to his sister, who grudgingly joins her fingers with his. Then they begin to chant in low voices, like they’re praying: “No hay luz en Oscuro, no hay luz en Oscuro, no hay luz en Oscuro…”
I look deep into my own eyes, wondering if this will work. How might it feel to see my face on someone else’s body and hear my voice come out of someone else’s mouth? Will she speak like me? Move like me?
I blink when I realize my reflection is waving me forward. I touch the mirror, and the texture is watery. When my fingers slide through the glass, I press my nose in to test if I can breathe—
And the mirror sucks me inside.
My surroundings shift to utter darkness, and my aunt and uncle are gone. I’m in a vacuum of space, floating.
“Hello?”
My greeting is soundless. I lost either my voice or my hearing or both. I look down at my hands, and they don’t seem substantial. I’m a ghost.
I gasp as the scenery begins to fill in.
I see myself at various stages of childhood and adolescence, hundreds of memories jostling for space in the air, all of them unfolding simultaneously.
Only I don’t remember any of these moments.
Teo was right.
Antonela made it to the other side.
THE OTHER CASTLE
CHAPTER 21
I SEE A MILLION VERSIONS of my sister, all overlapping, like a timeline splintering into a collage.
And I’m reminded of “El Aleph,” a short story by Dad’s favorite Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges. The Aleph is a point in space that contains all of existence, a window to the universe that’s unfiltered and undistorted. It feels like I’m looking into it now.
Antonela is a little kid in some scenes and a preteen in others. I try focusing on a single iteration, and my mind hones in on a specific memory.
Antonela is joined by other young beings who appear to be of different species, yet they all wear the same gray cloaks. This seems to be some sort of school.
I would barely be able to keep my greedy eyes off my sister, except that she and the others are packed in a gathering hall that can best be described as alive.
The walls are bloodred and sentient, like a body organ. Black veins branch across them, seemingly connecting the castle’s various chambers.
There is a palpable excitement in the air, and I hear some of the whispers.
“I cannot believe we are going to meet Grandparent!”
“Our lessons have never been disrupted for anything.”
“What do you think is happening?”
I understand it all as if they were speaking English, but something tells me I’m tuning in to la Sombra’s magical audio setting and not the original language.
A tall hooded being sweeps onto the stage in a black cloak.
They say nothing, and yet the entire hall quiets, the being onstage commanding every molecule of air in the room. Their face is concealed, but their energy is boundless, and even I can feel the electricity they produce. It’s like standing in the presence of a being so powerful that gravity warps around them.
