Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

MY THROAT TICKLES. MY TONGUE tingles. Tears wet my lashes.

I spoke.

I'm so shocked that it takes me a moment to process my other shock— I'm still alive. His hands are no longer around my neck, and there's a few feet of space between us.

He listened to me.

"End the spell," says the shadow beast, his beautiful voice at odds with the death it promises.

How is it possible I could feel his touch if he's only in my head? Or have my hallucinations gained so much power they can hoodwink my other senses? He takes a threatening step forward that cuts the distance between us by half.

"What spell?"

My voice comes out creaky and a notch higher than I remember. And despite the doom facing me, my blood floods with relief that I'm still alive.

No, it's more than that. Something I didn't know until this moment—

I want to live.

"No more games." The monster's warning comes shrouded in shadow as clouds fill the silver of his eyes. "I know what you are, bruja. Release me or die."

Bruja —I know that word. It means witch.

"I-I'm not." I clear my throat of its cobwebs. "I'm just a girl—"

His shadows expand like smoke, darkening the air. " Liar. "

His whisper is everywhere, voice blowing through my hair, ears, fingers. I sprint along the wall to the other end of the room—

But he's already there.

His shadows enclose us in a smoky night, his silver eyes our only source of light. "Please," I beg, my heart reverberating in my throat, slowing my speech. "I have no idea… what you're saying—"

"Your face has been haunting me. I started to believe I was going mad."

Only in my imagination would this guy be obsessed with me.

"The explanation," he goes on, "must be that you are the bruja responsible for bringing me here."

I have no idea what he means, but given the pain he can cause me, I'd rather play along than piss him off. "I was on the news," I say, my throat smarting with the effort of speaking. "The… subway."

A flash of electricity claps in his eyes.

"That is the spell of which I speak," he says, to my bewilderment.

I'm not sure how long I stare at him, immobilized by his words, until the small voice in my mind reminds me: He's in your head.

This is some desperate part of my brain reaching for any kind of explanation for what happened to my parents. Only this is really a reach. The kind of reach that probably wouldn't be taking place if I had stayed at the center.

It's clear I wasn't ready to leave.

I breathe in the scent of a frigid night, and I'm back in a wooden cabin on an icy mountain in Montana where my parents and I once spent the winter. The snow was so thick that there were no sweet plant notes in the air, nor the earthy scent of the ground, nor the musk of small animals. I remember thinking whatever smell remained must be the scent of the stars.

That's what I inhale now as the shadow beast leans in, and I have to tilt my neck all the way back to keep from breaking his stare.

"I… I need time to figure this out," I say, in hopes of putting an end to this encounter. "But kill me, and… and the spell becomes unbreakable."

He stares into my eyes, like he's trying to see through my lies. "You have until next nightfall."

His voice is the quiet rumble of the first thunder from an approaching storm.

"Free me or die."

I don't stop running until I reach my room, then I go into my bathroom and yank open the drawer that I filled to the brim with period pads and tampons. I shove my hand in to pull out the notepad I hid last night, and I bring it to the desk.

I flip to my list of strange occurrences. On the next page, I jot today's date and start a new list, titled: Shadow beast.

Then I bullet-point what I know so far:

Dreamed him up months ago

Has silver eyes

Seems to command shadows

Says he came to the castle the day of the subway

Claims to be under a spell

Caused me physical pain

Thinks I'm the witch responsible

Of all the far-fetched things on the list, the most unbelievable to me is the last. He doesn't trust me . It's almost flattering.

I wake up to golden sunlight, with the notepad open on my chest. The shadow beast's face swims before me as the details of my dreams slip between my fingers, like water.

All I remember is he was in every single one of them, hunting me through the castle, like some twisted game of hide-and-seek. Only every time he found me, the nightmare reset, and a new chase set off.

I still feel the ghost of my pulse as I sit up, and my notepad topples to my lap. I look down at the last thing I wrote last night:

"You don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself."

The line is from Dracula . I read the novel at the center, and those words found a home in me. I guess I still haven't been able to shake them.

I have to go back on my old meds.

I squeeze my fists as I make the promise, and my nails leave deep crescents in my palms. But I'm not taking Beatríz's black seed. I want my usual pills, or I'll reach out to Nurse Leticia and tell her my aunt is not complying with the center's regimen. I hide the journal in my period drawer again before changing and heading out.

"?Buen día!" says Felipe as soon as I walk into the bookstore.

It's impossible to miss the way he lights up when he sees me. No guy has ever been this openly delighted by my presence, and I feel my mood thawing a little.

"I made you something," he says as I follow him up to the attic. He swipes a small rectangular thing off the desk and hands it to me.

It's a business card that reads LIbrERíA LIbrOSCURO with the store's contact information. Only LIbrERíA is crossed off and BIBLIOTECA has been typed over it with a typewriter. I look at him in confusion.

"Turn it over," he instructs.

On the other side, I see that my name has been typed in as well, including my mother's maiden name: ESTELA AMADOR bráLAGA .

"It's your library card." His mouth hitches up on one side as he flashes me his crooked smirk. "This means you can come over and read any book you want at any time, no charge."

I stare at the card in awe, more moved by the gesture than Felipe can understand. My lips part, and I hear myself say, "Thank you."

His eyes widen with surprise, and my face muscles slacken with relief. Last night, only the shadow beast heard me use my voice, so I couldn't be sure I really spoke until now.

Felipe doesn't say anything for a stretch, which is a first for him so far. "You—you're welcome."

"So, librería means bookstore, and biblioteca is library?" I ask.

"Así es," he says, beaming.

"It sounds flipped," I say, thinking of the English words. "Like librería should be library and biblioteca bookstore."

"I'll take that as a sign my lessons are working."

I feel the edges of my mouth pull up. It's been so long since I smiled that the facial movements feel foreign.

"Hoyuelo," whispers Felipe. I don't know what that means, but I notice he's looking at my right cheek. Where Mom's dimple showed up when I smiled.

Today we read from a black book that looks slightly less old than the previous ones. For starters, the cover has images on it—or maybe etchings is a better word. A moon, stars, a cross, and a set of jaws with sharp fangs.

"This book is an anthology," Felipe informs me as we sit down at our usual stools. "It's considered fiction now, but these were originally published as true stories."

I open to a table of contents. There are thirteen chapters. " The Tragedies of the Brálagas of la Sombra, " he translates.

We spend hours reading together. All thirteen families featured in the anthology suffered unnatural deaths—exorcisms gone wrong, deadly blood spells, hauntings, murder-suicides, dealings with devils ("demonios"), attacks by werewolves ("lobizones"), faeries ("hadas"), and other monsters.

The thirteenth tale is Felipe's favorite because it's about a magical Book, with a capital B . It was delivered to la Sombra by an enemy of the castle's founder, the original Brálaga, who instructed the family to keep it safe by hiding it outside the walls of the castle—but before anyone had a chance to open its pages, Brálaga's spirit manifested and murdered them all.

Then Brálaga destroyed the Book.

Felipe sets down a platter of bocadillos on the table, and I rip into one of the tiny jamón serrano sandwiches. "Scared yet?" he asks, sitting so close to me that our knees brush.

"Of what?" I ask, folding my legs under me. "None of this is true."

Felipe flinches, like I personally offended him. I wait for him to say something or go get us a new book, but he just traces a drawing with his finger. It's of a man holding the Book from the thirteenth tale, which bears the Brálaga crest on its cover.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"Nothing," he says with a shrug.

"Are you upset the Book was destroyed before you could read it?" I ask to lighten the air.

"I just didn't expect you to be so suspicious after what you lived through," he says, sounding almost angry.

My gut hardens, and my guard shoots up. "I think you mean skeptical, and yes, I am. Sorry if that disappoints you."

"I think you mean it confuses me."

"Why?"

"You saw black smoke, and even though there was no evidence, you wanted the world to believe you. What makes your ancestors less trustworthy?"

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

It's not just that he makes a valid point—it's also that he went there. He poked my rawest wound. I don't think Felipe would have done that if this book weren't so important to him. But he's not a Brálaga, so why does he care so much?

"What do you think is the truth?" I ask, trying to ignore the sting from his question. "Do you believe all these supernatural encounters really happened?"

"I don't have answers yet, just ideas," he says, not meeting my eyes. "But I'm not sure you're ready to hear them."

"Tell me," I say, burning a hole in his head with my gaze, until at last he looks at me.

"Before he died," he begins, "my great-grandfather told me something. He didn't have any evidence "—Felipe's eyes light up with excitement—"but he never lied to me."

So far, Felipe has shared his knowledge with me freely. Yet this secret, he protects. Whatever his great-grandfather told him, there's no doubt Felipe believes it.

"What is it?" I ask.

His throat is so dry I can hear him swallow. "He told me some Brálagas are— special ." Felipe says it like he's not sure it's the right word. "On the full moon, they can perform magic."

I look at the drawing of the castle's crest on the Book's cover, and he must be having an effect on me because the first thought to cross my mind is, Maybe that's what the moon represents .

Either my ancestors and I share a supernatural sensibility, or we suffer from an inherited mental illness. "Do you have a lunar calendar?" I ask, the detective's compass in my gut spinning erratically.

Felipe strides to the desk and riffles through the papers until he finds something. "This calendar uses small black circles for the full moons," he says, bringing it to me.

I flip back seven months…

And I see the black dot.

The Subway 25 happened on a full moon.