Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

DINNER IS LEFTOVER PAELLA.

After what Beatríz did and said last night, I can hardly stomach food in her presence. It was easier sharing space at the clínica, where we work in separate areas. Being at the same table is unbearable.

The only sounds are the tines of her fork scraping against the polished porcelain plate. I set down my glass of water, a little too hard. It thumps against the wood, and my aunt raises a quizzical eyebrow at me as she swaps her fork for her wineglass.

As she brings it to her lips, I shatter the silence.

"How much longer are we going to do this?"

The question flies out on its own, bypassing my brain as my body expels it.

"She speaks," says my aunt, setting down her glass. She sounds less pleased to hear my voice than I was expecting.

I guess after last night, she's no longer curious about what I have to say.

"Where's the purple room?" I ask, getting right to the point.

"It's gone," says Beatríz, swallowing another forkful of rice.

"The room ran away, too?" It's a cheap shot, but so are her lies.

"I told you the castle is in disrepair. Some parts are no longer accessible."

"Then why did you send me that picture?"

"To prove my identity."

"Why that room ? What happened there?"

Beatríz holds my gaze, and now she's the one who's gone silent. I get the sense she's searching me for something, too.

"I've contacted an in-patient facility a few hours away from here, and they have a bed available." Beatríz's subject shift is so swift, it takes me a few seconds to pick up on what she's saying. "Continue this line of questioning, and that will be your next stop."

She drops the black pill on the tabletop in front of me.

"Now take your medicine."

I want to shove that seed up her nostril. But I know better than to strike too early. So I swallow her pill, and I spare her a glower before hurrying to my room.

The halls look even redder tonight as I rush to throw up the seed. I didn't get the chance to last night because Sebastián distracted me. Seems to be what he does best. Tonight, he better not be—

In my room again.

This time he's standing over my desk and reading my journal. I hid it in my period drawer, so he could only have known where to find it if he's inside my head.

He looks up, no trace of shame at breaching my privacy. Between him and my aunt, I'll never find any peace in this house.

"Give me back my photograph."

The words come out of their own volition, same as with Beatríz.

The shadow beast glowers at me. I doubt he appreciates my tone. "What is the black fire?" he asks, holding my notepad open to the page where I made my list of strange occurrences.

"That's enough!" I squeeze my head between my hands, willing him out. "This time I'm giving you a choice—show me where the purple room is, or get the hell out of my head!"

"I have told you I do not know. Do you not believe me?"

"Why should I? I don't know anything about you. Where do you come from? Why are you here? Who are you? "

"I am Sebastián."

"Hilarious." I'm tired of my mind's games. "I know you're not real, but you obviously have information buried deep in my brain somewhere that I want myself to have, so just spit it out already— where's the room? "

His brow furrows, like I've spoken a language he's not fluent in. "You are evidently unwell."

"You catch on quick."

He gapes at me for what feels like a full minute. Then a horrible howl thunders through the room, and Sebastián's features crack with pain, like he's been shot.

I back away as he doubles over. It seems like he can't lift his neck to look at me.

"What is it?" I ask.

He doesn't answer. His eyes are slits and his mouth hangs open. He seems to be in severe agony. Is this what happens when you destroy a hallucination?

"Where does it hurt?" is all I can think to ask.

"Ev-every-where," he manages to get out. His voice isn't breathy. It's more choppy, like a radio station with signal interference, and there's a low-pitched wailing—

"Are you laughing?"

As the wail becomes a howl again, there's no denying it's laughter. "You—" He tries to speak past his guffaws. "You believe—you made me?"

I perch at the edge of the bed. I was not prepared for how a merry monster would behave, and now I can see why. It's insufferable .

Sebastián is still doubled over, his howls sputtering, and it seems like this embarrassing display is finally coming to an end. I don't care how much pain I earn myself, I'm going off on him. "What the hell is your—?"

But when he raises his chin, and I see his face, the shadow beast's smile is a supernova. The silver galaxies of his eyes are luminous, his skin as fresh as the earth after a storm. The dazzling sight makes me feel as tiny as I hoped to make him feel, and I forget what I was saying.

"You really think quite highly of yourself."

There's a somewhat lighter quality to Sebastián's voice now.

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"You credit yourself as my creator." There's such a smug superiority in his expression that I wish I had a mirror to hold up.

"Prove you're real," I say, crossing my arms, "and that a spell is behind everything."

"What sort of proof would satisfy you?" His tone is as dry as a desert. "You do not even believe I am real when I stand before you."

"Then tell me something about yourself," I demand.

"If you are in such a sharing mood, you start."

"Meaning what?"

"Who are you ?"

He sounds like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland . "You already know," I say with a hard breath. "You saw me on the news months ago—"

"I know your father did not protect you from a lethal gas."

My spine stiffens at the mention of Dad.

"That was a lie," he says, his voice lower and his manner more menacing. "No human could shield you from brujería."

My gaze swings up as the overhead light flickers.

"It's happening again," I say, and then I open the door and head down the crimson corridor.

Sebastián is already at my side.

He moves like a shadow, not human or even creature-like, but something else altogether. Once more, the flickering lights lead down the right wing to the cathedral.

" Again? " he asks, not hiding his annoyance.

"I'm just following the lights. I feel like they're leading me to the purple room."

"What makes you think that?"

"What makes you think the subway was a spell?"

He frowns at me. "What else could have caused an interdimensional disturbance?"

"Interdimensional what ?"

"Whatever caused those deaths also displaced me from my home realm. Only a powerful bruja could have pulled that off."

"What realm are you from?"

This time he doesn't answer. I guess my mind hasn't gotten around to writing his backstory yet.

Still, I need to shatter this hallucination somehow, and undermining its logic seems like the best way. "You said bruja ," I point out. "Why do you say that word in Spanish?"

He considers my question before answering. "I read all the books in this castle to learn the languages of your world. Most were in Spanish, so it must be the language I best absorbed."

"You know where the library is?" I ask, brimming with curiosity.

He cocks his head, sizing me up. "You ask a lot of questions. It is now your turn to answer mine—tell me more about these lights."

"There's nothing to tell. They just flicker off and on at a distractingly quick rate."

"Are they flickering now?"

"No," I say, and as I look around the nondescript room that leads to the cathedral, it strikes me that the lights inside that cavernous space never actually flickered.

Does that mean this is the right destination?

There's no furniture or windows here. This vacant room looks just like any other… except for the red rug. I haven't seen any other carpeting at the castle.

I drop down to touch the rough fabric. When I pull back on a corner, I see only the stone floor below.

Cottoning on, Sebastián yanks up half the rug with one tug. At the center of the floor is a square outline with a metal ring embedded.

It looks like a trapdoor.

Sebastián lifts the ring and pulls open the hatch. Then he melts into shadow. I follow him down the stone steps at my slower pace.

By the time I reach the bottom, we're in a cold basement with walls crafted of stacked gray stones. There's only one light bracketed high up, barely illuminating anything.

I feel like I'm in a trance, following some inner map from my childhood. I remember exactly where the hidden doorway is, the one I thought only I knew about. I run my fingers across the apple-shaped stone that I once believed opened just for me.

A sharpness stabs my finger.

I didn't spy the tiny thornlike spikes because they blend into the rock.

As I smear my blood across the wall, something flashes in Sebastián's gaze. He looks unwell at the sight.

But then excitement takes over his features as the borders between stones begin to darken, the rock physically separating—and the outline of a doorway appears.

I touch the apple-shaped stone again, and the door swings inward. Sebastián beats me through the opening, and I follow him inside.

The room is no longer purple. The wallpaper is blackened and scorched, the scars reaching all the way up to the ceiling.

The fire was real.

A wave of dizziness crashes over me again, only this time it's so intense, I feel nauseous. Shutting my eyes, I'm swept back in time with the tide.

I'm in the center of the room, black flames blazing all around me.

I can see Mom's agonized face as she screams from the doorway. She's looking into the room, her gaze jumping from me to someone else. A third person.

Beatríz.

She stands in the far corner, just beyond the fire's reach. Only unlike Mom and me, she doesn't look afraid or horrified.

She looks triumphant.

I open my eyes as the lightheadedness recedes, along with the memory.

"What happened here?" asks Sebastián. He's inspecting a ribbon of wallpaper that's curled away from the wall.

"A black fire," I whisper, "when I was five." I gravitate to the place where I'm standing in the memory. "I was here, in the middle of the flames. Only the fire didn't hurt me."

Just like the black smoke on the subway.

"Beatríz was at the far edge of the room. Watching me."

"The human who lives here?" asks Sebastián, sounding mildly surprised. He drifts to a corner of the room, and I assume he's pacing while he thinks—until he reaches down and pulls up a stone from the ground.

From the hole he retrieves a handful of documents. He reviews them years before I do. When I come over, he hands them to me.

The first three papers are photographs of a small girl.

Me.

In the first, I'm sniffing a purple flower in the garden. In the second, I'm crawling up the staircase. In the third, I'm smiling to someone and baring a small chip in my front milk tooth. Something about this last picture feels off, and I wonder who I'm looking at off camera.

The fourth paper is the only official document. Bile rises up my throat because I've seen this kind of paperwork before, only then it bore my parents' names.

A death certificate.

The text is in Spanish, and I stare at the letters of the name for a long time before I finally read them.

Estela Amador.

Me.