Page 29 of What Is Dark Within Me

Nicolas turned and winced, as if knowing he was about to be scolded. “We’re searching for a missing woman—one of Alejandra’s friends. We thought you might help us.”

“No!” Aleja snapped, shooting to her feet so forcefully that Catalina leaned back with a hand on her chest. “Explain yourself, Nicolas. Why is my grandmother locked up in this tower?”

He opened his mouth, but again, Catalina beat him to it, throwing both hands in the air. “You mean she doesn’tknow? I might have expected you to put on your act in front of the rest of my wretched family, but Aleja is one of the good ones.”

She turned to Aleja, a wave of perfumed air washing over them. “I’m not trapped here, mija. Well, I suppose I am, in a sense, but it’s by choice. I was dying when Nicolas came to me. Heart failure. I would have been gone within weeks, but he offered to bring me here. I couldn’t keep watching over you and Paola in the physical realm, but I could visit you in dreams whenever I liked.”

“I’m sorry, I…” Aleja began, not sure of what she’d intended to say. This couldn’t be true. Nicolas had killed Catalina. Just like he’d killed Sarita. Just liked he’d killed Raul. She glanced at him, but he was again pretending to examine the matador painting.

“Have you told her about the others?” Catalina said to his back. Her tone reminded Aleja of the woman she had briefly known in life—an accidental matriarch to the black sheep of the family, who scolded no one without acknowledging she was proud of their rebellious spirit.

“It wasn’t relevant information,” Nicolas said. He wiped a bit of dust off the picture frame with his index finger.

Aleja raised her eyebrows as Catalina let out a string of Spanish curses. “I was hoping I’d get the chance to tell you this someday yourself, but my body had other plans. I’m sorry I had to leave you when you were so young, and I didn’t want to explain it in a dream. You might have forgotten or thought you made it up yourself.”

“What are you trying to say? Tell me. Please,” Aleja pleaded.

Catalina took both Aleja’s hands in her own. Her palms were soft, like she still used the skin cream she’d been fond of in life. “Nicolas has been a good friend to me.”

“No, he hasn’t,” Aleja said in a high-pitched voice. “He’s a murderer.”

“He couldn’t save my life, but he brought me to a place where I could still watch over my family. He turned Sarita into a flock of crows, so she could fly far away. I hear she’s back in Seville. And you never met Raul, but he was suffering too. We had no words for depression in those days, but I feared what would have happened to him should he be left untreated. Nicolas sent him to the Court of Golden Sands, in the realm of the fey, where the best of their mind-healers conduct their research. As far as I know, Raul still lives among them.”

“None of that is true. Aunt Sarita wouldn’t have left without telling us. She wouldn’t have let us mourn her for years.”

Catalina took a sharp breath but did not answer, looking at Nicolas’s back. The room darkened as plants coiled around the windows like snakes around a rabbit.

“Sarita killed her husband. She had to go into hiding,” he said without turning around.

“What?” Aleja gasped. She pushed herself to her feet, sending hibiscus petals flying. “Her husband was a piece of shit who stole her car and ran off.”

“No,” Catalina told her. “I saw how it played out in her nightmares. He came home drunk and angry one night. She didn’t know what she had done to upset him, but suddenly, he was on top of her, pounding his fists in her face. Sarita was scared for her life. As she flailed, her hand grazed the knife she’d been using to chop onions. The next thing she knew, it was in his neck and his blood was on her face. Nicolas came to her then.”

“Why not tell us? We wouldn’t have blamed her,” Aleja said, not sure who she was pleading to or for what. A bird screeched somewhere outside, followed by a soft roar; either the sound of a distant sea or a jaguar crouched among the palms.

“You and Paola were too young to understand,” Catalina said. She nodded toward Nicolas, shaking a curl loose from her bun. “Think about it. What would other magicians—what would the rest of our family—do if they learned the Knowing One hadn’t killed her, buthelpedher? She’s always told me she would send word to you and Paola once enough time had passed.”

Aleja sat back down. Her thighs crushed more petals, releasing a tart fragrance. “This is fucked up. Did my great-great-grandfather and his brothers know? Was this what they intended when they made the bargain?”

Nicolas spoke unprompted—the first time he’d done so in a while. “Of course not. But like every foolish magician who contacts me for their own gain, they weren’t careful enough in their wording. It left me free to do some interpretation of the contract.”

The Knowing One might be the Prince of Lies, but the woman sitting next to her felt like her grandmother, smelled like her grandmother. Catalina reached out and swept a piece of Aleja’s hair out of her eyes as she always had before falling into her endless dream.

“Aleja?” her grandmother said. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have told you this sooner, but we wanted to keep you safe. We always wanted to keep you safe. Listen, you shouldn’t stay for much longer. This place is my dream, not yours, and you haven’t learned how to keep your mind shielded. You’ll be disorientated soon. You won’t remember what is real and what isn’t.”

Aleja wanted to tell her that was already the case, but she shook her head and said, “Violet. That’s why we’re here. If she’s asleep somewhere, she may be dreaming. Can you find her?”

“I can usually only find my family members,” Catalina said. “But I’ll try. Do you have something of hers?”

Aleja slid the backpack off her shoulders, having half-forgotten she was wearing it. She felt blurry, almost outside of herself. The past few hours had been full of too many revelations in too short a time, and now instead of anger or fear or hope, she merely felt numb. She barely noticed the vine gently wrapped around her ankle—something that was either comforting or menacing; she couldn’t tell which.

Catalina examined the backpack for a moment before unclipping the panda keychain and tucking it into her palm. “I will teach you how to come with me someday, but for now, I must go alone. Is there anything you want me to say to Violet if I find her?”

“Yes,” Aleja stammered. “That I miss her. That I’ll never stop looking for her.”

“Okay, my dearest.”

Her grandmother stood and made her way to a dark staircase hidden behind a monstrously large pair of ferns. Their shadows surrounded Catalina as Aleja watched her climb up one stair, two, and then disappear.

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