CHAPTER 1
“ESTELA AMADOR?”
The driver approaches us at the airport with a sign that reads LETICIA GUERRA, my nurse’s name, as my own would draw too much attention.
Yet it’s my name he calls on his approach, clearly recognizing me from the news.
“Where is Doctora Brálaga?” asks Nurse Leticia in a guarded tone.
“I don’t know. I’m with a car service,” he says in decent English, with only a slight accent.
He doesn’t look like the typical driver. He wears skinny jeans, aviator shades, a blue surgical face mask, and a charcoal zip-up with the hood over his head.
My nurse frowns with uneasiness. She was given a companion ticket to accompany me on the flight to Spain, but this is as far as she comes. Her return trip is in a few hours.
I stick out my hand to her in farewell, so she’ll know it’s okay to leave.
“Oh, put that down,” she says, and my joints stiffen as she reels me into a hug.
My first embrace since—well, in seven months.
“You are so young, Estelita,” she whispers in my ear. “Don’t give up on the world so soon.” Then she retrieves a small pill container from her pocket and offers me my medicine for the final time. I pop the meds into my mouth and take a swig from my water bottle.
“Twenty-five voices were silenced for good,” she says, more serious than I’ve heard her. “But you still have yours.”
I wait until I’ve fallen into step behind the driver to spit out the pills.
* * *
The fog rolls in as the castle comes into view.
It’s a thin film of mist that makes me feel like I’m entering a dream dimension.
We’ve been driving through northern Spain for two hours, but it’s only now that castillo Brálaga’s silhouette burns into the horizon. From here, it looks like nothing more than a dark speck in the corner of my vision.
If only it were farther away.
The last time I rode in a car, I was being shuttled for questioning by the NYPD, FBI, CDC, and a bunch of other acronyms. It was the same script with all of them:
“My name is Estela Amador. My parents are Olivia and Raul. We’re subletting a place in Asheville, but we live on the road. We came to New York City because I begged them to bring me here.”
I begged.
It’s my fault.
I feel my pulse slow to a crawl, like my body is losing power and shutting down. I lower the window until it cuts just below my eyes and press my cheekbone to the cool glass, letting the wind whip my face. Its gentle slaps try to revive me …
But you can’t reawaken a corpse.
“¿Todo bien?”
I stare at the driver in the rearview mirror. I’d nearly forgotten him. For a fragmented instant, I could almost believe I was in the back seat of my parents’ ancient Subaru, watching the world from my usual vantage point.
“¿Necesitas algo?” he presses. I don’t know what he’s saying, but he looks like the Invisible Man with his hood, sunglasses, and surgical face mask on. It’s not even sunny out.
“Hay una gasolinera donde voy a llenar el depósito y allí podrá tomar algo, aunque sea un poco de aire.”
I nod in assent just so he’ll leave me alone. It’s annoying that he’s speaking in Spanish now, when at the airport he spoke perfect English.
The truth is, I should have spent the past few weeks studying Spanish in preparation for my move here—but if I had, coming to Spain would have felt too much like an actual decision, and I might not have gone through with it.
Outside, the fog is fading, revealing that up ahead the ground grows teeth. Forests serrate rolling hills, and perched on a peak overlooking the tree line is a black dot.
My new home.
I can’t see the community of Oscuro yet, but I know from my online search that the colorful patchwork of small houses with sloped rooftops is tucked into the castle’s side. The town is so tiny, I had to zoom in as far as possible to reveal its name on the map.
The first result that popped up when I searched for Oscuro was its translation to English—dark. I couldn’t find a website or any kind of social media presence for the town. It doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.
But the castle does.
Castillo Brálaga
Located in northern Spain, this Gothic construction was built in the late 1200s by a wealthy man about whom everything has been forgotten, except his surname.
The estate has never been sold, only handed down through generations of the Brálaga bloodline. Over the centuries, it has developed a sinister reputation.
The home has been unofficially dubbed “la Sombra” by locals because the town of Oscuro lies in its shadow. It’s rumored that bad luck plagues its inhabitants, sparking a superstition that the castle is cursed.
There’s only one hyperlinked citation, and the page never loads.
Once, I would have relished unraveling this riddle. Christie, Chandler, Capote—Dad and I used to play a game where we’d read the same detective novel and circle the page number where we cracked the case; then we’d swap copies to see who got there first.
But now I’d give anything to exchange my mystery for a choose-your-own-adventure book where someone else could make all my decisions for me.
Your parents are dead.
To remain at the Rainbow Pediatric Mental Health Center in DC, which will kick you out in two weeks when you turn eighteen, turn to page 6. To move to Spain and live with an estranged aunt you’ve never heard of, turn to page 23. To jump into a time machine and undo the past seven months …
Try the science-fiction aisle.
“Ya podrá ver el castillo a lo alto. Es esa sombra lejana en la boca del bosque.”
The driver disconcerts me again with his presence. Since it doesn’t sound like he’s asking a question, this time I don’t nod.
I may not be able to see his eyes in the rearview mirror, but I’ve felt his gaze on me for most of the drive. Nurse Leticia warned me that as the sole survivor of a tragedy that made global headlines—what the media called the Subway 25, for the number of dead—I would draw attention. But that didn’t prepare me for the ogling at the airport, or the pointing of phone cameras, or the way strangers on the plane whispered my name like they knew me.
I turn pointedly to the window again, hoping the driver takes the hint that I don’t want to talk. I stare out for so long that the castle grows from a black dot to a pointy blob. I saw in the Wikipedia photo that its defining feature is its sole tower—an arrow aimed at the stars.
Given the lack of traffic, we’ll probably make it there before sunset. Only I’m not ready for this ride to be over.
Home has never been a destination for me. It’s momentum.
My earliest memories are riding in the back seat of our car and drinking in the vast blueness of the Pacific Ocean. Mom was a freelance journalist, Dad a private investigator. They were always chasing the next case or story, so we never lingered anywhere long.
The road is as close to a homeland as I have.
I used to believe Mom and Dad were too free-spirited for a conventional life. I figured they wouldn’t discuss their parents or pasts with me because they had fallen out with their families and were waiting until I was older to fill in the details.
It wasn’t until they died that I learned just how naive I had always been.
CHAPTER 2
6 MONTHS AGO
“A CAR’S COME FOR YOU, ESTELITA.”
I look up from my notepad at Nurse Leticia framed in the doorway.
My first day at the center, the staff greeted me solemnly and with some trepidation, offering me pity and condolences—except Nurse Leticia. Or Lety, as she asks us to call her. You’re less alone than you feel were her first words, delivered to me with a smile.
My roommate, Bebe, peeks in from behind the nurse. She only comes to our room at night, when she thinks I’m asleep. Works for me, so I can spend my days crying in peace.
Grief is like climate change: the sobbing comes in cycles, bands of storms that roll in with little warning and uproot my thoughts. Little by little, I feel the pain transforming me into someone new.
“Here,” says Nurse Leticia, setting down a pair of jeans and a button-down shirt at the edge of my bed. “These should be your size.”
“Is it Agent Navarro?” I ask as I reach for the clothes and pull them on under the covers. “Has something happened? Is there news?”
“Ay, Estelita, always with the questions,” she says as I work under the sheets to swap my cotton pants for the jeans. “Hurry, and you’ll find out for yourself.”
Bebe scampers away as the nurse turns to go. She only approached because she didn’t want to miss the gossip.
The clothes are smaller than my old ones, so they fit better. I guess I haven’t been eating as much as usual. When I get in the black SUV, I’m alone in the back seat. Agent Navarro didn’t come.
She was the first FBI agent I spoke to after … what happened. She has a temperate warmth about her, like she thinks of her heart as an asset when solving a case and not as something that must be shut off. She reminds me a bit of Dad.
Since I’m a minor, legally my name should have never been released to the press, but a reporter uncovered my identity and printed it. Agent Navarro was so outraged on my behalf that she gave a quote to an outlet calling the journalist in question an “embarrassment to humanity.”
I’ve brought my notepad, and my tiny scrawl of case notes takes up every bit of space, the ink running in places where my tears have fallen. The staff at the center have given me limited television privileges to keep up with the news, as long as I show them I can handle it. They say the instant I prove otherwise, I’ll get cut off from the investigation.
Through the tinted window, I watch the greenery of residential communities dull into the grays of downtown. The Rainbow Center is a treatment facility for children of the elite, like politicians, celebrities, and the wealthy. It’s a place to get professional attention away from the public eye. The government is footing my bill, a sign they want to take care of me as much as they want to keep me close.
“Hey, Estela,” says Agent Navarro as soon as I step out of the SUV. She’s waiting for me on the street, as are some male faces I remember from a few weeks ago, when they first brought me to this building.
I hoped to prove to them I could be useful on the case by providing detailed accounts of every passenger, the kind of notes Dad would take when surveying a scene. Agent Navarro and the others were riveted by my observations … until I brought up the black smoke.
There wasn’t a shred of evidence that supported the presence of a fire—nor any hint of a weapon or a culprit. That’s when they informed me I was experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder and needed time to recover so I could see things more clearly.
As no family member stepped forth to claim me, I was declared a ward of the state and signed into the Rainbow Pediatric Mental Health Center in Washington, DC.
“Is there news?” I ask by way of greeting. “Do you have a suspect?”
“Let’s go inside,” she says, and I note a new stiffness in her tone. I follow the agents past security and metal detectors, and this time instead of being welcomed into the director’s office as an American hero, I’m ushered into an interrogation room.
My throat goes dry the instant I slide into a chair and Agent Navarro sits across from me. No one else comes in with us.
Her bald mahogany head shines under the fluorescent lighting as she sets a paper bag on the table. “I thought we agreed to trust each other,” she begins, and my stomach hardens in anticipation of what this is about. “You help me figure out what happened to your parents, and I try to keep you involved in the case.”
“Right,” I say, sitting up to catch the curveball she’s about to throw.
“Then why did you tell me your dad was a cop in Los Angeles?”
I blink and my mind blanks. I was prepared for her to bring up anything—our nomadic lifestyle, extended family members, even taxes—but not this.
“He was,” I assert when I find my voice. “For seven years.”
“And yet there’s no record of him ever being in the LAPD.”
I feel the color drain from my face and the air retract from my lungs as the ground slips away from me. My dad’s identity as a detective forms part of the foundation upon which I built my own sense of self. The universe can’t take this from me, too.
“My dad was a c-cop.”
I try to state it firmly, but my chin trembles on the last word.
Agent Navarro’s expression cracks with a sympathy that I want to believe is real. “He was,” she says, and I feel the breath rushing back into my chest. “Just not in this country. You don’t have US residency. Your parents never filed the proper paperwork.”
“I don’t understand. I was born here.” I sound defensive even to myself.
Agent Navarro doesn’t answer. She just reaches inside the paper bag and pulls out three passports. They look like they were all issued by the same country.
The letters on the covers bleed together as my vision blurs, so I can’t read them.
This can’t be happening. My parents and I are—were—bonded by trust. We didn’t keep secrets. There wasn’t space for them in the Subaru.
Except about the past, whispers a small voice in my mind.
“Argentina,” I say at last. I sound choked, like there’s something caught in my throat.
“No.”
“What?” I blink in surprise, spraying my cheeks with tears.
“You’re from Spain.”
Agent Navarro stands up, abandoning me to my stupor as she goes to confer with unseen agents.
I can barely catch my breath, but I need to corral my thoughts if I’m going to figure out what’s going on. Did they bring me in because they suspect my family? Or me? That doesn’t make sense. What was our weapon? Our motive?
They must be deporting me! I’m no longer the United States’s problem—
The door clicks as Agent Navarro comes back in. Seated across from me again, she says, “I believe you didn’t know any of this.”
“Do I have family left?” I ask, hoping I won’t wind up in some Spanish foster care program before I’m thrown out on the street.
“We’ve reached out to Spanish agencies to try locating relatives,” she answers in a lighter tone. “Until we know more, nothing changes. You will remain where you are until the doctors say you’re ready to be discharged. This country is the only home you know, and we are not about to abandon you.”
I hear my exhale, but I don’t suck in new air. She’s gone from cold to overly friendly, and the fake charm doesn’t work for her, like tasting a saccharine treat. “You want something,” I say as it dawns on me.
Agent Navarro’s eyebrows arch in surprise, and she sizes me up like she’s evaluating me anew.
“What is it?” I ask, impatience getting the best of me.
Copyright © 2024 by Romina Garber
