All I know is that once Julián told the kids in the building that he had a sister only he could see. He said she came out of mirrors as if she were made of thin air and that she lived with Satan himself in a palace at the bottom of a lake.

I leafed through the pages, inhaling the enchanted scent of promise that comes with all new books, and stopped to read the start of a sentence that caught my eye.

As I walked, I ran my fingers along the spines of hundreds of books. I let myself be imbued with the smell, with the light that filtered through the cracks or from the glass lanterns embedded in the wooden structure, floating among mirrors and shadows.

Keep your dreams, you never know when you might need them.

Those were the words she wanted to hear and she finally surrendered to the temptation of believing them.

Childhood devotions make unfaithful and fickle lovers.

She was seventeen, her entire life shining on her lips.