Midnight Palace - Carlos Zafón

I will never forget that night when the sky lit up over the city of Calcutta. The calendar at St. Patrick's Orphanage was marking the last days of May 1932, leaving behind one of the most remarkable months in the history of the city of palaces. We waited day after day with sadness and fear for the arrival of that summer when we would turn sixteen, which meant our separation and the closing of the Chobar Club, the secret club reserved for only seven members. This club was our refuge during the years we spent in the orphanage, there where we grew up without a family but ourselves, and without memories except for the stories we shared around the fire in the heart of the night, in the courtyard of the old abandoned house located at the intersection of Cotton Street and Pribran Street. The house was a wreck of a large building; we called it the Midnight Palace. Al-Nashar Dar Al-Jamal