by Megan Chance
“But your nurse says you’re strangely strong,” the priest went on, half murmuring, as if he spoke to himself. He glanced about. “Cold in the room.”
“It’s always cold in here,” Nero said. “Just as it is everywhere in Venice in the winter. The dell’ Orto is frigid—you should tend to your own house, padre. By the way it feels, the church is swimming in demons.”
“Nerone,” Madame Basilio said sternly.
Giulia dipped her head with a little amused smile.
I felt a stab of irritation and said quietly, “It’s a different kind of cold. An unnatural kind.”
“Then I think we have enough proof that it is not just madness.”
“Have we?” Nero asked. “Are we really so certain?”
The priest ignored him. “We will proceed.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a tangle of thick leather straps—it was a moment before I caught Samuel’s look of horror and realized what the priest meant to do with them.
“No,” I said quickly. “No restraints. He won’t be a danger.”
“He attacked you, mademoiselle.”
“He won’t be a danger.”
“I’m afraid I cannot take the risk.” But Father Pietro did not look sorry as he approached Samuel.
“No.” I turned desperately to Nero.
He pushed off from the wall, striding to the settee. “Leave him be, padre. I won’t let him attack anyone.”
Father Pietro looked uncertain, but he nodded and dropped the restraints to the floor, though within arm’s reach. He said to Samuel, “Kneel before me.”
Samuel obeyed, sliding off the settee and falling to his knees, but it was clear it was a position he could not keep for long. He swayed with exhaustion and pain, his hair falling into his hollowed eyes, the pink of his new-made scars the only color on his face. The priest reached into his bag again, taking out a bottle of what I assumed was holy water.
He gestured for us all to come closer, and then he made the sign of the cross over Samuel, over himself, and then the rest of us, sprinkling everyone with holy water. He knelt before Samuel and bowed his head, closing his eyes, murmuring a prayer I had no familiarity with, calling for us to repeat after him, which I did without really listening, Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy . . . Christ graciously hear us . . . on and on, seemingly forever, a listing of saint’s names Michael and Gabriel and Raphael . . . Benedict, Bernard, Dominic, Francis . . . Mary Magdalen, Lucy, Agnes . . . a stupor of names.
Samuel’s swaying became more pronounced; Nero watched him with half-lidded eyes, taut with expectation—he would be on Samuel in a moment if he fell, I knew. Madame Basilio mouthed the litany along with the father silently, almost ecstatic. Giulia stood with her hands clasped before her, looking . . . afraid. I wondered what she feared, and then I remembered that she’d seen Samuel in a frenzy.
From the window, sunlight glowed through the fog, sending a current of rippling reflection over the ceiling.
The priest switched to Latin, the droning rhythm of which sent me into a near trance. I saw Samuel’s eyes close, his head droop forward, shoulders down. Nero started toward him, but then Father Pietro said, “Amen,” and Madame Basilio and Giulia echoed him, and Samuel roused, starting when the priest raised his voice, booming, reverberating, made the sign of the cross and then: “Praecípio tibi, quicúmque es, spíritus immúnde . . .” on and on, his voice seeming to fill the room. He placed his hands on Samuel’s head and raised his own, speaking again, and then traced a flurry of signs on himself, on Samuel’s brow, over his heart. Samuel leaned his head back, staring up at the ceiling, that mesmerizing, rippling light, sparkles of sunlight chasing now, bursting through the fog in little flashes—
Flashing lights.
Samuel twitched, a quick flex of his fingers.
No, oh no.
The priest raised his arms. “Exorcizo te, immundíssime spíritus, omnis incúrsio adversárii, omne phantasma—”
“Samuel,” I said urgently, not caring that I interrupted, ignoring Father Pietro’s frown, the shake of his head. “Samuel, look at me. Look at me.”
It was too late. Samuel shouted—a short, piercing shriek, hands up as if to ward off an approaching specter, and then he fell as if something attacked him. His head cracked upon the edge of the settee, his eyes rolled back, and he was convulsing, jerking and contorting, teeth gnashing. Father Pietro started, his eyes widening. Giulia dropped to her knees, babbling in terror. Nero nearly threw himself over the settee to get to Samuel, looking to me in desperation. “What do I do? Tell me what to do.”
I ran over, shoving the settee to keep Samuel from hurting himself on it.
“Hold him as best as you can,” I ordered, fumbling in my pocket for the bit of leather to shove between his teeth that I should have been carrying—and wasn’t.
Father Pietro yanked me away, nearly throwing me to the floor behind him. “Stand back!” he shouted. “The demon is come!”
“It’s no demon—”
“Vade retro satana!” he cried, brandishing his crucifix, repeating it again, once more, leaning over Samuel, wielding the cross like a weapon. Nero tried vainly to still Samuel’s flailing arms. Madame Basilio watched almost rabidly.
Saliva foamed at Samuel’s mouth. He struck out; the priest dodged, and the blow landed squarely on Nero’s cheek.
“Vade retro satana!”
“Quiet!” Nero choked. “You’re not helping, padre. Can’t you see it?”
“Exorcizo te, immundíssime spíritus, omnis incúrsio adversárii . . .”
I tried to push my way back in. Father Pietro forced me away, his face sharp with concentration, religious conviction giving him a strength I didn’t expect.
Then I felt it: the freezing draught, burrowing into bone, sending shivers over my flesh, swirling, a whirlwind of feeling, fury and distress. Madame Basilio felt it too, I realized. She looked up at the ceiling, and the ecstasy that burst over her face was almost obscene in its intensity. She looked like a saint in the throes of orgiastic revelation, skin stretched too tight, cheeks hollowed, the bones of her skull defined and set—terrifying.
Samuel gave a cry. His back arched, raising his hips violently from the ground, and he muttered Venetian words. Ones he’d said before: “Chi comincia mal, finisse pezo.” Then he began to choke. He tried to pry away fingers at his throat, throttling fingers that weren’t there. Red marks began to form on his skin, though there were no hands to make them, the tendons in his neck collapsing, his breath strained and gasping as we all watched in horror.
He was being strangled, but not by anything we could see.
He gasped, “. . . lasagnone . . . garbatìn . . .”
Nero sprang back in shock, his gaze leaping to his aunt. She stared at her nephew as if he had become a monster before her very eyes.
I lurched forward, pushing Father Pietro with all of my strength, surprising him so he let me through, and fell upon Samuel. I pulled away his hands. The bruises on his throat were still forming. I screamed, “Help him! Someone stop her!” and no one did anything but stare. “Samuel, come back to me. Come back. Fight her. Please.”
He shuddered; I felt his attention like a terrible, wicked thing, intention and determination. He made a horrible gurgling sound, and his hands clasped my throat, curving round, squeezing, squeezing, the power and strength of him impossible to dislodge, Father Pietro’s voice in my ear, his hand with the crucifix at the edge of my vision. “Vade retro satana!”
I couldn’t breathe, those black stars now, the cross and the priest’s hand blurring, and then someone was pulling at me—Nero—and Samuel opened his eyes to stare at me, and they were black too—she was there again. “Mé viscara,” he murmured, a small, dreadful smile on his lips, satisfaction and victory, his strength something prodigious, a necklace of linked reddened marks about his neck, matching mine
—Nero pushed between us. I heard the thwack of bone against flesh, and the pressure on my throat eased; pain and air rushed in, dizzying. I fell back, gasping, and then I realized that Samuel was unmoving, unconscious. Madame Basilio’s eyes shone; I did not miss the vindication in her expression when she looked at me. Nero pulled me into his arms until I was cradled against his chest, muttering a stream of Venetian into my ear, his English having completely deserted him, kisses in my hair, his heart racing against my cheek—or was that my own?
I collapsed into him, tears blurring my eyes, the shock of everything numbing, horror still buzzing. It was some moments before I could bring myself to lift my head from the comfort of his chest, the soft linen of his shirt, and I saw that Father Pietro was busy strapping an unconscious Samuel into restraints.
I wrenched away from Nero. “What are you doing?”
“We cannot risk that the devil will still be inside him when he wakes,” the priest said grimly.
“But it’s not the devil. Don’t you see? It’s—”
“Quiet,” Nero whispered, dragging me back. “Cara, quiet. Let him do as he will for now.”
“Samuel hates restraints.”
“I know.”
“You don’t understand. At—”
“Quiet, cara. Shhh. Not now.”
He held me close, pressing my face again into his chest. Madame Basilio and Giulia and the priest spoke tersely to each other in Venetian. Now and then Nero interjected something in a curt voice, and I thought he sounded tense and frightened and angry. But I could not blame him for that. The image came to me again, bruises being made by invisible hands, and I was horrified all over again. But as I began to calm, questions came too. The otherness in Samuel’s eyes and his smile of victory reminded me a little too well of the vindication I’d just seen on Madame Basilio’s face. Whatever had happened, Nero’s aunt had wanted it to be so. Whatever had happened, I thought that she understood it.
Perhaps she did. I didn’t.
The priest said something to Nero, who nodded and drew gently away. He peered at my throat, pushing aside strands of my fallen hair to see. “Are you all right?”
“Shaken, that’s all.”
He was as well, I knew. He kissed me in full view of his aunt and Giulia, and I heard Madame Basilio’s hiss of disapproval. Then he said, “I’m going to help the padre take Samuel to bed.”
I nodded. “I’ll get the morphine.”
“I think he has no need of it now. For how long will he be asleep? What’s usual?”
I tried to think. My thoughts were a shamble, everything jangling and twisting.
“Elena,” he prompted.
I turned my attention back to him. “I don’t know. Minutes. Hours. It can be either. He won’t remember any of this when he wakes.”
Nero looked thoughtful. He squeezed me reassuringly and rose, turning to help the priest lift Samuel from the floor, his arms bound to his sides with leather straps that wound to his thighs.
I said, “Take those off him when you put him to bed.”
“He asked me to keep you from harm, Elena. He would want it.”
Knowing that was true didn’t make it more bearable. Nero and the priest struggled with Samuel’s limp body to the doorway. I saw the way Nero glanced at his aunt, not scorn now, but something else, something pointed and sharp. Dread. Or fear. He said to me, “Come with us. You’ll want to check him over.”
But I understood that what he really wanted was for me to be away from his aunt, who stood watching, seeming nearly to twitch with a kind of half-suppressed emotion—I couldn’t tell what it was. Satisfaction or grief. Horror or malice. I liked nothing about her. I was afraid of her. I had no idea why I felt that what had happened here today had been exactly what she’d hoped for—and more than that, that she was confused now as to what to do with it. How did one put the specter that had arisen today back into its box?
The last thing I wanted was to be alone with her. And so I followed Nero and the worried-looking priest from the sala, and when we were in the hallway, Father Pietro said, “We may have to do this again. I am not confident I have expelled the demon.”
“It’s not a demon I’m afraid of,” I replied.
Chapter 29
Father Pietro had gone. He asked us to send for him when Samuel awakened, but the moment I heard the close of the door, I said quietly to Nero, “I don’t want him back here.”
Nero only nodded. He seemed distracted, unsettled; we both were. He pulled the chairs over to Samuel’s bedside, and we sat there, watching him sleep, rigid and straight beneath the blankets, bound about with leather straps.
For a very long time, we were silent. Then Nero said, “What happened?”
“I don’t know. It was a seizure, but . . . something else too. Did you feel it? How cold the air became?”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I’ve never seen him do that before.”
“It’s unnerving, I know.”
“How often does it happen?”
“When he’s taking his medicine, they happen less often. My father felt he had it nearly controlled the last time Samuel left Glen Echo.”
“Does he always try to throttle himself that way?”
“Throttle himself?” I asked in surprise.
“He had his hands around his own throat. His bruises will be worse than yours.”
I was stunned. “Nero, Samuel didn’t make those marks.”
Nero’s brow furrowed. “Of course he did. I watched him.”
“Something else did. The ghost.” I believed it fully now. There was nothing else to explain, nothing else that made sense.
Nero’s voice was sharp with disbelief. “Elena, do you hear yourself? A ghost strangled Samuel hard enough to leave bruises? How is that even possible?”
“I know it sounds absurd. But what else could it be?”
“I saw Samuel put his hands around his own throat.”
“He was trying to loosen her hold.”
Nero let out a rushed breath of exasperation and raked his hand through his hair. “You’re as bad as Aunt Valeria. She planted the idea in your head the moment you arrived. There’s a ghost, she says, and suddenly you’re believing it must be true. Don’t you see how she’s manipulated you? She has no peer when it comes to that. Believe me, I know. If Laura were here, she would tell you the same.”
“I think Laura is here,” I said steadily.
Nero bit off a Venetian curse. He rose restlessly, pacing from one end of the bed to the other.
I went on, “The look on your aunt’s face when it was over . . . did you see? I think she understands Laura’s message, whatever it is.”
Nero stopped short, pivoting to face me. “There is no message, Elena. What my aunt saw was a man in a seizure, and a ludicrous priest only making everything worse.”
“She said Laura didn’t kill herself,” I pushed on. “That’s what she told me. She said it wasn’t in Laura’s nature. Do you think that could be true?”
A short laugh. “No, I don’t. Aunt Valeria closed her eyes to Laura’s sorrow. She can’t accept her own guilt in refusing to break the betrothal. Another reason for her to hate me—because I remind her that she too is to blame. She’d rather believe the story we told everyone. I think she’s convinced herself it’s true. But the answers don’t change just because my aunt wishes them to.”
“You’re certain it wasn’t an accident, that she meant to jump.”
“It was no accident. Laura was unhappy. She hated this house. She was angry at the world. She wrote me all of those things in her last letter. She told me she wished to leave it all behind, that there was no place for her. By the time the letter arrived, it was too late to help her; she was already gone. Yes, she meant to jump.”
“Then why?” I asked. “If she did take her life, why would
her spirit return? What does she hope to tell us?”
“What if it’s only Samuel’s imagination?” he asked. “Some lesion in his brain that tells him to hurt you and himself? Those seizures must cause damage.”
“My father believes they do, eventually,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t explain that strange cold.”
“This place is full of drafts. A board on a window has come loose. Or the damper on the stove isn’t closed. Elena, there are a hundred ways to explain all this.”
My father had been a scientist with no faith in the unseen, and now Nero’s words reminded me that I had been Papa’s best student. My certainty faltered. The palazzo was falling apart. There were holes in the plaster; the ceilings were spiderwebbed with cracks; boarded windows everywhere. It could have been only a draft, and my imagination and fear had run away with me. And as for the marks around Samuel’s throat . . . had I really watched them form before my eyes, beneath the pressure of invisible hands? Or had Samuel’s own fingers made them? Suddenly, I could not quite remember exactly what I’d seen.
Perhaps what Nero said was true, and the answers could not be different than they were. Perhaps I would achieve nothing by speaking with Madame Basilio. But I could not rid myself of the belief that what had happened today had answered a question for her.
I could not just let it lie.
I rose. “I’m going to talk to your aunt. I want to ask her what she thought she saw today.”
Nero started and grabbed my arm, his distress evident. “Elena, please. Don’t pursue this.”
“How can I not? I want to know if she saw what I did.”
“Think of my family. We’ve been hiding this a long time. You’ll only raise questions that are better left unasked, when it’s all easily enough explained by Samuel’s illness. My aunt isn’t well either. You’ll only make things worse. Did you not see her when we left? She looked ready to swoon. She was crying, Elena. Talk to her if you must, but not right now. Give her some time. She’s a grieving old woman who believes she saw her daughter’s ghost today. You’ll get no sense from her. And I don’t want her more upset than she is already.”