The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  Because I’ve been up so late, when I wake up, Nonna is already back from the market. She is putting groceries into our already stuffed refrigerator. “Olivia,” she says when she sees me. “I’m glad you’re awake.”

  I am in my pajamas still, barefoot on the linoleum. “Nonna, we already have two cans of parmesan.”

  She stuffs the parmesan into the cupboard next to the other half-full cans. “Well, it’s better to have too much than too little. Did you eat breakfast?”

  “Yes,” I lie. I don’t want her to bustle around and create me some kind of enormous breakfast on a weekday, when I can easily eat some toast or cereal and tell her it’s a snack. Sometimes Nonna mothers me too much. “I actually wanted to ask you about something.” I want to know what she thinks about the spell I did last night and why it didn’t work.

  “And I have things to tell you,” she says, thrusting a package of chicken breasts into the depths of the fridge. “I heard back from the person I asked to look into the charms and incantations you gave me.”

  Oh. If my spell had worked last night, I could have told her not to worry about that anymore. But my spell didn’t work. I sit down on a stool at the counter. “What did you find out?”

  Nonna rearranges several containers full of leftovers to make room for a gallon of milk. “It wasn’t easy. A few days ago, I tried a spell myself, but mine didn’t work. I thought maybe the person I wanted to ask about it could figure out more. But it seems the person who’s designed this magic has taken pains to cover his tracks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Nonna puts a box of pasta in the cupboard, stacking it on top of two other identical boxes so that it will fit. “I tried a spell to discover the origin or purpose of magic. It’s an invocation to St. Christopher.”

  “I did that last night!” I’m amazed that we were thinking on the same lines.

  She rests her arm on the open refrigerator door. “I didn’t know you were that accomplished in benedetta magic. You never started the training.”

  I study the counter top. “I have Mom’s book of spells. She taught me things. I remembered her doing the spell once. So that was why the trail went cold, then? Someone’s trying to hide the purpose of the magic?”

  Nonna shoves some butter into the refrigerator and closes it. “I think so, yes. Or else it’s just one crazy kind of coincidence. He’s hidden it behind the dead spot.”

  “The dead spot?”

  “There are places where magic doesn’t work, Olivia. There are at least two on the island. One is in the old subway tunnels. Another is in that Presbyterian church downtown. Legend has it they built it there on purpose, because of the dead spot.”

  Unlike the Catholics on the island, who embrace magic, the other churches think that magic is all completely evil and of the devil. I don’t see how that could be when I ask God to bless my spells and when I call on the saints for protection. “So that’s why the trail cut off then? Because it’s a place where magic doesn’t work?”

  She nods. “Yes. The answer to what the magic is for is on the other side of the dead spot. The spell takes the quickest path there. There’s no way to find it out that way. So I enlisted some help. I asked someone else to look at it.”

  “And?”

  “The variations between the two incantations definitely affect the berserker virus, not the other component of the magic. My source wasn’t sure, but she feels that the effect is probably that of strengthening the virus.”

  Strengthening the virus. “So it is why the berserkers aren’t responding to the benedetta spells, then.”

  “Perhaps, Olivia. We can’t be sure. But it does seem that way.” Nonna sits down next to me at the counter. “I don’t think this is good news.”

  I shake my head. “Why would anyone want to strengthen the virus?” It doesn’t make sense at all. From a business perspective, it simply lowers our client base. From a moral perspective, it’s appalling. But then lots of things my family does are appalling. I don’t know what to think.

  “I know you love your father, Olivia,” says Nonna, “but have you ever considered that there is a side of him you don’t know?”

  I’ve been considering that a lot lately. A side of my mother I didn’t know. A side of my father I don’t know. There’s so much I don’t understand, and I have no idea what to do about it. Should I confront my father? Demand he tell me what’s going on? Would he tell me? “I’m not sure of anything anymore, Nonna.”

  She hugs me spontaneously. “You are a brave girl, I’ll give you that. You’re likely to give me a heart attack before my time, but you have courage.”

  I hug back. “I have to figure this out.”

  She pulls back, holding me at arms’ length. “I just worry about you. You have no idea how dangerous it would be for you to get on the wrong side of your father.”

  “I have an idea,” I tell her. I know what my family does to people it perceives of as threats. I can’t let anyone know that what I’m doing is threatening. Of course, I don’t even know if I am doing something threatening. I just want the truth. I have to know what it is I’m part of. I have to know what happened to my mother. “I’ll be okay, Nonna.”

  “I hope so, child. If anything happened to you, it would be the death of me.”

   

  Chapter Ten

  I get the call the next morning. Guido has died in his sleep. He never came out of his coma. I drop everything to go be with the family. I call the stage manager of the play. I tell her what’s happened. She decides she’s going to cut Hecate’s monologue from the play until I can get back. The entire Calabrese clan descends on Guido’s house. I feel strangely out of place, unsure of which world I belong to. The men sit in the living room, drinking beer and talking. The women cluster in the kitchen, cooking and waiting on the men. They are all crying.

  I don’t know if I should be with the women in the kitchen or with the men I work with on a daily basis. I simply don’t fit in either place. If I help with the cooking in the kitchen, my aunts make comments about how I’m finally learning my place. If I sit with the men in the living room, I feel guilty watching all the other women run around and get things done. None of the men feel guilty, of course. It’s their place to be waited on. They bring the money into the household. They don’t feel like they need to do anything else.

  I don’t spend any time talking to Vincent, although I see him from time to time. He is dry-eyed but silent. I watch him skulking in back of the living room. There always seems to be a shot of whiskey in his hand. I know that speaking to me wouldn’t make him happy, so I steer clear. But I feel for him. I know what it’s like to lose a parent. (Or at least think I’ve lost one.) I know how much he must be hurting.

  Guido was a good man. He loved his wife and children. He loved his grandchildren. He was fair as the head of the family. He kept us together, and he made good decisions. I always respected him. I’m sad to see him go as well.

  There’s a lot of talk at the funeral, since this one comes so closely on the heels of Tressa’s funeral. People say that we’ve suffered too much tragedy. People say that we’ll have to be strong in the face of this adversity. People say that Guido and Tressa are looking down on us from Heaven. They say their pain has ended, and we must rejoice for them. After the funeral, family and friends gather in the basement of the church for a potluck dinner. It seems as if the sadness is a bubble that has burst. Maybe everyone needs a break, or maybe my family is naturally loud and boisterous. But for some reason, there isn’t any more talk about Guido’s death or about heaven or about strength. Instead, there’s laughter and hugging. I could almost mistake it for a family reunion if I didn’t know why we were all really here.

  There’s a lot of food. I have a plate loaded up with various casseroles, looking for a place to sit, when Antonia waves me over.

  I sit down with her. She has nothing on her plate but a salad and some baby carrots. She looks at my plate env
iously. “I’m on the wedding diet.”

  Maddie, who’s sitting with us as well, says, “Toni, you’re getting married in two days. How much weight could you really gain before then?”

  Antonia spears some lettuce with her fork. “You’d be surprised. Besides, I’d still like to drop two pounds. My dress is a little snug. I want to look perfect in the photos. You keep those forever, you know.”

  “I’m sure you’ll look great,” I say.

  “Lousy timing for a wedding, though,” says Antonia. “Who wants to celebrate after all this tragedy?”

  “Everyone,” says Maddie. “It will be good for all of us. We need some joy in our lives for once.”

  Antonia nods. “This kind of life can be brutal. So many of our men are killed.”

  Antonia’s fiancé Seth works for us. He got roped in after he started dating Antonia a few years ago. It happens that way a lot. He’s a good earner, and I like him. But being jettatori is dangerous.

  “Sometimes,” Antonia continues, “I wish Seth weren’t part of it. I just get sick from worry. It would be easier for you to have a boyfriend in the business, Olivia. You could be there with him. Make sure he was okay. You could watch each other’s backs.”

  I’ve just put a big bite of macaroni and cheese in my mouth, so I shake my head while I chew. “I’m never going to get married. I don’t have time for a relationship.”

  Maddie and Antonia both laugh.

  “Who does have time?” Maddie says.

  “Sometimes you meet someone, and he makes you make time, you know?” says Antonia.

  I don’t say anything.

  “So there’s no one?” asks Maddie. “Olivia, you don’t have a crush on anybody or anything?”

  “I...” I push food around on my plate, thinking of Brice telling me he loved me. Thinking of his teeth scraping my collarbone.

  “Oh my God!” Antonia throws her napkin on the table. “There is someone. Olivia, spill. Who is this mysterious crush?”

  “No one,” I say. “A boy in the play. It would never work out. He’s not jettatori.”

  “Neither was Seth,” says Antonia. “You don’t know what could happen. What’s his name?”

  Should I say anything? I don’t think I should. “It’s nothing. We don’t even see each other very often.”

  “In the play...” muses Maddie. She points her fork at Antonia before slicing into a piece of pie. “Who was that boy that was always in the plays at St. Anne’s? He was a year behind Tressa.”

  Oh God. They are not going to figure this out, are they? I try to look very interested in my plate.

  “The one who played Danny Zuko in Grease?” Antonia says. “He was a dreamy one, wasn’t he? He was a Ventresca, wasn’t he?”

  I will not look up. I will not react.

  “Brice Ventresca,” says Maddie triumphantly. “That’s right.”

  My face is getting hot.

  “Olivia, are you blushing?” says Antonia. “Is that the boy you’re crushing on?”

  “No,” I say.

  “That means yes,” says Maddie.

  I put down my fork. “His family’s benedetta. It would never work.”

  Antonia looks disappointed. “Are they really?”

  “Too bad,” says Maddie. “He’s awfully pretty.”

  Antonia eats more salad. “Well, you never know, Olivia. You never know what might happen.”

  I remember the way it felt kissing Brice. Why does everything have to be incredibly screwed up? I wipe my mouth with my napkin. “It wouldn’t work,” I say again. Then I pick up my plate and walk away from the table. I don’t feel hungry anymore.