by Nicole Maggi
“Bree.” Nerina’s gaze was so dark that I almost took a step back, but I held my ground. Her jaw worked up and down. “That is between me and Heath and the Concilio. It is none of your business.”
“It is if I think it’s interfering with your ability to run the Twin Willows Clan,” I said. I could feel Alessia’s gaze on me, like she was wondering how low was I going to sink, but I didn’t care. I’d been in places much lower, and I wasn’t afraid to revisit them. “And that’s exactly what I’m going to tell them.”
“You wouldn’t dare—”
“Oh, I will dare.” My breath came hard and fast. “Unless you tell me about that spell.”
A cold, hard silence thickened the cabin. Your move, Nerina, I thought. She stared at me for so long that I could practically see the wheels spinning inside her head, calculating exactly how much truth she could get away with to satisfy me. But then her shoulders hunched and she dropped back to her seat, her head in her hands. White heat shot through my gut. God, I’d broken her. Like an overused Barbie doll, I’d snapped her in two. I didn’t feel quite as triumphant as I’d thought I would.
Her face still covered by her hands, Nerina spoke in a dry, deadened voice. “What do you want to know?”
“Were you there?”
“Yes. I was there.”
“Who performed the spell?”
“The Benandanti mage at the time, Rosalina.”
The name didn’t ring a bell amongst all the other mages Nerina had told me about. I pinched my brow together. “When was this? How old were you?”
Nerina raised her head. Her eyes were weary, like the last few minutes had stripped away the façade she held up to hide just how old she was. Like she was so tired of the world and everything in it. “Oh, Bree,” she said, “have you not guessed? Have you not, in all your cleverness, figured it out?” She folded her hands just beneath her chin, as though praying. “The Malandante who became a Benandante was me.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The Curse to the Blessing
Alessia
It all made sense. Why she hated Jonah, how horrified she was about us communicating with each other. Why she refused to speak about the spell. Because a Benandante had had to die in order for her to switch sides, and she was still carrying that guilt more than four hundred years later.
Bree stumbled back a step and fell into the seat beside me. She had not, in all her cleverness, figured it out. I could tell by the white shock on her face that she had definitely not expected it. And I hadn’t either, but now that I began to piece it all together, I couldn’t believe we hadn’t figured it out.
“That’s why you and the Harpy know each other,” I said, remembering the barely contained rage between them in the basement of the Guild. “You were in the same Clan.”
“She was my Guide,” Nerina whispered. “You cannot imagine her hatred for me.”
Bree was still in stunned silence; it looked like I’d be the one asking the questions.
“How old were you?” I asked.
“I was fourteen when I was Called by the Malandanti.” She looked past us, through the little round windows into the black night, her expression full of memory. “I knew nothing. They were so charismatic, so convincing. It wasn’t like today, when you can find every opinion on something with the click of a mouse. Back then we knew only what our elders told us.”
“How did you even know about the spell?” The pieces were coming together now, starting to form a picture. “Who knew to bring you in?”
Nerina hugged herself. “It was Dario. He was the local priest. I used to go to confession nearly every day, begging God to forgive me for the sins I committed in the name of the Malandanti.” A hint of a smile brushed her lips. “You know, when you confess to a priest, it’s supposed to be confidential. Little did I know that I was confessing to the head of the Concilio Celeste.”
“So he knew that you were remorseful,” I murmured. I could imagine the fourteen-year-old Nerina, her head bowed in penitence in the little confessional booth, Dario listening with his mind already whirling with plans.
Nerina nodded. “It happened about two years after I had been with the Malandanti. One of the Friuli Clan was mortally wounded in battle. By Fina . . . the Harpy.”
“And she knew your human identity,” I said. “So it wasn’t safe for you.”
“Sí.” Nerina stroked the armrest. “After the spell, I was immediately moved into the home of the Concilio Celeste. The home that was concealed from the Concilio Argento for so many centuries, until they destroyed it last year. That was where they kept me hidden away.”
“But you were just a regular Benandante at this point, right? When did you become part of the Concilio?”
“Two years after I joined the Clan, one of the Concilio died. I’d spent so much time in seclusion with them that they chose to promote me. Plus, it gave me extra power against the Harpy.” Nerina touched her temple. “Always, she has hunted me. When she became a member of her own Concilio, it became an all-out war between us. Sometimes Dario had to remind me that I had an entire Clan to fight, not just her.”
“Which explains why you were more intent on fighting her than making sure I was okay in our last battle,” I said, my gaze laser-focused on her. I hadn’t forgotten that. I didn’t think her relationship with Heath interfered with her ability to lead, as Bree had threatened to say, but her revenge trip with the Harpy did.
“This is what you meant.”
Nerina and I jumped at the sound of Bree’s voice at last. I turned to her, but she kept her eyes on Nerina like it was just the two of them in that cabin. I couldn’t blame her. How many hours had they spent together in training, while Nerina kept this gigantic secret from her? I’d be pretty pissed too.
“When you said you’d made mistakes you were still atoning for,” Bree finished.
“When you are a Malandante,” Nerina whispered, “there are things you do that, if you have a conscience, if you have humanity in your soul . . . No matter how many deeds of justice I perform as a Benandante, I will never be clean.” She looked from Bree to me and back again. “So you see? Why I cannot go against them? I owe Dario everything. If it hadn’t been for him, I would still be trapped in that hell of shame.”
“But they’re wrong,” I said, bringing my hands down hard on the armrests. “Sorry, but I totally disagree with them about Heath.”
“It doesn’t matter, Alessia.” Nerina’s eyes were bright; she was coming back to life. “They could ask me to wear my shoes on the wrong feet for the rest of my life, and I would do it. I owe them everything.”
“I don’t think you owe them this,” Bree said. “You should ask them again. Press your case.”
“If I did that, they would remove me from Twin Willows.” Nerina ran her shaking fingers through her hair. “I swore to Dario when I saw him at the Redwoods site that I had not renewed my relationship with Heath.”
“And you think it’s better to lie than be honest about it? Better to lie than tell the truth to the person you say you owe everything to?”
Bree made a pretty good point. For someone who claimed she had sins to atone for, Nerina seemed rather okay with lying to the people she had to atone for.
Nerina glared at Bree, turning the cozy cabin icy. The façade was building again, the wall between the Concilio and two teenage members of the Benandanti rising once more. “Yes,” she said, “in this case I believe it is better to lie. I have told you the truth, so you can drop it now.” She picked up her magazine. “Do not ask me about that spell again.”
I felt Italy in my blood even before the plane touched down. The heartbeat of my birthplace echoed in my own chest, like there was an invisible thread between me and the land. I breathed in deep when we stepped onto the tarmac, and the fifteen years of my absence seemed to disappear.
Nerina walked several steps ahead of me and Bree through the tiny airport. “You weren’t expecting that, were you?” I muttered to Bree.
She shook her head. “But now that I look back, I’m kind of an idiot for not figuring it out.”
“She didn’t tell us anything about the actual spell.”
Bree looked sideways at me. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. If I’m ever called upon to perform that spell, I’ll be able to do it.” We followed Nerina out of the airport to the curb, where a black sports car sat. A man standing beside the car handed Nerina the keys and loaded our bags into the trunk. He tipped his hat to us and disappeared into the airport.
Despite the sunny blue sky and the fact that I was actually hot in my winter coat, the air inside the car was icy. Nerina ignored us as she drove the car away from the airport and onto the roadway that would take us into Cividale.
In the backseat next to me, Bree glanced at the back of Nerina’s head and rolled her eyes at me. “So, Alessia,” she said in a falsely bright voice, “are you happy to be visiting your grandparents?”
I smirked. “Why, yes, Bree, I am. I haven’t seen them in fifteen years.”
“Wow, fifteen years. What do you remember about them?”
“Oh, stop it, you two.”
Bree snorted and sat back with a huff. I settled into my seat and stared out the window. Spring had already touched this part of the world. Early buds poked through the branches, and the hillsides were green and brown instead of endlessly snowy white. The town of Cividale appeared in the distance, a cluster of buildings with sharply slanted, tiled rooftops. We drove across a high stone bridge to reach it.
Nerina wound us through medieval streets lined with narrow, red-roofed houses. I pressed my face to the glass, catching the names of the streets. Via Monastero Maggiore, Via Adelaide Ristori . . . They all sounded somewhat familiar even though there was no way I could’ve remembered them from when I was a baby.
We emerged into a large town square, the main part of it closed to traffic. The car slowed as people walked across the road. A beautiful Renaissance church loomed over the square, the copper roof of its bell tower gleaming in the sunlight.
“Wait,” I said. “Can you pull over?”
As soon as Nerina rolled the car to a stop, I leapt out. The square was crowded; it was just past noon, and everyone was on their way home for lunch, or dining out in one of the restaurants that ringed the square. I stood in the midst of the hustle and bustle, staring up at the church.
“What is it?”
I started; I hadn’t realized that Bree had followed me. “I remember this,” I said, pointing up at the church. “I remember this from when I was a baby.”
“Wow,” Bree said, and for once I didn’t think she was being sarcastic. “That’s pretty cool that you remember something from so long ago.”
“It’s amazing what the mind holds on to,” I said. My heart stopped. I pressed my hand to my mouth. Jonah had said the exact same thing to me, all those months ago, in the alley beside Pizza Plus the night of Carly’s party. My insides flooded with longing. I had barely been able to get him a message before I’d left Maine, and that had just been a warning that Pratt knew who I was. I winced. I hadn’t even told him I loved him.
Standing there on the other side of the world from Jonah, he felt so lost to me, like a dream I’d been trying to hold on to long after I’d already woken up. Tears blurred my vision as I gazed up at the church, its tall stone bell tower blocking out the sun. “It’s never going to end, is it?” I asked, not quite sure who I was talking to. “Jonah is stuck in that cabin in the middle of nowhere, I’m here, and the Malandanti will always be between us.”
“Out of everyone, you’re the person I least expect to lose faith,” Bree said. “Don’t fail me now.”
“But how can I keep it when everything seems so hopeless?” I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes. My palms came away wet with tears. “I can’t protect Jonah, he can’t protect me, and no one will help us figure out a way to get him out.” I shook my head. “I just feel like I’m caught in this endless cycle. We got Tibet, and then we lost at the Waterfall. Maybe we’ll win here but the Malandanti will win somewhere else . . . We’ll never get ahead of them.” My throat closed up, and I stopped talking.
“Don’t think ahead.”
I looked away from the church and at Bree. I had to shield my eyes so I could see her face clearly.
“That’s what I do. I just think only to the end of each minute. Once that one is over, then I get through the next one.” She shrugged, but I could tell she was fighting off tears, too. “Thinking any further than that will only drive you crazy.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I had always thought ahead. My whole life, I’d been thinking ahead to the day I would get out of Twin Willows and live my real life. But maybe that day would never come.
This was my real life. And it was time to wake up.
My grandparents lived on a narrow side street that wound up a hillside. Their house was at the very end of the lane, two tall willow trees marking their driveway. I stared up as we drove beneath the bending boughs. Was it coincidence that made my mother move from a house with two willow trees to a town named Twin Willows? Or was it destiny?
Nonna and Papa stood on the front step outside the house. I burst out of the car and ran to them. “Ah, cara mia, my beautiful Alessia, at last,” Nonna cried as I flung my arms around her. She smelled of fresh-baked bread and Chanel No. 5. I remembered that scent, too, as clearly as I’d remembered the church.
“Welcome home,” Papa said as I gave him a hug too. “Come in, come in.”
Introductions were made as they ushered us inside. Conversation flew in a mixture of Italian and English. The house was bigger than I remembered—what I did remember of it—with two levels and lots of sunlit rooms filled with tastefully old furniture and lots of books. Maybe it was here that my love of writing had been born.
They showed Nerina to a room upstairs. “You and Bree will have to share,” Nonna said to me. “Bene?”
“Bene.” We followed them back downstairs and across the living room. Nonna opened the door to a large, light-filled room with two daybeds against opposite walls. A thick medallion-patterned rug covered most of the terra-cotta floor, and a little table with two chairs sat beneath the huge half-moon window. “This room has its own bathroom,” Nonna said. “I thought you girls would like that.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Have a bed preference, Bree?”
She shrugged and plunked her bag onto the bed nearest her. I moved to the window and looked out. The countryside spread out before us, rolling hills covered in green and brown.
Nonna came next to me and slid her arm around my waist. “You know, this is the room you were born in.”
“It is?” I turned and surveyed the room with fresh attention.
Bree jumped up from the daybed. “Oh, gross,” she said, her lip curling.
Nonna laughed. “Don’t worry. We’ve gotten new furniture since then.”
“Thank God.” Bree sat back down and started to pull her boots off. “Do you mind if I take a shower before we meet the Concilio?”
“Be my guest,” I said with a glance at Nonna, hoping she’d missed this exchange or at least not thought anything of it.
Bree padded into the bathroom and shut the door.
Nonna, her arm still around my waist, steered me back out through the living room and into the kitchen.
I could tell the instant we walked in that, just like at my home, this room was the heart of the household. Sauce bubbled on the stove, and the long wooden table in the center of the room was covered with food in various states of preparation. Papa sat at the head, drinking a Peroni.
Nonna laid out a plate of antipasto. “Sit. Eat.”
When an Italian grandmother tells you to sit and eat, you obey. I picked up a slice of cheese and a slice of pepperoni from the antipasto plate. They were a thousand times fresher and more delicious than anything we got in Twin Willows, except for what we made on our own farm. Nonna sat at the table next to me,
a pile of vegetables waiting to be chopped in front of her. “Your mother told us why you were coming,” Nonna said.
My eyes widened. I looked from her to Papa and back again. “She did? She told you about . . . about . . .”
“The Benandanti? Sí.” Nonna put her hand over mine, but that didn’t stop the skittering of my heart. “We all know about the Benandanti here in Cividale. It is the fabric of our town.”
Seriously? After all the secrecy I’d been sworn to? It should be the fabric of Twin Willows, but no, we weren’t allowed to speak of it there. “That’s just . . .” I clenched my jaw. “That’s very different from how things are done in my town.”
Nonna laughed. “Your town did not have the Inquisition pounding on its doors. When that happens, everyone—” She bit her lip. “What is the saying about the wagons?”
“Circling the wagons?”
“Ah, sí. When the Inquisition came, Cividale circled the wagons.”
“They say the townspeople changed the signs on the road to head the Inquisitors away from the Olive Grove,” Papa said.
“Do you know where it is?”
Nonna shook her head. “We mere mortals do not have access to such things.” She smiled and sliced neatly through a red pepper. “Who needs eternal life? Whatever years God chooses to give me are good enough for me.”
I gazed over her head at the painting of the Virgin Mary that hung on the wall, looking down at the kitchen in benevolent beauty. Her blue robes—celestial blue, the blue of the Benandanti—shone in the lamplight, her tempera crown bright as the sun. Whatever years God chooses to give me are good enough for me. Did I have the wisdom to hold such a belief? The serenity to be content with whatever life handed me?
“Your mother also said that she is seeing someone,” Nonna said. I turned my attention back to her. “A man.” She winked at me.
I curled my lip.
“What? You do not like him?”