by Tracy Clark
“Thank you, Ina. Look for my grandmother’s belongings, too, since he kidnapped her as well. God, I hope our passports are there.”
“I have mine and Claire’s,” Giovanni said, emerging from the kitchen with the little girl, who peered up at us with her abnormal eyes. It was hard not to be unsettled by anyone with three irises. “We’ve got Dun’s passport, too. We took them from Dr. M’s vans when we escaped.” He took notice of her new marking and skimmed his fingers under her jaw. My own clenched. “Michelangelo’s seal? How? Why?” he asked her.
“Finn found pouches with remnants from Dante’s grave,” Cora explained. “They were hidden at Ultana’s. She killed Dante. I saw it.”
My mother scoffed. “Impossible.”
Hot anger flashed in Cora’s eyes. “I know what I saw,” she said, sounding more sure of herself than I’d ever heard her. “An Arrazi killed a Scintilla, that’s not news.” Her tone was acidic, meant to burn. “But that she was sent by someone to do it because he was trying to tell the world the truth. That is news.”
“Could Ultana herself have known what that truth was?” I wondered aloud.
“If she did,” Cora said, “then do her children know as well?” Her expression pressed me to be the one to find out.
Giovanni slapped my shoulder. “Looks like Finn has his marching orders.”
My jaw clenched. “I know my business, mate.”
Mother crossed her arms, taking in the group of fugitives we harbored. “Right now, I’m afraid you’re all in the business of escape.”
Chapter Six
Giovanni
I’d been a homeless orphan roaming Europe for most of my life and that difficulty paled compared to getting a child to fall asleep when she didn’t want to.
Claire missed Dr. M and his research facility—the only family she’d ever known. She was too smart and too old to sugarcoat the circumstances of our escape. She’d seen the bodies and the blood as I carried her from the place. I did my best to explain our situation with such frankness that she’d understand that running away was our only option. I also told her I was her biological father. That’s when I realized that there’s a vast difference between mere intelligence and emotional intelligence. She cried like the little girl that she was.
I understood her longing for her “family” better than she knew, having lost my own just a few years older than her five. But my familiarity with loss couldn’t ease her pain. It was my first lesson in the very new practice of parenting; my daughter was going to have her experiences and her own losses. I couldn’t save her from that.
None of us get out unscathed.
Her mass of blond curls spilled over the pillow, and her fist curled in her sleep in a way that reminded me of Cora. I sat on the edge of the bed, watching Claire’s peculiar light. It was the most volatile aura I’d ever seen, constantly changing color, shifting shape and texture. It seemed to push at the air around her, competing for space in the room. Very infrequently, I thought I detected a flash of Scintilla silver, but that might have been my wishful thinking. Or not. Would I really wish her this life of being hunted?
Claire’s aura curled in like a multicolored flower petal as she drifted deeper into sleep, and I vowed I’d do everything I could to create for her a world in which she never had to run, hide, or be afraid of the murderous Arrazi. I wanted the same for Cora. For a brief, ridiculous moment, I let myself wonder if we three might someday live together as a family.
Once I was sure Claire was out for good, I tiptoed from the room and went to find Cora. Ina had retrieved Cora’s and Mami Tulke’s passports, and all travel arrangements had been hurriedly made. Cora would see us off in the morning before we left for the airport, but I needed to see her now. I needed to say good-bye privately.
Every step up the spiraled stairs made my legs and my heart heavier. I was torn between protecting my little girl and protecting the woman I loved, and I wondered, would Claire and everyone else be better served if I went to Italy with Cora? Our lives might depend upon what we found in my home country, and Cora’s life might depend on not being alone.
I squared my shoulders and knocked on the whitewashed wood of the old door.
Cora answered immediately. I couldn’t decipher the drop of her eyes when she saw me, but hoped it wasn’t disappointment. “Hey,” she said, her arm crooked to lean on the edge of the door. “What do you need?”
“Such a big question.”
“There’s always a big question, isn’t there?” We smiled at her use of my phrase, but we both knew it was a diversion.
I stepped past her into the room. A packed backpack sat on her bed like a deflated balloon. She had so few possessions. For the first time, I considered what we’d both lost from our previous lives. “There is no home for the hunted,” was something she’d said to her mother once as we were escaping the shack on Finn’s property where her father was killed by his uncle, and I believed that was when I felt our bond cement.
In that instant, Cora became my home.
Behind me, I felt her stillness, felt the guardedness in her aura and that she was so very tired. It radiated off of her like fumes. “No one but you can see what I need,” I said, still facing away from her. I knew that if I faced her, I’d blow everything by sweeping her into my arms and burying my face in her deep brown curls.
“I can’t give you what you need,” she said, and didn’t sound sorry.
Only then, when I knew the firing squad I was facing, could I turn. “Forgiveness? Trust? Love?” Every word I threw bounced off her. She was so defended; her aura was an impenetrable shield. “I need to go with you to Italy,” I said, more sure than ever of what I had to do. “I need to be with you, need you to be safe.”
Cora Sandoval had enfolded me back into humanity. I wondered if she knew that. An incredible feat after all my years surviving alone, trusting no one, and admittedly looking out for only myself. Now, I wanted nothing more than to look out for her.
“We both know you can’t keep me safe.” She stepped forward, tilting her heart-shaped face up to me. “I want to forgive you…trust you…”
My insides squeezed. She didn’t say love.
“I’m going to try to do both, and I’m asking you to do something for me.” Cora took my hand and squeezed my fingers, sending tides of electricity up my arm, through my body, into my heart. “Please go to Chile with Mami Tulke. She’s the only family I have left. The thought of her there alone, defenseless… We might be the only Scintilla remaining in the world, and I’m afraid they’ll come for her. I need you to look out for her, keep her safe. Please do that for me?”
“But you—”
Cora’s finger lifted to my mouth, and I remembered the first time we met, how I’d done the very same to quiet her, sending her aura into spasms of nervous excitement. I’d loved seeing her reaction to me then and was sure she observed my intense reaction to her now. Her pupils dilated a bit as I reached to skim my fingers over the pulse firing under the tiri gondi on her neck. She was crazy if she thought our responses to each other were simply our Scintilla blood.
“Please,” she said, and I answered with a kiss, wanting utterly to believe that was her request.
Chapter Seven
Cora
Why is it that the fire of anger and the fire of passion burn alike?
Both consumed me when Giovanni kissed me. I was angry at myself for not pushing him away sooner. “None of this matters anymore,” I managed to say through uneven breaths and a thrust to his chest, as if those words would cool the hurt in his blue eyes. He only looked more wounded.
I wanted it to matter. If it did, it would mean my life was mine, and I’d be normal, worrying about what book to read next and staring at my fully realized butt in the mirror to see how my new jeans fit. I’d be pondering which college I’d attend in a year. I’d be bouncing to have romance in my life and the “problem” of choosing which boy to love.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter,
G. Not my confused feelings. Not my bruised love for both of you.” I noticed the hurt in his eyes when I said “both.” “None of it matters. The only thing that matters to me is uncovering the truth that will set us all free.”
“Maybe then, you’ll be free to love me,” he said with so much hope in his voice.
“Maybe I’ll never be.”
A dark look passed over Giovanni’s face, which I thought would precede some type of battle, but he just cast his eyes to the door and announced, “Finn is coming.” Seconds later, there was a soft knock.
Finn and Giovanni regarded each other in the doorway, and Giovanni leaned to say something to Finn. I turned, pretended I was still packing. Their Love Olympiads were beyond me now. None of it mattered, I told myself again. Not the burn of my still tingling lips from Giovanni’s kiss, or the fact that Finn’s sudden presence unhinged me.
“Why are you here?” I asked when I heard the door close. When no one answered, I looked over my shoulder and saw I was alone. Even that didn’t matter.
“You’re not coming.”
The hinges of Dun’s jaw clenched, and his nose flared bullishly.
“Does it really have to be said?” I began, knowing what I was about to say would kill my best friend and also knowing I had to say it to protect him. “If you and Mari hadn’t come to Ireland, she’d still be alive. Do you think I can handle something happening to you, too?”
A tear that could drown the world slid down his brown cheek. “If I’d been with Mari and Teruko that day, she might still be alive.” I admired his swagger in the face of an Arrazi foe. “If something happens to you in Italy, do you think I can handle knowing I might have prevented your death, too? You’re being a selfish brat. This isn’t a party I’m asking to crash with you. This is a war. You think I’m just going to cruise on back to Santa Cruz and surf and eat corn dogs on the boardwalk and hit on girls and ignore that my best friend’s in a battle on the other side of the world? I’m a part of this now.”
“You shouldn’t be a part of—”
Dun punched the wall, tilting a framed print of a pear and leaving an imprint of his fist in the drywall. “I’m a fucking part of it!”
The tremors of his outburst shook us, then quieted us. Dun had never yelled at me before. “I know you want to keep me safe.” I slipped inside his muddy-red aura and wrapped my arms around his waist. “But I don’t think there’s a person on this planet who can help me now.”
Mami Tulke buzzed into the room, her silver aura flashing with impatience. “I must talk to you before I go, Cora,” she said.
My room was a rotating door of good-byes.
Dun left us with a silent, defiant look, which I’d seen before, usually when Mari bossed him around and he wasn’t having it. He was going to have to deal with my decision. Thankfully, time for arguing about it was running out. My flight to Florence was leaving two hours after my grandmother, Giovanni, and Claire would depart for South America. There’d also been a lengthy debate between Finn and his father about whether I’d make it through airport security and the option of sailing from Dublin to France and trekking to Italy from there. They sounded like smugglers with me as the cargo.
My grandmother took my hand and pulled me to sit next to her on my bed. “I understand why you are doing what you’re doing, and I know you have enough of your mother in you that I can’t stop you.” She patted my hand consolingly, peering at me with dark eyes the exact shade of my father’s. “Your childhood is over.”
Hearing it stated so firmly, blatantly, was like a guillotine blade slamming down on my youth.
“I will pray to God every day that you return safely to me, mija.”
“Do you believe in God?” I asked, suddenly curious. “I mean, after everything that’s happened…”
Mami Tulke’s eyes turned soft and sad. “I don’t know why the Scintilla were created any more than I understand the purpose of a fly. Maybe there’s no purpose but to be pesky.” Her old-apple face lifted into a smile. “Maybe a fly is just another expression of life and I’m not meant to know. But I believe the Scintilla are divine creations and that we have a divine purpose. I believe our enemies know what it is and are trying to stop us from fulfilling it.”
“Maybe we’re just pesky flies to them.”
“People don’t pay gold for flies.”
We scanned each other’s faces. Memorized every line and freckle, every fleck and pocket of color in the eyes. Took in the face of family, one that might not be seen again.
There were questions I’d wanted to ask her, and this might be my only time. “Dad said you were able to use your sortilege to shield me most of my life. How did it work?”
“It’s like a force field,” she said, and for the umpteenth time, I marveled at how supernatural terms were becoming commonplace in my world. “I can wrap a shield around one person so that supernatural abilities can’t penetrate.”
“Why did it suddenly stop working on me?”
Mami Tulke sighed. “I wish I knew. Your father wondered if it was the sickness that was causing people to die because your blood showed the same cellular abnormality.”
Except I didn’t drop dead. I still had no explanation for that.
“We also thought it could have been the high fever that put you in the hospital.” She surprised me by pulling out a hand-rolled cigarette and pursing it between her craggy lips.
“What, like burning the connection?”
She shrugged and blew out a puff of earthy smoke. “I can’t protect you any longer. You’re on your own.”
Suddenly, I could see where Mari inherited her outspokenness, and it made me miss her so much that I felt my insides hollow out. At the same time, a roaring affection bubbled up in me for Mami Tulke. I wish she knew how much of me just wanted to run away to Chile and hide with her there forever.
She blew another puff of thick smoke toward the window. “Listen, I followed clues and my instincts and it led me to seek the highest seat of the keys to heaven that I know of—to St. Peter, to that key you wear now around your neck. I don’t know what it opens. I don’t know if you’ll live to find out.” Her chin trembled as she gazed into my eyes. “But follow your instincts. Use your gifts. You,” she said, lifting my chin, “might hold the key to our salvation, the world’s salvation.”
“No pressure or anything…”
“Eh. You can handle it. I have a feeling about you, grandchild.”
Chapter Eight
Finn
Cora steeled herself as she said good-bye to her grandmother, Claire, and Giovanni at the edge of the airport security line. I could tell by the set of her shoulders, the abnormally high lift of her chin. She was trying to convince them she was capable enough, strong enough, and right to go it alone.
Or trying to convince herself.
Giovanni looked back at us once as he and Claire entered security. I felt myself breathe deeper with his absence, and it made me wish I had days alone with Cora—hell, a lifetime—instead of less than an hour.
Every few minutes, Cora would cast a paranoid glance at security guards who were out in abnormally high numbers. The “tragedy” at Newgrange was all over the telly, but this worked in her favor. They were allowing non-citizens a three-day window to leave Ireland. Unfortunately, it also meant that the airport video was once again circulating, making all of us edgy and afraid she’d be recognized and seized.
“You don’t have to stay with me,” she said, meeting my eyes for a split second before looking away with her brows puckered.
“You know why I do,” I answered. “We both know I can help you if trouble comes. I can protect you.” We sat together in the quietest corner we could find. Our backs were blocked by windows, and we could see anyone approach from the front. I glanced at my mother, who sat a few feet away, pretending to read a magazine. We were on alert. Ready.
“Helping me might mean killing.” Cora’s chin dipped and she spoke toward her feet. “Watching you kill once was
enough,” she said. Every time she recalled it, she probably thought that’s how it happened with her cousin. But it wasn’t like that. It was…sacred. With Ultana it would have been brutal. Though telling myself that didn’t dislodge the guilt from my chest. Killing Mari was the most terrible thing I’d ever done, and the most merciful. “And who will protect me from you?” she said, stabbing me with her words.
“You didn’t ask why I came to see you last night,” I said, changing the subject. She leaned forward on her knees, and I snuck a look at her. From the side, her lips looked full, pouty, but the way she bit them told me she was thinking something she didn’t want to say, likely that she didn’t care why I’d gone to see her the night before, nor why I left so abruptly.
I’d not taken one step into her room when Giovanni leaned in and whispered, “You saw us together. She should be with someone like her—her own kind. Stop tearing her heart in half.”
I hated the git.
Beneath the intercom calls for flights and the bustle of people panicked to leave Ireland, I extended my cupped palm to her. In it was my favorite ring. It was a replica of one found on a Roman soldier buried in Denmark. My father had brought it back for me after visiting the Viking museum there. Damn Vikings, so sure that what was ours was theirs for the taking. The ring was silver, with a two-headed snake winding three circles around the finger, wide enough to cover her ivy marking—the one the authorities were on the watch for.
Cora’s face looked like I’d just asked her to marry me, and not in a good way. “To cover your finger,” I quickly said, degraded to my bones. “I know our days of promise rings are over.”
Sorrow coated her face like rain on a window as she took the ring from me and rolled it around in her fingers. “Thank you,” she said, slipping it over the black ivy marking. When she did, I noticed the underside of what I’d thought was a simple gold band on her other hand.