Still

by Camilla Monk

  I considered the spoon, last night’s nightmare still fresh in my mind. Yeah, this was a beer for breakfast kind of morning. “Thanks,” I said, bringing the faxkrispies to my mouth. I chewed on the crunchy mixture with a grimace. “Next time, I pick the booze.”

  “So, there will be a next time?” he teased in between mouthfuls. “I knew you wouldn’t resist me for long. Very well, I’ll make room for your clothes in the wardrobe, and we’ll put your fox next to my raccoon.”

  I closed my eyes with a tired sigh, ignoring the fleeting jolt of my heart at the idea of us living together. Being together. A memory of Perses and me dissolving in absolute darkness flashed behind my eyelids. I couldn’t control it, this terrifying void inside me. Maybe it would happen again, and it’d be worse, and I wouldn’t find my way out of the dark. I could never take the risk of the same happening to Faust . . .

  “Cool your jets,” I chided. “If I stay in Rome a little longer, I’ll find myself a place. I saw crazy cheap dormitories on Airbnb.” Which would solve at least one of my ninety-nine problems—the rest of them including the fact that my passport was probably still at the Residenza, or that I could kiss Tuna Town goodbye if I wasn’t back at work in three days for my Monday shift, and that meant losing my apartment too, as soon as my meager savings ran out. Just thinking about it made my head hurt, but I didn’t want to get there with Faust; I knew the solutions he’d offer were far too tempting . . .

  His eyes narrowed over his bowl of cereal as an awkward silence set between us. “Trying to friendzone me, I see.”

  I huffed loudly, signaling the fun was over. “Faust, I’m serious. There’s something I need to ask you.”

  He gulped down the rest of the beer and placed the empty bowl on his nightstand, an easy smile lingering in his beard as he wiped it with the back of his hand. “Anything you want.”

  “Say I buy, like, really cool playmobils, do you think Louison would ever consider letting me back into his shop?”

  His brow creased a fraction. “I can certainly help you find him a fix, but why do you want to return there?”

  My fingers threaded in the thick fur of a white and black gutter boy I’d first seen lounging with Faust on the street near the Residenza. “To check his books . . . I mean, if I can understand them.”

  His chest heaved. “Emma, there’s no way into Tartarus.”

  And yet I’d have to find one, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Lily’s crying face at night until the day I died . . . The worst part was the guilt, branded into my skin despite what she’d done. I had failed to catch her hand in that final moment, and no matter how much I turned this around in my head, I couldn’t process that she was gone for good—couldn’t shake the irrational gut feeling that she was still there, somewhere, right under the surface of my reality. “At least part of Perses found a way out, and Lady Palombara escaped too. I could ask her—”

  “Even if it was possible, Lily was human; her physical body can’t survive in that dimension. All Perses took with him is a soul that’s now trapped there.” The muscles in his neck tightened. “And I think he knew it. He knowingly killed her rather than giving her up.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but there’s no harm in doing a little research. I think it’ll help me get some closure if I know I really did all I could.”

  He rubbed a hand over his chin, blinking his exhaustion away. “All right. I suppose a couple of playmobils won’t bring about the end of times. We better find good ones, though; you threw up all over the place.”

  “I know . . .” I groaned at the memory, and got up from the bed, followed by half a dozen cats who officially believed I was now in charge of feeding everyone in this attic. “There’s something else I need to do first.”

  “What is it?”

  “Do you have a supermarket where I can buy a box of chocolate?”

  I tucked a stray lock of turquoise hair back under my Kylo Ren cap. “Okay, how do I look?”

  Faust winced.

  “I was asking the cats,” I said in the guise of an apology, glancing down at the pair of tabbies wrapped around his legs. They had no comment to offer as I sniffed my hoodie to check whether that ten-minute wash in Faust’s bathroom sink had done the job. Yeah, good enough. I smoothed the cheap golden plastic ribbon decorating a box of Ferrero Rochers, eyeing the gates of a nondescript sixties residence across the street.

  Faust grinned. “We’ll be waiting here. Do you want my phone to film one of those reunion videos?”

  “I think I’ll be good,” I said, giggling my stress away.

  He patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Well, there you go, champ.”

  I bit my lower lip not to burst out laughing again—he actually sounded more nervous than I was. Okay, no . . . my hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and I was a thousand times edgier than he or anyone could ever be as I crossed the street and searched for my father’s name on the intercom. Gabriele Lombardi. Emma Lombardi, I thought with a secret smile, before inwardly slapping myself for being so damn cheesy. I pressed once and waited, fidgeting on the sidewalk.

  “Pronto.” A female voice.

  I steadied my voice to reply, “Sono qui per vedere Gabriele Lombardi.” I’m here to see Gabriele Lombardi.

  “Chi è?” Who are you?

  I froze, aware of the blood drumming in my temples, of Faust, still standing across the street. “Sono . . .” My mouth worked in silence. His daughter? A friend? An acquaintance? How did you say that in Italian?

  In the intercom, the voice grew impatient. “Non riesco a sentirti . . .” I can’t hear you. Then she whispered, maybe to someone else. “Si è rotto di nuovo!” It’s broken again!

  I jerked in surprise when the door clicked open with a bipping sound, and the woman said, “Secondo piano.” Second floor.

  No going back now. I entered the building and took cautious steps across the lobby’s checkered tiling. Once I’d called the elevator, I bounce-stepped to calm down as the steel door slid open. I closed my eyes during the short ride. They re-opened in sync with the elevator’s door, and I saw him.

  He had come to answer the door. He looked older than on Facebook. The lines around his mouth gave him a stern air when he wasn’t smiling. But his kind blue eyes were the same as in my childhood memories; the same as mine. His brow furrowed, and I read the confusion on his face. I glimpsed a long hallway behind him. A dark-haired woman shuttled from one door to another, followed by a teenage boy. Blond like my dad and me. I drew in a shaky breath as their voices echoed in that foreign apartment.

  Awkward seconds stretched, and my dad still wasn’t saying anything. I swallowed hard and murmured, “It’s me . . . Emma.”

  His eyes went wide; he stepped out into the hallway, and nearly slammed the door behind him. His lips moved, and for the first time in thirteen years I heard my father’s voice, a soft gravel coated with his singing Italian accent. “Your mother didn’t tell me you were coming.”

  He didn’t look happy—terrified, actually—and the growing anguish in his eyes reached deep inside me, squeezing my heart. “I’m sorry . . . It was kind of a spur of the moment thing, and I”—I shoved the box of Ferrero in his hands— “I brought you this.”

  He looked down at the golden bow, his own reflection in the transparent plastic. His cheeks grew pale, his lips quivered. His gaze wouldn’t meet mine as he said, “You should have contacted me first. Emma . . .” His eyes darted at the door behind him. “This is a very difficult situation for me.”

  You’d think even a moron like me would have figured it out instantly, but it did take me a few seconds of staring blankly at the door to understand what he meant. They didn’t know. The dark-haired woman and the blond-haired boy, he had never told them, and this life, this apartment, this family . . . I didn’t exist.

  The pain was sudden, sharper then I’d expected. It was a wave surging from deep within, tearing everything as it roared under my ribs. Even more bruising was the realization that I’d never s
eriously considered it’d end like this. Even in my hours of deepest loneliness, when I would replay our last walk along the beach over and over in my head and tell myself he didn’t give a shit about me, there was still a part of me who’d kept hoping. After all, there could have been a thousand reasons why he’d ghosted us. Maybe he was scarred from years of fighting with my mom; maybe he was in trouble, ill or wounded at the other end of the world—dead even.

  But the simple truth was that he’d erased me and moved on.

  Sweat beaded on his brow as he braced himself for my reaction. He must be terrified I’d yell, that the dark-haired woman would hear us, and his secret would ooze out, stain everything in his new life.

  I nodded to myself, once, twice. It was fine. Just a little awkward, maybe. I was cool . . . mostly. Sometimes emotions can be so huge, so devastating that you need to contain them in small words, so they won’t overflow and spill all over the place. I was an expert; I could do this. I had tiny, empty words for every heartbreak, every earthquake. I gulped down a lump of pure agony, blinked up to dry the dampness burning my eyes. I hoped he wouldn’t notice; he’d probably think it was emotional blackmail or something shitty like that.

  Of all the shrugs I ever gave, this one cost me the most. “I get it,” I said at last. “I won’t come back again. We’re cool.”

  “Emma.” The plea in his voice made my heart rev—he still cared. “If you need money, we can talk. Just not here, please.”

  Oh. He wanted to pay me to leave him alone. My chest grew unbearably tight, and I got scared I wouldn’t be strong enough to weather the storm inside me. I was a balloon stretched to the limit, and I had no idea what would happen when I burst, what big, irreversible words might geyser out. I shook my head, trying to avert my eyes so he wouldn’t see I was coming apart fast. “No . . . It’s fine. I don’t need your money.”

  The door came ajar, and the pretty woman with the jet curls appeared behind him. “Cosa sta succedendo?” What’s going on?

  He gave a tight chuckle and shoved the Ferrero box back in my hands. “Niente. Soltanto un errore di consegna.” Nothing, it’s a delivery error.

  She scanned me, a tinge of suspicion in her eyes as he retreated inside the apartment. He mumbled a vague apology and slammed the door just in time. I wouldn’t have been able to take another second of this nightmare. I took the stairs to leave the building faster, breathing fast and hard through my nose. When I barreled through the door, Faust was still there, sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk with his cats while above us, lead-colored clouds swelled with the promise of rain.

  His head snapped up the moment I stepped out. The hole in my heart hurt too much, and I had no strength left to face him, to lie that my father wasn’t home or whatever. I hurried down the deserted street, praying he wouldn’t guess it was me.

  “Emma?”

  I walked faster, my shoulders hunched in shame as tears streamed down my cheeks. The fucking cats betrayed me. One of them left the comfort of Faust’s lap to trot after me. I should have never fed them this morning . . .

  Faust got up and closed the distance between us in a few quick strides, rhythmed by the familiar clatter of his cane against the pavement. “Emma, wait! What’s going on?”

  “Leave me alone,” I hissed.

  He caught up with me instead, worry written all over his features. “Emma, stop. What happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m . . . fine.” Except it came out as a sob, my pain bare for Faust to hear.

  I thought he’d insist—secretly hoped he would, to be honest—but he gave up like everyone else. The clatter of Faust’s cane stopped as he let me walk away alone, just as I’d asked. I’m not gonna lie; it made me cry even harder, that after all we’d been through, I’d driven him away too. I couldn’t blame him. No point in fighting to get close to a human porcupine.

  The first raindrops hit my cap, spotted my shoulders. I still held on to my box of chocolate as it progressively got drenched, and the realization came with a wave of nausea. I stopped and hurled it in the air, bracing myself for the satisfying sound of plastic crashing on the asphalt.

  Nothing came. The rain had stopped, and a million diamonds hung still in the air that would no more hit the ground than my box would. I looked over my shoulder. His hands resting on his new cane, Faust was waiting. He knew you didn’t run after a stray cat; you held out a hand and let it come to you once it trusted you. Once it knew you were home.

  I stopped thinking. I walked, then ran back toward him through the frozen raindrops I couldn’t feel.

  How long had it been since I’d hugged anyone? I couldn’t fucking remember. I could only recall a thousand snarky comebacks and just as many shrugs, lashing out at people and shoving them away before they could reject me first. But Faust was here. He opened his arms and pulled me to him when no one else would, and I let him. I hugged him back, squeezed his torso and buried my tears in his T-shirt as he closed his big coat over me like a safe cocoon.

  His chin came to rest atop my head as a final sob raked through my chest. He rubbed my back in slow, soothing circles. “Let’s go home.”

  And I said, “Okay.”

  Coming up next in:

  Who the fuck is Silvio? Are we gonna learn more about Lady Palombara's husband? Is Ryuuko an actual dragon? Can you buy economy tickets to Tartarus? Is it hot there? Can Faust make it out of the friendzone?

  Stay tuned to find out!

  Stuff you can Google:

  Constantine the Great (27 February c. 272 AD – 22 May 337 AD)

  Not my favorite Roman emperor, but his arch can be still admired in Rome near the Colosseum. Constantine was the last “great” Roman emperor to rule over a reunited empire comprising both eastern and western halves. He was also the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity—on his deathbed, and after a life spent actively promoting the development of the religion in the empire.

  Proto-Canaanite gibberish

  In Still, the mysterious language of the text written on Chronos’s Table is presumably the Titans’ original language, which was later transcribed using an enriched proto-Canaanite script. While the table and Titans belong to the realm of awkward fiction by yours truly, Proto-Canaanite script does exist and is an ancestor of Greek and Latin. Proto-Canaanite was first derived from hieroglyphs as a simplified alphabet meant to translate Semitic languages. Its descendant, the Phoenician alphabet, would later become the founding base of the Greek, old Italic—used by the Etruscans—and Latin alphabets.

  Your friends are weird: Faust and Vespasian

  According to historian Tacitus, Emperor Vespasian (17 November AD 9 – 23 June AD 79) can be credited for not one but two dubious miracles. He reportedly healed a man’s lame leg with his touch and cured another’s blindness by rubbing his spit over his eyes. Icky. Was that man Faust? Was he joking? One thing is certain: Vespasian got his medical license from a diploma mill.

  Faust...us

  Believe itus or notus, I didn’t just add the suffix ‘us’ to the name of the infamous Faust to make it sound Roman. Nopus. Faustus was, in fact, a relatively common Latin name, used both as a praenomen and cognomen—meaning it was used either as a first name or a surname. You can check Wikipedia for a list of Fausti who left their name in the pages of History.

  Malespina or Farnesina?

  STILL's Villa Malespina is heavily inspired by the Villa Still's Villa Malespina is heavily inspired by the Villa Farnesina in Rome, a famous Renaissance villa in the district of Trastevere. I chose to keep it in the same location; the only thing I made up is the lab. :)

  Faust’s Batavian roots

  According to Lady Montecito, Faust used to be a Praetorian, and specifically, an imperial bodyguard, hailing from a Batavi tribe—which explains his somewhat Nordic looks. But why would such a bodyguard hail from what is now known as the Netherlands? Because many, in fact, did. Germania and Batavia’s renowned horsemen provided a contingent of Germanic bodyguards to the emperors of the Julio-
Claudian dynasty for several decades. They were considered exceptional horsemen, reportedly capable of crossing a river in full battle gear without dismounting. Hardcore.

  Another perhaps crucial quality of these Nordic bruisers was that they came with little political connections in Rome, which made them safer than Roman soldiers who may or may not be indebted to ill-meaning politicians.

  Faust however, was born in Rome and served as a Praetorian rather than a Germanic bodyguard, leading us to assume that his father was one such Batavian horseman whose family later settled in Rome toward the end of the first century BC.

  Winged dicks to protect your laundry

  Ancient Romans relied on amulets and effigies of the divine phallus—Yes, that's a thing—to invoke the deity's protection. The term Fascinus can refer either to the talisman itself—often a tiny winged dick pendant you could wear around your neck—or the deity himself—basically a sentient wiener. Phallic images were also carried during religious processions and celebrations, and, ironically, the vestals themselves were in charge of the cult of Fascinus, who incarnated a virile power protecting the state and its citizens.

  The villa Palombara, home of the Porta Alchemica

  It's—almost—real! Erected on the Esquiline in the 1600's by Marquis Massimiliano Palombara di Pietraforte, the villa was his summer retreat, and mostly, a haven for the marquis to indulge in his passion for Alchemy. He invited famous alchemists there, among them Giuseppe Francesco Borri, Athanasius Kircher and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who supposedly designed the Porta Alchemica and came up with the arcane symbols and secret verses engraved around the gate. The villa did get destroyed sometime after 1883 when the city of Rome created the modern district of the Esquiline, but to this day, the mysterious Porta Alchemica still stands on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, and can be admired from behind closed gates, sadly.