Stir Until Petrified

by Theda Vallee

  “This is my fault. I should’ve never made you come to the club. That man’s death is on my hands.” Nerina sobbed uncontrollably.

  “That asshole brought it on himself. No one in this room did anything to ask for this. He was alive when we left. Etta defended herself. That’s not a crime.” Gia said grabbing Nerina’s hand.

  “Gia, I body slammed a man into the pavement so hard there was a dent. I left the scene without calling an ambulance. I released a lot of magic…” I said trailing off. I didn't want to finish the sentence. I was more worried about the Osservatori than the Palermo Bay police.

  Sitting in the kitchen of the only home we’d ever known; my heart pounded like a trapped bird. “Should we check the news to see if it’s been reported?”

  My mind conjured up visions of news stations reporting that three spandex-clad women were being sought in connection with a brutal nightclub attack. Poorly drawn artist renderings would flash across the screen with a description of the getaway vehicle running constantly on the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. My car was not subtle. There were very few old VW Bugs on the road anymore. Even fewer were painted safety yellow. It would be a matter of minutes before the police traced the car to me.

  “Maybe we should go to Mexico for a few weeks? Until this thing blows over? Or maybe just until we know they aren't coming for us.” Nerina had a bottle of wine that she took long swigs from in between sobs.

  “They aren’t the bogeyman. They don’t show up at your door just because you say their name. I doubt the Osservatori are coming for Etta. They have bigger fish to fry than a strega who blasted some creep for putting his hands on her. However, we do need to deal with Auntie Alba in a few hours. She’s going to know something’s wrong. I suggest we try to sleep. When we wake up everything will look better.” Gia smiled gently at both of us.

  The poor girl had learned the art of keeping calm from years of dealing with her mother. Aunt Sophia was a hot mess of a woman who was convinced everything in life was a catastrophe. Gia was used to living in crisis mode, even though there was rarely a real crisis. This however, was an actual bona fide crisis. We were at Defcon One. Nuclear war was imminent. She could try to soothe us, but this was a big freaking deal. I glared across the table at Nerina who was on her second glass of wine. What we didn’t need was for her to be any more intoxicated than she already was.

  “I can’t believe you’re slamming back wine. We’ve got things we need to figure out right now. I need you sober for it.” I leaned across the table to snatch the glass of wine out of her hand.

  “Who died and made you the wine police? Besides, I’m sober. How could I not be? I need a little lip of the dog. I can feel a headache coming on and yelling at me isn’t helping.”

  “It’s hair of the dog. Why can’t you ever get anything right?” I snapped back at her, shoving the wine glass out of her reach.

  “Maybe I have them right and you’re the one who’s wrong? Oh wait, I forgot Etta’s never wrong about anything. She’s perfect in every way. Keep the glass, I have the bottle, so I don’t even need it.” She tilted the bottle back and took a gulp, staring me down as she did it.

  She’d gone too far. Sister or not, I was going to rip out every strand of hair on her head. I knew how to throw a punch but that wouldn’t phase her. Ripping out her hair would be one of the worst things I could do to her. She’d never be able to make it through a day bald. I lunged across the table hell-bent on inflicting damage. My throat involuntarily released a sound that was the stuff of nightmares. I’d turned into a wild animal. Instead of getting a gratifying handful of her hair, my body shuddered to a stop. Gia had been quicker than me. She held the back of my tank top clenched in her fist. Momentum snapped my body back just out of reach of Nerina’s hair.

  “Enough. I can’t freaking believe you two. We’re family. We stick together no matter what! Yes, we’ve had a bad night. That doesn’t mean we tear each other up. Now sit your ass down in that chair. Nerina, you better not move either. We’re all going to take a few deep breaths, and then we’re going to go to bed. Things will look a lot better in the morning. They always do,” Gia said punctuating each word with her finger.

  “It’s already morning,” I mumbled under my breath. I twisted out of Gia’s hold, slamming myself into the chair. Everything in me wanted to leap across the table at my sister. She’d started it. I don’t see why I was the bad guy in this picture. “I’m not sure how we’re supposed to just go upstairs and go to bed like everything’s normal. Everything is so fucking far from normal.”

  “Violetta Marie Massoni, I will not have language like this in my house. What is all this noise? You girls are screaming like to raise the dead. What is far from normal? What has happened?” Nonna stood framed in the doorway, all four feet nine inches of her puffed up in anger.

  When I was a little girl she’d seemed like a giant when she stood like that. It wasn’t the same effect now I towered over her, but it was still terrifying. Her silver hair was pulled back in an impeccable bun at the base of her neck. I had a feeling her bun stayed immaculate by sheer will power as if even the hair on her head wouldn’t dare to defy her.

  She pulled her floral housecoat tight against her body, feeling a chill that only the old can feel. “Well! What is it? You wake me, so there must be a reason for all your noise?”

  All three of us slunk down into our chairs like naughty children. This was not something she needed to know. She’d always spoken of the Osservatori somberly. There was a very short list of things Nonna was afraid of, but they were numbers one, two and three. With everything our family had been through over the years, I didn't want to add this to the pile of things that kept her up at night. I darted my eyes over to Nerina. Her face was easy to read. She was thinking the same thing. I didn't have to guess what Gia was thinking either. Her face fell into a contrite mask. It was the innocent, “we’re so sorry” look she’d always used when we were kids and been caught in the act. It was the face that meant she was going to lie to Nonna. She’d been the master of manipulation when we were kids. Thankfully it didn't look rusty, even if it had been a few years since she used it.

  “I’m sorry, Zia Alba. We’ve had too much to drink. We’re still in party mode. You know we get too loud when we’re all together. Just like when we were little girls. Guess there are some things you never grow out of.” She made her eyes big, Bambi big. She knew exactly how innocent she looked. Who could resist that face and the sincerity ringing from her voice? This girl was giving Ms. Streep a run for her money.

  “Too loud! You think? It’s five a.m. Only whores and drug people come home at this hour! So, what is this catastrophe you are screaming and cursing about?” Nonna’s scowl bore into each of us as she waited for an answer.

  “Etta met a super-hot guy at the club. She was going to throw his phone number away. I tried to stop her, so we were arguing about it. I just wanted her to try to live a little, but I pushed too far. I’m sorry,” Nerina said contritely.

  Who knew my sister was such an accomplished liar? Marrying fact with fiction as if she did it every day. It was well played. I could see Nonna soften. My inability to move forward the last few years had constantly been an elephant in the room. Even Nonna, who usually had something to say about every choice in my life kept silent on that front.

  “She will do what is right for her when she’s ready. Leave her in peace about this, yes?” Nonna admonished.

  Nerina nodded solemnly. I could see the shift of relief in her shoulders. We may have to explain everything to Nonna soon, but not right now.

  “Since you’re up we might as well go to six a.m. mass. You can pray to Gesu for forgiveness, Giana Marie. Lying to your Zia. Covering for these two fools. You two were just going to let her do this? You all need to spend some time with our lord and savior this morning,” Nonna said.

  We reeked of nightclub. We’d been awake for twenty-four hours. I may or may not have killed a man in a parking lot a few h
ours ago. There was no way I could manage sitting and kneeling through a Latin mass for two hours. Not to mention the looming threat of the Osservatori. Nonna would never forgive me if I was arrested outside church. My mind darted to all the excuses I could use to get out of mass. I was pushing thirty and too terrified of my grandmother to tell her no. My sister on the other hand apparently didn’t feel like making it to her twenty-fourth birthday. My eyes bulged in terror as I saw her open her mouth to protest.

  “But we haven’t had any sleep, Nonna. And I’m still drunk. We can’t show up to mass drunk looking like we just stepped off the street corner.” Nerina said.

  A string of Italian exploded from Nonna in a fast-paced staccato. Her hands flew like two hummingbirds fighting over the same feeder. None of us dared to so much as breath during her tirade. Self-preservation dictated that you not draw attention to yourself when she got like this. If that meant not breathing, then I was going for pro level.

  “Finally, you admit you look like ladies of the night, but only because you want to get out of something. Fine, you don't want to spend time cleansing your souls at mass? You will cleanse them another way. With work. Sleep for a few hours if you must, but it is a full moon tonight. There is work to be done. Sweat will cleanse your soul as well as Gesu can. Everything needs to be in the garden before dinner. Do we understand?” Nonna said her tiny hands fisted on her hips in anger.

  We sullenly nodded. We’d gotten out of church, but we hadn't gotten away unscathed. I dreaded the full moon every month. We supplemented our meager earnings at the bakery by selling guaritore or healing services. We were good Catholic girls by day, and magical healers by night. Logic would dictate that one contradicted the other, but Nonna never seemed to think it put her soul in jeopardy. She considered herself an expert on anything that put your soul in peril. According to her reasoning, the lord wouldn’t have blessed us with these gifts if he didn't intend for us to use them. As for the church’s view on what we did, I suppose one day that would be between us and Jesus. In the meantime, we were the healers for half of Little Italy. Coughs, warts, romance, and heartache were all treatable with the concoctions we whipped up. There was always a steady line of patients in and out of our kitchen.

  We used nature’s own magic to create all manner of spells, potions, and salves. Allowing our ingredients to soak in the soft light of the full moon imbued them with an extra magical kick. So, once a month we dragged half our house out to our courtyard to ensure we had enough ingredients for the coming month. I shuddered to think what our normal neighbors thought when they walked past our house. By the end of today the backyard would be littered with plants, herbs, and strings in every color of the rainbow. The laundry lines, which we never used for hanging laundry, would be festooned with strips of cloth blowing in the sea breeze. We lined the back patio with candles, piles of salt and jars of olive oil. All the tools of our trade. We’d spend hours dragging everything out only to return at three a.m. to haul it back in. There was a precise window of time that everything had to be collected by. If dawn came before we got everything in, we’d lose all the magic of the moonlight because dawn was a neutralizing agent. It was an obscene amount of work. We would indeed pay for our sins in sweat today.

  I’d tried to sleep while Nonna was at mass. We’d piled into my bed like children too afraid to sleep alone. In my sleep deprived paranoid state, every noise I heard was the Osservatori arriving to cart me away. By the time I heard Nonna announcing her return with the click of her Naturalizer pumps on the hardwood floor, I’d given up on sleep. I changed into my gardening clothes and headed out to toil in the sun. My head throbbed like I had a hangover. Since I hadn't even finished one drink last night I assumed it was lack of sleep combined with stress that was making me feel like a festering pile of garbage. I decided to try to lose myself in the hated labor. Nonna always said the only thing that overcame hard luck was hard work. Our family had a lot of crappy luck. We worked hard all the time. It never seemed to balance out.

  “Do you think they would’ve been here already if they were coming?” Nerina asked me from across the basil plants we’d just brought outside.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how fast they work. I mean, they can track magic, right? I assume they would’ve had a ping on their magic radar or whatever it is that sets off Osservatori alarms. It’s not like they have a lot holding them back from storming in here. I’m going to take it as a good sign, maybe.” I said glancing around furtively my paranoia getting the better of me.

  “I can hear everything you’re both saying all the way over here, which means you aren’t whispering,” Gia said from across the yard.

  “Well, I’m freaking out. What the hell are we doing acting normal, hanging shit in the garden! We need a plan. What are we going to do?” Nerina was not graceful under pressure. “What about running? Why are neither of you even considering that?”

  “Where would we go that they can’t find us?” Gia moved over to join us most likely hoping we would start whispering.

  “I suggested Mexico earlier. It’s not that far. People do it all the time.” Nerina said pointing in the opposite direction of the southern border.

  “People running from the police do it all the time, not people running from a supernatural agency. There’s nowhere to run where they won’t find us,” Gia said.

  “You really think an Italian organization speaks Spanish? They’re not going to be in Mexico.” Nerina said sneering at Gia’s conclusion. She’d obviously thought long and hard about this the last several hours.

  “Are you serious? Is she serious?” Gia looked at me as if I could confirm Nerina’s thought process. Unfortunately, I probably could. She was dead serious. Nerina was not unintelligent, she just had a propensity for making weird leaps of logic.

  “Nerina, they’re worldwide. They have agents in Mexico, who speak Spanish.” I said trying to keep Gia from losing her temper.

  “Then why do they have an Italian name?” Nerina demanded.

  “I don't have the capacity to explain this to you right now. We’re going to do the only thing we can do, which is wait.” I braced myself for the hysteria my suggestion was sure to cause.

  “Wait? For what? For some magical thugs to bust down our door to haul you off to God knows where? No, I am not losing you, Etta. I can’t! Please, we have to think of a better solution.” The desperation in Nerina’s voice was a living entity. I could feel the pain rolling out in waves from her.

  “If they show up, this is my fault. I never learned to control my magic. I refused to even try, I’m responsible for this. I’ll throw myself at their mercy and hope that despite the rumors they actually have some.”

  As much as I understood where her pain was coming from, I also knew I was the one who would have to pay for what happened. I’d spent my life trying to hide from what I was. Growing up my sister and cousin had been my only friends. The few kids who knew what a strega was, were terrified of me. The kids who didn't know anything about magical people thought I was a freak. Even adults shied away from me. No one wanted to upset the strega. That made for a very lonely existence. I’d married the first guy who showed any interest in me. I should’ve probably told him I was a strega before we got married. In my defense I had no intention of ever using my powers. I just wanted to be normal. Nonna had tried to tell me that this was a gift. I should be honored to carry the strega line. The way I saw it mother nature had screwed me with two curses. One of them would end someday but I was stuck with the other one, and it had destroyed my life thus far.

  What did it matter at this point if they came for me? I wasn’t just a crappy witch, I was also broken beyond repair. Six years ago, my husband left me. I’d tried so hard to hide my true nature from him but somehow it always had a way of exposing me. It was almost as if my magic refused to allow itself to be permanently neglected. He walked away because of it. When he left he took our daughter with him. I hadn’t seen or heard from them since. We’d filed missing
persons reports. Aunt Sophia had hired a private investigator. I stalked the Internet constantly searching for any thread that might lead me to him. He was gone. Losing Redmond had been hard, but it wouldn’t have destroyed me. Losing Carina, my beautiful baby girl was something I didn't know how to come back from. What was a mother without a child? There was no word for it in any language. Empty. Broken. Lost. None of them held the power to convey the emptiness life was without your child. Without her, I didn't care what happened to me anymore. If I could spare my family by sacrificing myself it was an easy choice.

  “The sauce smells amazing. I feel like all my senses are on like super alert right now. How can I smell it out here? Weird, right?” Nerina inhaled the tangy hint of sauce that had made its way to us from the house.

  “The windows are open. I don’t think you’ve developed super smelling powers in the last few minutes.” I said smiling at her despite the cloud of sorrow that had descended on me.

  “You’d think after eating spaghetti every Sunday for an eternity I’d be over it. Instead, I’m like those dogs that slobber all over when they see food. Padlocks dogs or whatever they’re called. Look, Etta, you aren't going anywhere.” Nerina grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly. “Let’s just get this work done, eat our Sunday dinner and figure out a plan. There must be something we can do. We’re Massoni girls. We can figure shit out when no one else can.”

  Gia grabbed my other hand holding on for dear life. We stood in a tiny circle latched onto each other. I nodded at them because that was what they needed me to do, not because I believed that we could figure out a way to outsmart the Osservatori. Neither of them would agree to let me give myself up. I’d say yes to whatever crazy idea they concocted later. In the end, I’d do what I needed to. I’d failed my daughter, I wouldn’t fail them.

  “What are you girls doing? We have a full moon tonight. There is no loafing about for you today. We need to get going,” Nonna shouted from the kitchen window. “Unbelievable how lazy you girls have become. I work all day and I am seventy-three-years-old. You are young, able, healthy. None of your bones creak.”