Page 28

Chapter Twenty-Six

LUNA

The lapis clock is still ticking. The ceiling is cracked. The house is so old. This room isn’t even mine. None of this is mine. Not even him.

A dream. No more, no less. There’s no coin-stack map of Manhattan on the draining chair. No penny-fall into my mouth. I really am just plain old thirsty.

In my sleep, I bit the inside of my cheek. Or maybe my gums are unhappy with my dental hygiene. Or actually, it’s not blood at all. It’s just sleep yuck, and I’m panicked that I unplugged Carmine from his sanity and he is now a ball of maddened worms.

To the ticking, he walks through my half-dreams with me. He is beside me when I stand at the center of the fountain. He stands on the other side of the patio window as I gather Serafina’s fashion magazines. He is in the pages with tall women. He whispers to me.

Snowbird .

“Luna.” Not him. A woman whose shape is blurred between my lashes. I know her.

My mouth is salty, thick, hot. Thick porridge. A starchy paste. Chicken. Voices arguing softly in Italian. I know them.

“Etta?”

I remember the Gargiulo sisters. Etta speaks Italian. Her sister Silvia speaks English.

A pink blob appears behind her, barely in focus. I blink. Silvia in a unicorn sweatshirt.

“You’re going to be all right.” She pats my leg, then whispers, “We’re going to get you out of here.”

They’re going to what?

Do I want to get out of here?

I squeeze my eyes shut and open them. My vision isn’t completely clear. The fire is back. It’s night. A man sits with his back to the fire, his foot on the balcony door, staring at his phone. Nunzio. He’s a comfort, but his name isn’t on my lips.

“Carmine.”

“Hush now.” Silvia clucks, then barks at Nunzio.

After a tense exchange, he leaves. Etta tries to feed me another spoonful of something, but I turn away.

“Carmine.”

“Let us get you out of here.” Silvia’s shapes are blurry to me, but brighter, younger, vibrating with excitement. “There’s an island. It won’t hide you forever, but long enough to wear down the thrall.”

“He will always find me.” No truer words have ever left my mouth, though I don’t know where they get their authority.

Even as I say the words, my heart is pinched and pulled like dough, reacting with stabbing emotional pain that my mind has to work hard to override.

“You’re testing powers you don’t understand.”

Only Carmine has real power.

And the Strega. Right?

Did that stuff before… did it happen?

“My mother. Is she still here?”

“Do you know how to get her to leave?” Silvia asks.

I think: Tell her to start a long walk because there’s a flat Earther convention at the end of a very short pier.

But I shake my head no, because I’m pathetic, and I’m glad she’s all right, and whatever guilt I carried can be soothed if I know what I did to her is undone.

“ Mangia la tua pastina, ” Etta says.

I know the words. I also know a non-negotiable demand when I hear it.

Carmine would want me healthy so he could suck me dry again, and for reasons I’m too weak to question, that motivates me to open my mouth.

Bitterness lingers on the back of my tongue. I’m in thrall and I hate it. It has to stop. I grab Etta’s wrist.

“ La Smorfia? ”

Etta dabs a napkin on the corners of my mouth. “ Si .”

“Coins.” My eyelids are drooping. “I dreamed about coins.”

Silvia translates. They discuss quietly. They’re going to look in a book and give me a number. I don’t want a number. I want the meaning.

Finally, Silvia answers. “Coins are power.”

Even this close to sleep, I scoff at the idea that I ever had a dime to my name.