Page 36

“I cannot tell you how good it feels to remember.” She spins a stool so she can sit in front of me.

“I feel whole for the first time in fifty years. Elisabella LoVullo. My mother. Your grandmother. She was a midwife. Strega, of course, and why she was here, she never said. But these women… they nursed me, and loved me, and they taught me how to use my gifts. Heal energy. Travel on light. I had jobs… as early as five. Bringing hot water to this house. Keeping the fires just the right size. I made sure the protection amulets had fresh flowers and rue.”

“What did they protect you from?”

“The demon. Amon, I think his name was.”

“Ah. Demons. Right.” I finger the car lighter scar inside my arm. It’s cold.

“Luna.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not. I hurt you.”

It’s okay. It’s fine. No problem. Whatever. No, no, no. She’s right. I don’t have to exonerate her. I understand about the splitting away, that it really wasn’t her, but enough of it was. I don’t have to pass it off as if it’s nothing and I don’t have to forgive her and I don’t have to like her.

“I don’t know why I’m sitting here,” I say. “After everything.”

“Because I’m the only person in the world who knows you.”

“And I never knew you.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“But you did it. All the things. The craziness. The chaos. The cutting.”

“I think blood and demons got mixed up in my head.” She looks away. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. You deserved better. I had twenty mothers and every one of them helped me. You had one mother who failed you.”

“When you say it like that, I get madder.”

“I know. I can see your energy change.”

Channeling Serafina, I hold up my middle finger.

Mom smiles. “I want to give you what I was given, so you know who you are in the world.”

“The way you didn’t.”

“Right.”

My response is a sigh. Now I’m responsible for her healing, because what she wants is something I need. I don’t want to become her, split from her magic, lost and powerless. I don’t want to have children who confuse me, who I break, and who break me the minute they can.

“Here.” She bends and removes the long chain around her neck.

The silver charm on the end looks like an upside-down tree.

When I was a kid, she said it reminded her of her roots, but now that I think of it, I don’t think she ever explained what that meant.

She drops it in my open palm. “It’s a cimaruta .

I don’t know if there’s magic in it, but it was a good reminder. ”

“You haven’t taken this off in… forever.”

“Not since I was a kid.”

“We used to have a rhyme for these things on the branches? A key. A hand. A moon. What’s this globby one?”

“A heart on fire.” Mom picks the chain from my hand and lets the charm dangle. “Heart aflame on sprig of rue. A quarter moon. A snake can be true. Sword in hand and guard the head. Fish and owl, alone in bed. Key. Bird. Frog. Rose. Thou shall not be demon wed.”

“Didn’t work for you, I guess.” I’m trying to make a joke about her calling Dad a demon all the time, but my mother isn’t feeling funny. She opens the chain so I can get my head through it.

“Don’t take it off.”

I bow my head so she can get it around my neck. “Did one of your mothers give it to you?”

“Actually, Carmine did.”

“Did he?” My shock must be bright orange. Even knowing she was here, in this house, it hadn’t occurred to me that she’d had a relationship with its owner.

“We had the sprig of rue in a charm on our door, on our side. The hand and the moon and the rest were pressed brass. Sharp edges, so I could stick them in the stems. It was my job. He got the necklace for me to remind me to change the flowers every month or it would dry out.”

“So, he cared about your rituals?” I tuck the necklace in my shirt. “That doesn’t seem like him.”

“The rue was important to him, and the fires. Oh, he liked those. When he came back from traveling, we made sure they were roaring.” She grins to herself.

“He brought back crates of gifts for my mothers. Powerful things. The first time he brought a present for me, I was little. He had something wrapped in green silk in his hand and he whispered in Elisabella’s ear. She nodded and called me over.”

“She was still treated like your mother?”

“She was my mother among mothers. They all had the scars.” She holds up her fist and runs a finger along the first knuckles. “Like you.”

“Ah.” I look at my fingers. “Does that make me your mother?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Just asking.”

She sighs and continues. “If my mother among mothers said I could receive a gift from Carmine, then it was okay. He was wearing this three-piece suit—it was a dark burgundy with a wide tie and lapels out to here—and he held out the wrapped thing. I couldn’t believe it.

I felt so special. He said, ‘Go ahead.’ So I unfolded it one corner at a time.

” She takes a bundle from her pocket and unwraps the green silk, revealing her deck.

“And the cards… They were so beautiful. Gold edges. The colors…” She loses herself in the memory when the last corner is unfolded, revealing the deck.

“He said, ‘Only a Strega can teach you how to use these cards.’ Of course, Laro appeared from some dark corner and said he could do it better.”

Shaking her head at Laro’s intrusion, she dumps the deck into one hand and puts the green silk to the side with the other.

“That sounds like him.”

“Poor kid.” She fingers through the deck.

“But that night, it was so new. I was half grabbing and half afraid to touch them. Carmine was like, ‘Go on,’ so I took them and, Lunagirl, I felt the whole universe in my hand. He says, ‘There are only three decks of these in the world. Laro has one. Now so do you.’ I was overwhelmed. I had no idea how to thank him. I hugged him, which just wasn’t done.

Not by me, anyway.” She laughs a little.

“I don’t think he even hugged me back, but Elisabella brought me up to my room and I stayed up all night just watching the dream world come through them. ”

She flips the top card, looks at it, shakes her head, and hands it to me. More liminal gray with a little boat at the bottom.

“I’m starting to think liminal is the default card setting.” I hand it back.

“Never been. I’ve heard the physics are different. Up is down. East is west.” She slides the card back into the middle of the deck and gives me another without looking.

The card is a man and a little girl holding a bucket between them, walking toward a house. The banner beneath says HURRY.

“I didn’t spend a bunch of time there. I was mostly running through.

Not a lot of color. Everything felt… unsolid.

And I could see vampire emotions there. That was helpful.

” At the end, I tried to push Laro into the liminal so I could see his feelings.

Then I rearranged them and rewrote his emotions until his sanity left him.

“The first time I saw the Dream Deck, Laro was throwing cards at me.”

“He did that when I tried to impose any kind of meaning on them.” She hands me the next one.

“So he did teach you? Not the mothers?”

“Both did. He had a different way. It was good to learn both.”

On the second card, the same man, on his knees, dances a waltz with the same little girl. The bottom ribbon says, again, HURRY.

“Mom, is this you and Carmine?” I hold up the card.

“You tell me.”

“That’s Laro’s method and I hate it.” I hand back the card. “I don’t know how you even dealt with him.”

That may be the first unpleasantly true thing I’ve said about Laro since he was cast out. It feels wicked to say it—as if I’m speaking ill of the dead. It’s also freeing.

“Laro treated me like a regular person,” Mom says. “I wasn’t just the kid to train or mother. He never acted superior. If I sat next to him, he either talked to me or told me to go away. He told me scary stories, then I had to guess if they were true.”

“He was a sadistic weirdo. One more.” I hold out my hand and she complies without question.

“He pulled his father out of a fire. It was hard on him.”

Flipping the card, I already know I’m going to see another tableau of the man and the girl. This one has them bearing wooden swords over the word REMEMBER.

“What am I supposed to hurry about?” I hold up the fan of cards, backs to her. “Don’t say ‘you tell me,’ okay, because I will. I’m supposed to just intuit what these mean really fast, and I got it.” I turn them around, spreading them with both hands so she can see. “You and Carmine were close.”

She bristles. “I got close enough to think anyone who fell in love with him was a little dim.” She takes a deep breath and snaps the cards from my hand. “Close enough to try to save his ass.”

“Did you see who did it?”

“What I saw…” She shakes her head slowly, eyes far away.

“Fire everywhere. Everyone running out, but Elisabella. My own mother among mothers, she goes to him. And I follow her, because… I don’t know…

did she stake him? Maybe. But she was kneeling over him and…

hoo-boy, I had no idea telling you this was going to be the hardest thing I had to do. ”

“I’d say you don’t have to tell me if it’s upsetting, but…” I end in a shrug.

“The fire’s getting to that part of the house. Elisabella lifts her head and there’s blood all over her.” She draws her hand from chin to chest, where the blood flowed.

“She was… no.” I can’t even say it.

“Drinking his fucking blood. It was like she’d been driven mad over his death.”

“That’s a little dramatic.”

“Isn’t that what thrall is like?”

Usually, I’d figure she was punching me in the face on purpose, but right now, I’m not so sure she means to hurt me. “What happened next?”

“It’s getting really hot, but I can’t move. Like, I can’t believe it. The role reversal. When she’s done, she takes one look at me and her eyes are fucking crazy. She’s not herself. Not my mother, not anymore. The blood poisoned her. She screams and…” Deep breath. “Jumps out the window.”

“Oh my God.”

“I run to it, look down. It’s the second story, so she may be okay. But she’s not there.”

“She ran away or she was dead?”

“Not there . Now, the fire’s burning up the room.

I go back to Carmine and try to pull out the stake, but it was driven right through the floor, and I was so small.

His eyes are open. He says, ‘Run.’ He says, ‘Hurry.’ I can’t.

I keep pulling on that damn stake. Then I was lying on the grass and Laro’s shaking me, he’s shouting, ‘ Where’s my father, where’s my father?

’ Then it was sunrise. Laro’s got black all over his face and clothes.

I’m like, ‘Is he okay?’ but he says, ‘Get out,’ and he…

” She screws her face into a knot, trying to find words.

“I thought he was kicking me off the compound but… well, now I know he was kicking me out of me.”

I lean back in the chair and look at the world from Carmine’s perspective. “I used to think it was Dad who drove you crazy.”

“Your father was the best man I ever knew.”

“I thought he was a demon.”

“I never said that, Luna. Never once.”

Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit times a million. But when, exactly? A moment of anger? A quiet minute after my blood passed the test?

It’s not coming to me. I almost say it, but can’t remember exactly, or the words are not exactly what I’m claiming.

“You said the vaccines would ‘activate’ Daddy’s demon DNA.”

“Not the same.”

“How?!”

“It wasn’t what he was , Luna! Stop talking stupid nonsense.”

Outside, a man’s voice shouts in Italian. “Luna! Are you in there?”

All I know is that it isn’t Carmine.

Mom gasps and disappears.