Chapter 34 Katarina
KATARINA
Itrailed my fingers over the rich brocade of a tapestry hanging on the wall of the library. An actual tapestry.
Maybe Massimo was the lord of the underworld after all; his home would certainly suit that role.
It was impressive, and so beautiful, it was hard to believe it was real.
Art and antiques filled the space. Dark wood and soft furnishings of velvet and satin.
The windows faced the most stunning view of Torino.
A grand piano stood in the library, and a harp.
A freaking harp. Everything looked like it had been brought directly here from a secondhand sale at a royal’s estate.
This was how kings lived.
The kitchen kept the theme, gothically dark but spacious and airy. A display of pomegranates sat on the huge marble island, calling to mind the Hades and Persephone painting upstairs.
Very funny.
Massimo had left a few minutes ago to get breakfast after sweeping up the remains of my smashing session.
He’d sent his housekeeper away yesterday so he didn’t have to hear me screaming all night. It was just him and me, here in this house that felt like it had slipped through the cracks between worlds. A place separate from time. A bubble of safety from the storms raging outside.
It was quiet in the library. He had a library.
I loved this house. And this man. I sat on the rug before the hearth.
There was a fire already burning in the grate.
Nox and Pax wound their way around me. Nox confident and curious, getting right onto my lap.
Pax held back, coming slightly closer each time.
I petted Nox until Pax seemed to feel safe enough to edge closer.
She allowed me to stroke her after smelling my fingers for a good minute.
A little later, I was bracketed by the two cats, as different as night and day.
They snuggled into my sides, and I let my fingers wander through their fur and watched the flames dance in the fireplace.
I hoped that Gravy had found someone else to feed him.
I wondered if I went up there to call for him, he’d come to me.
I could ask Massimo if he could become a member of the household.
Sure, he wasn’t regal like Pax and Nox, but he was a bundle of love, and I’d love nothing more than to hold him again.
Once the cats got bored of my petting, they wandered off, intertwining their tails as they went . . . the night and the moon, diametrically opposed and yet perfectly paired. I went to browse the books in the library.
I wandered past the stacks, enjoying the feeling of the clothbound spines under my fingers.
All the classics were covered here. Boccaccio’s Decameron, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, and Il Canzoniere by Petrarch.
I pulled a copy of The Divine Comedy from the shelves and went to sit in the chair before the fire.
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.”
The first lines called to me. I felt their meaning deep in my soul.
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a dark wood,
for the straight way had been lost.
The straight way for me had been lost three years ago, when I’d come home to Ivan Markovic and Father Vargas with my mother in her small, humble sitting room.
A part of me had been angry at her for a long time for what I’d seen as a betrayal.
But over time, that pain had ebbed. She had feared for my mortal soul.
She’d trusted the wrong people. She was the only family I had left.
Still, she had helped bring me to that wood where Dante had begun his journey through purgatory, hell, and beyond. Would I ever reach the end?
I was so engrossed in the book, I didn’t notice the presence leaning over the chair from behind me until he spoke.
“Before me nothing but eternal things were made,
And I endure eternally.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
Massimo translated easily. He switched effortlessly between English and Italian with a skill I envied. I glanced up at him. I couldn’t get used to the sight of him in civilian clothes.
I shivered. “That has to be the creepiest part of this whole poem.”
“Maybe so, but for you, it’s also the most prophetic.”
I frowned up at him askance, and a contented grin played around his lips.
“For I will keep you eternally, and you shall never leave me. Don’t bother hoping for it,” he murmured.
His hands went to my hair, and he stroked through the strands.
“So, you’re my stalker now?” I attempted to lighten the mood, but honestly, what had happened yesterday was pure madness. The church and rushed ceremony were a blur of memory. I’d woken up thinking I’d imagined it.
“Hmm, maybe I am.” He pulled my hand upward and pressed a kiss to my ring finger. At some point during the night, a huge ruby surrounded by diamonds had appeared on it. My hand felt heavier thanks to its opulence.
I stared at the jewel twinkling in the light.
“Why did you give this to me?” I wondered. It wasn’t a small ring. It was a statement. I just didn’t know what it was a statement of.
“Why? You don’t like it?”
“It looks like an engagement ring,” I mused.
He nodded. “Shall we just make it official then?”
“Make what official?”
“Getting married.”
I stared at him for a second and then laughed. “Very funny. I’m not adding another responsibility to the load I’ve laid on your shoulders. You’ve already had to do a hell of a lot of crap for me. I’m not adding marriage to the list.”
He was quiet for a long while, but it wasn’t a peaceful silence. Finally, he took my hand and rubbed his fingers over the ring he’d put on it.
“It belonged to a noblewoman of the Savoy family. She used to live right here, in this very house,” Massimo told me. “Paolo swears her ghost haunts these halls.”
“Did she have a happy life?” I asked.
“She killed off four husbands who failed to please her and died with her children all around her, pampered, spoiled, and powerful, so, I think so.”
“Powerful,” I muttered, turning the ring this way and that. “I wonder what that feels like.”
Massimo watched me. “You already know more than you think. Locked up in Hallow Hall with your mind intact, your wit razor-sharp, and your goodness unspoiled? That’s power, whether you realize it or not.”
I shook my head, sure that I wasn’t worthy of that kind of praise. I’d only just survived in that place. That was hardly powerful.
“They didn’t break you,” he urged. “Don’t you see how strong you are?”
I shook my head. “I don’t feel strong.”
He just shrugged. “Yet, that doesn’t mean you aren’t. How are you feeling?”
Now it was my turn to shrug. “Okay, I guess, though I kind of miss not having any memories. The last three years aren’t something I’m eager to think about.”
“And you don’t have to. You have me now. I’ll think about it, keep your tally and settle your scores.”
“And Mira? I want to know what happened to her child. I want to make sure it never happens to someone else at Hallow Hall.”
“That shithole is no longer. It wasn’t a small fire. It’s gone. They won’t be rebuilding. I don’t want to upset you, angel, but I found out some information from my doctor friend about the medications you’ve been on.”
“What is it?” I felt worried for a second that he was going to sugarcoat it, conceal things to protect me, when all I wanted was the truth.
It was my truth. It was my right to know it.
Luckily, he didn’t even try. By the time he finished telling me everything, I was shocked and furious.
The rage threatened to blacken my vision.
“So, you’re telling me that Ivan was giving me these drugs from our very first date?”
Massimo nodded. This was news indeed. I didn’t know what to make of it. It meant that I’d been Ivan’s target from the very first second we met.
“He was slipping you something that could cause side effects like voices . . . which you developed. You then went to your doctor about it, and that gave them a reasonable excuse to put you in Hallow Hall.”
“I still don’t understand why they wanted me there to begin with.” I had so many unanswered questions, and it was driving me crazy. Maybe my mom could shed some light on it, though I already knew she had really believed that Hallow Hall would be good for my soul.
Massimo sighed. “I know. We’ll find out together, and now that the drugs have stopped . . . you shouldn’t hear the voices as much, if at all.”
I took in that information. It had never been anything other than a side effect of a medication I should never have been taking. It was hard to get my head around.
“So, it wasn’t angels after all? Are you disappointed?” I asked Massimo.
He chuckled and shook his head. “Science is one thing. I have my own opinions on you, my little angel of vengeance.”
“Didn’t you hear? I was never talking to angels, I was just tripping on the wrong meds,” I pressed.
He shook his head. “You can’t make me believe anything. You saw me when I first walked in, without any prior warning of the kind of person I was. You saw me, and I saw you, angel. I know what you are, just like you know what I am.”
“But you’re not a devil or a demon. You’re a man who takes in stray cats and ran back into a burning building for a little girl. You’re the man who restored this beautiful house instead of letting them tear it down. You care about things . . . you just don’t let anyone know it.”
“I care about you, and I don’t care who knows it. I’ll shout it from the rooftops so everyone knows,” Massimo murmured. His voice was deep, seductive, and sitting in the firelight, his face painted with hollows and shadows, making him look like a work of art, he was impossible to resist.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get in my pants, Father Lucciano,” I teased him.