The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story (20 page)

“I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”

Chapter 25

I did not get much sleep the rest of the night. Nero said nothing more to me about abandoning Samuel and running off, but I felt he tried to convince me with every touch and every kiss. In the morning, he watched me dress with that same quiet thoughtfulness I did not like, but he did not try to stop me.

I gave him instructions for Samuel and went to the piano nobile. Giulia answered the door. She glared at me as if she meant to flay me alive with her stare, and I realized that of course she must know where Nero had spent the night. She knew everything. Resolutely, I said, “Is Madame Basilio in?”

I thought she would close the door in my face, but just then Nero’s aunt stepped into the receiving hall and said something sharply in Venetian, and Giulia stepped back mulishly to let me in.

Madame Basilio gestured to me to follow her. Her heels clacked ominously on the floor; her back was rigid with disapproval, and I remembered Nero telling me that the whole house knew of his interest in me. I could only assume that Giulia had spoken of us, and Madame Basilio knew how well I’d disregarded her warning.

It was disconcerting knowing that such private things had been fodder for discussion. Disconcerting and humiliating. I had not yet even accustomed myself to what had happened between us; I did not know how to defend it or ignore it. I did not even know what it
meant
.

We went into the sala, and she turned to stare at me, those dark, birdlike eyes unblinking and cold. “I asked you to leave my nephew alone.”

It didn’t help that I’d expected it. “Perhaps you should have asked him as well.”

She pressed her hand to the nearby lamp table and sank into the chair beside it as if she’d suddenly lost her strength. “Why have you come?”

“I want to know why you think M’sieur Farber needs a priest.”

Her chin jerked up. Her expression changed to pure self-satisfaction. “You have seen her?”

Uneasily, I thought of the shroud and the perfume.
Nothing. My imagination.
“No, I haven’t. But M’sieur Farber believes he has, and I wonder what you think a priest can do.”

She murmured something in Venetian that sounded like a prayer and rose. “We must go to Padre Pietro immediately. Come, mademoiselle. We will speak to the priest together.”

It was not what I’d expected, but there seemed no good way to excuse myself, and I had set this in motion, hadn’t I? I supposed it would be best to discover what Madame Basilio was telling the world about my patient, to see what she really believed. So I followed her out of the palazzo, through the courtyard, to the gate leading into the campo. She led me to the narrow end, across a rail-less bridge whose stones were slick with a morning mist that still scrimmed the canal, on the other side of which was the Madonna dell’ Orto.

The gray stone and brick campo was quiet. We were the only ones in it as Madame Basilio hurried us across. It felt odd; the church was so beautiful I expected that visitors would flock to it. Its sloping sides were topped with arches of white stone, each containing a statue of an apostle. Looming over all was the brick bell tower, square-sided with an onion dome. At the summit was a white marble statue of the Redeemer.

Madame Basilio barely spared a glance as she walked quickly through the door. Inside, I blinked in the change from bright sunlight to the soft, dim light from the arched windows. Pillars of swirled gray and white marble, a double aisle, pews softly glossy. The pentagonal apse held gorgeously illuminated, richly colored paintings on either side of the altar. Tintoretto, I remembered Nero saying. This was the artist’s parish church; his tomb was here. I wished for the chance to look at it, but when I paused, Madame Basilio hissed, “Mademoiselle,” the sibilant echo ricocheting among the archways, and gestured urgently for me to catch up.

There, near one of the front pews, was a deacon, the only other person I’d seen in the church or the campo. I’d begun to have the creeping sense that we were alone in the world. He looked up as we approached, starting slightly when he saw me. I saw when he realized I was not whomever he’d thought me to be, and he turned to Madame Basilio with a bow. The same kind that Nero had made to me. A Venetian specialty, it seemed.

“Ciao, Signora Basilio,” he greeted.

She sputtered something to him in Venetian; I recognized only the words
Padre Pietro
. The deacon nodded and led us into the back rooms of the church, a hallway lined with doors. He stopped before one and knocked, speaking swiftly. I heard a muttered answer from within, and the deacon opened the door to usher us in, and closed the door behind us.

The office was small, with an arched and mullioned window, the scent of gas almost nauseating. A gaunt, balding man with a fringe of closely shorn gray hair was bent over a ledger. His hands were stained with ink, his back hunched as if he had held that position for so long he had grown into it. His nose was hooked, his eyes bleary as he looked up at us. He looked like a hidebound academic, not at all what I had pictured Madame Basilio’s savior to be. But when he saw us, those eyes sharpened. The redness in them seemed to clear away; they became a pale and icy blue.

He rose. I had the impression he was not used to moving. He said, “Signora Basilio,” and then proceeded to spout a long string of Venetian that of course I didn’t understand. What was clear, however, was that he had expected her, and that this was the continuation of a conversation that had obviously been going on for some time.

Madame Basilio sat in one of the chairs facing the desk. I took the other. He sat again, and glanced at me in question, and Madame Basilio made a curt gesture toward me, speaking what I assumed was an explanation, and then Father Pietro was saying to me in French, “You’re an American?”

I nodded, and his gaze became assessing; I felt I was being studied like an ant or a curious species of butterfly. His gaze left me the next moment, dismissive, finished—
I have learned all I wish to know
.

“How can you help?” I asked bluntly in French. “What does God have to say about ghosts?”

His interest bounced back, those sharp eyes. “Souls, mademoiselle. They are souls who have returned to relay His message.”

“I don’t know that I believe in such things, Father,” I answered. “But I cannot explain what I have witnessed, or what my patient claims to see. I had hoped you might have an answer about how to help him.”

“What have you witnessed? What has he seen?”

I told him, stumbling over the words, struggling to say what I meant in a language not my own. The complexities here I could not master. But the priest listened attentively, and when I was finished, he looked at Madame Basilio in surprise.

She said, “What does this stranger know? She comes into our house and thinks she understands. But I am the one who knows my daughter best. She is an angel come to render the Lord’s judgment.”

“That’s what Samuel calls it,” I said. “He says an angel shows him things. But do angels do things like this?” I reached for my collar, undoing the tiny buttons at the throat, peeling it back to show him the bruises.

Father Pietro frowned.

“She shows Samuel visions as if she means to drive him mad. She makes him want to hurt me. Perhaps she’s jealous, but—”

“What did you say?” the priest asked.

“Did I use the wrong word? Let me think . . .” I searched my memory for the correct French term.

Madame Basilio leaned forward, her arm on his desk, her fingers brushing the leaves of the ledger as if she could not keep them still. “Jealousy? Bah!
He
was always the jealous one. Not her. I tell you, my angel—”

“How can she be an angel when she took her own life?” I had spoken impatiently and unthinkingly, and Madame Basilio’s expression went stony.

“That is a lie. Where did you hear such talk?”

I realized my misstep. I should have remembered what Nero had told me, the story they’d circulated, the “accident” with no hint of mortal sin for priests and neighbors to judge. Even in New York, with Joshua, his suicide—if it had indeed been that, instead of an accidental overdose, which was just as bad, both ends unspeakable—had been covered up.
He’d been so very ill. He had a fatal reaction to a medication. Perhaps it was God’s mercy that he was called to Heaven now. The disease could only have grown worse.

My father had lied for the Lockwoods, giving them the face-saving excuse they’d needed, and I wondered if the priest was doing the same for Madame Basilio now. His expression was bland; I had no idea what he believed. Quietly, I said, “Forgive me. I’d heard a rumor. I should not be repeating such hurtful gossip.”

“No,” Madame Basilio said. “You should not.”

Father Pietro said to me, “The room grows cold, you say? And you see strange things in his eyes?”

“He is not himself,” I said, trying again to find the words to explain. “He tried to take his own life. He’s afraid and impossible to control. He’s so strong, too, much more so than he should be, and . . .” I faltered as Father Pietro’s expression slowly changed from one of polite sympathy to horror.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“She is trying to tell us something,” Madame Basilio jumped in. “She wishes to show us the truth.”

She’d said that before, and I’d thought she meant God’s word, but now there was something about the way she said it that made me think it wasn’t that at all. “What truth, Madame? What do you mean?”

Father Pietro’s raised hand stopped her from answering me. “I would like to see him. Tomorrow, at noon. I wish some time to pray for guidance.”

I still didn’t know how he felt he could help. Prayers and confession, I felt, would be useless here. But then again, ghosts and demons were beyond my expertise.
How strange that I should even be considering this.
“Thank you, Father. Perhaps you can find the answer to this puzzle.”

“I already know the answer,” Father Pietro said.

“You do?”

Father Pietro said, “I begin to think that your patient is no longer just a man.”

I frowned. I felt Madame Basilio stiffen beside me.

Father Pietro pressed his fingers to his lips thoughtfully. “I think we are dealing with a demon. What do you know about exorcism, mademoiselle?”

Chapter 26

Madame Basilio’s sharply indrawn breath was too loud in the silence that followed the priest’s words.

“Exorcism?” I asked in disbelief.

Nero’s aunt began muttering in Venetian—a prayer, I thought. The priest frowned and said something to her, and she snapped back at him before rising abruptly, saying to me, “We must go now.”

I looked at Father Pietro uncertainly. I had no idea what had passed between them, nor whether I should follow her lead. He said quietly, in French for my benefit, “I am not saying that your daughter has turned from God, Madame. I do not know that she is the demon who possesses M’sieur Farber.”

“It
is
my daughter,” Madame Basilio insisted. “She is trying to tell us something. She has answered my prayers. And she is no demon, but one of God’s holy angels.”

“We shall see,” the priest said. “I shall be there tomorrow at noon. May God be with both of you.”

Madame Basilio nearly ran spitting from the room. I followed more slowly. An exorcism. Possession. I would have said I didn’t believe in it. But what I’d seen in Samuel’s eyes, the way he spoke of her—in his head was her voice, her memories, her anguish and her anger. Singing her favorite song, speaking a language he did not know.

Possession.

The priest believed in it, and I had certainly heard of such things. My father would have said it was only madness, and until now, I might have said the same. But I knew it wasn’t insanity I saw in Samuel, and this . . . well, I supposed it didn’t matter what I believed. I wanted some kind of answer, as I had none of my own. I wanted someone to
do
something before I ended up having to make excuses to a grieving family again, before I had to find a way of making Samuel’s end acceptable to a society already too prone to despise him.

Once we were out the door, and onto the abandoned campo, Madame Basilio turned to me in a fury. “God has not abandoned my daughter.”

“Of course not,” I said, placating.

“Laura did not take her own life. She would never have done such a thing.”

My pity for her grew. “Perhaps she hid her despair from you.”

“You come here and think you understand.”

“I haven’t meant to trouble you. I’m only trying to take care of my patient.”

“Is that all?” she asked meanly. “I did not realize that bedding my nephew was part of M’sieur Farber’s treatment.”

What I would have given to be able to control my blushes.

Madame Basilio made a sound of satisfaction. “You are a fool. Ask Nerone what happened the night Laura died. I should dearly love to know what he says.”

We were at the gate. She hurried through so quickly it nearly slammed shut before I could follow. I rushed after her.

“I don’t understand. Are you accusing him of something?”

She stopped. Her expression set with displeasure. “I accuse him of nothing. But he will not answer my questions. Perhaps he will answer yours.”

My thoughts were racing and dodging, everything dancing just out of my reach. I glanced up at the third floor, catching a movement in my bedroom window as if someone stood there watching. I gasped; the memory of the shrouded figure flashed back. It was her, that whisper of movement, that flicker of light. Laura Basilio’s spirit. What else could it be?

I felt a moment of panic before I remembered that the room was not just mine anymore, but Nero’s too. All this talk of ghosts and possession . . . It was no shroud I’d seen, but undoubtedly Nero moving about. Suddenly all thoughts of Laura’s ghost, of Samuel and the visit with the priest, fled, and I was awash in the shame I’d felt beneath Giulia’s gaze and at Madame Basilio’s words, aware suddenly of my intense feelings for Nero, and how quickly I’d succumbed, how right it had felt to be in his arms.

The wantonness of my character troubled me. I was so easily seduced. Were other women so undone by desire? I’d felt the same kind of excitement in Joshua Lockwood’s kiss, in Samuel’s, that I’d felt in Nero’s. What kind of a woman was I that I could let a man make love to me without the promise of a future? What was wrong with me that it was so easy?

I went up the stairs to the third floor with a heavy step. I had been incautious, but then again, what were the chances that word of this would get back to New York City, to my parents and my aunt and cousin? None perhaps, especially if I stopped it now.

The third floor was quiet. No laughter, no talk. I felt a flurry of fear: Where was Samuel? Again I thought of him opening the balcony door, stepping out, leaning too far over the rail. I hurried down the hall, but when I got to his room, he was in bed, sound asleep. Nero was nowhere in sight.

I went to my bedroom, thinking to find him there, but it was empty, the burning lamp the only evidence that he’d been there recently, the flickering light I’d seen from below. But when I stepped back into the hallway, the air felt prickly, charged, the way it did before a thunderstorm in New York, but softer, blurred and unfocused.
Laura’s ghost
, I thought, and shivered, startled at how impressionable I was now, how much I wanted to believe something, anything, that seemed to explain Samuel’s behavior, no matter how ludicrous. I wanted the priest to be right. I wanted to believe in possession, because that would mean Samuel wasn’t mad. It would mean he could be cured.

The charged feeling didn’t ease as I went to the sala, and I was reassured to see Nero there. He was half lounging on the settee, an open book on the cushions beside him. At the sight of him, I felt a surge of desire, the need to touch and be touched, a rush like adrenalin, but lower and deeper.

“What are you reading?” I asked.

He started. It was obvious that he’d been involved enough that I’d come upon him unawares. He didn’t smile when he saw me, though. Slowly, he sat up. “A book I’d given to Samuel. I’ve read it before.”

I could not read his expression, but it made me nervous in a way I couldn’t explain. “It must be engrossing, if you’ve read it before and I could still sneak up on you.”

“You would know, I imagine.”

“I would?”

“I found it in your room.” He flipped the cover closed. Yellow paper, worn and ragged. “Beneath your mattress.”

“Oh. Oh, I . . .”

“I’m curious to know how it came to be in your possession.” His tone was flat; I heard no emotion at all.

“Samuel asked me to read it.”

“Really?” He rose, slow and languid. “For what reason? No, don’t answer that. I can guess. The same reason any man gives a woman such a thing.”

Now I recognized what I was seeing. Jealousy. I said quickly, “It’s not what you think. He gave it to me because . . . because he wanted me to understand what I was asking him to give up.”

“I see.” Nero’s voice was deceptively mild. “Did you read it with him?”

“Only a few paragraphs, and then I couldn’t go on. He meant to tease me, that was all.”

“Only to tease?” Nero stepped forward.

“Yes. He laughed at how embarrassed I was.”

“Did he kiss you again?”

He advanced. Involuntarily, I stepped back. The wall was just behind me; there was no place else to go. I raised my chin and faced him—I had nothing to be ashamed of.
Except for the way you felt at Samuel’s kiss. The way you liked the feel of him. How easily you respond to a touch.
“It wasn’t like that.”

“He wanted it to be like that, though, didn’t he?”

I couldn’t deny it; Nero knew already that was true.

He pressed closer, his body against mine now, pinning me there. “He meant to arouse you, didn’t he?” His voice was hoarse; his eyes darkening, glittering, a danger I recognized, and a part of me thrilled at it, at how reckless he was, how passionate.

The air became electric; my breath turned to fog. The temperature dropped precipitously, and I tried to catch my breath. “Nero, this is ridiculous—”

“Did it work? Did he seduce you with the book? Which part did you like best, hmmm? The interlude with the priest? The one with the aunt? Did you like the whipping? Or the two women together—”

“N-none of those.”

“Which part then?” His words materialized as frost. He pushed his hips into mine. “Come, cara, which appealed to you best? The toys? The two men with the virgin? The carriage ride? Which would you like to try? Did you tell Samuel?”

“Please, Nero.” The images his words conjured . . . that flutter again.
What is wrong with you, that such perversions excite?
I felt ashamed and embarrassed, and below it all, aroused, and his jealousy aroused as well. “I’m not that kind of woman. I would never—”

“But you were that kind of woman with me, weren’t you?” His voice was needling, as icy as the room. “All it took was a touch and you were mine. When I kissed you, you only wanted more. Why shouldn’t I think it would be the same with any man?”

My own thoughts. My own fears. I struggled against them, and suddenly they were gone, and in their place were my desires manifest, a vision of him arching above me, pressing into me, rough and hard, his curls falling into his face, and the gleaming of his eyes, the snarl on his lips, his anger coalescing into something dark and dangerous and painful too, his jealousy raw and potent and terrifying, and suddenly I wanted that. I wanted him to feel how dangerous I was too. I wanted to hurt him. I could not resist it. I wanted him in my power. I wanted to see him crawl.

Before I understood what I was doing, I gripped the knife in my pocket; I drew the blade, bringing it up, pressing to the point just below his ribs.

He went very still, his eyes widening, jealousy giving way to wariness, and yes—yes, there it was. The fear I craved. I pressed harder.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

I pressed harder, twisting my wrist so the flat of the blade was against his shirt.

“
Santa Maria
,” he murmured.

But oh, I loved that look in his eyes. Fear and desire, anger and wariness and arousal. His nostrils flared; I felt the leap of intoxication between us. I wanted to see more. My skin felt too sensitive; I felt as if I were fashioned of ice, with a heart of fire, and within that heart my satisfaction burned. I saw him still and pale, on the floor. I could do that, I knew. Reduce him to nothing. One quick stab, and he would be at my feet, crawling in blood. Lifeless. Breathless.

I dug the knife a little deeper, raising a spot of blood. His gasp was hard and broken.

I could do it now.
Skin blue. Eyelashes crusted with frost. Beautiful and cold and still for eternity. One thrust of the knife and how ironic it would be. Stabbed through with his own blade
. . . how tempting it was.

“Elena,” he whispered. His hand came to mine, gripped as it was about the hilt. His fingers were warm—so warm. How did my own become so cold? I felt the blood moving into them at his touch. His eyes burned. I was mesmerized by the working of his throat, the muscles, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple.

Skin blue. Nero crawling on the floor at my feet. Supplication and pleas, begging for mercy only I could give
 . . .

“Cara. Elena.”

I blinked, trying to think, my thoughts like mist snaking through my head, twining and hard to manage, hard to take hold of. It wasn’t me. It didn’t feel like me. I knew who it was. Laura Basilio, her spirit restless and angry and vengeful. A demon, Father Pietro had thought.
And if it were true? What then?

I felt Nero’s hand firm on mine. I felt the rapid rise and fall of his chest. I felt him watching, and Laura Basilio’s desires snapped; I felt the loss of her, a clenched fist suddenly loosened, releasing, impotent in the wake of my claim. My mind was my own again, but now I’d felt the power I had over him, and I liked it. I wanted more. My arousal spiraled; I didn’t know where such longing came from.
The Nunnery Tales
, perhaps, or perhaps it was only that the book fed something already within me. I didn’t stop to consider; I only accepted it as mine. I pulled my hand with the knife gently from Nero’s, and then I flashed the blade at him and said, “Take off your clothes.”

My own boldness surprised me. But once I said it, I felt an exhilaration that was almost terrifying in its intensity. I felt . . . otherworldly. Not myself, but something stronger, better.

He frowned; I saw him measuring me through his uneasiness. “Here? Anyone could come in.”

I gestured with the knife. “I don’t care. Take off your clothes.”

“Cara—”

“Or should I do it for you?” I asked.

I put the knife to his chest again, and he didn’t move, but only watched me, his own breath hitching as I sliced one button from his shirt, opening the collar, and then another. I heard them ping to the floor, bounce and roll. When I got to the bottom of the placket, I simply sliced, straight through the fabric, splitting it neatly, exposing his skin. I gestured again.

His smile was dark and dangerous; I saw the way my hunger fed his. He said nothing, only slipped out of his coat, his shirt, letting them both fall to the floor. The light in the room flickered as if touched with a gasping breath. I ran the point of the knife lightly down his chest, not making a mark, but pressing enough that he must feel it. His breathing was shallow and fast. I rested the knife at the waistband of his trousers and looked up at him. “Now these.”

I didn’t take my gaze from his as he stepped out of them and his underwear, and he stood naked before me. I had never wanted anything as I wanted him in that moment. His smooth, olive-toned skin and the hardness of him and the gleaming blade. I pushed him back to the settee, the edge at the back of his thighs, and he sat down hard.
The Nunnery Tales
bounced to the floor, splaying open. Nero reached for me then, but I held up the knife in warning and shook my head, and his hands fell back.

I was trembling with the strain of waiting. I lifted my skirts, unfastened my drawers and let them fall, and then I straddled him. I knew I could put the knife down now, but there was a power in it I relished, a brutality and cruelty that called to me, that made me want to answer. Nero’s gaze was coiled and watching. I dug the knife into his flesh, not hard, just another nick, a tiny bit of blood. His pained inhalation made my head spin with excitement and anticipation. I could wait no longer.