TWENTY
Jack
Stunned.
Silence.
Well, from the triplets at least.
Chiara didn’t look too surprised by my announcement. She simply gazed out the window, eyes unfocused. I think part of her had known.
The brothers, however? Slack-jawed. Their shock palpable.
After a few minutes of mouths hanging open, Dante let out a long hissing breath. “Didn’t see this conversation landing with our father, to be honest. So you’re saying Chiara is a medium who is channeling messages from Cesare? I’m not sure I’m buying it.”
“And are we convinced Chiara has a GUT? The evidence we have is circumstantial at best.” Tennyson shot a glance at her. “Sorry, sis.”
I expected Chiara to smirk and make a cheeky remark. Instead, she continued to stare out the window.
“I see meaning in the patterns of birds.” Her voice soft. “I’ve always considered myself superstitious, but as I’ve thought about it, I’ve realized that my superstitions have almost always been right.”
Quiet.
“And the lightning?” Dante asked.
Chiara gasped, walking toward the window, still staring out. Sea gulls darted over the water.
“Change comes,” she murmured. “We must find power for the lightning.”
The scar in the corner flickered, edges fluttering open.
“That was a prediction,” I said. Every head swung my way. “The scar opened.”
“Power flowing from the shadow world.” Branwell let out a slow breath.
“Lightning? Again, why lightning?” Dante muttered. “I haven’t heard this much talk about lightning since Babbo died.”
“That might just be the point,” I muttered.
Chiara turned back to us, her eyes automatically seeking mine. Her expression so lost, so haunted.
“What?” Dante said, looking between us. “What was that look? Is this about Dad?”
“Do they know? About your father’s death?” I forced her to hold my gaze.
“No,” said so softly.
“They deserve to know.”
“Why? It . . . it’s old news.”
“If it’s still affecting the present—and possibly the future based on what you keep predicting—then it’s not.”
“Spill, you two.” Dante motioned with his fingers. “No secrets with this.”
“Tell them, Chiara.” My eyes held a promise—I would be there to catch her should she fall.
She swallowed and bit her lip, eyes blinking rapidly. She turned away from us all, staring at the Frozen poster.
“Chiara—” Tennyson began.
“Please don’t tease me.” She whipped around and jabbed a finger at each of her brothers in turn. “This is hard and painful, and I don’t need you guys making it more difficult.”
Dante . . . crumpled. His shoulders sagged and his eyes went so soft. He moved quickly and wrapped Chiara in an enormous, suffocating hug, his large body completely engulfing her.
“Chiara, sweetheart.” His voice gruff. “I know we tease, but we love you. Trust us with this.”
Tentatively, Chiara relaxed, finally hugging Dante back. He led her to the couch, sitting her down.
“Tell us,” he said. “Obviously Dad’s death wasn’t as straightforward as we thought.”
“Yeah.” Branwell joined them on the couch. “We knew you were in the villa at the time, but we all thought you were asleep or something when lightning hit the tower.”
Chiara shook her head, hiccupping. “N-no . . . I s-saw it.”
Absolute silence.
“I s-saw Babbo die.” She broke down after that.
The brothers instantly gathered around her on the couch, holding and sustaining each other.
Through sobs and hiccups, Chiara told the story of their father’s death from her perspective. Of the jagged lightning. Of her horror as Cesare stared straight at her . . . and still went ahead with his plan, calling lightning down from the sky.
All four D’Angelo siblings were on the couch, cuddled together at this point. Chiara’s crying had subsided, but each of the brothers wiped the occasional tear away.
“Damn, Chiara.” Dante ran a hand over the back of his neck.
Another long pause.
“Why did you never tell us, sis?” Tennyson whispered into the silence.
“You didn’t know?” she asked him.
“I knew you hurt, but I didn’t know why. Of course, our father had died, so I didn’t assume your emotions were more than that. Why not talk about it?”
She sniffed again, swiping at her cheeks. “I guess I felt like it was my fault. If I had been more—more lovable, more loved—Babbo wouldn’t have left us.”
“Oh, Chiara.”
“I failed us all,” she continued. “I couldn’t bear you being angry or upset at me for not stopping him.”
Tennyson pulled his sister closer to his chest. “Babbo had his own demons, Chiara. Never blame yourself for his actions. I know not one of us ever would.”
Her lip quivered and she buried her face in his chest.
Branwell leaned back and scrubbed both gloved hands over his face. “Wow. Did not expect us to land in this dark place today.”
Tennyson snorted. “Speak for yourself.”
“What? You saw this?”
Tennyson half-shrugged. “I sensed that something emotionally heavy was going to go down . . . so, yeah.”
“Why not warn us?” Dante asked.
“He never warns us,” Branwell grunted.
“Stop, you guys.” Chiara pushed Dante’s shoulder. “Tenn doesn’t have to tell us everything.”
“Says the woman who has been keeping major secrets,” Dante said.
“Moving on.” Branwell slapped his thighs. “So Chiara might be an oracle, and Dad is trying to use her as a medium to communicate something?”
“Not that we can prove that.” Dante cocked his head in my direction. “Can we?”
Actually . . .
“Chiara could try to deliberately act as an oracle,” I said.
That got her attention. She raised her head from Tennyson’s shoulder. “So seek it out, instead of simply allowing the insights to come to me?”
“Exactly.”
We all exchanged a look.
“How would I do that exactly?” Chiara finally asked.
Tennyson stood up, nodding his head. “When I was in Afghanistan, I often felt like an oracle when trying to predict the next attack.”
“Did it go down like last week?” Dante asked, referencing our testing of the rifts back in Florence.
“Yeah. I’ll be honest, when I use my GUT like that—going into a sort of trance and someone asking me a question—I don’t feel as fractured. It feels good.” Tennyson paused. “It feels right.”
Silence.
“That’s an answer, I suppose.” Chiara sat forward on the couch. “Obviously, whatever has been happening, it’s when my mind is detached in sleep. Perhaps I can recreate that state without actually falling asleep.”
“It’s worth a try. I can walk you through it, sis.” Tennyson turned back to her.
Chiara crossed her legs on the couch, leaning her head against a pillow and closing her eyes. “Is this good, do you think?”
“Yeah. You want to try to empty your mind, like you do during yoga.”
“Okay. Wait—” She opened one eye. “What about Jack?”
“What about me?”
Her look was all don’t-be-daft. “The ghost-grabbing gooey sludge, remember?”
Ah. True.
“Like I said earlier, the Chucky-slime has never come through when any of you have deliberately activated your GUTs,” I said. “I’m willing to risk it.”
Chiara frowned, as if she wanted to say something.
“I will be all right, Chiara.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Empty my mind. I can do this.”
Head tilted back, she closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed.
Just as Tennyson had the previous week, Chiara intoned, “What is it you seek? Ask me a question and I will answer.”
“I seek my father, Cesare D’Angelo.” Tennyson’s voice rang clear in the room. “I wish to speak with him.”
I kept half an eye on the scar in the corner, it flickered every now and again.
Suddenly, it fluttered open.
“Something’s happening,” I murmured.
“The scar?” Branwell asked, darting a look to the corner where he assumed it was.
“Yeah. It opened.”
“Fascinating.” Tennyson kept his eyes riveted on his sister.
Abruptly, the scar flared wider, rifting open. The edges turned golden and fluttered as if in some unseen breeze, just as it did when one of the triplets deliberately activated their GUTs.
Chiara’s head snapped to attention, eyes opening.
Chiara’s gaze but . . . not.
She looked around the room.
Dante. Branwell. Tennyson.
“Cesare?” Dante asked. “Babbo? Can you hear me?”
Chiara stared at him. Eyes unblinking.
“Trova il potere,” she said in the same creepy low voice she used when sleepwalking. “Chiude il lampo.”
Find the power. End the lightning.
More of the same. Words she had said before while sleepwalking.
“I think Babbo said those same words in his suicide note.” Branwell murmured. “Find the power. End the lightning.”
“But what do they mean?” Tennyson asked.
Chiara frowned, gaze confused.
I suddenly realized that she was shaking. Goosebumps pebbled her skin despite the summer heat.
“It all went wrong when the lightning began,” she said, her voice that same creepy monotone. “You must go back to that. Lightning is the answer.”
“What must we go back to?” Tennyson again. “When did the lightning begin?”
Chiara rotated fully toward him.
“What must we go back to?” Tennyson repeated.
“The beginning,” Chiara’s voice vibrated.
Alright.
“What beginning? What went wrong?” Tennyson asked.
But the atmosphere had changed. Chiara’s trembling reached a fevered pitch.
Chiara turned in my direction, eyes huge, snagging my gaze with earnest intent. She then deliberately turned and pointed to the flapping rift.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “It comes now.”
“Pardon?”
“It comes.” Eyes black. “RUN!”
I felt it then, surging forward. The black, soul-sucking sludge. The Chucky-slime.
It was hungry for me.
I ran.
I dashed through the front door and threw myself down the stairs.
Could I outrun the oozing goo? What was its range? At what distance would I be safe?
Turns out, I couldn’t run away fast enough.
The rushing slime chased me down the stairwell. An angry monster, nipping at my heels. It wrapped around me, lassoing my arms, tangling my legs. Mercilessly, it pulled me back up the stairs. It was more powerful this time, even more present. Nearly sentient in its intent.
I pushed, trying to turn a hand corporeal so I could grab on to the stair railing, anything to hold myself in the present.
Nothing.
It was like trying to move a mountain with one finger. I pushed and pushed but nothing budged. Either my body was still spent from the night before, or something about the Chucky-slime blocked me.
The oily sludge sucked me upward. Through floors and the wooden door. I undulated and twisted, trying to break free.
Nothing stopped it. Relentless.
I whooshed into the apartment, scrambling frantically to avoid being sucked down. The scar loomed—a black, malevolent maw.
Shapes roiled inside it.
“HELP!”
Branwell and Dante were already on it. Branwell slapped Chiara, trying to bring her out of her trance.
I was fighting with everything I had. Swimming desperate strokes. Getting sucked inside the rift would be bad. I could sense it in my ghost bones.
My clothes pulled against my body. One boot worked its way free, popping off my left foot and flowing into the open scar. My right boot soon followed.
I couldn’t remove my clothing myself, but for some reason, I was fully physical to the Chucky-slime. It made no sense.
And still I struggled to break free.
My body felt stretched, as if on the edge of a black hole. The event horizon.
“Chiara!” Tennyson yelled.
He lifted his sister’s body, placing her between me and the scar.
I wanted to hold her.
I wanted to tell her I loved her.
I wanted to be the man who could propose to her. Create a life together. Grow old with her.
Instead, I slid through her.
Bones. Flesh. Blood.
Like everything else in my life, slipping away.
Chiara mia, I am so sorry.
I closed my eyes, anticipating the worst.
“CHIARA!!” Tennyson screamed.
The maw snapped closed.
I flew forward, burying myself in the couch. I pulled out and turned back to the room.
Tennyson and Dante knelt on the floor, Tennyson cradling Chiara’s limp body. Everyone was breathing hard, the sound harsh in the small room.
“Can you hear me, Chiara?” Dante asked. “Come back to us.”
I instantly crossed to her. Seeing Chiara unconscious was almost unbearable.
Fortunately, she moaned and turned her head.
“What about you, Jack?” Tennyson raised his head.
“Yeah, you okay? You seem worse for wear.” Branwell looked me up and down.
I surveyed my body. The vortex had indeed further rumpled me. My boots were gone and one sock was partially off, hanging loose. My shirt had come untucked and my waistcoat had lost two buttons. Unfortunately, the entire episode hadn’t dried me, so I was still decidedly wet.
“Worse for wear?” Tennyson snorted. “Or participating in the slowest strip tease ever?”
He had a point.
Regardless, my state of gradually increasing dishabille was ridiculous.
Chiara jerked fully awake, her eyes frantically searching for mine.
Silence.
“This has to stop.” Dante shook his head, so weary. “The Chucky-slime does come when we deliberately use our gifts. What are we going to do?”
“I summoned the Chucky-slime and almost killed you.” Chiara was upset. Her teeth chattered and her hands trembled.
Her eyes squeezed shut.
Only an hour had passed since my near brush with being sucked into oblivion. We had spent the hour discussing what to do.
The problem was enormous. I could do nothing to stop the Chucky-slime from pulling me into a scar. We didn’t know what damage would happen were I to be sucked in. The D’Angelos couldn’t control when or how a scar opened.
Ergo . . . for my safety, I shouldn’t be around any D’Angelos until we understood how to stop the Chucky-slime.
So we had come up with a plan. Dante would take Chiara’s car and drive me to my villa and . . . well, I wasn’t sure what came after that to be honest. Chiara would go with Tennyson to another hidden location. The Tempeste family were still a threat.
But for now, I was having a hard time seeing past the loss of the woman before me.
The triplets had stepped out to give us some space to say goodbye.
“You’re adorable when you shut your eyes like that.” I swept a ghost hand through her hair, wanting so damn much to be able to hold her.
But between my ocean heroics the night before and my fight to stay out of the Chucky Vortex of Death, I was too tapped out. I couldn’t pull a single strand of hair into corporeality right now.
“Look at me, Chiara,” I coaxed.
She shook her head, lips pressed together. “No. If I don’t open my eyes, then I can’t see birds or any other omens that might trigger the Chucky-slime. I won’t risk hurting you.”
“You’re being a little melodramatic.”
She bit her lip. Eyes still closed. “I d-don’t care.” A tear slipped out, trickling down her cheek. “Don’t you dare say a single word.”
“You’re not crying.”
“Exactly. I’m not crying.” She sniffled and swiped at her cheeks. “And I don’t look a total mess.”
I smiled at that. “You look a total mess.”
Her eyes snapped open. “Whaaaa? How dare you?!”
I ran my gaze up and down her body in skinny jeans and a t-shirt. Her hair was in a loose bun, tilting precariously to the right of her head. Eyes puffy and red. Skin splotchy.
She had never looked more lovely.
“You are a beautiful mess.”
That took the wind out of her. “Oh.”
“ My beautiful mess.”
Another, “Oh.”
“I will miss you, Chiara mia.”
More lip biting. A few more swiped tears. “M-me, too.”
“Will you forgive me?”
Her brow wrinkled. “Forgive you? For what?”
“My ridiculous state of half-existence is the cause of this problem.” I swept a hand down my disheveled person, missing boots, sopping wet and all. “If I weren’t a ghost, we wouldn’t be in this position.”
“No. Don’t you dare say that!” Fire sparked in her dark eyes. “Without your half-existence, I would never have known you. You would have died two hundred years ago. So even though you’re a ghost currently, it’s better than the alternative.”
She was right. So very right. Despite all the mistakes I had made, I would not change them because that would also mean giving up the joy of loving Chiara D’Angelo.
I was crazy for her. I always would be. But I could offer her nothing real. Not now, with everything—
“Stop looking at me like that!” The fire in her eyes raged.
“Pardon?”
“You’re looking at me with those super-sad, I’m-giving-up-now eyes. Stop it. This isn’t over.” She motioned between the two of us. “You can make yourself sorta corporeal. There is hope.”
“But I can’t ask you to wait for me. There is no guarantee that I will ever be fully in this world, not to mention the danger of the Chucky-slime.”
“We’ll keep researching. We will find answers.”
“Chiara—”
“Jaaa-aaack.”
“There’s a wonderful phrase I’ve learned since being in the twenty-first century—Catch-22. We are at an impasse, Chiara mia. Do you not see? When I push myself into corporeality, I create micro cuts in the fabric of reality. You, as an oracle, use your gifts and make those small cuts larger, turning them into scars. Scars which then open when you use your gifts of Second Sight. Gifts which, at times, have some connection to a demon vortex that tries to annihilate me. We can’t win.”
“That’s just the situation at present, Jack. It could change.”
“How? How could it change? If I continue practicing to bring myself fully in this world, I might eventually cause such enormous slashes in reality that everything crumbles. At the very least, I will likely destroy myself in the process. It’s as if the universe has a built-in self-destruct mechanism for creatures like myself. My very existence goes against the laws of reality and so reality finds a way to remove me.”
Chiara paused, tears tumbling down her cheeks again.
She said nothing.
“You have to admit that I am right, my love. There is no way forward for us.”
She swiped away her tears in a frustrated motion, hand shaking.
“I’m not giving up. I refuse.”
“Chiara—”
“No! I’m not giving up and, if you care for me at all, you won’t give up either. Just look at how much we’ve learned about your ghost-like status in the past week alone. There is hope.”
This woman. How I adored her.
“Promise me you’ll continue to fight for us, Jack.” Her enormous brown eyes locked with mine. “Please.”
As if I could deny her anything. “Of course, I’ll fight for us, Chiara mia. But if at any point, this”—I motioned at the space between us—“becomes a burden instead of a delight, I want you to walk away. I never want my situation to keep you from the life you deserve.”
She sniffled again. “Thank you, but I know what I want. That’s you, by the way.”
I smiled in spite of myself.
“Will you take a photo of yourself for me?” I waved my hand toward my tablet. “I want to remember you just like this.”
“Like this? A hot mess?” She swept her hands down her person.
Pretty much.
“Can’t we just video chat later?” she asked.
“That, too.”
I made my eyes as pleading as possible. I loved her like this, and I wanted to be able to pull up photos as a reminder. There were definitely perks to living in the twenty-first century.
She rolled her eyes and picked up my tablet, punching it to life. Grinning, I peeked over her shoulder, wanting to make sure she actually took the photo.
She shot me a glance. “I don’t know—”
My sharp inhalation cut her off.
The tablet opened into my email app, the last thing that had been open. I stared at the email on the screen, words jumping out at me.
. . . dare you contact my boyfriend like this . . .
. . . keep your wandering hands off my man . . .
. . . Jack will not be making any deals with you, so BACK OFF . . .
Chiara hastily pushed the Home button, closing the email app and giving a forced laugh. “Don’t mind that—”
Had I a body, my stomach would have sank, my heart would have sped up and my alarm would have spiked.
“Chiara.” My voice so very quiet. “What was that?” I pointed at the tablet screen.
“Uhm . . . uh . . .” She placed my tablet on the table before tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “It’s nothing, really. My phone was ruined during my little ocean escapade, and I wanted to contact my brothers to let them know I was okay.”
I nodded. That made sense.
“I know I’m not supposed to get into your email, but this seemed like it was an emergency exception kinda situation.”
“Yes. I agree with you. But I’m not sure that”—I pointed at the tablet—“had much to do with your brothers.”
Chiara’s face morphed from contrite to exasperated. “That crazy Candy lady had sent you a bazillion emails trying to get you to talk to her and go out with her . . . she’s loony.”
I wisely chose not to respond to that.
Chiara continued, “Someone needed to let her know that you aren’t interested in her. She needs to back off.”
Silence.
Conflicting emotions flashed through me—disappointment, surprise, flattery, outrage, frustration, hilarity, shock and, well, more disappointment. I didn’t know which one to settle on.
I went with, “And you felt like you had the right to read Candy’s emails to me and respond?”
“Well . . .” Chiara threw her arms in the air. “ . . . yeah. Who else would tell her to back off my man? My mom?”
Had I a body, I would be nursing a glass of scotch and pinching the bridge of my nose at this point.
“No, Chiara, I would be the one to tell Candy to back off.” I tapped my chest. “Why wouldn’t you trust me to do that?”
“I do trust you!”
“How? You replied to messages in my private email account. How is that trust?”
“She was blatantly throwing herself at you!”
“Your point?”
“You’re mine now.”
Her response didn’t sit well with me. “You do realize that I’m a person, correct? Not simply another possession, like a pair of new shoes or a designer handbag? I might be a ghost, but I still have the heart and emotional feelings of any other human being. The men you date are not simply objects to decorate your life.”
“What?!” Her voice climbed several octaves.
“You literally said a few moments ago that you refused to give up on us. But any relationship between two people is built on trust. You have to trust that I will do the right thing, just as I have to trust you not to invade my privacy. When you do things like this, you break the trust between us.”
“She was hitting on you!”
“Chiara, that is not the point here.”
“It is the point. How can I trust that you won’t leave? You’re leaving right now! You’re not even willing to try!”
I gave her my most lordly, withering stare. “You know that this situation is different.”
“Is it, though?”
“I adore you, Chiara mia, but I’m not going to allow you to twist this into something else. You violated my trust here. That’s not normal behavior.”
I paused, placing my hands on my hips, shaking my head.
I hated to say it but . . . “I think Tennyson is right,” I continued. “Maybe therapy might do you good.”
Given her sharp gasp, I knew I had made a terrible mistake.
“Excuse me?” Chiara’s voice was fractured ice. “Did you just say that I need therapy?”
“Chiara—”
“I thought you liked my crazy! I thought you liked me just the way that I am.”
“I do like you, but sometimes—”
“No! You don’t get to do this.” She angrily swiped tears off her cheeks. “Either you accept me as I am or you leave. But I’m not going to change who I am for you. And you shouldn’t even ask me to!”
“That’s not what we’re talking about here, Chiara, and you know it,” I snapped.
“Then what is this about?”
“Trust!” I roared. “Compulsively snooping and involving yourself in other’s business will not stop people from leaving you. It won’t bring your father back!”
She flinched. Chest heaving as she took several steps backward.
“I think you should go.” Her voice tense.
“Chiara . . .” I reached for her, shaking my head.
Dante’s voice rang up the stairwell. “Jack? You coming?”
“No, Jack.” Chiara continued to back away, head shaking, her gaze at my feet. “You’re right. This won’t work. You need to leave.”
“Just listen for a moment—”
“No.”
“Jack!” Dante again. “I’m double-parked, man. No one’s on the street to see you right now. You gotta come.”
“Go.” Chiara flicked her hand toward the door.
I stared at her, committing her to memory. Rumpled and adorable as she was.
This was actually for the best, I told myself. She needed to move on from me.
I slid a finger through her cheek. Wishing with everything in my power that I could feel the softness of her skin.
“Goodbye, Chiara.”
I turned and walked out the door.
I didn’t look back.