NINETEEN
Chiara
I sank into the couch and proceeded to recount what had happened, getting input from Jack. My brothers listened in lip-chewing, arm-folded silence.
They didn’t say anything as Jack described my weird sleepwalking episode and cryptic lines about lightning. None of us mentioned the possible connection between my lightning-laced dreams and the trauma of our father’s suicide. Why bring up painful memories unless absolutely necessary?
Jack went on about the scar appearing and then tearing open, Chucky-slime trying to suck him down. Then testing to see if I had a GUT, my unfortunate catastrophe with the German tourist and resulting midnight swim.
“You have a GUT?” Branwell asked me for the tenth time.
“I think I may.”
My brothers exchanged a series of looks between themselves.
“Don’t everyone be excited for me at once.” My tone dripped sarcasm.
“It’s a little unexpected, I’ll be honest,” Dante said.
“But . . . we do know how much you hate being left out.”
Tennyson dodged the Ariel pillow I threw at him.
“So . . . a scar opened when Chiara made a prediction?” Tennyson asked. “Is there a scar here now?”
Jack’s gaze darted to the right of a cabinet filled with Snow White china. He waved a finger. “Yes. Right there. It’s smaller than the other scars, but definitely there. And before you ask, it wasn’t there before last night.”
“Why are scars appearing and rifting open around Chiara now? That makes no sense.”
Dante shook his head. “Just when I figured this situation couldn’t get any more confusing. The scars and Chucky-slime are baffling. We need a breakthrough of some sort to help us understand all this.”
Tennyson snapped his fingers. “Yes, breakthrough. I almost forgot.” He jumped up and snagged his satchel off the floor by the couch, before turning to me. “I found the pages you wanted from the archive.”
“Pages?” Dante asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Jack found some black scans in ol’ Cesare il Pompaso’s stuff we wanted to double check.”
“Cesare il Pompaso? That windbag?” Branwell scoffed. “Why are you bothering with him at all?”
“That’s what I said.” I shot a pointed look at Jack.
“Fortunately, I did,” Jack said. “I found a passage in Cesare’s writing where he spoke of the gaps and ragged tears in the fabric of our world. But the pages after it were black.”
“So I asked Tennyson to find the originals for us,” I finished.
“Interesting. Good work.” Dante gave a bro-chin-lift to Jack.
We crowded around as Tennyson placed his bag on the kitchen table and carefully pulled four plastic sleeves from the leather bag.
Every single item in the D’Angelo archive had been placed into acid-free archival sleeves to preserve the original documents. These were no different. A white label in the corner of the sleeve identified the document’s place within the archive. It was a brilliant system that some hard-working soul (*cough* me *cough*) had come up with about a decade ago.
Tennyson scooted his satchel out of the way and laid the papers out on the table.
“Unfortunately, I’m not sure that these pages are going to be helpful,” he said.
Looking at the documents, I instantly understood.
The pages hadn’t been poorly scanned; they were legitimately black.
“Huh.” Dante came to stand beside me. Reaching for the nearest one, he held it up to the window, peering into the black.
Branwell joined him, snatching another one with a gloved hand.
As antiques experts, both of them dealt with things like this on a daily basis.
“Opinion?” Dante asked his twin.
“Vellum and lamp-black.” Branwell noted the material and ink.
“What year is this approximately? When did Cesare live?” Dante asked me over his shoulder.
“Early eighteenth century.”
“Way too late for vellum to be common,” Branwell said. “Vellum is a medieval material.”
“So why did he go to all the hassle of writing on vellum?” Dante asked. “It’s not paper; it’s leather. Thicker, denser and infinitely more expensive.”
“Is all Cesare il Pompaso’s stuff on vellum then? I don’t remember.” Another question thrown over the shoulder.
The twins were standing shoulder-to-shoulder before the window, examining the document in the bright sunlight. From the back, their similarities were definitively pronounced. Same dark heads, same broad shoulders, same exact height.
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Very little in the archive is on vellum. This must have slipped through everyone’s filters.”
“I’m not seeing anything this way.” Dante turned from the window and set the page down on a side table, pulling the page out of the sleeve. “Mind if I use my GUT?” he asked.
“Wait.” I held up a hand before Dante could begin. “How is the scar looking?” I asked Jack.
He stared at the china cabinet. “It’s just hovering. It should be fine. The scar didn’t let any Chucky-slime out when Tennyson and Branwell deliberately used their GUTs back in Florence.”
We all looked at each other.
“I think the risk is worth it,” Jack continued. “We need answers.”
Dante nodded. “If something happens, just break the connection for me. That should stop the Chucky-slime.”
He set the vellum sheet down carefully and touched it with one finger.
Watching one of my brothers work his GUT was always fascinating, no matter how many times I’d witnessed it. Dante could see the scenes that had occurred around an object. He described it as a movie played in fast forward. He heard nothing—hearing was Branwell’s portion of the GUT—but he saw everything.
Dante’s eyes grew distant, gaze unfocused as he scanned backward through time, searching for the scene when Cesare would have created the document. With any luck, Dante would be able to watch as Cesare initially wrote and read what the document said.
“Is the scar doing anything?” Tennyson asked.
“Just glowing with fluttery edges. It seems to consistently do that when you guys use your GUTs.”
“But no Chucky-slime?”
“Obviously not.” Jack swept a hand down his stationary person.
The moments dragged on, tension mounting.
I found myself moving closer to Jack. As if being closer would somehow protect him from the Chucky-slime, should it make an appearance.
I didn’t mean to end up in Jack’s space, but without a physical body delineating the boundaries between us, I found myself literally curled into his chest.
It should have been awkward. Really. Truly.
But . . . I found it oddly comforting. A ghost hug, of sorts.
We both watched Dante, his head swiveling as he tracked unseen things. Suddenly, his head jerked upright, staring at something straight ahead of him. He lurched backward, breaking the connection with the paper.
“Whoa.” Tennyson instantly steadied him. “You okay? I got some seriously strong shock from you right before that.”
Dante shook his head, lungs heaving. He raked two shaking hands through his hair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “I have never—and I mean never—experienced anything like that.”
“Describe it.” Branwell beckoned.
Dante arched his neck upward, staring at the ceiling before collapsing onto the couch. “I was scanning backward . . . seeing normal, everyday sort of things. Then, I landed on Cesare il Pompaso. It had to have been him. I was in the study in Villa Maledetti in Volterra. Or rather, I surmised it was the study because the fireplace surround and size of the room was the same. The house has changed a ton over the years, but it was still recognizable.
“It was nighttime, with candles lit around the room. The vellum sat on a desk, blank and untouched yet. A man moved across from the desk, snuffing out candles. Cesare, I assume. He was clearly a D’Angelo and his clothing was the correct time period with a full frock coat and long wig. He snuffed every single candle out except for a six-stick candelabra on the desk illuminating the vellum.”
Dante paused, sucking in a deep, stuttering breath, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees.
“You sure you’re okay? You’re seriously freaked out.” Tennyson sat down beside him, brows drawn.
“I’m good. So the guy, Cesare, walked back to the desk and methodically snuffed out five of the six candles in the candelabra. I’m just there, a fly on the wall, observing this. It’s a memory. A vision of a past event, right?”
We all nodded.
“But then Cesare lifts his head and—” Dante paused, letting out a huge burst of air. “—he looked straight at me. Eye contact. Connection.”
“What?!” Tennyson’s head reared back.
“That’s not possible.” Branwell crossed his arms.
“I know! I know it’s not possible. But he did. There was absolutely no one else in the room. He looked straight at me and then got this sly look. Like he thought it was hilarious that I was there. He pulled down on the skin below his eye—”
“The hand gesture for furbo? For someone who is being sneaky?”
“Yes. He even mouthed furbo, tugged on his lower eye lid, shook his finger no and snuffed out the remaining candle.”
Complete silence.
“He knew I was there. Cesare il Pompaso knew when he wrote whatever is on the blacked-out vellum, that I would use my GUT to try and see it. He effectively told me no and turned out all the lights so I couldn’t see.”
“That’s impossible,” Tennyson scoffed.
“Is it though?” Jack’s voice rumbled through me.
Ah. It was really nice being nestled with him like this. I may have huddled even more in his space.
“I agree with Jack.” Branwell nodded. “It’s not impossible. Cesare could have easily seen all of this in a vision. Let me have a go at it.”
“How’s the scar?” I had to ask it again.
“It appears stable,” Jack said. “Go ahead, Branwell.”
Branwell nodded, stripping off a glove and, like Dante, set a finger on the edge of the vellum.
Unlike Dante, Branwell closed his eyes, tilting his head.
“Scar?” I whispered, softly . . . so softly a person would have to have been practically inside me to hear.
“Glowing,” Jack murmured back.
Yeah, this sharing the same space thing was definitely working for me.
Branwell stood still for several minutes, head at an angle. Suddenly, he flinched, expression astonished as he winced and drew his hand away.
He took a step back, drawing his glove back on. “Uhmm, yeah. Cesare was definitely on to us. I don’t even know how this is possible.”
“What happened?”
“I skimmed past a few noises and then landed on an aristocratic Italian voice saying, ‘This is where you want to stop. I will tell you all the best things you need to hear—’”
“Wow.” Tennyson sat back.
“That sounds like Cesare il Pompaso,” I muttered.
“He continued, saying, ‘Like your brother, you will not find what you seek this way. You must be the smartest. All my children are the most intelligent.’ And then Cesare giggled. All I got after that was the noise of something rubbing over parchment.”
Silence.
“Again . . . wow,” Tennyson said.
“I’m telling you, Cesare il Pompaso was seriously messed in the head.” I had to say the obvious.
“On the bright side, we are clearly on the right track here. Cesare saw something and maybe he’s leading us to find answers.” Dante stretched out his long legs. “We just have to be smarter, like he said.”
“But is Cesare leading us?” Tennyson asked.
“Or is he a clinically-insane megalomaniac who finds it humorous to punk people from beyond the grave?” My tone so very dry.
“Also a possibility.” Dante agreed.
“Sooooo, now what?” Tennyson asked.
“We research the crap out of these bad boys.” Branwell tapped the black pages with his finger. “If there is something else here, we’ll find it.”
Tennyson nodded. “We treat this like a historical forensics investigation. Scan the pages with non-visible light wavelengths, like infrared or ultraviolet.”
“Exactly. I’ll get Claire right on it,” Dante said, referring to his wife. “She’s brilliant with this sort of stuff.” He slid the one uncovered vellum sheet back into its plastic sleeve.
“So all this weirdness with Cesare il Pompaso aside, why the scars? Why are they rifting open? And why are they showing up around Chiara?” Branwell asked. “Are we projecting these somehow? Or are you a common factor, Jack?”
Jack moved out from within me, drawing closer to my brothers. Though I physically couldn’t feel him leaving, part of me instantly missed that connection. Cesare il Pompaso wasn’t the only D’Angelo a little messed in the head.
Jack shrugged. “As we’ve noted before, it is almost impossible to know.”
Hmmm.
My brothers all looked at each other.
“Would you like my opinion?” Jack asked. “I have spent a lot of time pondering this.”
Every head swung Jack’s way.
“For centuries, the assumption has been that your GUTs are the result of a gypsy—or Romani, as they call themselves—curse over seven hundred years ago, correct?”
We all nodded.
Jack continued, “The events last year with Branwell and the Etruscan mirror show that your GUTs might have a much longer history. Clearly, Branwell’s abilities are tied to something ancient civilizations knew thousands of years ago, possibly through your bloodline.”
“Yes. We’ve already been over this.”
“Agreed. We know the mirror Branwell used to access the shadow world was part of the cult of Tages, a hereditary oracle and part of the ancient Etruscan religion,” Jack continued. “The mirror connects Tages with the shadow world. It basically provides a gateway. As a resident of both this world and the shadow world, I am unique. Given this, it’s no surprise that I can see and interact with things that belong to both worlds.”
“But aside from my interaction with the Etruscan mirror last year, what evidence do we have that our family has any genetic connection to ancient oracles?” Branwell asked. “As we’ve said before, it could simply be that gifts of Second Sight access this shadow realm, regardless of the minutiae that any specific society packs the gift in, be it Romani or Etruscan. An Etruscan connection doesn’t prove or disprove the initial origin of our GUTs.”
Trust Branwell to ask the smart question.
“More importantly, why would our GUTs be accessing this shadow realm in the first place?” Tennyson asked.
“I have an idea for that,” Jack said. “The shadow world, as a realm between life and death, would be the logical place for future and past information to reside. You exercise your ‘talents’ and the scars glow and flutter open, allowing you to draw knowledge from the shadow world.”
Huh. That made some . . . sense.
Jack was pacing now. It was lordly and commanding and ridiculously attractive despite his wet trousers and unbuttoned shirt. Who was I kidding? The clinging trousers and half-off shirt only added to his overall gorgeousness.
“The appearance of the scars seems haphazard,” he said. “But what if it’s a one-two punch of the two of us—cursed D’Angelos and cursed Jack—being thrown together?”
“How so? The scars have only appeared in the last couple weeks.”
“And you’ve been around for over a year, Jack.”
“Precisely. But the one thing that has changed recently is my ability to make myself corporeal. When I push part of myself into this realm, the pain is excruciating. It feels like I’m dragging myself through the fires of Hell. I think that the scars and my ability to push myself corporeal have to be connected. The scar here”—he waved a hand toward the china cabinet—“didn’t appear until I pushed my finger into corporeality.”
“You’re making cuts in the fabric of the universe every time you push yourself one way or the other.” Branwell whistled.
“Exactly. The cuts are just there until one of you uses your GUT, causing invisible energy to flow through it, making it larger. The cut seals again, but not perfectly, leaving a misaligned, visible scar. The two other places I’ve seen scars, Villa Maledetti and Branwell’s apartment, are also places where I pushed my finger into physicality. I bet if I were to return to my own villa, I would find scars there now. I didn’t really put it all together until yesterday, when all of the events occurred within seconds of each other.”
I had a thought. “But how can these scars be a new thing? If they’re powering the D’Angelo Sight, then they have to have been around since time immemorial.”
“Brilliant.” Jack shot me a proud grin. “Very intelligent observation. Perhaps I can only see the scars I myself have created? So other scars caused by other means are invisible to me, but your GUTs would use any available scar. This would explain why I only recently began to see the scars, but you have all clearly been drawing power from the shadow world your entire lives.”
“Okay. So let’s say Jack is creating scars in the fabric of our reality, and we’re drawing power through these scars. Why, then, does the power flow harmlessly sometimes and other times spit out Chucky-slime?” Branwell frowned, obviously puzzled.
Jack paused. “I don’t know. The Chucky-slime could be part of the membrane between the two worlds.”
“Or a force that inhabits the supernatural world that is trying to break free or cause problems.” Tennyson offered.
We discussed the idea back and forth. Dante wanted a closer moment-by-moment replay of my experience the night before. We all wanted a clearer understanding of what he and Branwell had seen with Cesare il Pompaso. But all the talking got us nowhere.
“We still haven’t answered our original question,” Dante said after a while, lacing his fingers behind his head. “How does all this relate to Chiara and her possibly having a GUT of her own?”
“Well, that’s obvious.” Jack smiled at me. “If you are the descendants of Tages, then your GUTs are truly genetic. No gypsy curse needed. Which means that Chiara, as someone who shares your genetics, has a GUT, too. The scars flutter open for her just as they open for you. It confirms my theories about the origins of your gifts.”
“But does it?” Branwell sounded skeptical. “I’m not convinced we should simply abandon the gypsy connection to our GUTs. It’s such a prevalent part of our family’s oral history, it seems impossible that it was all simply a hoax.”
Jack shrugged. “I think there are other compelling reasons to believe the connection to Etruscan oracles.”
“Explain.”
“The oracles of Tages generally chose to use one of three things when making their predictions.” Jack held up three fingers.
“They used the entrails of sacrificed animals.” Jack ticked off one finger. “We obviously haven’t had any interaction with that.”
Thank goodness.
“The second thing Etruscans could use.” Jack ticked another finger. “Birds and bird flight patterns. Well, we don’t have much to go on with that either.”
The chill started at the base of my spine. How many times had I observed birds and just known what they meant? My throat was too tight to say anything.
“And last . . .”
I knew it, before he could even say a word.
“Lightning,” I breathed.
Jack’s eyes swung to mine. “Yes. Lightning.”
A thousand thoughts scattered through my brain. I knew why lightning had such a powerful emotional hold over me, but did I see meaning in it, too? Was that why Babbo had focused on it so much?
“Entrails. Birds. Lightning.” Dante repeated the three items.
“Yes.” Jack moved away, walking toward the large doors onto the balcony. “I think that the lightning, in particular, is related to one last item we haven’t explored yet.”
“Which is?”
“Chiara’s odd sleepwalking.” Jack turned back to us. “If you are descendants of Tages, then you are oracles, including Chiara. This encompasses speaking for and to the dead. It’s entirely possible that the dead are trying to talk to us through her. Chiara could be acting as a medium.”
“The dead?” Branwell repeated.
“Like who?” Dante went straight to the most critical question.
Jack hesitated, throwing a look back toward me. But I knew the answer before he said the words.
The truth of them already lodged soul-deep.
“Cesare. Your father.”