Last Rites

by Danielle Vega

  “Does it matter what I think?”

  I force myself to take a beat, lips pressed together tight as I inhale through my nose. I look Sofia full in the face, half expecting to see her laughing at me or at least looking all superior, like she’s figured out all my problems in a day of knowing me. But there’s not a hint of judgment there. She’s got her head tilted to the side, thumb tapping her chin, like she really wants to know what I’ll say.

  “The deal here is pretty simple,” she tells me, after a moment. “Confess your secrets and you’re saved.”

  I squirm in my seat. “What if I don’t have any secrets?”

  “We all have secrets.”

  It reminds me of something Harper used to say, when the four of us first started hanging out. Secrets keep you close. And then she’d wrinkle her nose and wait for us to spill ours, like an offering to the gods of popularity.

  Tayla and I gave it, willingly. It never occurred to me that it was weird that Harper and Mara didn’t spill their secrets in return.

  The office door swings open, making me flinch.

  “Berkley,” Dr. Andrews says, frowning. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”

  “Just leaving.” I stand, catching Sofia’s eye on my way to the door. She hops out of her chair and follows Dr. Andrews into her office.

  Confess your secrets, I think as I step out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me. What a weird way to put it. Not tell or reveal.

  Confess. Like we’re in church.

  CHAPTER 6

  After

  The three of us are stuffed in the back of a taxi, zipping through narrow streets. One of the CART professors invited a bunch of students over to dinner at his house tonight. Harper got special permission for me to come.

  The buildings that fly past our windows look like something out of a fairy tale, all ancient and half-collapsing, somehow more beautiful for their decay. I can’t stop staring at them, trying to imagine life behind those cold bricks. Families waking up and making breakfast in those crumbling stone kitchens. Teenagers sneaking in past curfew through those rickety back gates. The sun is setting between the buildings, sending tendrils of bright golden light stretching down the streets. The whole town reminds me of softly smoldering embers.

  The taxi doesn’t have air conditioning, and the twilight sun beats in through the windshield, leaving the air inside stiflingly hot, even with all the windows cracked and a stale breeze blowing into my face. We take a turn so quickly that I nearly end up on Mara’s lap.

  I scoot over, lifting the hair off my neck with one hand and fanning myself with the other. My freshly steamed shirt has already started to wrinkle, and the backs of my legs stick to the sweaty vinyl seat beneath me. I brace a hand against the back of the front seat as we fly around another turn.

  “You’ll get used to it.” Harper picks a piece of lint off my shoulder. “Everyone in Italy drives like a maniac.”

  “I didn’t notice,” I say, a tiny white lie. Neither of them seems bothered by the drive, and I don’t want to be the only one complaining, even if the speed makes my stomach turn over.

  Harper raises an eyebrow but doesn’t call my bluff. The cab takes a final turn, and then we’ve left the brick walls of Cambria behind. Green fields filled with cows and wilting sunflowers spread out before us, a tangle of vines in the background telling me there’s a vineyard not far away. The road rises and dips with the soft hills.

  I breathe a little easier and lean back in my seat. The speed isn’t so bad now that we’re not twisting through the ancient village streets, tires half on the sidewalk, terrifying pedestrians. The countryside unfolds around us, the heat making the tall grass stiff and brown.

  The CART teacher, Professor Coletti, lives in a small house a few miles outside town. His backyard could be from a travel blog, all rolling hills and swaying cypress trees. The sun has just started to dip behind the distant mountains, leaving the evening twilight gold and velvety.

  We hear voices as soon as we climb out of the cab, and we follow them to the backyard, where a large group has already gathered.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. I didn’t really get a chance to talk to the other CART students at the trattoria last night, but they reminded me of people I knew from back home. They were dressed in cutoffs and sneakers. They held the delicate, curved grappa glasses like they were shots—and downed them just as easily.

  The people gathered in Professor Coletti’s backyard seem different. Older, maybe. Or just more sophisticated. The guys all have combed-back hair and ties, and the girls wear dresses, their chignons and buns pinned perfectly despite the heat that makes my own hair frizz. I feel out of place in my wilted shirt. The silk sticks to my back in sweaty patches.

  “They’re all older, juniors and seniors, mostly,” Harper explains, steering me toward a long wooden table beneath an arbor in the middle of the yard. “Mara and I are the only freshmen who knew about the program.”

  “Thanks to you,” Mara says, grinning at me. But her smile seems stretched too tight, and she looks away quickly.

  Café lights crisscross the twilight sky, competing with the still-setting sun to illuminate the back garden and climbing grapevines. A group of students has already seated themselves around the table, chairs angled toward an older man, his dark hair shot through with gray, his eyes slightly cloudy behind thick glasses. Professor Coletti, I assume.

  “You have to understand, Cambria has spent decades in the most abject poverty. Famine, drought, crop failure, what have you,” Professor Coletti is saying, answering a question I didn’t hear. He removes his glasses and polishes the lenses with the edge of his shirt. “It’s only maybe . . . well, I’d say in the past two or three years that the village has finally started to turn itself around.”

  “It’s history repeating itself,” a student I don’t recognize adds. “They had similar issues in the sixteenth century, didn’t they?”

  Professor Coletti points at him, nodding. “Exactly. But back then, they blamed God, didn’t they? They told themselves he was punishing them for their sins, and the only way they managed to pull themselves out was with human sacrifice. Luckily, today we have the tourism trade.”

  A few people laugh. Mara sinks into a wooden chair, sliding her elbows onto her knees as she leans forward to listen.

  “What are they talking about?” I ask, nudging Harper with my elbow.

  Harper shrugs. “Who knows? Half the stories about this place are all creepy human sacrifice.”

  Mara tilts her head toward us, eyes still trained on Professor Coletti. “This is that story I was trying to remember earlier. Lucia was the one sacrificed on that hill we walked past. It would be fascinating to go up there and see what sort of memorial they have for her.”

  I think of the hill looming over the town and shiver. Fascinating isn’t the word I’d use.

  Professor Coletti continues, going on to talk about how the CART program floods Cambria with American students—and American money—during the summer months. I sway in place as I listen, accidentally shifting weight to my injured foot. Pain shoots up my leg, and I bite down hard on my lower lip to keep from crying out. The swelling has gone down since this morning, but the damn thing still hurts like hell. Nausea floods my stomach.

  I suddenly—desperately—want to be anywhere but here.

  I close my eyes against the pain and nausea, forcing myself to breathe. I tell myself it’s just the heat and all the new people. Once I get a glass of wine and sit down, I’ll be fine.

  I lean toward Harper. “You want a drink?”

  She nods, and Mara lifts a finger to show that she’ll take one, too.

  I head to the refreshment table and take three glasses of wine so white it’s practically clear from a girl dressed all in black. It isn’t until I shove a few euros into her tip jar that I recognize the tiny
tattoos on her hands: stars and moons and a little horseshoe.

  “Oh,” I say, gathering the glasses up in one hand. The green tips of her hair are easier to make out in the twilight. “Hey.”

  She’s watching Professor Coletti, listening to whatever story on Cambrian history he’s telling now. It’s a long moment before her eyes flick to me.

  She blinks. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. I just remember you. You were working at the trattoria last night, right? I’m Berkley.”

  “Francesca,” the girl mutters, but her eyes have a vague look to them, and I get the feeling she’s not really paying attention to me. She goes back to watching Professor Coletti.

  “These foolish men,” she says, almost to herself. “They think they understand us because they know one of our stories.” She shakes her head and starts furiously polishing a wineglass.

  I don’t know what to say to that. I find myself muttering, “Grazie,” and quickly making my way back to my friends.

  Professor Coletti must’ve finished his story, because the students have shifted into groups of twos and threes, chatting animatedly. Harper and Mara are talking with a dark-haired girl that I vaguely remember from last night, and they don’t see me walk up behind them.

  “. . . from high school,” Mara is saying. She has one hand tucked behind her ear, half shielding her face. “She’s had sort of a rough summer, so we felt like we had to invite her. Is everyone saying it’s, like, totally weird that she’s here?”

  I freeze, my sweaty skin slick against the condensation-covered wineglasses.

  The dark-haired girl hesitates. “I think it’s more that they don’t know why she’d want to come if she’s not in CART. Does she even go to college?”

  Harper shakes her head. “She was supposed to be at NYU with us, but she took a leave of absence.”

  “Really?”

  Mara leans forward, lowering her voice to a throaty whisper. “She had a complete mental breakdown. She got sent somewhere to deal with it and everything. But don’t tell anyone I told you. She’s kind of sensitive about it.”

  “Shut up, really? Over what? School?”

  Harper gives a noncommittal shrug. “Some people can’t hack it, I guess.”

  That’s all I need to hear. I veer off toward the garden, my face growing hot. Sweat gathers on my forehead, drawing lines in my makeup as it trickles down my cheeks. The glasses I’m carrying clink together, chilled wine sloshing over the sides.

  The conversation I just overheard plays on repeat in my head.

  We had to invite her . . . she had a breakdown . . . she’s kind of sensitive . . .

  My heart beats hot and fast. I wait until I’m out of view of the table, and then I abandon two of the glasses of wine on the stone bench and take a deep gulp of the third. The alcohol burns going down, but the aftertaste is sweet and fruity.

  I force myself to inhale. The wine helps—some. I take a smaller sip now, my fingers trembling. I’m shaking so badly that most of it has already spilled over the sides of the glass.

  Mara made it sound like I forced them to invite me. Like my mommy called their mommies and told them they had to play with me. What a load of shit. If those bitches didn’t want me here, they should’ve said something.

  I close my eyes against the anger pounding at my temples. There’s no way in hell I’m going back to that table now. Not with Mara and Harper smiling at me and pretending everything’s just fine.

  I picture the two of them looking around for me after a few minutes, growing increasingly agitated when they see that I’m not there, talking in hushed voices about where I might’ve gone, if they’ll get into trouble if I disappear. The thought makes me smile, savagely. Let them worry.

  I head into the garden. It’s overgrown, with weeds climbing the trellises and wildflowers growing thick around the gate. It looks wild. Unhinged, even.

  I don’t notice the first statue until I’m standing right in front of it, a crumbling bust of a woman with weeds growing up over her waist. The stone looks old, and the woman’s face has almost completely eroded so that only her chin and the vague outline of her brow are still visible. The plaque below the bust reads: Lucia.

  “Poor girl,” I say, taking another drink of wine. I reach out to touch her face when a sudden peal of laughter from the party makes me jump. I jerk my hand away.

  Rage curls inside me. What am I doing here? I could be back at the apartment, curled up in my bed with Lucky, icing my ankle, which is still sore from earlier.

  I slip my phone out of my pocket and stare at the blank screen. I could get a taxi back to Cambria—I have a few euros crumpled in my pocket—but I don’t know the number, and this place seems too far out in the middle of nowhere for cars to just happen by. Do they have Uber out here? I tap my phone screen, thinking I could at least check—

  Hands snake around my face, pressing into my mouth. A scream rises in my throat, but the hands press tighter, muffling my voice. Whoever’s holding me is strong. Every nerve in my body flares, and my heart starts thudding so hard inside my chest that I worry it’ll break free.

  And then I’m spinning around, and Giovanni is smiling down at me.

  I pull out of his arms and smack him on the shoulder—only half-playfully. “You scared me!”

  “Ouch.” His mouth twists in an adorable grimace, and he pretends to rub the spot where I hit him, eyes devilish in the moonlight. “So sorry I frightened you, bella. I saw you from the road and wanted to say hello.”

  He nods at the dirt road curving past the edge of the garden. There’s a yellow moped propped against the curb.

  “What are you doing out here?” I ask.

  “Deliveries. I work part-time for the butcher shop.” He leans in close, and I smell the cigarettes and wine on his breath as he adds, “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since last night.”

  “Then I guess it’s lucky you passed by.”

  But it doesn’t feel lucky. It feels like a sign. Like fate.

  Giovanni grins. He hasn’t shaved since last night, and the hair shading the lower half of his face looks even thicker. It makes him look deliciously dangerous. “It’s not so lucky. This is a small town. Everybody knows everybody. I knew I would see you again.”

  I close my eyes, letting his words curl like smoke inside me, warming me from the inside out. Everything he says makes me shiver, and every time he’s close I feel like my whole body is about to catch fire. Mara and Harper may not want me here. But someone does.

  Giovanni’s lips part, the tip of his tongue pressing against his teeth. “Want to go for a ride?”

  I do. So badly. I glance over my shoulder. The dinner table seems to glow from the middle of the professor’s yard, the twinkly café lights surrounding it in a bubble of gold. Mara and Harper sit in the middle of a group of people, laughing.

  Briefly, I imagine myself at the table with them. Standing in the circle of light. Giggling at some story. Then the image fades.

  They don’t want me here. They don’t even seem to have noticed that I never came back with their wine, or else they don’t care. They’re probably relieved to get a few minutes away from their wack-job friend.

  Fuck ’em, I think, a vicious smile stretching across my face. I refuse to feel upset because Mara and Harper don’t actually want me here. I’m in Italy. It’s time to have some fun.

  I tap a finger against the thin stem of my wineglass and then tip the last of the sweet liquid into my mouth. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Moonlight glints off the moped’s yellow paint. It looked bigger a second ago, when I was seeing it from the garden. Up close it’s toy-like. A strong wind could knock it over.

  I swallow. “You actually ride around on that thing?”

  Giovanni comes up behind me and loops an arm around my shoulder. “Is somet
hing wrong?”

  I love the way he speaks, his voice a rough tangle.

  “No,” I lie, snuggling in beneath his arm. “I just thought it would be . . . bigger.”

  Giovanni laughs. It’s a deep, sexy rumble that makes all the tiny little hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. “Bella, are you afraid of my moped?” He kisses my neck, just once, right below my hairline. “You really are an American girl.”

  “I’m not afraid,” I say, which is bullshit. I’m really, really afraid. I picture the toy bike peeling out from beneath my legs, the dirt road spinning toward my face, rocks ripping the skin from my cheeks.

  And this isn’t even a motorcycle. It’s a motorcycle’s baby brother.

  But I climb onto the moped behind Giovanni anyway, doing my best to look like I’m absolutely thrilled to ride through the Italian countryside on his little death trap.

  Think of Audrey Hepburn, I tell myself, picturing Audrey’s pixie cut and flapping skirt as she zipped around Rome on the back of a scooter very much like this one. The image makes me a little less nervous as I wrap my arms around Giovanni’s waist.

  “Where are the helmets?” I ask.

  Giovanni twists the grip of the moped, and it makes a sound like a kitten purring. “What for?” he asks.

  Oh God. I close my eyes, digging my fingers into the cotton of his T-shirt.

  He’s laughing as we peel away from the curb.

  The moped goes slowly at first, vibrating as it rolls over all the tiny rocks and pebbles on Professor Coletti’s drive. Wind whips the hair off my face. I ease my eyes open, just a crack, just to see what’s happening . . .

  Giovanni twists the moped’s grip again, and the tiny bike lurches. A scream rises in my throat, but I bite it back, digging my knees into Giovanni’s sides. His T-shirt is a sweaty ball of fabric in my fists.

  We go faster. Faster. My heart climbs into my chest. I feel . . .

  Exhilarated. Like I’m flying.

  Giovanni takes a turn, and we whip higher into the mountains. Craggy rocks rise on either side of us, looking nearly black in the darkness. The bike slows as the road angles upward, and then Giovanni twists the handlebar and a deeper roar thrums through the tiny vehicle. We shoot forward, faster, struggling against the incline. The moon hangs straight ahead, a silver orb bobbing in the sky, chasing away the stars. The valleys below are inky black and endless.