Last Rites

by Danielle Vega

  I sigh and say to Sofia, “You couldn’t have waited to pick at your gross tattoo scabs until they were gone?”

  “Why?” A small smile twists her lips, like she knows something I don’t. “You worried they’ll think I’m crazy?”

  Her eyes go cartoon-character wide on the word crazy. I lower my head to my hands, digging my fingers into my scalp. “God. Never mind.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic. What’s CART?”

  I stare at her through the cracks in my fingers. “You were listening?”

  “You weren’t exactly being quiet. Is it like a study-abroad thing?”

  “Art program,” I mutter, not looking at her. “In Italy. I was supposed to go, but . . .”

  I shrug. I don’t want to talk about this now, not with her.

  Sofia leaves the silence for a beat, then groans. “I don’t know why you’re getting all pissy. They already thought I was crazy, Berkley. They thought I was crazy before they ever met me.”

  “You don’t even know them.”

  “Girls like that are all alike. You think they’re your friends now, but . . .” Sofia trails off, staring at the wall behind my head. “They’ll never look at you the same after this. You know that, right?”

  A shiver moves through me. I try to ignore it, but the cold wraps around my spine and squeezes.

  They’ll never look at you the same. I suddenly want to scream. I want to throw things. How is it that she was able to pinpoint the exact thing I’ve been obsessing over? Am I so obvious?

  “You’re wrong,” I say, plopping back on my mattress. The pillow flattens beneath my head. “They’re my best friends. They know I don’t belong here.”

  I force myself to stare at the pipe running across the ceiling instead of looking over to see her reaction. Water drips down in a single perfect droplet. It smells putrid, like sewer, but I don’t bother wrinkling my nose. I’m used to it by now.

  After a moment, Sofia says, in a small voice, “If you say so.”

  CHAPTER 10

  After

  I don’t know how long I’ve been screaming. My throat’s gone raw, and my ears ring with the sound of my own voice. I can’t look away from my bed, can’t tear my eyes off that word.

  Diavolina.

  Another fly buzzes in from the open window. It seems to move in slow motion, hovering in midair, wings trembling as it lands in the pool of blood gathered between the folds of my sheets.

  I dig my fingernails into my cheeks. It feels like my hands are the only things keeping me from falling apart. My stomach clenches, and an acid taste rises in my throat.

  I’m vaguely aware of thumping footsteps and voices vibrating down the hall. My door slams open. Hands grab my shoulders, shaking me.

  Harper shouts, “Berkley? Berkley, please stop screaming. What’s going on? What happened?”

  And then Mara: “Oh my God . . . Harper, did you see? Oh my God.”

  I clench my eyes shut, press my lips together, and force myself to breathe in through my nose. I feel dizzy. My knees shake like crazy, struggling to hold me up. My own screams still echo in my head.

  When I open my eyes again, Mara and Harper are staring at me.

  “It was like this . . . I just got . . .” The taste of vomit clings to the back of my mouth, and the metallic smell of blood clogs my nose. I swallow. Try again. “I don’t know . . . who would have . . .”

  “It’s okay.” Harper’s voice is half-freaked, half–nursery school teacher sweet. She drops a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s sit, okay? Can you sit?”

  Mara doesn’t look at me, but the lines of her shoulders have gone rigid. She leans over my bed, plugging her nose with one hand as she rips away the soiled sheets and tosses them into a pile. “Nasty,” she mutters under her breath.

  I sink to the floor, pulling my knees to my chest. Harper crouches over me.

  “How about you start from the beginning?” She squeezes my shoulder and starts rubbing in slow circles. “What happened?”

  Another deep inhale. “I . . . I just got home. The window was open.” I nod at the open window. “I didn’t think it was weird because I’ve been leaving it open so Lucky can get in, only Lucky wasn’t here this time. The light was off, but I noticed the smell when . . .”

  Harper frowns. “What does the window being open have to do with anything?”

  “That must’ve been how they got in!”

  Mara and Harper share a look. Harper says, slowly, like she’s speaking to a child, “You think someone climbed into your window and did this?”

  “Well, yeah,” I sputter. How else could it have happened?

  Mara raises an eyebrow, head tilted like she knows something I don’t. She’s blinking very quickly. “Why would someone do that, Berkley? You don’t even know anyone here.”

  I stare at her face for a long moment before realizing . . .

  She thinks I did this. She thinks I’m so sick I would paint my bedsheets with blood.

  I curl my fingernails into my palms, taking comfort in the flare of pain that shoots through my skin. “What exactly are you saying?”

  This time, they make a point of not looking at each other. Mara frowns down at the floor. Harper picks at something beneath her fingernail.

  “I’m not saying anything.” Mara flicks an icy blond strand of hair behind one ear. She’s still using a voice that suggests she’s smarter than I am. Like I couldn’t possibly understand her. “But you have to admit, it’s kind of—“

  Harper shoots Mara a look, and she stops talking, abruptly.

  “It’s kind of what?” I say. Neither of them answers, so I ask again, louder. “I have to admit, it’s kind of what?”

  Harper says, her voice low and tired, “What are we supposed to think, Berkley? You’ve been weird all day. You got lost on the way to brunch, and when you finally do show up, you’re completely covered in blood. Then you ditched dinner without telling either of us.”

  “You have no idea how worried we were,” Mara says. “We had everyone looking for you. We almost called the police.”

  My eyes shift to Mara, and I open my mouth to explain. She’s staring right at me now, eyes narrowed in distrust. It’s like she doesn’t recognize me.

  I feel my spine tense. “You both have clearly already made up your mind about me.” I push myself to my feet—too fast—and head for the door. Something throbs in the palm of my hand; it feels like my heartbeat.

  Maybe there’s a hostel still open somewhere. Or else I can sleep on a park bench. Anywhere is better than here.

  “You were with that guy again,” Harper blurts as I wrap a hand around my doorknob. “The tour guide guy.”

  “Giovanni,” Mara adds.

  “So what if I was?” I exhale and turn around. “Is it so wrong to want to spend what’s left of my summer hanging out with someone who actually wants me around?”

  “We want you around,” Mara says, exasperated. “Why else would we invite you here?”

  My anger flares. Liar. “Give it up, Mara. I heard you talking about me back at that dinner.” I let my voice go higher, mimicking. “Berkley had a breakdown. We had to invite her. We don’t even know why she came.”

  Mara’s skin goes a shade paler. “That’s not what I said—“

  “It’s exactly what you said!”

  “Stop it, both of you!” Harper cuts in. She lets her hands fall open beside her, shoulders sagging. To me, she says, “You shouldn’t have heard that. It was really shitty of us to say those things. I’m so sorry, Berkley.”

  I open my mouth. Close it again. Not what I was expecting.

  “We were really worried about you,” Mara adds in a softer voice. “You just disappeared in the middle of dinner, and nobody knew where you’d gone. We left Professor Coletti’s early to come look for you. We only figured out you
were with Giovanni because of Francesca, that bartender chick at the party, remember? Anyway, she saw the two of you riding around on his moped.”

  She looks genuinely concerned. I feel my anger start to fade.

  Maybe I’m being too hard on them. It’s not like we’ve had some big heart-to-heart since I got out of the institute. They don’t get how it feels to suddenly be free after being locked away like an animal. How I want to live all at once, right now.

  I groan and rub the space between my eyes with my thumb. Our fight seems stupid now. I’m overreacting.

  “I’m sorry I ditched you,” I mumble after a moment. “I freaked out after I heard you guys talking.”

  “That’s fair,” Harper says. “I can’t even imagine how that must have felt.”

  Mara rubs her eyes with two fingers. “Look, we’re all stressed and seriously freaked out by this.” She motions to the pile of sheets on the floor. “Let’s get some sleep and try again tomorrow. We still have time to do Italy right.”

  “And tomorrow is the Festival for the Dead,” Harper adds. She crosses my room and opens the wardrobe door, pulling out a stack of fresh white sheets. “People come from all over Italy to attend. It’s sort of famous.”

  “It’s crazy famous,” Mara adds. She turns to me, tentatively. “Want to go with us?”

  Harper cocks an eyebrow.

  There’s still a part of me that wants to tell them no. Watch their faces fall as they realize I’m rejecting them for once. But then I think of how hard it will be to find a hostel now. How I really don’t want to sleep on a park bench. I look around my room, realizing I’ve come to like the small coziness of it. I don’t want to leave. And they are trying. It might not be perfect, but it’s something.

  “What kind of person comes to Italy without hitting up the party of the season?” I say after a moment.

  Mara bites back a smile. “It’s a date then.”

  “Sure. It’s a date.”

  I start to help Harper tuck the fresh sheets around my mattress. Mara joins us a moment later, gathering downy feathers in her hands and pulling pillows out of soiled cases. Together, the three of us remake the bed, removing all traces of blood and flies and feathers. Harper takes the ruined sheets with her when she goes. I don’t think to ask her what she’s going to do with them.

  I thank them and say good night. After they leave, I change into my pajamas, brush my hair, and wash the sweat from my face. I try not to look directly at the bed, but I keep catching glimpses of those clean white sheets in the mirror or from the corner of my eye. They’re always there, flickering at the edges of my vision, and I have to whip around fast to make sure that word isn’t still written across them.

  Diavolina.

  I don’t know any Italian, but even I can figure out that it means Devil.

  CHAPTER 11

  Mara holds up a red dress covered in sequins. It’s got long, bell-shaped sleeves, and the sequins are oversize, garish.

  Harper makes a noise like she’s choking. “Please put that hideous thing back where it came from.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Mara says, frowning.

  “Are you kidding?” Harper shoots back. “I can barely keep my breakfast down. Have I taught you nothing?”

  Mara thrusts the dress back on the rack, rolling her eyes. “So what’s the deal? We can either be a slutty devil or slutty angel?”

  “I think the options are devil or angel, but yeah, that’s the general idea.” Harper considers a lacy white slip dress, wrinkles her nose, and then places it back on the rack. “Too bad everything here is so boring. I thought Italy was supposed to be all about fashion?”

  I tilt my head, studying the dress Harper just discarded. I sort of see what she means. I bet all the girls at the party will be wearing some skimpy, silky thing, glittery wings drooping from their backs.

  I didn’t realize the Festival for the Dead was a costume party until Harper shook me awake this morning and told me it was time to go shopping. Apparently there’s even a contest later in the evening, with prizes going to the group with the most interesting interpretation of angels and devils. Mara told us that last year’s winners were a bunch of Swedish girls who showed up in their underwear, claiming to be the Victoria’s Secret Angels.

  “What if we did Charlie’s Angels?” I ask, holding up a pair of tight shorts. There isn’t a costume shop in Cambria, so we’re at some cheap clothing place with a name I can’t pronounce. It feels like the Italian equivalent of Forever 21. “We’d have to find roller skates.”

  “Who’re they?” Mara mutters without looking up from the rack she’s flicking through. She’s made her way over to the lingerie section—probably thinking of the Victoria’s Secret Angels, too. I sigh and put the shorts back.

  “Or we could be daredevils? We could wear leather jackets and aviator sunglasses? That might be kind of cool.”

  Harper frowns. “You want to wear leather? In this heat?”

  She has a point. I join Mara next to the lingerie and pick out a lacy black teddy. “What if we wore the jackets over nothing but this?”

  I’m half joking. But Mara freezes, raising both eyebrows at once. Harper purses her lips.

  “That could be cute,” she says, taking the teddy from me.

  “We could add little devil’s horns,” Mara says.

  “And studded heels. We could be, like, biker devil babes.”

  The idea of waltzing into a party wearing nothing but underwear and a leather jacket horrifies me.

  Harper looks over, as if sensing my reluctance. “What do you think, Berk? You’d look hot in the black.”

  She tosses the black teddy to me and smiles with her lips pressed together, eyes flashing. It feels exactly like being dared by a naughty child.

  It was my idea. I’d look like a total spaz if I backed out now.

  “And sunglasses,” I add, grabbing two more teddies. “Aviators. Otherwise no one will get our costume.”

  “Genius,” Harper says, nudging me with her shoulder. I feel a quick dart of warmth as I make my way over to the accessories section.

  * * *

  • • •

  The streets are packed by the time we finish. Students and families press around us on all sides, making their way to the piazza to find a spot. Stands have already sprung up on the sidewalks, selling fresh fruit and vegetables, sharp, hard cheeses, and thinly sliced meats sandwiched between crunchy rolls of bread. Somewhere in the square, there’s a pig roasting on a spit. The salty smell of meat hangs in the air, making my stomach rumble.

  The festival lasts all day. There’s a parade before the party, and musicians have already piled onto the sidewalks, strumming guitars and singing in deep, throaty Italian. A man with a little girl on his shoulders walks past us. She has angel’s wings strapped to her back, and the glitter catches the sunlight, making her seem to glow.

  “This is literal hell,” Mara moans, pushing the sweaty hair back from her forehead. “At this rate we won’t get home until dinner.”

  “Let’s go this way.” Harper grabs me by the elbow and steers me down another walkway, this one twisting away from the piazza and blessedly free of people.

  Mara asks, “Doesn’t this lead away from the apartment?”

  “Yeah, but it connects with Via Acquasanta.”

  “Not for, like, a mile. Isn’t Via Norcia closer?”

  They pull a little ways ahead, muttering about Via this or Via that as we make our way through the streets. Every now and then we pass a small group of chattering people headed back the way we came. I don’t bother trying to help. In the two days I’ve been here, I haven’t once tried to navigate the town without Harper and Mara or Giovanni to guide me. I don’t know how they find their way around. The city feels like a maze to me, with streets tangling and twisting around each other, the buildings all towering o
ver me, looking identical. Half the time, I expect to turn a corner and find that I’ve stumbled upon a secret entrance to Narnia or Westeros.

  After a while, even I can tell that we’re lost.

  “Maybe we should ask for directions?” I ask, stopping in front of a butcher shop. A giant dead pig dangles in the front window. Its face is pink and masklike.

  Giovanni mentioned doing deliveries for a butcher shop. I look around, but I don’t spot his yellow moped among the dozen or so parked out front.

  Harper considers the dead pig in the window, her lip curling. For a second I think she’s going to argue. But then her shoulders sag, defeated. “Yeah, okay.”

  The pig turns slowly in place, its black eyes watching us approach. I suppress a shudder. Holding my breath, I push the door open.

  A girl about my age looks up. She’s Italian, obviously, and much larger than any girl I’ve ever known. She must be over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and arms muscled like an athlete. Dark hair falls just short of her shoulders in thick, bushy tangles.

  “Ciao, can I help you?” she asks, not smiling. Her nose is a hair too long, but not in a way that makes her look homely. In fact, it gives the rest of her face an arresting quality. She looks like an Amazonian warrior.

  “Ciao, ciao.” Harper leans across the peeling linoleum counter and shows her the map on her phone. Some of the irritation fades from the girl’s face as Harper explains our dilemma in flawless Italian.

  I turn in place while they talk, casually searching for signs of Giovanni. My sneakers crunch against the thick layer of sawdust covering the floor. The shop smells heavily of blood.

  The girl seems to be alone here, surrounded by dead animals, horseflies buzzing around the meat. I wrinkle my nose. I don’t know how she can stand it. The meat hanging from the ceiling is mostly torsos and legs, which isn’t so bad, but the display case holds row after row of animal skulls, pink flesh still clinging to the bones.

  I hover a few feet away from the case, lip curling. No one bothered to remove the eyes from the skulls. Something that looks like it used to be a goat stares up at me. Without lips, its teeth are bared in a permanent snarl.