The Immortal City
Page 29
Grimly, I sealed the final verse from his memory:
I hide you from even God to see. My boy, my love, my Avonici.
I clamped my mouth shut and fell to my knees. The song lingered in the air like a butterfly cloud turned venomous. Donatello sobbed into his hands.
“Avonici!” Mamma crowed. “What an absolutely beautiful name. I am certain you love him very much.”
I whirled to look up at her. I couldn’t just watch, but it was too late now. My mouth worked, the voice inside dying its slow self-inflicted death. Too much magic was still in me.
Her eye steamed red. “Look at me, Your Grace.”
“No!” He threw himself on the floor, held an arm over his face. “Not the occhiorosso! I won’t let you!”
Mamma, please. Don’t make me. I want to keep loving you. None of it came out. I thought the words, tried to speak them, but it was as if my throat could only produce rasps. This silence happened to me often after I sang.
“Hold him.”
Tibario obeyed, pinning the priest to the side of the sofa and angling his head up at Mamma. Donatello clawed at his face, tried to close his eyes, but Tibario forced them open. This wasn’t even necessary. She didn’t need eye contact, only the entry wound of his shame.
She looked into him, the crimson ring of her occhiorosso growing brighter. The secret-ravaging eye pierced him like a spearhead, skewering him with her thieved knowledge. After a moment, red reflected in his gaze.
I sat by, useless, as he stopped struggling.
Mamma sniffed. As if moved by an alien urge, Donatello lumbered awkwardly to his feet. She would have to learn the nuances of another new mind to control. “Sit,” she said. He dropped to the sofa.
“Go to sleep.” As if she had switched him off, he collapsed limply into slumber.
“Well, Mamma,” Tibario said. “You have yourself a pet consul now.” His voice held no inflection. The music danced through me still, but I could not bear to listen in on his psyche. He knelt, removed his chasuble, and wrapped it gently around my shoulders.
It was so perverse I could have laughed. I’d just raped a man’s mind in front of them, and it was me who received sympathy.
Mamma touched my back. “Don’t feel too badly, Mio,” she said. “You have made your mother very proud.”
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ISBN-13: 9781488055171
The Immortal City
Copyright © 2020 by May Peterson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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