The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story

by Megan Chance

  I hit his shoulder. “This is important, Nero.”

  “I know. Believe me, I know.” He rose to one elbow. His gaze was darkly, insistently compelling. “Now come and kiss me. I’ve rested long enough.”

  It was dark when I woke again, the courtyard clouded with mist as I crawled from bed, sore and sticky, and lit the lamp, turning it to a dull glow, startled to see streaks of blood on my skin. My virtue, most effectively gone. I could not bring myself to miss it, whatever complication it might raise in the future.

  Nero slept on as I washed and put on my dressing gown. It was long past time that I checked on Samuel. I wondered if it was possible to hide what I’d been doing from him. I felt I should. I would be just who I had always been—how hard could that be? After all, only one thing about me had changed.

  I put the knife and the morphine in my pocket and cast a last glance at Nero—dark lashes on cheeks made golden by the lamplight, the black shadow of his head against the pillow. I could not quite believe he was mine, that I had touched him the way I had, that he had touched me. I was loath to leave him, but I had a duty. I closed the door softly, not wishing to wake him. If I were quick, I could return before he knew I was gone.

  Samuel’s door was cracked open, which surprised me, because I was certain I had closed it. I tapped softly, pushing it at the same time, stepping inside. Samuel was not in his bed, but no lamp had been lit. Then I saw him at the balcony door, clad only in his robe, his feet bare. It was too early for the moon, but the mist had grasped hold of the light of the streetlamps and that in the windows of other palazzos and flung it back, softly reflective, luminous and smoky, and Samuel was a shadow within it.

  He turned. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have been here earlier. How do you feel?”

  “How is your throat?”

  “A bit sore. But I think no harm was done.”

  He snorted. “Christ, what are you, a saint?”

  “Samuel—”

  “You’ve been with him, haven’t you?”

  I was too startled to lie. “How do you know?”

  “I’ve never seen your hair down. You’re naked beneath that robe. You would never have come to me this way.”

  “I fell asleep—”

  “You’re not blushing at the word ‘naked.’ You feel ripe and heavy and satisfied. You are, aren’t you? Satisfied?”

  He was too perceptive. I should have remembered that. I heard the edge in his voice. Jealousy and anger. Pain. “Samuel, I’m sorry. I—”

  He waved my words away. “She hates you. Right now, so do I. Just a little.”

  I stepped back.

  He laughed, it was bitter and short. “You’re going to leave me, aren’t you? For him. Despite your promises.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m not.”

  He slammed the ball of his palm against his head. “The visions never stop. I keep seeing them over and over.”

  As inconspicuously as I could, I felt for the hilt of the knife. “Seeing what?”

  “That woman falling, breaking her neck. Blood and brains splashed on the wall. A letter. Poetry. A man—Laura had a lover, did Nero tell you that?” He took a deep breath. In it was distress. “It’s her life I’m seeing, I know. She’s falling and I’m falling with her, and the water’s cold and red, and she’s so angry . . . Christ, I can’t bear it. I swear to you that one day you’ll walk in here and I’ll have thrown myself off that balcony, just as she did.”

  I hurried to him without thinking, understanding the temptation far too well. “No, Samuel. No. Please. You must fight it. Until I find a way—”

  He held up his hands before I reached him, backing fiercely away. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want you to touch me.”

  “I can only agree with him, cara.”

  Nero’s voice. I looked over my shoulder to see that he had thrown on his trousers and his shirt, but he was barefoot too, and the moment he entered, the temperature dropped, the floor became ice, cold even through the carpet. My thin dressing gown was no protection; the cold was so intense I gasped.

  Nero did not seem to notice as he came over to us. He put his hand to my back possessively. I saw Samuel note it, the hard look that came into his eyes. “I see you’ve stolen my nurse.”

  Nero was equally tense. “She came to me trembling. You left a ring of bruises around her throat.”

  I hugged myself against the cold. “Please. Let’s not speak of it.”

  “I’m moving my things up here,” Nero said to Samuel, ignoring me. His fingers crept to my waist, curving round. “To Elena’s room. I mean to protect her.”

  “Somehow I doubt that’s your only motivation.”

  “Would you prefer I leave her to your rages?” Nero asked quietly.

  Samuel glanced away. “No. But . . . who’s to protect her from you?”

  “You’re so certain she’ll need protecting?”

  They were both bristling. The room was freezing. “None of this matters now. I’ve told Nero everything, Samuel. He needs to know the truth.”

  “What truth is that?”

  “She told me of your epilepsy,” Nero said.

  Samuel stiffened. “It wasn’t her secret to tell.”

  “I wish I’d known it before,” Nero said. “I could have helped you.”

  “I don’t need your help,” Samuel said indignantly. “I kept it from you for a reason. I would have preferred it remained so.” He turned to me, his eyes blazing. “I trusted you. My parents trusted you. How long did you wait to tell him? A minute after he kissed you? Two? Or did you wait until he made you come?”

  I pulled away from Nero, uncomfortable and freezing, the room prickling with ice crystals, sharp and pointed. “You have no right to speak that way to me. I was trying to help.”

  “Perhaps next time you should let me jump,” Samuel said, advancing on me, hands working at his sides. “That’s the kind of help I need.”

  “Enough.” Nero shoved Samuel in the chest. “Don’t come closer to her or I’ll be forced to hurt you.”

  “You’ve already hurt me.” Samuel grimaced with pain and shoved him back. Pushing, the darkness in his eyes flickering. “You should have taught her how to use the knife better, and I’d be dead. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Nero snapped. “Why would I want that?”

  “You tried, didn’t you? You left me in that alley in Rome.”

  Nero’s expression hardened. “You left me. You disappeared. And I found you, didn’t I? I didn’t abandon you.”

  They were chest to chest, glaring at each other, their breaths ghostly in the scant inch between them. I felt Nero’s temper rise; I saw his eyes flash, the tightening of his jaw as if he worked hard to control it. But then everything went wavery and strange. I could not see or focus, that scrim of watery reflections again, forming a wall between me and them. I felt paralyzed as they faced each other, mesmerized by the anger between them. I could only watch helplessly.

  “You hated me,” Samuel breathed. “Admit it. You were jealous. Tell me, did you hire those men to rob me and beat me?”

  “Of course not,” Nero ground out.

  “You did. I know you did. I know it was you. I know you better than anyone else. I know what you’re capable of.” Samuel’s eyes were glowing. He shoved.

  Nero stumbled back. I saw fear in his eyes in the moment before he caught himself and then that fear was gone, in its place a rage that surprised me as he lunged at Samuel. Suddenly, I knew how this must end. The two of them fighting while I stared impotently. It all played out before me, the future already done. Samuel’s hands around Nero’s throat, strangling, and then Samuel in a seizure as Nero lay cold and still, his skin blue and those lovely lashes grizzled with frost. No more breath or winsome smiles. Nothing and
nothing and nothing—No, this wasn’t real. It was just this house.

  Not a ghost.

  Not her.

  I shook it away and lurched between them, pushing them apart. “Stop this now. This isn’t you, Samuel.”

  Samuel faltered, blinking. Nero grabbed me, pulling me into his chest. He looked shaken. “Get out of here. Go.”

  I wrenched loose, going to Samuel, who put his hand to his temple. “You don’t think these things. You don’t believe Nero tried to kill you.”

  Samuel exhaled heavily. He backed away from me, nearly collapsing onto the chair.

  The cold dissipated with an almost palpable burst.

  “Santa Maria,” Nero said. “I begin to believe my aunt is right, and only a priest can help you now.”

  I was unsettled and desperate enough to grab at any suggestion. “Do you really think one could?”

  “I was joking,” he said. “A prayer and a wafer, that is all a priest can do.”

  But Samuel lifted his head. “Perhaps a prayer and a wafer would help. God knows I’ll try anything now. Why not a miserable priest? Go ahead, Elena, bring one. If all he can do is last rites, I’m ready.”

  I winced at the desolation in his voice. “We won’t need that, I’m certain. But I’ll at least ask Nero’s aunt about it.” I reached into my pocket, taking out the morphine, the case with the needle and syringe. I did not want to use either, but then I saw the way Samuel’s eyes lit at the sight of them.

  “You are a saint,” he said softly.

  I gestured to the bed, and he went without hesitation, lying down and pushing up his sleeve in the same motion. I went to him, lighting the lamp on the bedside table to better see as I assembled and filled the syringe. When I leaned to inject it, Samuel wrapped his fingers about my wrist, bringing me close enough to hear him whisper, “Be careful, Elena. Promise me.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t say the truth: that he was the one I must be careful of. And after what I’d seen tonight, I was more shaken and afraid than ever, because it wasn’t only myself I knew I must worry about. It was Nero too. My vision had troubled me.

  When Samuel was asleep, I turned to Nero, who leaned against the wall near the door, arms crossed over his chest, watching me with an expression I could not decipher—it was too thoughtful, too quiet. I blew out the lamp and went to him. He pulled me close, wrapping his arms about me, kissing the top of my head. His heart was racing. Little rabbit heart.

  “He belongs in an asylum,” he whispered to me. “We should send him back to New York, as you wanted. You and I can leave all this behind. We’ll make love in every city on the Continent.”

  “With what money?” I asked softly. “And I can’t abandon him. I can’t believe you would abandon him either. You said you wanted to help him.”

  I felt the current of his sigh. “Yes, of course. Of course you’re right. Go speak with my aunt then. But Elena, please, she is half-mad herself. Do not believe anything she tells you.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”

  Chapter 25

  I did not get much sleep the rest of the night. Nero said nothing more to me about abandoning Samuel and running off, but I felt he tried to convince me with every touch and every kiss. In the morning, he watched me dress with that same quiet thoughtfulness I did not like, but he did not try to stop me.

  I gave him instructions for Samuel and went to the piano nobile. Giulia answered the door. She glared at me as if she meant to flay me alive with her stare, and I realized that of course she must know where Nero had spent the night. She knew everything. Resolutely, I said, “Is Madame Basilio in?”

  I thought she would close the door in my face, but just then Nero’s aunt stepped into the receiving hall and said something sharply in Venetian, and Giulia stepped back mulishly to let me in.

  Madame Basilio gestured to me to follow her. Her heels clacked ominously on the floor; her back was rigid with disapproval, and I remembered Nero telling me that the whole house knew of his interest in me. I could only assume that Giulia had spoken of us, and Madame Basilio knew how well I’d disregarded her warning.

  It was disconcerting knowing that such private things had been fodder for discussion. Disconcerting and humiliating. I had not yet even accustomed myself to what had happened between us; I did not know how to defend it or ignore it. I did not even know what it meant.

  We went into the sala, and she turned to stare at me, those dark, birdlike eyes unblinking and cold. “I asked you to leave my nephew alone.”

  It didn’t help that I’d expected it. “Perhaps you should have asked him as well.”

  She pressed her hand to the nearby lamp table and sank into the chair beside it as if she’d suddenly lost her strength. “Why have you come?”

  “I want to know why you think M’sieur Farber needs a priest.”

  Her chin jerked up. Her expression changed to pure self-satisfaction. “You have seen her?”

  Uneasily, I thought of the shroud and the perfume. Nothing. My imagination. “No, I haven’t. But M’sieur Farber believes he has, and I wonder what you think a priest can do.”

  She murmured something in Venetian that sounded like a prayer and rose. “We must go to Padre Pietro immediately. Come, mademoiselle. We will speak to the priest together.”

  It was not what I’d expected, but there seemed no good way to excuse myself, and I had set this in motion, hadn’t I? I supposed it would be best to discover what Madame Basilio was telling the world about my patient, to see what she really believed. So I followed her out of the palazzo, through the courtyard, to the gate leading into the campo. She led me to the narrow end, across a rail-less bridge whose stones were slick with a morning mist that still scrimmed the canal, on the other side of which was the Madonna dell’ Orto.

  The gray stone and brick campo was quiet. We were the only ones in it as Madame Basilio hurried us across. It felt odd; the church was so beautiful I expected that visitors would flock to it. Its sloping sides were topped with arches of white stone, each containing a statue of an apostle. Looming over all was the brick bell tower, square-sided with an onion dome. At the summit was a white marble statue of the Redeemer.

  Madame Basilio barely spared a glance as she walked quickly through the door. Inside, I blinked in the change from bright sunlight to the soft, dim light from the arched windows. Pillars of swirled gray and white marble, a double aisle, pews softly glossy. The pentagonal apse held gorgeously illuminated, richly colored paintings on either side of the altar. Tintoretto, I remembered Nero saying. This was the artist’s parish church; his tomb was here. I wished for the chance to look at it, but when I paused, Madame Basilio hissed, “Mademoiselle,” the sibilant echo ricocheting among the archways, and gestured urgently for me to catch up.

  There, near one of the front pews, was a deacon, the only other person I’d seen in the church or the campo. I’d begun to have the creeping sense that we were alone in the world. He looked up as we approached, starting slightly when he saw me. I saw when he realized I was not whomever he’d thought me to be, and he turned to Madame Basilio with a bow. The same kind that Nero had made to me. A Venetian specialty, it seemed.

  “Ciao, Signora Basilio,” he greeted.

  She sputtered something to him in Venetian; I recognized only the words Padre Pietro. The deacon nodded and led us into the back rooms of the church, a hallway lined with doors. He stopped before one and knocked, speaking swiftly. I heard a muttered answer from within, and the deacon opened the door to usher us in, and closed the door behind us.

  The office was small, with an arched and mullioned window, the scent of gas almost nauseating. A gaunt, balding man with a fringe of closely shorn gray hair was bent over a ledger. His hands were stained with ink, his back hunched as if he had held that position for so long he had grown into it. His nose was hooked, his eyes bleary as he looked up at u
s. He looked like a hidebound academic, not at all what I had pictured Madame Basilio’s savior to be. But when he saw us, those eyes sharpened. The redness in them seemed to clear away; they became a pale and icy blue.

  He rose. I had the impression he was not used to moving. He said, “Signora Basilio,” and then proceeded to spout a long string of Venetian that of course I didn’t understand. What was clear, however, was that he had expected her, and that this was the continuation of a conversation that had obviously been going on for some time.

  Madame Basilio sat in one of the chairs facing the desk. I took the other. He sat again, and glanced at me in question, and Madame Basilio made a curt gesture toward me, speaking what I assumed was an explanation, and then Father Pietro was saying to me in French, “You’re an American?”

  I nodded, and his gaze became assessing; I felt I was being studied like an ant or a curious species of butterfly. His gaze left me the next moment, dismissive, finished—I have learned all I wish to know.

  “How can you help?” I asked bluntly in French. “What does God have to say about ghosts?”

  His interest bounced back, those sharp eyes. “Souls, mademoiselle. They are souls who have returned to relay His message.”

  “I don’t know that I believe in such things, Father,” I answered. “But I cannot explain what I have witnessed, or what my patient claims to see. I had hoped you might have an answer about how to help him.”

  “What have you witnessed? What has he seen?”

  I told him, stumbling over the words, struggling to say what I meant in a language not my own. The complexities here I could not master. But the priest listened attentively, and when I was finished, he looked at Madame Basilio in surprise.

  She said, “What does this stranger know? She comes into our house and thinks she understands. But I am the one who knows my daughter best. She is an angel come to render the Lord’s judgment.”

  “That’s what Samuel calls it,” I said. “He says an angel shows him things. But do angels do things like this?” I reached for my collar, undoing the tiny buttons at the throat, peeling it back to show him the bruises.