The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  That night I have this dream that I’m turning into a berserker like Brice. It freaks me out, and I wake up the next morning all sweaty and scared. I can’t go back to sleep, so I get up and start making breakfast for Nonna and me. I’m an okay cook. I’m not great at it, like Nonna is, but even though I’m jettatori, I’m still a woman, and you can’t get away from learning how to cook in a Calabrese household. Or a Graziani one, for that matter, since Nonna is my mother’s mother.

  I decide to make a frittata with some of the leftovers we have in the refrigerator. I get out eggs and some plain cooked macaroni. I dig around until I also find some sausage. I take an onion out of the vegetable crisper. There’s always tons of food in my fridge, because Nonna grocery shops like she still lives in the old country, which means she goes to the market daily to get whatever food she needs for the meals. She also cooks like she’s feeding a family of five instead of just the two of us. Occasionally, I have to go through all the leftovers in the refrigerator and throw them out, because we have no room. That always makes Nonna mad. She hates to waste food. If it were up to her, I’d be two hundred pounds by now.

  I peel the onion and begin chopping it on the cutting board. I don’t think I really got the berserker virus from Brice, but I don’t know. Because it’s a magical illness, no one’s really sure why it’s sexually transmitted. They haven’t done studies to see if you can get it from kissing or anything like that. The theory I’ve heard the most is that it’s transmitted through sexual energy, especially through orgasm. Which neither of us had. So. I should be okay.

  But what if I’m not?

  I transfer the chopped onions to the skillet and put a pat of butter in as well. While they start sizzling, I crack open a few eggs. I can’t be a berserker. I just can’t.

  Nonna comes into the kitchen in her curlers and dressing gown. “Smells delicious, Olivia.” She stirs the onions in the skillet, and then leans over my shoulder. “Make sure you whip those eggs very well.”

  “I know.” She is like a backseat cooker. She can’t leave anything alone. I get out a whisk, add some cream, and began to whip the eggs. “Nonna, is there a benedetta cure for berserkers?”

  “Really whip them,” she says. “Are you asking me this because of that boy?”

  “No.” I double my egg beating efforts.

  “You know I don’t want you to see him again.”

  “He’s in the play. I see him every day we have a performance.” I check the onions. They are nearly translucent, so I lower the temperature on the stove, add the eggs, and put in the sausage and macaroni as well. I preheat the oven to finish the frittata.

  Nonna inspects the egg mixture in the skillet. “You could have whipped them more.”

  “It’ll taste fine.” I transfer my cooking materials to the sink and begin to rinse them off. “I’m just curious. Has anyone who got the disease ever been cured?”

  “You didn’t put in any cheese.” Nonna gets some shredded cheddar out of the refrigerator and begins dumping handfuls over the frittata.

  “I like to add it later.” I open the dishwasher and stack the rinsed dishes inside. “You’re not answering my question.”

  “If you put it in later, it doesn’t melt in with the egg. The flavor is different.”

  “Nonna.”

  She turns on me, gesturing with the bag of cheese. “I do not want you to see that boy anymore. He is no good for you. Do you understand me, Olivia?”

  “Nonna, this is not about him.”

  “Hmph.” Nonna returns the cheese to the refrigerator. “I can see the way you get when you talk about him. You have to nip the whole thing in the bud. What would you do with a man like that? You couldn’t have any children.”

  “I’m not interested in Brice.”

  “Your mother said the same thing about your father. And look how that turned out.”

  She says things like this all the time. It’s no secret that Nonna doesn’t like my father. I always assumed it was because he was jettatori, and my mother was not. But now, I remember what Vincent said to me yesterday. My stomach drops. “Nonna? How did my mother die?”

  She gives me a strange look. “You know how she died.”

  “She was killed in the crossfire when my father was arrested.”

  Nonna nods. “That’s right.” She stirs the cheese into the frittata on the stove.

  “So, my father didn’t...he didn’t want to hurt Mom, did he?”

  Nonna turns sharply away from the stove. “Why would you say that?”

  “It isn’t true, is it?”

  “I don’t know anything more about it than you do.” There is anger in her voice. “The jettatori, they say whatever their boss tells them to.”

  I feel frightened. I know Nonna hates my father, but I didn’t think she thought he was capable of murdering my mother. Whatever happened to her, it was horrible. They didn’t open her casket at her funeral. It would have been upsetting, they said. She wasn’t recognizable. If my father did that to her...

  No. I refuse to believe that. He wouldn’t do it. And my mother would never rat on my family. Never.