The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  Vincent lives with our cousin Benny in an apartment a few blocks from the deli. Benny’s awake, because he’s heading to the construction site he works at, and he lets me in with no problem. I tell him I want to talk to Vincent. He tells me Vincent’s still asleep. I’m glad. That’s exactly the way I want it.

  I haven’t taken the time to clean up at all, so Benny wants to know what happened to me. I tell him he should see the other guy. I tell him I’m going to go wake Vincent up. Benny shrugs. He leaves for work.

  I go into Vincent’s bedroom. Vincent is asleep in nothing but his boxers. He’s thrown all his covers off while he’s sleeping, so he’s curled up on his side. One of his arms is clutching the pillow.

  I stalk over to him. I pull the gun I’ve brought with me out. I place the gun right next to Vincent’s head and fire into his pillow.

  It would be cooler if it were a feather pillow and feathers started fluttering everywhere, but there’s a still a nice explosive sound and a big hole in his bed. Vincent sits up, his eyes wide. His hair is sticking straight up on one side of his face, because he’s been sleeping on it. He looks bleary eyed and hung over.

  I put the barrel of the gun on his forehead. “Good morning, Vincent,” I say.

  Vincent goes cross eyed, looking at the gun. He swallows. “Listen, Olivia, about last night. I might have gotten carried away.”

  “Don’t talk,” I tell him. “I don’t want to listen to your stupid whiny voice.”

  He swallows again.

  I bend down so that I’m putting my swollen face right in front of his. I figure I look like some kind of monster, and I like that. “So, you’re right about one thing, Vincent. I am a girl. I’m not nearly as strong as you.” I cock the gun. “Funny thing, about being weak, though, Vincent. Seems like everyone’s got a weak spot. Here you are, half dressed in your bed with your hair all mussed up. And here I am with a gun to your head. So, you can corner me in the alley and beat me up if you want. But that doesn’t mean that you’ll be safe from me.”

  Vincent licks his lips. “Olivia, we’re family—”

  “Shut up,” I thunder. I lower my voice again. “We are family, Vincent. Which is why you never should have put your hands on me like that. Now I know I can’t trust you. And when I’m head of this family, I’m going to have my eyes on you. And if you make one wrong move...” I tense my finger against the trigger. “Bang!”

  Vincent jumps.

  I laugh. “You hurt me again, you cross me again, I will kill you. It wasn’t hard for me to get in here this morning, was it? It won’t be hard for me to get to you again. I don’t care if we are family, Vincent. That clear?”

  Vincent nods, swallowing again.

  I uncock the gun and put it away. “Good. Have a nice day.”

  It’s only when I get out of his apartment that I start shaking. I just threatened the life of my cousin. I never thought I’d have to do something like that. But I think Tommy was right. It was necessary.

  I wait until I’m sure Nonna has gone to the market, and I go home to shower and change clothes. The water stings against all the places that I’ve been cut and scratched up, but the steam feels good as it loosens my sore muscles. I’d like to wash Brice’s clothes so that I can give them back to him, but I don’t have time, so I just hide the clothes. I find a baseball cap to put my hair up into and a pair of sunglasses. I don’t want anyone to see how bruised I am.

  I take a trip to the other side of the island, to Fazioli territory. Tommy’s comments about the Ercalonos make me think it’s probably a bad idea to interact with them in any way for now. I wander for a while, waiting to see someone. Finally, I catch sight of Leo Fazioli. He used to go to St. Anne’s with me as well, but he was a few years ahead of me. I approach him. I don’t think he’ll recognize me in with the cap on my head and the sunglasses. He might, but it’s just a chance I’m going to have to take.

  “You’re a Fazioli, right?” I say.

  “What’s it to you?” he says. He is trying to figure out who I am, I can tell.

  I keep my head down, my face in the shadow of the ball cap. “I want to buy a charm. You got charms?”

  He shifts on his feet. “Not on me. But I can get one.”

  We haggle over price. After deciding, he tells me he’ll meet me in an hour.

  I let him walk off and then I follow him when I’m sure he doesn’t think I’m behind him. One of Brice’s invisibility charms would come in handy now, but I haven’t got one, so there’s no point in thinking about that too much.

  Leo goes to a furniture warehouse. Selling furniture is one of his family’s many covers. I can’t get inside, so I have to settle for finding a window to watch through.

  Like our deli operation, there are several jettatori set up at a kind of assembly line. They have big stacks of herbs and big boxes of charms. I watch as they mumble their chants over the herbs, as they wrap the charms in the blessed herbs, as they sprinkle the charms with blood from animals that carry the berserker virus. It’s like what we do. It’s almost exactly like we do, except for the fact that the chant is different. I whisper it to myself over and over outside the window, memorizing it. I’m glad I’ve spent so much time memorizing lines for plays. It only takes me a few times through before I’m sure I’ll remember the chant long enough to get home and write it down.

  I meet Leo later and buy my charm.

  Then I go to the deli, and I get one of our charms. I sit in my car for a while, staring at both of them. They look so similar. I don’t put either on. I don’t want to trigger the magic. I try several things I know about benedetta magic. A few little spells of inquiry. They don’t produce much. If I hadn’t been a jettatore, I could have been trained in Benedicaria, like my grandmother. But I made my choice.

  Still I don’t know what the implications of this are. I don’t know why the chants are different. I don’t know how to figure any of that out.

  I feel confused today. I put a gun in my cousin’s face. And Tommy told me I was built for being jettatori. What I’m doing with these charms, doesn’t it undermine everything my family works for? Was that cop right last night? Will I work against my family if I discover they’re doing something wrong?

  Was it wrong to threaten Vincent? Was it wrong to murder Joey? Was it wrong to try to sleep with Brice? Was it wrong to involve him in any of this? I think of the scratches on his face. I’m not even sure if I really know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore.

  Before, it was simple. The most important thing was to protect my family. Anything that did that was right. Anything that didn’t was wrong. Now...

  Finally, I start the car and drive home. It’s getting towards late afternoon, and I have a show tonight. At least the play is easy. At least there, the lines are all written for me, and all I have to do is say them convincingly.

  When I get home, Nonna is in the living room. She is watching television and knitting. She looks up at me. “You didn’t come home last night.”

  I nod. “I wasn’t doing anything with a boy, Nonna.” The half kiss doesn’t count. “But I think I need your help with something.” I pull out the charms.