by Nichole Van
Cat Lady rattled off something in Italian while walking past me and into the apartment, unconcerned that I hadn’t actually invited her in, which was a huge part of her awesomeness.
Cat Lady don’t care.
I should totally put that on a t-shirt for her—a tiny anime cat clutching an old purse surrounded by other cats. It would be perfect.
No. Make that purr-fect.
Where were we?
Cat Lady turned and stared at her son lingering in the stairwell, darting glances between myself and his mom. Cat Lady sighed and motioned for Professor Ross to join her inside. Which he did, pushing up his glasses again.
“We wish to thank you for your help yesterday,” he said, accent thick.
“No problem. I’m just glad I was able to pull Michelangelo off the roof.”
Grace and I had spent the better part of the previous afternoon helping Cat Lady rescue a scared calico cat. Cat Lady had supervised the rescue, chattering in Italian with the occasional English noun thrown in—her favorite words being son, date, marry and babies. Italian mothers, apparently, did not do subtly.
Professor Ross opened his mouth to say something, but his mother stopped him with a raised hand. Cat Lady then proceeded to rattle away in Italian while Professor Ross shot me apologetic glances.
Cat Lady’s Italian was kinda hypnotic to listen to. Staccato, emphatic. She punctuated it all with hand gestures. I wasn’t sure if she was super angry, uber-excited or just hopped up on one doppio espresso too many.
Her pantsuit wasn’t really my style, but the woman could rock footwear. Ruby red, sparkly, low-heeled pumps with sexy little ankle straps. Totally ‘I’m off to see the wizard’ perfection.
I was kinda in love with Cat Lady.
She paused again, twirling that something in her hand, waiting for me to reply.
Right. I shrugged and offered a friendly smile, giving Professor Ross a Help me look.
“Uh, we have . . . for you,” Professor Ross gestured toward his mother’s hand.
Cat Lady extended her palm, revealing a silver medallion threaded on a pretty red ribbon.
“Thank you. Grazie.” I gently lifted the medallion, noting the engraving on it—a giant-esque man lifting a small child on his back.
“For you,” Cat Lady repeated her son’s words in halting English. “It is Santo Cristoforo. For the . . . come si dice . . . protezione.” She used a finger pull down on one eye. “Dal malocchio.”
Uhmmm? “Protection?” I went with the only word I had understood.
“Yes. To defend against the evil eye.” Professor Ross said. “The evil things. They happen.”
Right. That was true.
Again. Something that would be awesome on a t-shirt.
I glanced down again at the medal.
It was probably the jet lag talking at this point.
But . . .
Had the upstairs cat lady just landed on my doorstep with her nerdy professor son in Wizard of Oz ruby slippers (hers, not his) to give me a Catholic saint medal to protect me from the evil eye?
Because I was the one needing help (psychiatric or otherwise) here?
I smiled. A happy, giddy thing.
Yep. I was so in love.
I adored Cat Lady even more than the nice Indian guru on the plane who had spent several hours theorizing who I had been in past lives.
(Spoiler alert: Thanks to Dante D’Angelo—the third member of Branwell and Tennyson’s exclusive triplet club—I knew that I had generally been a peasant housewife. Which totally busted all my dreams of being a reincarnated Joan of Arc. But whatever. I bet I was a rockin’ peasant housewife.)
“Le cose maledette sono successe qui, nel questo palazzo.” Cat Lady was saying.
I looked at Professor Ross.
“My mother . . . she feels bad things happened in this palazzo,” he translated. “The medallion has been blessed for your protection.”
They both stared at me. Expectantly.
Uhmm. Okay.
Medal. Danger. Evil eye. Got it.
“Thank you?” I held up the medal closed in my fist, giving a weak smile.
Professor Ross matched my wan smile. “Mamma won’t leave until you . . .” He mimed looping the ribbon over his head.
Ah.
I put it on, the medallion settling against my chest.
Cat Lady beamed at me, patting my cheek. She rattled away in Italian and then turned, motioning for Professor Ross to follow.
I guess that was goodbye then.
I watched Cat Lady hobble out in her ruby slippers, Professor Ross a puppy at her heels. I couldn’t stop smiling. It was all kinda priceless.
“Grace,” I called as I shut the door. “Gracie-pie. Time to wake up, sleepyhead.”
I touched the medallion with my fingers as I walked down the hallway. I would have to google this saint, whoever he was.
It was sweet of Cat Lady to think I needed protection. Really. It was. And the slightest bit creepy, which I counted as a bonus.
“Grace.” I tapped on her bedroom door and then pushed it open.
I noticed several things at once, in seemingly backwards order.
The empty rumpled bed.
The curtains blowing through the open window.
Her ratty plush elephant lying on the floor next to a toppled Little Mermaid music box, tissue carton and princess crown.
The fact that Grace wasn’t in her room.
“Grace?” I rotated and walked back into the hallway. “Gracie. Pumpkin? Where are you?”
I searched through the apartment. Heart beating faster with every step.
Each room. Empty. Barren.
“Gracie?!” Panicked now.
I ran back into Grace’s bedroom, scanning one more time. I stared at the well-loved stuffed elephant leaning against the fallen Little Mermaid music box. The music box lid had popped open, reflecting Ariel in its mirror.
Only then did I finally see it.
A solitary ruby-red handprint.
Small and stark on the front of her white dresser.
Grace’s hand. Inked in blood.
Five
Portland, Oregon
Six years earlier
Branwell
Hey guys, look at this,” Tennyson said as he and Lucy walked hand-in-hand into our apartment kitchen. “Lucy made us into superheroes.”
Stirring some ragu alla bolognese on the stovetop, I rotated enough to see Dante take a paper from Tennyson’s hand. The smell of tomatoes, garlic and sausage hung in the room.
“It’s not my brilliance, Tenn.” Lucy giggled. The sound of sparkling sunshine. “You guys are the ones with superpowers.”
“You told her?” Dante asked Tennyson. “About our GUTs?”
I raised my eyebrows. We didn’t talk much about the supernatural genetic gifts we inherited from our Italian father—our Grossly Unusual Talents or GUTs, as we called them. The acronym was a little cutesy, but we were boys. What else would we call a paranormal gift of Sight?
“Of course I told her.” Tennyson grinned, kissing Lucy’s forehead. “She’s going to be around for a long time, if I have any say.”
Lucy leaned into him, beaming rainbows and unicorns. Honestly. That woman’s smile.
I noted her t-shirt: Never fear. Distracto Girl will save you from—oh look, a kitty!
Did she have to be so perfect?
“Classic. I’ve been dubbed PerceptiMan.” Dante snorted, reading the paper. “‘PerceptiMan, the superhero who can literally see history. He sees who people and things were in past lives and uses his Super Sight to observe scenes from yesteryear. But living villains rest easy. PerceptiMan only sees dead people.’ Nice.” Dante jabbed a finger. “I like the giant eye on the back of my cape.”
I glanced over Dante’s shoulder. Sure enough. A stick figure Dante with an eye on his red cape.
Dante elbowed me, pointing below his description. “You’re Captain Cacophony—”
“It had to al
literate,” Lucy said.
I shook my head as I read:
Captain Cacophony, the superhero of sound. He hears what occurred around an object the last time it changed form in some way. His superpower is all about rules: the object has to be large enough to be felt, the change has to be obviously noticeable, living things are soundless and liquids muted. But beware. If Captain Cacophony concentrates, he can hear sound through the ages.
“So Dante gets an eye on his cape, but I have huge ears?” I stared at the drawing of me. “How is that fair?”
“It’s not.” Tennyson shrugged. “But who ever said our GUTs were fair?”
True that.
“Lord Destiny?” Dante looked at Tennyson’s superhero description. “Isn’t that somewhat precious?”
“Stop.” Lucy put up a hand, punctuating the gesture with another infectious giggle. “Tennyson is precious to me.”
We all groaned, Dante rolling his eyes.
I stomped on the jealously that punched through me.
Brother’s girlfriend. Not yours.
Focus.
I pretended to study Tennyson’s stick figure with his ornate telescope.
Lord Destiny, the empath who feels the future. Want to know what will happen five minutes from now? Lord Destiny will tell you. But rest easy. Lord Destiny only feels five minutes forward. Your long term future is safe from his empathetic heart.
“I’m still not convinced I would call them superpowers.” I tapped the paper. “More like debilitating handicaps.”
“No, I won’t hear criticism. They’re superpowers. End of story.” Lucy reached across Tennyson, beckoning her hand, demanding the paper back. “I love your GUTs. Every last one.”
Six
Florence, Italy
2016
Branwell
Water flowed silently around my body.
I finished the lap, rotated under and kicked away, avoiding touching the pool wall with my feet.
No sound.
Well, there was sound. Water lapping. Arms splashing. My breathing.
But all those were expected noises.
No unknown voices intruded. No buzzing background hum.
In water, I was free.
Normal. Just a man.
I finished another lap, freestyle. Rotated. Kicked off. I touched the tiled pool wall with my bare feet this time.
A trowel scraping over cement. The rumble of men’s voices.
Bare whispers of noise. Muted.
Had I been out of the water, the sounds would have been crisp and clear. Every plink of tile being laid, the griping of a guy over his cheating girlfriend.
Heaven knew, I had heard it all over the years.
Granted, had I been out of the water, I would have never chanced touching something without preparation. There was too much risk involved, the results too unpredictable.
My hands stung just thinking about it.
No, the water was like everything else in my carefully constructed world—a barrier. A buffer of protection. And if that protective buffer sometimes felt isolating more than insulating . . .
I deliberately suppressed that thought—the one that whispered a prison, no matter how necessary, was still a prison—
Not going to go there. Not today.
Reaching the other side of the pool, I kicked off again and rotated to my back, moving to the backstroke, determined to methodically focus on my morning workout.
I stared up at the Gothic groin vaults crisscrossing the ceiling as my arms cut through the water. Accent lighting arched up from the floor, skimming the walls and edging the room in a golden glow. Once medieval storage cellars underneath our family palazzo in Florence, Dante and I had converted the space into a saline swimming pool and adjoining soundproof room years ago.
My sanctuary. A haven from the family curse.
Granted, family lore held that the curse was actually a gift vigorously sought-after by a distant ancestor. But who could honestly think that? Why would anyone deliberately seek out something so destructive?
My father, grandfather and all other forebears back to the Middle Ages had been able to see, hear and feel everything that had happened or would happen in a place. Voices, images . . . scenes constantly playing out in a vivid tableau around them.
It would be enough to drive one mad.
Which was exactly what had happened to every previous D’Angelo heir through the ages.
Would I be spared the same fate? Would my brothers? Who knew.
The ‘gift’ had fractured at our birth, giving us each a different GUT. Tennyson got the future part of the gift. Dante and I, as identical twins who were once a single egg, shared the past portion.
That didn’t mean our GUTs were equal in strength or had divided in a clear way that made sense. It would be like someone dumping a bin of garden tools onto the lawn and expecting them to form a sculpture. It could happen, but more likely, the tools would just make a mess.
That was how I saw our GUTs—potentially useful tools jumbled together into something confusingly less-helpful.
Our GUTs had developed in strength year-after-year as children and teens, only leveling off a bit once we hit adulthood. We were supposed to tell each other if things changed with our GUTs. Stay informed. Share.
The operative words in all that being ‘supposed to.’
As if.
Tennyson didn’t talk about it. It was anyone’s guess what his GUT did currently.
I didn’t mention my changes. As far as anyone knew, my GUT was strictly limited to sound. But it had been morphing over the past year or two.
Dante constantly over-shared but that was because a) he was Dante and b) his gift had been static for nearly a decade, so it was low-stakes to talk about it.
For Tennyson and me . . . not so much.
Dante and I used our GUTs in our work as art authenticators and appraisers. But I was more the grunt intellectual labor who tracked down actual physical proof of Dante’s paranormal understanding. He saw the truth and then I proved it. My gift was all well and good, but trying to piece together random noises without any physical context of time or place was tricky at best—the cacophony of noise, the unexpected situations. Dante’s gift of seeing was much more useful.
I was fine with the arrangement. I hated touching anything that I hadn’t already altered myself for specific, well-grounded reasons.
Reasons I kept tightly to myself.
The last thing any of my family needed was one additional problem to worry about.
My GUT was like living with diabetes or some other chronic illness. It required planning at every point of my day, but with the right precautions, it was manageable.
I had my soundproof room just off the pool. A place where I could stitch in silence, carefully altering every item of clothing, every towel, sheet and pillowcase before it touched my skin.
And I had this pool of water.
Blissfully freeing.
I moved through three more laps and then paused in the middle. Floating on my back. Weightless. The water settled around me.
Deafening silence. So very rare and precious.
Perfection.
That’s what I told myself.
Because to let any other emotion slip in would be . . .
I swallowed.
Loneliness was a vast, black miasma. So easy to fall into, nearly impossible to escape. All-consuming like its twin—Self Pity.
Two emotions that clamored desperately to be my constant companions.
Besides . . . miasma.
I’d have to add that to the list. She would have liked that one.
I kicked over to the side of the pool, mentally prepping myself for the onslaught of noise. I placed my hands on the prepared towel on the pool deck. The texture of the embroidery felt rough beneath my hands as I pushed out of the pool, water sluicing down my body.
Breathing. Cloth rustling.
The sounds of me stitching a pattern of Celtic runes around t
he edge of the towel, altering its sound at that moment. Fixing it into something known and . . . controlled. The ancient, three-pronged algiz pattern represented stylized horns and was meant to act as a shield.
Safety.
If I had to stitch something, protective runes seemed a logical choice. Pity their benefit was more psychologically soothing than magically actual.
I snagged another towel off a nearby chair and dried off.
Deep breaths. The faint hiss of a needle pulling through fabric.
I toweled off my hair and beard. Randomly, my own personal body hair held no sound for me, nor did it ‘hear’ sound if it brushed against something.
So I grew it all out long. Another protective layer between me and the world.
I slid my feet into rune-stitched slippers and wrapped the towel around my waist. I snagged my phone off the table, a hand-made leather case and etched screen protector kept noise to a minimum.
Light glinted off a series of thin, white scars on my right hand—the catalyst for my carefully managed world. Not that I had any intention of tumbling down the rabbit hole of that memory today.
I glanced at my phone screen.
Text from Dante. He needed help dating a fifteenth century manuscript. The owner thought it could be a vade mecum or enchiridion—a type of early how-to manual. Dante had to catch a plane tomorrow, so would I mind researching past manufacturing of . . .
I nodded and flipped to the next message, replying to another business matter.
It took a few minutes before I noticed.
Three missed calls. All from Tennyson.
He never called without a reason. Something had happened. Or would happen.
My heart sped up.
Tennyson answered on the second ring.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You been watching the news this morning?” Anxiety tinged with hopeless depression washed over me, the emotions laden with a sense of ‘outsideness.’
And there it was. That change in my GUT.
I could ‘hear’ others’ emotions.
My fledgling empath abilities were clearest with my brothers, Tennyson in particular. I didn’t feel much from other people. But if someone told a bald-faced lie, I could hear it in their voice. I didn’t sense things into the future and what I did feel was tentative and mild, not invasive the way Tennyson described his gift.
