Reading · A Work Of Fiction

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But the lick of the leathered nine tails on skin sounded real, as did the cries of pain each time they pierced new flesh, or retread old paths.

Muldoon!

“Sweet Sister, he cannot be helped.” I felt his hand on my shoulder. “And neither can your friends.”

“When working at the Holy See, the cardinals kept song birds. Beautiful creatures, from all around the world, but my favourite was the Song Thrush.” Francesco lifted the glass and gently swilled the red liquid, inhaling its fermented aroma. “Because when you bang against the cage of the Song Thrush, it sings even more. This little bird sings even in the dark. You see…” He took a sip of his drink and wiped his lips with a handkerchief, dropping it back onto a tray that a half-naked Sister Catherine was holding out. “When a little bird is frightened, it can create the most glorious music.”

He pointed to the small choir of sisters he’d forced to stand at the emptied altar. Sister Bridget played the organ, without ever looking up at us. Their voices brought a euphoric rush of peace to my soul, tickling the hairs up and down my back. My eyes, though filled with tears, did not release them. The standstill made my head throb.

“That little one is singing for her life, and she knows it.” He pointed to Sister Elizabeth, one of the last of another cohort, the silken depth of her soprano voice betraying the shattered sense of hope we’d held on to in the hours prior.

“Where is Father John, Francesco?” My voice sounded cold, as though I didn’t particularly care about the answer to come.

He raised his dark eyebrows, his lips pursed for a moment. “Why do you ask?”

“I simply want to know.” I looked around, trying not to lock eyes with the creatures at the back of the chapel, their hideous, long teeth bared as they stood at the threshold, their forms partly obscured in the shadow of the corridor behind them. “He is not here with us.”

Francesco held his glass up. “He blesses this wine.”

He saw me looking at it, and burst into laughter, “No, it is not blood.” He turned to look at his minions in the doorway. “An indulgence, but not a necessity, like it is for them.”

I watched him enjoy the last of it, slamming the glass onto the tray and demanding that Catherine go and fetch him some more. She lowered her head and with a shambling gait, vanished into the corridor, passing the vampires who received one look from their master, and knew not to follow, their dead eyes wide and vapid, like those of a shark head I’d seen once at a fish market.

I sensed their curiosity, but the creatures were loyal. They did not descend on her because she was marked. He’d tasted her.

“Lacrimosa, again,” Francesco called, clapping his hands together. Sister Bridget acknowledged the request with her foot and fingers, her head never moving. “I could listen to this one for eternity. It’s so… sad… Well, that’s what it means, after all?”

“Tears. Full of tears,” I said, an errant droplet rolling down the cheek he could not see. “And sorrow.” I licked it away from my upper lip, wiping my nose with my sleeve. He was too entranced by the music to notice. I saw Catherine returning in the corner of my eye. I could not look at her. After he had taken the glass from the tray, she remained still, awaiting her next order.

There was a thud, followed by the abrupt halt of the music and singing. One of my sisters collapsed. I tried to rise from my seat to help, but I was fixed firmly in place by his power. “Take that one out,” he said, waving a hand.

My sisters hesitated, looking to the unconscious nun and back to my brother. “I will not ask again,” he said, his voice so cool and yet heard clearly at the other end of the chapel.

I turned to look at the doorway. They were waiting, clambering over each other to get closer to the door like wolves cornering a lamb.

“Francesco,” I said through clenched teeth. “I will do as you ask, but you must let my sisters go.”

He raised a hand to the whimpering choir and turned his face to me. “You are precious. Why do you care so much?”

“They are my sisters.”

I’d said the wrong thing, and I couldn’t take it back. His features tightened. “They are not your kin.”

“No,” I agreed, trying to think of my next response. My eyes met Sister Catherine’s. “But their suffering is not necessary. Let them go, and I will come with you.”

“Their suffering is necessary.” A click of his fingers and two sisters dragged the unconscious body of whom I could now see was Sister Mary Pierce toward the door, weeping in their abject helplessness.

Francesco, unmoved by their whimpering, continued talking to me. “You know how it feels to be kept in the dark. Surely you hate them too?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he flashed, turning to look at me, his dark eyes fixed on my face. “You could have saved your Mother Hildegard, but you didn’t. Your feelings are not wrong.”

His words did not instil guilt. They instilled self-loathing, embarrassment for my inability to forgive. He eyed me intently.

“Why deny your nature?” he asked.

I looked down at my hands, observing my lengthening, sharp fingernails. My hands, no longer reddened and chapped from my life of work, were so beautiful, the skin as smooth and as unblemished as a queen’s. I clenched my eyes shut, the blinding pain too much to bear. I opened them again, the colours in the chapel changing once more: dark was light, as though illuminated by the moon itself. My shivering muscles relaxed, the fatigue fading.

“What am I?”

“The same as me. Anything you want to be.”

“Francesco, I want you to stop this.”

He shook his head, half-laughing, his white teeth gleaming. “You will learn, Lucciola. You will learn.”

They were still whimpering as they continued to drag Mary Pierce’s body toward the door. I grabbed the wrist that was resting at his side. He gave me a sharp look, and I wondered how he could be so seraphic and so demonic at the same time. “Francesco, please. I understand your pain. I do… I’ve seen what they did. I’ve seen! Please. No more suffering.”

He fired a glance at the nuns who had been watching him helplessly as they led Mary Pierce to her death, and they stopped, unchallenged. He returned his focus to me.

“You fascinate me, Lucciola.”

“We do not have to hate,” I said quietly, more tears rolling down my cheeks. I was ashamed of them, and I continued to wipe them away as he studied me, his head cocked in wonder. He leaned forward, resting a finger under my chin, angling my face up at him. He was so beautiful, and so monstrous.

“Tell me, darling Sister, do you think I can be saved?”

“God loves you, Francesco.”

The air was punched out of my lungs as I collapsed to the floor, my sisters screaming from the other side of the room. Sister Catherine jumped back, the tray and the glass crashing to the floor, the latter shattering like scattered diamonds on the rug. She rushed to begin picking them up, one by one.

Francesco rose from his seat, moving over to me, his walk so graceful it was as though he didn’t need his feet to touch the floor. He crouched down and offered a hand. I took it and allowed him to help me up to my feet.

“You can’t say that in here,” he whispered in my ear. I followed his eyes to the empty altar. “This is my master’s house now.”

He kissed my forehead. “Though he finds your naivety most appealing. He is very forgiving. He will let you off with such misdemeanors as that.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. He turned to Catherine and clicked his fingers.

She got up from her knees, abandoning her task of tidying glass and hurried away, returning with an instrument. He crossed the room to meet her. She bowed and held it up to him.

I stood still, my eyes unable to accept what I was seeing. I watched him take it from her, holding it. He came closer and began to pluck at the strings, the familiar sound sending shocks through my body, the hairs standing on edge. A wave of bittersweet joy washed over me.

Papa’s mandolin.

“Lucciola, Lucciola…” he sang in his sweet, ethereal voice. I listened, entranced, worried that if I blinked, the vision would dissipate forever. He continued to sing, his voice so angelic that I collapsed to my knees again.

When he finished, he held out his hand and sat me down again beside him.

“Do you understand now, Lucciola?”

Years of confusion and loss mingled, fading until I could see everything clearly, a virgin’s veil finally lifted from my eyes.

“The Prince wants her,” I said, my voice breaking.

Salome: Episode 33.

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