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“We were sixteen. I don’t think any of us even ate the birthday cake after that. It’s kind of a spoiler, huh?” I almost laugh but this isn’t funny.
“What did you do, Helena?”
“I went out to the barn, and I fucked the boy who worked for us. I fucked him because I didn’t want to be the Willow Girl.”
It’s quiet for a long minute.
“Just go to sleep, Helena. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“My mom caught us. The boy and his father both lost their jobs. I just got a belting. The only time my father laid a hand on me, and it was my mother who demanded it. I guess she knew why I did it. Knew she’d lose one of her golden daughters because of me.”
I roll onto my back, then turn to him. His eyes are open, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“I guess we have that in common,” I say.
“What?”
“My mom and your stepmom. They’re more violent than our dads. At least mine, I guess.”
“Go to sleep, Helena. You can join the shitty childhood club tomorrow. Just go to sleep now.”
“I couldn’t walk for three days after that, and it was all for nothing, wasn’t it?”
It’s quiet for a long time. I think I doze a little too, but every time I open my eyes, he’s there, still awake, still keeping watch over me.
“I don’t think you’re weak, Helena,” he says finally. “Scared isn’t the same as weak. Forget the past. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m still here, and I’m still scared.”9SebastianForget the past.
That’s the thing about being a Willow or a Scafoni. You can’t ever forget the past. It doesn’t let you. And neither does the present.
I know about her aunt, the woman she’s named after. The other Willow with black hair and a silver streak through it. The Willow Girl who almost beat her Scafoni master. Who almost broke him. Who almost broke the family apart.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
Helena should know better her history.
And the thing about ending this, there’s no such thing. Not for her. Not for me. And not for future generations of Willow daughters or Scafoni sons.
I look over at her standing beside me as I dock the boat. It’s been three days since the night I caught her in my room, and I can’t seem to stop looking at her.
We’ve just reached Venice proper, and her eyes are as wide as saucers as she takes it all in. It’s summertime, which means one part of the floating city will be overrun with tourists.
It’s amazing to me that people will travel hundreds of miles over hours and days and never leave one tiny part of Venice with all its vendors selling worthless trinkets, the noise and smell of a thousand people taking pictures of the filthy pigeons in the square, of the gondola with the singing gondolier. Fucking tourist traps. What they’re seeing isn’t Venice—at least, not my Venice.
“I thought there would be more people,” Helena says when we disembark.
“There are. On the other side. This is the Cannaregio district. It’s the better side, without the throngs of tourists. I’m not much of a people person.”
She stops, turns to me. “That’s a shocker.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass. Come here.” She’s already walking off, distracted.
It’s been one week since she’s been on the island with us, and I should have brought her here sooner. Should have done it on the day she arrived.
“I want to see the church,” she calls over her shoulder.
“We can see it after.”
“It’s just a few minutes. I want to light a candle.” And she goes off ahead of me, following the two nuns toward the small wooden door at the side of the old church.
“Do you ever listen?” I ask, taking her by the arm when I catch up with her. I walk her around the corner and to the steps of the entrance. “Here.”
“Oh.”
She looks up at it. It is a beautiful church. Most of Italy’s churches are, and Venice’s especially, although I’m partial, since this is home. Religion is an important part of Italian culture—at least for most people.
“Thanks,” she says.
I nod, and we walk in, my hand at her lower back, her heels clicking on the stone steps. The clothes I ordered for her had come, and today she’s wearing a gray skirt and a white, short-sleeved blouse with dark pumps. When I told her what we were doing, she’d chosen the most somber outfit she could find.
The soft scent of incense hovers outside the church. We approach the doors and I pull one open only to have that incense rush my senses. We walk inside, and she stops. Me too.
There’s a stillness here, something rare and unique to churches. Even if there’s a mass in session and a hundred faithful in the pews and an organ blaring out a Gothic hymn, underneath it is stillness. It’s here now, something I not only hear but feel deep in my bones, right to my marrow.
