Fruit of Misfortune (21 page)

When I stepped out of my room, David had just
set foot on the second floor. I saw Eros walking down the left
corridor to his bedroom. He peeked over his shoulder and raised his
eyebrows at me as if he had stolen the crown jewels and gotten away
home free.

“Please don’t be angry at me,” David
said.

“Don’t.” I raised my hand. “Just don’t say
anymore. I’m tired of worrying, and of crying, and of everything.”
I rubbed the side of my forehead in circles with my fingers. “I
want to forget for just a little while. Can we do that?”

“I want that, as well,” David said.

He locked my hands behind my back and pulled
me against him. He took my lips in his, and I indulged in layer
after layer of kisses. I was inebriated by the familiar scent of
sandalwood that rose from his skin.

Eros had been feeding me a lot of lines about
how I was falling in love with him, and at times I believed him.
But when I was in David’s arms, I felt that—like the times Grandma
Eva’s septic tank overflowed at the ranch house—Eros was full of
crap. Yes, Eros was beautiful and there was something that I had
been fighting against that called me to him, but he wasn’t
David.

“Are you forgetting, yet?”

“Forgetting what?” I stood on my tiptoes with
my eyes closed, eager for one more kiss.

“Mission accomplished.”

I opened my eyes and twisted my arms, freeing
my hands from David’s grip. I hugged him hard.

“Is it strange that I miss you?” he asked,
tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I feel like I’m so
close to you, but at the same time, so far away.”

“I feel that, too.” I placed the side of my
face on his chest. I could hear his heart beating, his chest
expanding with each breath he took.

A sob echoed up from the first floor. I knew
who it belonged to.

“Is Paulina willing to stay here after all of
this?”

“No. She’s already given her
resignation.”

“I don’t blame her.”

David tightened his arms around me.

“Paulina is returning to Italy with her
mother, Susana, who’s also Camilla’s sister. Susana will be
arriving later today.”

“Where will Camilla be put to rest?”

“Arrangements are being made for Camilla’s
body to be transported back to her home for the burial.”

“Camilla told Paulina I had a purpose,” I
said. “What do you think she meant?”

“Well, don’t we all have a purpose?” David
asked. “You shouldn’t read too much into it. Camilla might’ve been
possessed when she spoke her last words.”

“But she knew about the Turpis. She was
communicating with them. And Paulina never said she was
possessed.”

“Isis.” David took my head between his hands
and kissed my forehead. “Let it go. What she said was a
generalization.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” I
stared down at my feet, which brought back a quick image of
Camilla’s body lying bloody and lifeless on the kitchen floor. “But
I know the demons will be back.”

“They know we’re on to them. I don’t think
they’ll make any attempts against you anytime soon. But
if
they come back, we’ll be ready.”

“Right,” I said, but I didn’t believe it. “Do
you think you can get the file back from Carboné?”

A sound came from down the hall. David lifted
his finger to his lips and signaled toward Eros’ room. We walked
into my room and David closed the door behind us.

“Eryx went to verify the address. Carboné and
his men have never seen Eryx, so it seemed reasonable to send
him.”

“Does that mean you’re planning
something?”

“Eryx will stakeout the house and wait until
Carboné and his minions leave. Once we have the file, we’ll leave
Athens.”

“We’re leaving Athens? Why?”

“Carboné will be scouring the city to find
us. We have to disappear.”

“And go where? You can’t be moving around.
You heard what Dr. Gunn said. The seizures will continue until
you’ve changed. What if you start hemorrhaging? You could bleed to
death.”

David rubbed the top of my hand with his
thumb. He looked worried.

“Gunn is coming with us. We need him, and
Carboné will go after him when he finds that my file is missing.
Gunn and his wife will meet us in Romania. A family friend in
Bucharest has offered us refuge there.”

“You said no one else was supposed to know.”
I frowned. “Is it another deity? Can we trust them?”

“She’s the only one we can trust. She’s
Galen’s ex-girlfriend. Since she still has feelings for him, I know
she won’t turn her back on us.”

“Poor girl.”

“That’s what my mother said.”

“I meant that I feel sorry for her
taste.”

“So does my mother.”

I laughed.

“That has to be the best sound I’ve heard in
a long time.” David smiled. “I wish I would hear it more
often.”

“I know I haven’t been the best person to
hang out with lately.”

“Neither have I.”

We stared at each other in silence. No other
words had to be said between us to understand that we regretted the
ongoing fights we’d had since we’d arrived.

“Changing the subject,” I said. “When will
you and Eryx go get the file from Carboné?”

“I was voted out of the plan. I’m not
going.”

“Because they’ll recognize you?”

David looked at me for a moment as if trying
to decide whether he should respond to the question.

“Because I had a small convulsion in the
study, after you left. That’s why I took so long to come after
you.”

My chest ached. I reached for his face,
feeling the need to be closer to him.

“I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would’ve gone
back.”

“It was better that you weren’t there.”

“Did you bleed again?”

“Very little.” He pointed to the left side of
his head. “From my ear this time.”

“If you’re lying to me, this conversation
isn’t going to end well.”

“I’ve told you, I will never lie to you. How
many times do I have to repeat it?”

I knew David well enough to know that he’d
keep his word. He wouldn’t lie to me. But as for me, I was a whole
body of lies and deceit. My guilty conscious wouldn’t allow me to
look at him anymore, so I buried my face in his chest.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said.

“I don’t know why you keep apologizing.”

I’m apologizing for everything I’ve done
and for everything I’m going to do.
“I just am.”

***

Susana, Paulina’s mother, arrived in the
early evening. When she saw Paulina standing in the middle of the
living room, they fell into each other’s arms, weeping. I paid my
respects to Susana and sat in a chair in the corner as Nyx
discussed the transportation and funeral arrangements that she had
been busying herself with all day.

David rubbed my arm as I watched Paulina and
Susana holding tight to each other’s hands. I wondered who would
hold my mother’s hand when I was gone.

“I arranged for flowers to be delivered at
the wake,” David whispered in my ear. “A bouquet from each family
member, including you.”

“Thank you,” I said, absently, eyeing Eros as
he walked into the room to pay his respects to Camilla’s sister. He
sat with Susana and spoke to her in Italian. The woman nodded at
Eros’ words.

“What’s he saying?” I asked David in a hushed
voice.

“He’s offering words of comfort, but also
manipulating their emotions to ease their grief. He’s letting them
feel the love Camilla had for them.”

“That’s nice of him.” I crossed my arms and
settled back into the chair, wondering if Eros was doing it all for
show, to keep his farce believable.

A couple of hours later Nyx set up dinner in
the formal dining room. I don’t think any of us could have eaten in
the kitchen, knowing Camilla had died there. I had been avoiding
the kitchen on purpose. Not that it was hard since I didn’t have an
appetite with the recent events branded into my memory.

Paulina and Susana joined us for dinner. Eros
claimed a spot next to me at the table, leaving me seated between
David and him. Reminding myself of Gunn’s prognosis about the fat
filter my body had so inconveniently grown, I decided to play it
safe and had a serving of steamed vegetables, instead of pasta.
Everyone turned their attention to their plates and ate in silence.
I was thankful for the quiet dinner, because I had to think hard
about what my next move would be.

After dinner, Alezzander called David, who
excused himself with a face of dread and walked out of the living
room to speak to his father. Nyx was speaking with Susana when
Paulina walked over to me and asked if we could talk in private. It
made me uncomfortable, but I agreed. I hoped that she wouldn’t
apologize. She had no reason to.

Paulina led me into her room, which I didn’t
know was beyond the stairs on the first floor. I had never been to
that part of the house before. The bedroom was a bit smaller than
mine. Her bed was covered in a flowered yellow and white duvet. A
gold crucifix hung right above the white headboard.

As she closed the door behind her, Paulina
didn’t waste a moment.

“Before I leave, I have to tell you
everything,” she said.

This can’t be good
. I wasn’t sure I
wanted to hear what Paulina had to say, but I asked anyway.

“About my purpose?”

“No.” Paulina looked around the room with
apprehension splayed across her face. She held her hands up to her
mouth, then looked at me and said, “I killed Camilla.”

What. The. Hell?
Wide-eyed, I took a few steps back and away
from Paulina.

“You don’t understand—she was going to kill
me.” Paulina muffled her cries with her hands. “And she was going
to kill you, too. That’s why she sent me to call you. Only, it
wasn’t her. It was the thing inside of her.”

“You lied?” As shocked as I was, I tried to
take in what she had just told me. “She was possessed?”

Paulina nodded, wiping away the tears with
the back of her trembling hand. “I was sent here by my mother two
years ago when I was attacked in Italy.” She touched the scar on
her chin. “And then it happened again. This is from the second
attack.” She lifted her skirt, exposing a long, concave
disfigurement that ran from her knee to the inside of her thigh.
“My uncle did this to me when they took control of him.” She looked
up at me through her wet eyelashes. “The town’s priest let the
people burn him alive, because even he was too afraid to perform an
exorcism.”

I shivered from the vivid images produced in
my head by her story.

“So—they’re after you, too? Why didn’t you
say anything before?”

“They thought I was you.” She sniffled.

“What do you mean?”

She walked to her packed suitcase, zipped
open a pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here,” she said.
“Look at this.”

I unfolded the sheet. It was written in
Italian except for one line.

“This has my name on it.” I raised the paper.
“Why do you have a piece of paper with my name on it?”

“It’s my birth certificate.” She took the
paper from my hand. “My name is Isis Martin.”

I stood silent, assessing the degree of
psychosis that a person could reach after the disturbing death of a
loved one.

“Paulina, I don’t know where you got that
paper, but I think maybe you may need a doctor.”

“Listen to what I’m telling you!” She waved
the paper in my face. “My name is Isis. My sister is Paulina. I was
too young to apply for a migrant work permit so we used her papers
to bypass immigration because she’s older and we look alike.”
Paulina, lowered her hands to her sides. “You need to leave here
before they come back. Now that they found the Isis Martin they
want, the demons will all come at once.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t think demons can
mistake identities.”

“Why not? We have the same name,” she paused,
“and we were born one day apart.”

“How do you know—”

“Your name was on the airline tags on your
suitcases.” She turned her back to me. “And I saw your
passport.”

“You searched my things?”

“I had to make sure.” She slipped the
document she had showed me back into the suitcase pocket and zipped
it. “Camilla kept saying the demons were telling her to kill
Isis.”

“That part of your alibi was true, then?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “She would speak to them,
and I could smell them in her presence. They were driving her mad.
The same thing happened to my uncle.”

“Yeah, I know how they work.” Blurred images
of a crazed and possessed Gabriel flashed in my head. All of my
insides trembled as I relived the moment. “Do you know why they
want to kill us?”

“
Us
? No. They no longer want me, and I
don’t know why they want to kill you.” She sat on the suitcase she
had been standing in front of. “Do you believe in God, Isis?”