The Visitant: A Venetian Ghost Story (23 page)

I tried to think. My thoughts were a shamble, everything jangling and twisting.

“Elena,” he prompted.

I turned my attention back to him. “I don’t know. Minutes. Hours. It can be either. He won’t remember any of this when he wakes.”

Nero looked thoughtful. He squeezed me reassuringly and rose, turning to help the priest lift Samuel from the floor, his arms bound to his sides with leather straps that wound to his thighs.

I said, “Take those off him when you put him to bed.”

“He asked me to keep you from harm, Elena. He would want it.”

Knowing that was true didn’t make it more bearable. Nero and the priest struggled with Samuel’s limp body to the doorway. I saw the way Nero glanced at his aunt, not scorn now, but something else, something pointed and sharp. Dread. Or fear. He said to me, “Come with us. You’ll want to check him over.”

But I understood that what he really wanted was for me to be away from his aunt, who stood watching, seeming nearly to twitch with a kind of half-suppressed emotion—I couldn’t tell what it was. Satisfaction or grief. Horror or malice. I liked nothing about her. I was afraid of her. I had no idea why I felt that what had happened here today had been exactly what she’d hoped for—and more than that, that she was confused now as to what to do with it. How did one put the specter that had arisen today back into its box?

The last thing I wanted was to be alone with her. And so I followed Nero and the worried-looking priest from the sala, and when we were in the hallway, Father Pietro said, “We may have to do this again. I am not confident I have expelled the demon.”

“It’s not a demon I’m afraid of,” I replied.

Chapter 29

Father Pietro had gone. He asked us to send for him when Samuel awakened, but the moment I heard the close of the door, I said quietly to Nero, “I don’t want him back here.”

Nero only nodded. He seemed distracted, unsettled; we both were. He pulled the chairs over to Samuel’s bedside, and we sat there, watching him sleep, rigid and straight beneath the blankets, bound about with leather straps.

For a very long time, we were silent. Then Nero said, “What happened?”

“I don’t know. It was a seizure, but . . . something else too. Did you feel it? How cold the air became?”

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I’ve never seen him do that before.”

“It’s unnerving, I know.”

“How often does it happen?”

“When he’s taking his medicine, they happen less often. My father felt he had it nearly controlled the last time Samuel left Glen Echo.”

“Does he always try to throttle himself that way?”

“Throttle himself?” I asked in surprise.

“He had his hands around his own throat. His bruises will be worse than yours.”

I was stunned. “Nero, Samuel didn’t make those marks.”

Nero’s brow furrowed. “Of course he did. I watched him.”

“Something else did. The ghost.” I believed it fully now. There was nothing else to explain, nothing else that made sense.

Nero’s voice was sharp with disbelief. “Elena, do you hear yourself? A ghost strangled Samuel hard enough to leave bruises? How is that even possible?”

“I know it sounds absurd. But what else could it be?”

“I saw Samuel put his hands around his own throat.”

“He was trying to loosen her hold.”

Nero let out a rushed breath of exasperation and raked his hand through his hair. “You’re as bad as Aunt Valeria. She planted the idea in your head the moment you arrived. There’s a ghost, she says, and suddenly you’re believing it must be true. Don’t you see how she’s manipulated you? She has no peer when it comes to that. Believe me, I know. If Laura were here, she would tell you the same.”

“I think Laura is here,” I said steadily.

Nero bit off a Venetian curse. He rose restlessly, pacing from one end of the bed to the other.

I went on, “The look on your aunt’s face when it was over . . . did you see? I think she understands Laura’s message, whatever it is.”

Nero stopped short, pivoting to face me. “There is no message, Elena. What my aunt saw was a man in a seizure, and a ludicrous priest only making everything worse.”

“She said Laura didn’t kill herself,” I pushed on. “That’s what she told me. She said it wasn’t in Laura’s nature. Do you think that could be true?”

A short laugh. “No, I don’t. Aunt Valeria closed her eyes to Laura’s sorrow. She can’t accept her own guilt in refusing to break the betrothal. Another reason for her to hate me—because I remind her that she too is to blame. She’d rather believe the story we told everyone. I think she’s convinced herself it’s true. But the answers don’t change just because my aunt wishes them to.”

“You’re certain it wasn’t an accident, that she meant to jump.”

“It was no accident. Laura was unhappy. She hated this house. She was angry at the world. She wrote me all of those things in her last letter. She told me she wished to leave it all behind, that there was no place for her. By the time the letter arrived, it was too late to help her; she was already gone. Yes, she meant to jump.”

“Then why?” I asked. “If she did take her life, why would her spirit return? What does she hope to tell us?”

“What if it’s only Samuel’s imagination?” he asked. “Some lesion in his brain that tells him to hurt you and himself? Those seizures must cause damage.”

“My father believes they do, eventually,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t explain that strange cold.”

“This place is full of drafts. A board on a window has come loose. Or the damper on the stove isn’t closed. Elena, there are a hundred ways to explain all this.”

My father had been a scientist with no faith in the unseen, and now Nero’s words reminded me that I had been Papa’s best student. My certainty faltered. The palazzo was falling apart. There were holes in the plaster; the ceilings were spiderwebbed with cracks; boarded windows everywhere. It could have been only a draft, and my imagination and fear had run away with me. And as for the marks around Samuel’s throat . . . had I really watched them form before my eyes, beneath the pressure of invisible hands? Or had Samuel’s own fingers made them? Suddenly, I could not quite remember exactly what I’d seen.

Perhaps what Nero said was true, and the answers could not be different than they were. Perhaps I would achieve nothing by speaking with Madame Basilio. But I could not rid myself of the belief that what had happened today had answered a question for her.

I could not just let it lie.

I rose. “I’m going to talk to your aunt. I want to ask her what she thought she saw today.”

Nero started and grabbed my arm, his distress evident. “Elena, please. Don’t pursue this.”

“How can I not? I want to know if she saw what I did.”

“Think of my family. We’ve been hiding this a long time. You’ll only raise questions that are better left unasked, when it’s all easily enough explained by Samuel’s illness. My aunt isn’t well either. You’ll only make things worse. Did you not see her when we left? She looked ready to swoon. She was crying, Elena. Talk to her if you must, but not right now. Give her some time. She’s a grieving old woman who believes she saw her daughter’s ghost today. You’ll get no sense from her. And I don’t want her more upset than she is already.”

His concern for a woman who treated him so badly lodged a soft spot in my heart. I remembered the confusion of emotions playing over her face. I had not thought of it from her point of view, but I realized Nero was right. Madame Basilio had been undone. It would be more compassionate to wait.

“Very well,” I said. “Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

He released my arm gratefully. “I should go see to her. But I don’t want to leave you alone here. If he wakes—”

“He’s bound so tightly he can’t move. And I have the morphine and a knife.” I patted my pocket. “I’ll be fine. Go see to your aunt. It does you credit that you want to.”

He made a face and then smiled softly. “I don’t want to. You see? Already you’re making me a better man.”

“I’ll see you’re a saint before the year is up.”

“Perhaps not a saint,” he said with a wicked smile, pulling me against him. “That would be boring for you, I think. Ah, I love your blushes. Are you pink all over? I should like to see.”

“I thought you meant to look in on your aunt.”

“Perhaps later. In an hour. Do you think that enough time?”

“Enough time for what?”

“To see just how pink you are.” A kiss on the tip of my nose. “I want to explore every inch of you.”

From the bed came a rustling, a restless movement.

I pushed Nero gently away. “Samuel’s waking up. Go. I’ll be safe enough.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Samuel. “Are you certain you’ll be all right?”

“Shall I show you the knife?”

Again that smile. “I wish you would. But probably it would be inappropriate just now.”

I gave him a little shove. “Go.”

“Very well. But, cara, be careful, yes? Shout if you need me?”

I promised, and he left, looking back as he did so, clearly worried, and I felt warm and protected.

I sat back down just as Samuel roused again. A murmur, a movement, quickly stifled by the restraints. His eyes flew open. He blinked at me, obviously confused, and then frowned as he tried to move his arms. The panic that leaped into his eyes made me want to loosen the straps immediately. But I was wary now, my throat throbbing again.

“Elena?” he said my name uncertainly, testing his memory.

“Don’t try to move,” I warned.

The panic didn’t lessen. Now it was joined by fear. “What did I do?” His voice was gravel; the bruises on his throat seemed to pulse brightly.

“What do you remember?”

He closed his eyes; I saw his struggle for memory. “Umm . . . Nero’s shirt. You cut it.”

“That was yesterday,” I soothed. “Do you remember anything more recent?”

“Water. Cold, and . . . and struggling.” He opened his eyes again, frowning, perplexed. “I drowned.” Another movement, as if he tried to raise his arm, a hushed sound of frustration. “My throat hurts.”

“You didn’t drown,” I said calmly. “The priest was here to do an exorcism. Do you remember?”

He struggled against the bonds. “I can’t breathe. It hurts.”

“I know. Be still or you’ll make it worse—”

More struggling, another flare of panic. “Catch me! I’m falling—someone catch me!”

I put my hand on his chest. “You’re not falling. Do you feel my hand? I’m right here. You’re in bed. You’re not falling.”

“It hurts. It hurts . . . afraid . . .” He twisted, tossing his head on the pillow, hair falling in his eyes, which were full of pain and fear, but he was not here. Not with me, but in some other memory. “So much . . . red.” A garbled, ratcheted breath.

I hated this. It was not unusual for patients after a seizure to not know where they were, to make no sense. All I could do was comfort and reassure and wait until his mind caught up with him again.

“Stinks. So cold.” A shudder that racked his whole body. He looked at me, only bewilderment in his eyes, and then I saw awareness sneak back, recognition. “I remember. Falling and drowning, and I was afraid. You saved me.”

“You were never falling or drowning,” I said. “There was a priest. Father Pietro. He said some words, a few prayers, and you had a seizure. You never left the sala.”

Frowning confusion. “But I remember. I didn’t want to fall. I knew I was going to drown and I didn’t want to. My throat hurt. There was so much red.” He jerked, trying to escape the restraints. “Take these off. Please. You know how much I hate them. Take them off.”

“Everyone feels you’d be better—”

“Get them off me!” He flailed, bucking against the mattress. “Get them off!”

I leaned over him, both hands on him now, pinning his shoulders. “Samuel, look at me. Samuel. You’re only making it worse.”

“Get them off!” Stricken with terror, his eyes beginning to roll—and all I could think was that he was going to send himself into another seizure, and I couldn’t stand to see him this way. “You promised! You promised!”

I felt sick and helpless. “I’ll take them off. But you must be still, can you do that? Be still. Tell me you won’t hurt me.”

He nodded. “I can’t breathe. My throat hurts.”

I peeled back the blankets. The straps had been wound tight. Carefully, I wrestled with the buckle of one of them. “I can’t get this without pulling it a bit tighter.”

His face was white, but he nodded. I pulled the strap, trying to push the prong back through the leather hole. I felt Samuel tense, the rapid rise and fall of his breath.

“Almost there.” I pushed it through. One strap loosened. Samuel relaxed infinitesimally. “Now another one.”

There were four, one just below his shoulders, another across his chest, above his hips, and the last at his thighs. It took me a long time to undo them; the priest had been overzealous, especially given that he’d been shackling an unconscious man. I was on the strap that kept his hands well at his sides, and Samuel clenched and unclenched his fists so forcefully I said, “You must be still or I can’t do this.”

“Your throat,” he said. “It looks worse.”

I focused on the buckle, which was very tight, the strap so firmly lodged in the buckle frame that I could hardly budge it. “It’s nothing.”

“There are new bruises there.”

“They match your own,” I said, managing to ease the leather back.

“I tried to strangle you again.”

“Samuel, be still.” I pushed the prong through. Success. Another one loosened.

But Samuel grabbed the strap as I tried to pull it away. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Untie me.”

I sighed in exasperation. “You’ve just been begging me to do so.”

He flinched; I saw how much it cost him to say it. “Undo the restraints, but tie my hands to the bedposts. Loosely, though, so I can move, but tightly enough that I can’t reach you.”

“You’re in no condition to hurt me.”

“Do as I say, dammit.” His voice went hard, an order. “And tell me what happened. Exactly.”

I explained it all to him as I did as he asked, looping one strap to his wrist and tying it to the bedpost, and then doing the same with the other before I addressed the final strap binding his hips. He sighed when I finished both the explaining and the buckle.

“I would have sworn I drowned,” he said. “I can still see it. I can feel it. Like a memory. I know—I think I know—that it never happened, but it’s confusing. It feels like it belongs to me.”

Slowly, I began to understand, to make connections that had eluded me before. “The dreams you had of Nero’s family felt like your own memories too. That’s what you said.”

He closed his eyes. “Christ, so sad. I felt . . . so sad. I still can’t quite believe I didn’t see them myself.”

How strained he looked, shadows highlighting the fine chiseling of his long face. He’d lost weight since I’d been here; there were hollows in him where there had not been before. I studied him—arms stretched, hands dangling from wristbands of the heavy leather leashing him to the bedposts, the darkening bruises mottling his throat. I felt in him a surrender, a painfully acute exhaustion, and I ached so for him that I found myself dangerously near tears. He could not bear much more of this, I knew. I had to find an answer, and quickly, before he gave in completely, before he did go as mad as Nero believed he was, or worse, before he answered the call of the canal.

I leaned over him, brushing his too-long hair from his face, and he turned his head, easing into my hand. “Don’t stop,” he whispered.

I cupped his cheek and said quietly, “I won’t.”

Such a small promise. Only a comforting touch. Something I could do without thought or consequence. But I realized in that moment that I was no longer here for the reasons I’d thought. I was no longer here for the reward of a Grand Tour, or to redeem the mistake I’d made, or to salvage my father’s name.