Page 2 of Just for a Taste

“Carmen wasn’t just a bird. She was mine.”

Basilio kicked a nearby pile of leaves, causing them to blanket the spots Zeno had uncovered. Zeno forgot all about cleanliness and plunged his hands into the dirty leaves to clear them away again. Basilio groaned loudly and threw his arms out to his sides.

“Come on! I told your father it would only take a few minutes to get you back inside. We need to get you cleaned up. There are people who want to meet you. How are you supposed to get abeniaminaif you hide out here every time?”

No response at all but the skittering leaves. Basilio nudged his cousin, who gave him a glare but continued what he was doing.

“I was so foolish to think that you would be normal once those damn birds were gone,” Basilio grumbled to himself.

Zeno’s head snapped up. “What did you just say?”

Basilio quickly took a few steps back to widen the space between them. He held up his hands. “Look, i-it wasn’t my idea.”

“What thefuckdid you just say?” Inch by inch, vertebrae by vertebrae, Zeno lengthened his spine.

“It was painless! I had them use natural gas, so it only took a few—”

Basilio didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence before his collar tightened around his neck. He gasped and clawed at his throat, trying in vain to dig his feet into the ground rather than be dragged back onto the tile beneath the balcony, but the very leaves he had kicked prevented him from getting a grip. Dead silent, Zeno grabbed his cousin by the hair and bashed his head into the base of a column once, twice, three times. He only stopped once he saw teeth through Basilio’s split lips, his chin a crooked mess of blood and bone, Zeno’s own knuckles broken.

He picked Basilio up with his intact hand and dug his fingers into his cousin’s scalp until blood gathered beneath his fingernails. Then, he threw Basilio to the side and kicked him as hard as he could in the stomach until vomit and gurgled sobs spewed from Basilio’s lips.

Just as Zeno lurched forward to start another onslaught of punches, a large hand pulled him back. Another hand grabbed his other arm, seamlessly pulling them back into an uncomfortable cross behind his back. Zeno kicked and fought despite the risk of dislocating his arms, then went limp when he realized who was holding him.

“All this where guests could have seen you?” came the unmistakably low voice of his father. Every time his father spoke, the boy thought, it sounded like a dirge.

Zeno wilted to the ground. His father let go of him and knelt close, so close his lips were almost touching Zeno’s ear.

“You’re so fucking lucky that nobody else heard this,” he hissed. “You’re so lucky that I even call you my son.”

Several people crowded around them then, numerous guards lifting Basilio and rushing him off. Zeno’s father shoved his son so he was belly-up and spat in his face. “You’re disgusting.”

Zeno didn’t wipe it off, even once his father’s back was turned to him. Those familiar footsteps, slow and even, faded into the distance, leaving the boy alone.

Curled up in a ball, face covered in tears and vomit and blood and spit, Zeno whispered back, “I know.”

Book One: Serenata

Chapter 1: In bocca al lupo

Iwondered how my mother would feel if she knew what I planned to do with these vampires. Would she throw back her head and laugh that all the time and money I’d spent on school had gone nowhere? Would she spit at my feet and tell me that selling my body, my blood, month after month was no better than what she had spent her life doing after Pa died? Or would she muse that it only made sense for a girl surrounded in Gothic novels and Bibles to wind up in an abbey?

When I left that morning, I didn’t think my interviewer was correct in assuming I would arrive so late. After all, Sicily was a small island and the Abbazia di Santa Dymphna was well-known, so why would I need to rely on all the maps she had laid out for me?

But as I soon discovered, my formidable grasp of Italian was useless when conversing with the inhabitants of rural Sicily. I couldn’t speak a word to the man driving me. After saying something I couldn’t fully understand about the wind, he cracked open my window.

Cool mountain air rushed into the car, carrying with it the earthy scent of tilth. Intermittent clouds floated overhead, casting sunlight erratically over the patchwork land. I could see the tree-lined border of a distant town, but little else of interest. For all its beauty, the only sights Sicily had given me so far were predominantly of farmland, and that wasn’t enough to stop my mind from racing.

I turned away and dug out my phone. Considering the remoteness of my destination, this would probably be my last chance to use it.

A stock photo of heirloom roses shone through the spidery cracks on my screen. I had finally changed my Lock Screen a few weeks ago, but it still jarred me every time I checked the time or looked at a notification. Holding it close to my face, I wondered if the old picture of Emily and me in our favorite cafe was burned into the screen, or if I was imagining its shadow overcasting everything, just like I wondered if the smell of her strawberry shampoo still lingered on my clothes, or if I had willed the familiar scent into existence. At least I knew the sensation of a ring on my finger was a phantom. She tookthatwith her when she left me last month.

I unlocked the phone, then grimaced as it opened to the mail app. There were a handful of emails sent by my thesis adviser, trailed by my various drafted responses. In all of her emails, my adviser maintained her usual professional tone, but over time, they had gotten increasingly terse. Between cordialities and academic prose, the underlying message was clear:You’ve run out of funding, Cora, and we can’t keep giving a stipend to a no-name. Get results sooner rather than later.

Many of my abandoned drafts were long-winded explanations about how I was only missing a few key documents that surely existed to prove my theory. Others were outright excuses about crashed computers or sick grandmothers. Some were just embarrassing pleas and empty promises. I almost sent a lengthy response explaining how this thesis was what I had left everything for and was now all I had in this world.

My eventual response was two sentences sandwiched between auto-generated salutations:I have a lead. We’ll talk when I find something.

Less was more, I supposed, with a “lead” as sketchy as mine.

---