Page 53 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
He just gripped my thighs and hoisted me onto his back with a laugh. “I’m joking. Now ride me like the good girl Sampson insists you are.”
Otto just laughed, walking up the hill backwards. Sampson was shaking his head, and Evan trailed behind us. My hair streaked behind me in the soft ocean breeze, and it felt like one of those moments again. Would it always be like this?
The street finally flattened out to a large plaza, paved with small, perfectly rectangular cobblestones. It looked out over the Mediterranean Sea, the sun making it unnaturally blue. There were a few more tourists up here, renting out hiking boots and signing into tour guide booths.
Standing like a warm heart in the middle of the plaza was the Chiesa di San Vincenzo. It was a butter yellow, its weathered doors wrinkled by time and the ocean, just like the skin of the priest standing on its front step, talking to a pair of older men in worn work overalls.
I slid from Hendrick’s back, unsure of what to do. We waited until the priest had finished his conversation, and was turning back into the church.
As he disappeared through the doors, my heart began to pound. I started to run. I burst through the front doors like marauders were coming, startling the old man. He turned, his bushy eyebrows hanging down with his frown.
“Can I help you, child?”
I sucked in a deep breath, and his eyes flitted to the guys behind me. My cheeks flushed pink, like heknewthat three of them had been balls deep inside of me less than twelve hours ago.Someone get my scarlet letter—I’m ready to accessorize.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Padre. But the lady at the hotel said you might be able to help me.”
He lifted one of those eyebrows. Honestly, they looked like those fluffy caterpillars that spat acid at you. “Oh? What did Maria think I could help you with? Please, come and sit, all of you.”
I moved further into the church, which was gorgeous. It had huge, cloudy white columns that held up domed ceilings, complete with gilded plasterwork and cherubic angels. The fresco in the main dome sat above the intricately carved altar and showed two saints on a cloud. Even the floor had impressive marble patterns.
“Your church is beautiful,” I whispered, because whispering seemed proper at this moment.
“Grazie,” Padre Paolo said as he sat on one of the pews. “Are you wishing to get married?”
I drew back. “Oh, no. I’m already married, Father.” I swallowed hard. “Actually, we are looking for a friend of ours.” Nemo was a friend now, even if I’d never met him. He’d comforted me through the dark times, and drove me to keep on living. That was the definition of a friend, right? “Timothy Smith.”
The priest just looked confused. “I apologize, but the name doesn’t sound familiar.”
“He was a Jules Verne enthusiast.”
Just like Maria at the hotel, the priest’s face folded into something filled with empathy. “Oh, I see. Please, come this way.”
He led us further into the church, past the stained glass windows depicting a priest who I assumed was Vincenzo Ferreri. We walked past a few small bedrooms, which held nothing more than a bed and a cross on the wall. Holy shit, was Nemo staying here? Was he becoming a monk? Did the Catholics have monks? Fuck—I mean, gosh—I should have paid more attention in Sunday School.
When Padre Paolo stopped in front of double doors at the end of the hall, I held my breath. This was it. I knew this was it. I was finally going to meet him, to see a reflection of myself, a kindred spirit.
But when the priest opened the door, it was just a storage room. He walked to a set of shelves and pulled out a small box halfway down. Reaching in, he grabbed out a book, and my heart stopped in my chest.Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
“Did this belong to him?”
I took the book with shaking hands, and opened the title page.
However, everything has an end, everything passes away, even the hunger of people who have not eaten.
The script was as familiar to me now as my own. It didn’t have the chaotic swoop to it that it had in Hong Kong, or Yokohama. No, it was that steady, even stroke of the words that had first entranced me back at the wellness center. Measured and purposeful.
I traced my finger over the letters.
“It is a quote from inside the book. One does not live on Stromboli and escape the words of Verne. We have all read one of his works at some point or another,” the priest said softly. “Do you recognize it?”
I nodded, unable to form words, because a part of me knew what was coming next.
“I am sorry, child. His things were found in the grotto about six months ago. We thought that perhaps they were just left behind, but when a body washed up on the beach a few days later, we assumed that he intended to die peacefully in the ocean’s embrace, and return to the Father.”
I knew he was giving me kind words. I’d tried to commit suicide; the pastors at the wellness center hadn’t minced their words regarding the sin of suicide and how we’d be condemned to the fiery pits of Hell.
I swayed on my feet, and Hendrick was there, holding me tightly to his chest. Padre Paolo looked like he wanted to pull me into a hug too. “We waited for someone to come and collect his remains, or to declare him missing, but no one seemed to miss him. He hadn’t stayed on the island, and no one knew which embassy to contact, so we buried him here, on Stromboli.”
