The drive back late the following afternoon is quiet. The sun is shining bright, so opposite the sheets of rain the day before.
I feel him glance at me, and I wonder what he sees. I wonder if things will change now.
I touch the ring on my finger, turn it a little, so the skull face is staring at me.
“What is that ring?”
He pays attention to everything. “My aunt gave it to me after the reaping.” I can’t help the accusatory tone in that last word.
“My Aunt Helena.”
He nods, looks straight ahead.
“Did you decide if I can call her?”
He won’t look at me when he replies. “Let’s talk about it later.”
“This is later, Sebastian.”
Nothing.
“She gave it to me to remind me that not every Willow Girl dies,” I say, unable to help myself. Unable to help that familiar darkness from creeping into my words.
We’re nearing the docks. We’ll be back on the island soon.
“I miss her.”
“She lived with you, right?”
“Yes. I’d sometimes catch her and my mom in these top-secret meetings. I called them that because they were so strange about it. I realize now my aunt must have known about the money that would change hands when the next one of us was claimed.”
By the time that day came, I felt like she hated my mother. I didn’t know why, not then.
“I overheard them once. It was on our sixteenth birthday. I’d gone to my aunt’s room to call her down for the celebration. She was out of her chair. She could walk, but she was so old, it was easier for her in the chair. But she was up on her feet, and my mom was sitting on the edge of her bed. They were arguing more loudly than usual, and my aunt did something I’d never expect from her. She slapped my mother’s face, and I can still remember the sound of it and her exact words: “You saw what they did to your sister and you’ll put your babies on those blocks? And for what? You make me sick.”
There’s more that I don’t tell him. How my aunt had told my mom it should have been her. That Libby wouldn’t have done this. She would have chosen differently.
They had argued then, and my mom forbade her from coming to the birthday celebration. She locked her in her room like she was a child.
When I took Aunt Helena a piece of birthday cake later, she lied to me, told me she hadn’t felt well enough to come. I think it was the only time she lied to me.
I take a long breath in. “Please let me call her today.” I’m not above begging, not anymore. “You can be in the room. What are you afraid I’ll say? I just want to talk to her, tell her I’m okay. Hear her voice.”
What would my aunt think if I told her the truth? That I was starting to have feelings for my Scafoni master. Would she slap my face too?
He pulls into the parking lot, drives up to the docks. I recognize the man who greets us. He’s the same one as yesterday.
Sebastian gets out, hands over the keys. He opens the trunk and takes out our overnight bag. When he opens my door, I just look up at him.
I can’t get out. I don’t want to. I feel my eyes filling up again because I’m scared and I don’t want to go back, and it’s worse now than before.
He sighs, tells the man to load the bag onto the boat, and crouches down. He takes one of my hands into both of his.
“I don’t want to go back there,” I say.
“We have to, Helena.”
I shake my head. “Why? You can decide. It’s up to you what happens to me.”
Not for long, though. Not for long.
My stomach turns at the thought.
“Listen to me, Helena.”
I shake my head.
“Listen. My meeting in Verona, it was good news. I’m trying—” he stops abruptly, breathes in, changes track. “You have to trust me now. What I said to you yesterday, they weren’t empty words.”
I stop.
“I have no intention of passing you on to my brothers,” he says.
“What? How? How can you stop it?”
He straightens so I have to look up at him and squint against the sun behind him.
“I can’t tell you that. Just let me handle this my way and trust me. No one will touch you. You’ll be safe.”
“How can I be safe on that island? With them?”
His forehead is creased. He reaches down, unbuckles my seat belt, and lifts me out of the car.
“Give me a few days, and we’ll talk again. Can you do that?”
“I don’t have a choice, Sebastian.”
No one is around when we get back. Apart from the bustle of food being prepared in the kitchen and the gardeners working outside, it’s quiet. Sebastian has to make calls and disappears into his study. After spending an hour in my room, I decide to go outside, go for a walk.
The waning light lends a comforting backdrop to my walk. There won’t be a single cloud in the sky tonight.
I walk past the swimming pool, the filter buzzing quietly, and step onto the grass, turn toward the small farm. It’s just far enough from the house that the smell doesn’t reach it.
A dozen chickens roam free and half that number of lambs. I wonder if they slaughter them. I guess they do. Why else keep lambs? Chickens for eggs maybe, but not all of them.
I pet the two lambs grazing by the fence as I pass and walk toward the vegetable garden, weaving through the neat rows of greens. When I see the strawberry patch in the farthest corner, I bend to pick a handful of ripe ones and plop them into my mouth one after another. They’re smaller than the ones we get at home from the supermarket. Softer too, and a hundred times sweeter.
When I’ve had my fill, I wipe off my hands and turn to go back to the house. But I pause.
There’s an unkept path between the trees here, and it leads to the east side of the island. I can take the long way back to the house.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I begin to walk steadily away from the house in the direction I’m not to go. One of the places forbidden to me. I’m curious why it’s forbidden.
It’s a longer walk than I realize, but that’s partly the route I take. It’s overgrown, if it was ever maintained to begin with, and becomes more of a hike. Flip-flops aren’t the right footwear, I find out.
The foliage seems to change here too. It becomes wilder, rougher. The long branches of low bushes scratch at my legs as I walk, and I wish I’d brought a sweater. It’s cooled down a lot since the sun set.
Just when I think I should turn back the trees give way to a clearing.
I stop at the edge of the large circle of hay-like grass and look at it, the Scafoni family mausoleum.
A chilly wind blows my skirt up and steals my breath as I stand taking it in, the gray stone building older than any other on the island, large and imposing and final.
I take a step into the clearing, and it’s like I’ve stepped out of one world and into another. It’s the strangest, creepiest feeling. I hug my arms to myself, rub them, tell myself to grow up. Of course, it’s creepy. It’s full of dead bodies or ashes or dust. But the key word is dead.
These Scafoni can’t hurt me.
I force myself to walk toward the two wide stairs that lead to the large iron doors. They’re more like garden gates than doors.
When I’m closer, I realize carved in the stone over the door is the body of an angel, androgynous, one of the wings clipped by time, the other grand. He or she kneels, hands on the ground, fingers curled but soft, head bowed, giving the impression of one who is broken or grieving. One who has accepted what has come to pass.
But then, when I get closer, I can see that beneath the thick strand of stone hair, the angel’s face is just visible enough, and one eye looks straight out at me. It’s a Watcher, standing guard over the Scafoni remains, not passive at all, but fierce.
And she knows I don’t belong here.
It almost makes me stop. Almost.
But I steel my spine and reach out to brush the tips of my fingers against the gritty iron of the gate. It’s slightly a jar, not quite closed, and I push.
It’s so quiet here that the creak sounds a hundred times louder than it is. If I’d thought it was chilly outside, it’s doubly so inside. A hanging lantern shines a red light over the space, illuminating the room just enough to let me see. A breeze blows, and something tickles my toes, making me gasp and jump until I realize it’s just a dead leaf blown out of its resting place by the wind.
All around me, Scafoni names are carved in stone, dates beneath them. Birth and death. Iron candle holders, like long fingers, protrude from beside each name. Some have stubs of candles, some are filled with dirt. I read some of the names, the oldest ones. Hundreds of years old.
When I come upon Anabelle’s, I stop. I reach out and touch the engraving.
Hers is one of the forgotten graves. And beside her is her son, Giuseppe.
His last name is listed as Scafoni-Willow.
I’m surprised at it. Surprised they’d not banish the name from this final resting place of the Scafoni family because they can’t want to remember us in death.
Although the Willow part of the name seems to be vandalized, like someone took a jagged stone and scratched it through a hundred times, but it’s still there. Still among the Scafoni dead, hanging like a shadow over them even in death.
I reach out to touch it, trace the letters of my name.
Do I believe the story Sebastian told me about Anabelle? He could have lied. What’s to prevent him from lying? Painting us in the worst possible light?
I drop my hand, cross to the newer stones. I find Joshua Scafoni’s marker. Sebastian’s father. The man who chose my Aunt Libby to be his Willow Girl. Beside it, I expect to find his mother, and I do see her, but there’s one name between them. Timothy Scafoni.
Confused, I read the date. The child lived three days. I do the math. Do it again. It can’t be.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The voice makes me jump and I spin around, clutching my heart.
They sound so much alike, Gregory and Sebastian. You’d almost mistake the one for the other.
Not me, though. Gregory’s voice carries a hint of malice in it. It’s just a hint, but I hear it.
“You don’t belong here, Willow Girl.”
I swallow. I’d step back, but I’m already backed up against the stone grave wall, and the iron candle holders are digging into my back.
He takes a step toward me, looks just beyond me, comes close enough to touch me. But he doesn’t.
“I got lost.”
I can’t move when he turns to me, when he’s so close I can feel the heat of his body and all I see are his eyes and the way they watched me that night.
“I don’t believe that,” he says, his voice quiet. Almost gentle. Not quite, though. It’s missing something to be gentle.
I wonder why he’s wearing a suit and remember how, before he took me down from the whipping post, he took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. A small kindness.
I meet his eyes, but I can’t read him.
“I’ll go,” I say.
“Did you do the math?” he asks, reaching for a candle and taking a lighter out of his pocket to light it.
My legs seem finally able to function again. I take a step away and watch him drip wax onto the stub of a candle in the holder at his father’s marker, then push his candle into it, uniting the two.
He turns to me. “Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Sebastian’s not firstborn.”
“Twins.”
Gregory nods. “Timothy was first. Only survived days, though.” He glances at Sebastian’s mother’s marker. “Killed her too, two years later.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sebastian didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head.
“His mother committed suicide. In here.”
I glance at the marker, read the date of her death, the month, the day. It’s the day her sons were born, just two years later. She killed herself on Sebastian’s birthday.
Gregory steps toward me and again, I’m locked in place. Trapped.
“Still not scared of me?”
I shake my head quickly. Too quickly.
“What do you think he’ll do when you learns you were in here?”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.” He slides his gaze over me. I’m wearing a T-shirt to cover the marks on my back, and a skirt. His eyes settle at my thighs for a minute, then a little higher. When he returns his gaze to mine, he cocks his head to the side. “He’ll be mad. Pissed enough to use the whipping post for what it’s meant for.”
I swallow.
Gregory suddenly smiles, and his whole expression changes. It’s disarming.
And calculated.
“The fact that he’s not technically firstborn means he’s not really head of the family. That role goes to the son who takes it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I could want my own Willow Girl. Seems like fun.”
“You’re sick, you know that? Perverted”
“Maybe. Probably,” he adds, as if agreeing after a moment’s thought. “Still.” He reaches out to touch my face, and I bat his hand away. “I liked watching you come.”
I swallow, feel sweat pool under my arms.
“Maybe you like sick and perverted. I mean, you seem to like my brother.”
“Tell him if that’s what you want. He won’t do what you say.”
“No? How well do you think you know my brother?” He pauses for effect. “You willing to risk it?”
I study his eyes, try to read what he’s thinking.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll keep your secret. This way, you and I, we can have our own.” He places his fingers on my jaw, and for a minute, I wonder if he’s measuring the fingertips against the fading bruises. “Just between us.”
He’s fucking with me.
I pull away, force my legs to move. I get to the door before I turn around.
“I’d rather you tell him,” I say. “I’d rather take a whipping than keep a secret with you.”
It’s full dark when I run back to the house. I don’t stop once, not even when I lose one of my flip-flops. I go straight upstairs, up to my room, slam the door behind me.
I’m in such a panic, I don’t even notice Lucinda, not until I’ve trapped myself inside with her. She’s reclining on my bed, her feet crossed at the ankles, her dirty shoes on my comforter.
She’s holding a torn envelope, reading the sheet of paper. I think I recognize the handwriting, but she moves it too quickly for me to be sure and sits up.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” I ask.
She slides her legs off the bed, stands, and looks me over. I look down too, at my one bare foot, at the scratches along my legs and the dirt on my feet.
“I hope you didn’t track dirt into the house.”
She walks across to the window and pushes it open to glance outside.
“What do you want?” I ask.
She turns back to me, sets whatever she was reading on the dresser, and gives me a grin. “Have a good trip? A romantic little getaway?”
“Yes, actually. It was refreshing being away from you.”
“Well, aren’t we lucky to have you back.”
“What are you doing in here?”
Lucinda shrugs a shoulder, pulls open one of the drawers, and rummages through it. She picks out a pair of panties, a tiny pair, and holds it on her long red fingernail.
“Does he like you in this? Likes you to whore it up?”
I go to her, take the panties, and drop them into the drawer before shoving it shut.
“You have no right to be in here. Get out.”
“It’s my house. I can be anywhere I want.” She goes to the closet, turns on the light, but stays in the doorway to peek in, then looks back at me. “Libby whored it up too. Joshua loved that.”
I don’t want to hear this. As hungry as I am about my Aunt Libby’s time here, I don’t want to hear it from her.
“You know, Sebastian should share you,” she says, coming back into the bedroom and sitting down on the chaise like this was her room. “Joshua shared Libby. She took all three at once. One in her mouth, one in her ass and the other in her dirty cunt.” Her lip curls, and the word sounds more vulgar on her lips than it even is.
“She didn’t have a choice,” I say.
She smiles a cold, cruel smile. “She came like a whore. She was loud, louder than you are. Or don’t you come? Doesn’t my son make you come?”
“He’s not your son.”
She seems surprised I know that. “Did he tell you that? Fascinating.”
“What’s fascinating about that?”
“Since he’s feeding you piecemeal, I’m just surprised he chose that little tidbit. Although Sebastian’s always been clever. Too clever. I suppose it would endear you to him to know my weak sister, his mother, hanged herself.”
I hear hatred in her words, the tone of her voice, and it’s directed toward her dead sister.
“What’s wrong with you? She lost a son.”
“Oh? How do you know that?”
I don’t answer, not right away. “Sebastian told me.”
“Really? He doesn’t tell anyone that. Not even his Willow Girl. Even if he is smitten. You’re a sneaky whore.”
I don’t reply.
“My husband was smitten too. Truth be told, he loved his Willow whore. She was meeker than you. More obedient. Although maybe that has to do with my strict regimen of discipline. Kept her in line.”
“You beat her.”
“Disciplined her. There’s a difference.”
“Call it what you want.”
“I saw that girl with her mouth stuffed full of my husband’s cock more than without it.”
She’s looking away like she’s reminiscing, like it’s a fond memory.
“He’d make me prepare her for him. Make me shave her pussy the way he liked. Wash her. Make me watch him fuck her. But in exchange, I disciplined her as I saw fit.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “Boredom.”
“Were you jealous of my aunt? Is that why you hate us?”
She studies me, calculating her cruelty, measuring the destruction of her words.
“Maybe. Maybe I was jealous of his affection for her. The tenderness he showed her after her sessions with me. But not jealous that he’d rather fuck her than me. I don’t need a man. I never have.”
“Yet you live with three of them, and from what I see, Sebastian rules.”
Any suggestion of a smile vanishes. She gets up, comes toward me, stands inches from me.
“Did you know he didn’t have to do this? Didn’t have to take a Willow Girl?”
I set my jaw, hold her gaze.
She’s a liar. I know that.
“He chose this. He can stop it at any time even. It’s his right. Yet he chooses not to. He chooses to keep you here under his thumb. Chooses to continue the tradition of passing you down from one brother to the next to the next. He chooses this for you.”
“I don’t believe you.” It’s not true. It’s not. He has no choice. If he didn’t do it, Ethan would get his turn.
“I don’t care what you believe. Truth is still truth. And it all just comes down to one thing. Money. He releases you from your obligation, and he forfeits his place as head of the Scafoni family. He loses everything. Sad little world we live in, isn’t it, when money is worth more than a human life?”
She sets her long fingernail under my chin and raises it a little. We’re eye to eye.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want, Willow Girl. I’m actually here to give you a letter that came earlier.” She gestures to the dresser where she’d dropped what she was reading when I came inside. “Got here two days after your arrival. Must have slipped Sebastian’s mind to deliver it.”
I see victory in her eyes, and I think about our notches, Sebastian and me. I think Lucinda would win this one. I know it before I even see what’s inside the letter.
I walk away from her, pick up the letter and envelope. It’s addressed to me, and I recognize the handwriting. It’s from my sister, Amy.
I check the postmark, and she’s right. It arrived when she said it did.
My heart races. I know it’s bad news. I know it before I turn it over to read it.
“Luckily, I found it in his trash can and fished it out. I thought you should have it.”
I open the sheet, see the few lines of Amy’s note. Watch the newspaper clipping fall to the floor.
“There’s a boat waiting for you. Remy will take you to the airport. Flight leaves in two hours. You get one chance to get out of here, Willow Girl. Don’t fuck it up, and don’t let anyone see you.” She digs into her pocket. A moment later, she sets a passport, I assume mine, on the table by the door.
“Why would you help me?”
“I’m not helping you. I’m helping myself.”
She then walks out, and her words trickle in slowly as I read Amy’s note. And as I bend to pick up the clipping, a tear blots the ink.