Mara holds up a red dress covered in sequins. It’s got long, bell-shaped sleeves, and the sequins are oversize, garish.
Harper makes a noise like she’s choking. “Please put that hideous thing back where it came from.”
“It’s not that bad,” Mara says, frowning.
“Are you kidding?” Harper shoots back. “I can barely keep my breakfast down. Have I taught you nothing?”
Mara thrusts the dress back on the rack, rolling her eyes. “So what’s the deal? We can either be a slutty devil or slutty angel?”
“I think the options are devil or angel, but yeah, that’s the general idea.” Harper considers a lacy white slip dress, wrinkles her nose, and then places it back on the rack. “Too bad everything here is so boring. I thought Italy was supposed to be all about fashion?”
I tilt my head, studying the dress Harper just discarded. I sort of see what she means. I bet all the girls at the party will be wearing some skimpy, silky thing, glittery wings drooping from their backs.
I didn’t realize the Festival for the Dead was a costume party until Harper shook me awake this morning and told me it was time to go shopping. Apparently there’s even a contest later in the evening, with prizes going to the group with the most interesting interpretation of angels and devils. Mara told us that last year’s winners were a bunch of Swedish girls who showed up in their underwear, claiming to be the Victoria’s Secret Angels.
“What if we did Charlie’s Angels?” I ask, holding up a pair of tight shorts. There isn’t a costume shop in Cambria, so we’re at some cheap clothing place with a name I can’t pronounce. It feels like the Italian equivalent of Forever 21. “We’d have to find roller skates.”
“Who’re they?” Mara mutters without looking up from the rack she’s flicking through. She’s made her way over to the lingerie section—probably thinking of the Victoria’s Secret Angels, too. I sigh and put the shorts back.
“Or we could be daredevils? We could wear leather jackets and aviator sunglasses? That might be kind of cool.”
Harper frowns. “You want to wear leather? In this heat?”
She has a point. I join Mara next to the lingerie and pick out a lacy black teddy. “What if we wore the jackets over nothing but this?”
I’m half joking. But Mara freezes, raising both eyebrows at once. Harper purses her lips.
“That could be cute,” she says, taking the teddy from me.
“We could add little devil’s horns,” Mara says.
“And studded heels. We could be, like, biker devil babes.”
The idea of waltzing into a party wearing nothing but underwear and a leather jacket horrifies me.
Harper looks over, as if sensing my reluctance. “What do you think, Berk? You’d look hot in the black.”
She tosses the black teddy to me and smiles with her lips pressed together, eyes flashing. It feels exactly like being dared by a naughty child.
It was my idea. I’d look like a total spaz if I backed out now.
“And sunglasses,” I add, grabbing two more teddies. “Aviators. Otherwise no one will get our costume.”
“Genius,” Harper says, nudging me with her shoulder. I feel a quick dart of warmth as I make my way over to the accessories section.
The streets are packed by the time we finish. Students and families press around us on all sides, making their way to the piazza to find a spot. Stands have already sprung up on the sidewalks, selling fresh fruit and vegetables, sharp, hard cheeses, and thinly sliced meats sandwiched between crunchy rolls of bread. Somewhere in the square, there’s a pig roasting on a spit. The salty smell of meat hangs in the air, making my stomach rumble.
The festival lasts all day. There’s a parade before the party, and musicians have already piled onto the sidewalks, strumming guitars and singing in deep, throaty Italian. A man with a little girl on his shoulders walks past us. She has angel’s wings strapped to her back, and the glitter catches the sunlight, making her seem to glow.
“This is literal hell,” Mara moans, pushing the sweaty hair back from her forehead. “At this rate we won’t get home until dinner.”
“Let’s go this way.” Harper grabs me by the elbow and steers me down another walkway, this one twisting away from the piazza and blessedly free of people.
Mara asks, “Doesn’t this lead away from the apartment?”
“Yeah, but it connects with Via Acquasanta.”
“Not for, like, a mile. Isn’t Via Norcia closer?”
They pull a little ways ahead, muttering about Via this or Via that as we make our way through the streets. Every now and then we pass a small group of chattering people headed back the way we came. I don’t bother trying to help. In the two days I’ve been here, I haven’t once tried to navigate the town without Harper and Mara or Giovanni to guide me. I don’t know how they find their way around. The city feels like a maze to me, with streets tangling and twisting around each other, the buildings all towering over me, looking identical. Half the time, I expect to turn a corner and find that I’ve stumbled upon a secret entrance to Narnia or Westeros.
After a while, even I can tell that we’re lost.
“Maybe we should ask for directions?” I ask, stopping in front of a butcher shop. A giant dead pig dangles in the front window. Its face is pink and masklike.
Giovanni mentioned doing deliveries for a butcher shop. I look around, but I don’t spot his yellow moped among the dozen or so parked out front.
Harper considers the dead pig in the window, her lip curling. For a second I think she’s going to argue. But then her shoulders sag, defeated. “Yeah, okay.”
The pig turns slowly in place, its black eyes watching us approach. I suppress a shudder. Holding my breath, I push the door open.
A girl about my age looks up. She’s Italian, obviously, and much larger than any girl I’ve ever known. She must be over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and arms muscled like an athlete. Dark hair falls just short of her shoulders in thick, bushy tangles.
“Ciao, can I help you?” she asks, not smiling. Her nose is a hair too long, but not in a way that makes her look homely. In fact, it gives the rest of her face an arresting quality. She looks like an Amazonian warrior.
“Ciao, ciao.” Harper leans across the peeling linoleum counter and shows her the map on her phone. Some of the irritation fades from the girl’s face as Harper explains our dilemma in flawless Italian.
I turn in place while they talk, casually searching for signs of Giovanni. My sneakers crunch against the thick layer of sawdust covering the floor. The shop smells heavily of blood.
The girl seems to be alone here, surrounded by dead animals, horseflies buzzing around the meat. I wrinkle my nose. I don’t know how she can stand it. The meat hanging from the ceiling is mostly torsos and legs, which isn’t so bad, but the display case holds row after row of animal skulls, pink flesh still clinging to the bones.
I hover a few feet away from the case, lip curling. No one bothered to remove the eyes from the skulls. Something that looks like it used to be a goat stares up at me. Without lips, its teeth are bared in a permanent snarl.
A hand touches my elbow.
I flinch and whirl around. “Jesus,” I breathe when I see that it’s just Mara. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Yeah, this place is disgusting.” She glances at the display case and shivers. “Let’s go.”
She and Harper hurry out of the shop, but I lag behind. The butcher shop girl drums her fingers against the counter, watching me with flat, empty eyes. I shiver, thinking that her eyes remind me of the dead goat’s.
“Did you want something else?” the girl asks after a moment. Her voice is deep and throaty.
“Yeah, hi. Uhm, I’m Berkley?”
The girl blinks. After a moment, she says, “Elyse,” through clenched teeth. Her apron is stained with dark reddish-brown spots.
Blood. My stomach turns. “I’m sorry, I’m friends with Giovanni. I just thought that maybe he works here?”
Elyse considers me, saying nothing. Then she steps away from the counter and removes a butcher’s knife from the metal strip attached to the wall. Its sharp blade gleams in the fluorescent light.
“So what if he does?” She shrugs in a slow, lazy way and pulls a small animal carcass from a hook dangling off the ceiling. The animal looks fresh, its meat still bright pink.
She slaps it onto the butcher-block counter, picks up the knife, and slams it into pink flesh. Gleefully.
I flinch, letting an awkward moment pass as Elyse butchers the animal, her movements practiced and precise. She separates meat from bone with quick flicks of her blade. She wipes blood on her apron like it’s nothing.
Finally, I clear my throat. “Is he here now?”
“Who would like to know?” she asks, eyes flicking up to me.
I swallow, but I can’t look away from the half-butchered creature. Without skin, it’s hard to tell what kind of animal it was. Too small to be a pig. A rabbit, maybe.
Or a cat.
My stomach clenches. Lucky never returned to my room last night. And all that blood had to have come from somewhere.
Nausea rises up in my chest, filling my throat. I’m going to be sick. I shake my head, muttering “Never mind” before hurrying back to the entrance. I push the door open—
“Diavolina.”
Nerves crawl over my skin. I look over my shoulder. “Did you say something?”
Elyse raises a heavy black eyebrow. There’s a spray of blood across her cheek. It looks almost pretty against her dark skin and black eyes.
She shakes her head. “No. I didn’t say anything.”