The crowd of people in the streets has multiplied by the time we make our way out of the apartment again.
“Whoa,” Harper says, eyes going monstrous. The crush of bodies is too much for the narrow walkway. We can barely move. “This is insane. Is everyone in Italy going to this thing?”
“More like everyone in Europe,” I say, but that’s not exactly true. The families and children all seem to have gone home. The people on the streets are our age: students and teenagers, dressed in skimpy costumes, their faces painted with dark eyeliner and glitter.
Music vibrates through the air. I feel it before I hear it. It pulses up from the sidewalk, moving through my bones and humming over my skin. The heavy bass reaches my ears, and it sounds like a heartbeat.
Bomp bomp bomp bomp.
“You really think the red’s okay?” Mara asks, linking arms with me. “I don’t look like a whore?”
I smile at her sweetly and rest my head on her shoulder. “You look great. We all do.”
We were right to go all out with our costumes. Everyone in the crowd is decked out in crazy masks and outfits: devil’s horns twist out of heads, long snouts protrude from faces, and forked tails trail away from people’s backs. Angel’s wings glitter in the fading sunlight.
I catch Mara checking her reflection in the window of the butcher shop as the crowd carries us forward. I don’t know what she’s stressed about. Her lacy red teddy fits like a glove, showing off every curve of her tiny pixie body. Her eyes shift up to where the dead pig hangs behind the glass, empty eye sockets staring.
She winces. “That thing is so gross.”
“The whole place was creepy.” Harper drops her arms around our shoulders, inserting herself between us. She doesn’t bother asking if we think she looks good. Her white teddy looks angelic and soft against her deeply tanned shoulders, and her sky-high heels show off her long legs. “What kind of person would ever want to work in a butcher shop?”
I think of the butcher girl—Elyse—and shiver. “No idea.”
I check my reflection, too, just before we turn the corner. I’m wearing nude and black lace, devil’s horns twisting out of my auburn hair. I pull at my jacket, feeling naked. The crowd and the people suddenly feel like too much. The food stands from earlier are gone, and now the smell of human bodies hangs heavy in the air. It’s gotten dark, the sun no more than a thin gold line on the horizon. The last bits of light bounce off glittery angel’s wings and sweaty arms.
The crowd surges forward, and we’re tossed into the wide, open square. The beat drops, and the people around us scream, elbows and shoulders jabbing the soft parts of my body as they jump and gyrate.
They’re so happy. Intensely, ecstatically happy. I feel my own lips curving to mimic theirs, that touch of nerves mostly vanishing.
Tonight’s going to be epic, I tell myself. I look at Harper and Mara and see matching grins on their faces. Harper leans in close, cupping a hand around her mouth.
“Drinks!” she shouts.
I nod, and we push our way through the crowd to find the trattoria. Candlelight flickers, dancing over dark skin and black eyes. The light distorts everyone’s features, making their teeth seem jagged, their eyes hooded and haunting. Horns curl away from their heads. Demon’s horns. Devil’s horns.
“Look,” I say, spotting Giovanni by the fountain. He’s wearing a devil’s mask, too, but it’s shoved up on his forehead so I can see his gorgeous face. I feel a grin pulling at my lips, and I start pushing through the crowd toward him, Harper and Mara following along behind me.
His eyes light up when he catches sight of me. “Bella!”
I stumble out of the crowd, and Giovanni sweeps me into his arms, practically lifting me off my feet. I feel myself squeal. I never act like this. Like I’m some grinning schoolgirl. I love it.
Giovanni puts me back down on the ground and turns to Mara and Harper, raising an eyebrow. “Are you going to introduce me to your beautiful friends, bella?”
“I’m Mara,” Mara says. “I’ve been on your tour a couple of times. I don’t know if you remember . . .”
“Ciao, Mara. Of course I remember you. You always asked the most fascinating questions.” Giovanni plants a kiss on both cheeks. Mara blushes, deeply.
He turns to Harper. “And you must be Harper.” He says her name like Arpurr, more purr than words. Harper smiles, wickedly, and offers him her hand.
“Pleasure,” she says. Giovanni brushes her hand aside and kisses her on both cheeks.
“Were the costumes your idea?” he asks, raising his eyebrows appreciatively at our leather jackets and lingerie.
“They were Berkley’s, actually,” Harper admits.
“But you styled them,” I point out, motioning to the fierce aviators she found in the accessories bin. Harper beams.
“Sono perfetti,” Giovanni says, squeezing her shoulder. Just as I’m about to get the teensiest bit jealous, he moves back to my side and presses a hand against my lower back, claiming me. Shivers race up my skin.
“You ladies need drinks,” he says, and as though on cue, a tiny devil-headed man appears, carrying a plastic tray filled with neon-colored shots. Giovanni says something in Italian and unloads three shots from the tray, which he passes out to me and my friends. He winks.
“Cheers,” he says.
I notice a group of girls huddled together as I throw back my shot. They kneel on the stone steps leading up to the piazza, dressed all in white, with lacy veils draped over their dark hair. Everywhere else is crowded with bodies, but the girls are at the center of a wide-open space. It’s like no one wants go near them.
“What’s their deal?” I ask Giovanni. Candlelight sends shadows dancing over the girls’ faces. I can’t see their eyes, but their lips seem to be moving together, reciting something.
Giovanni follows my gaze, frowning. “Them? They are no one.”
“Are they praying?”
He rolls his eyes toward the sky and holds out his hands, like he’s asking someone in the heavens for help. “Yes. They are always praying.”
“But why? Don’t they like the party?”
“It is not the party they do not like, bella. It is the people who come to the party.”
“Us?” I must look hurt, because Giovanni laughs.
“Do not take it personally.” He leans closer to me so that I can hear him over the pulsing music. “This town has many old families. They remember what it was like before all the tourists came. How it used to be quiet. Now there are college girls dancing in the piazza every night and college boys throwing up on the sidewalks. Some people think this is . . .” Giovanni pauses, searching for the word. “Peccato . . . sin?”
“Why would Cambria hold a festival like this if you think tourists are sinful?”
“Not all of us think like the old families. Tourists bring money. Cambria is a very poor place. Most of us, we like the rich Americans drinking at our trattorias.”
I nudge him with my elbow. “And going on your walking tours?”
He laughs. “Yes, yes, exactly. You tourists pay for my school. To me you are sent from God.”
He pulls his devil’s mask down over his face and nods to a group of bedeviled strangers who’ve been gathering near the fountain. “Enjoy the drinks, my friends. The performance is about to start.”
“Performance?” Mara shouts. Someone’s turned up the music, and I barely hear her voice. “What performance?”
I shrug. Giovanni climbs onto the fountain, unbuttoning his shirt as he does. He’s painted an inverted pentagram onto his chest in something that looks a hell of a lot like blood. The crowd whoops and cheers. He salutes and tosses his shirt over their heads. It hangs in the velvety night sky for a second, a ghostly white bird.
“We need a sacrifice!” he shouts, cupping his hands around his mouth so that his voice booms above the music. “Who among you is brave enough to volunteer?”
I look over at Harper and Mara, and the three of us burst into laughter. Meanwhile, more people have climbed onto the fountain with Giovanni, candlelight flashing over the blacks and reds and purples of their masks. The shadows make them look like they’re moving.
They start removing their clothes, just like Giovanni did, and tossing T-shirts and tank tops into the crowd. They have strange symbols painted over their skin in the same bloody paint.
“Sacrificio!” they chant, their voices merging into one. “Sacrificio!”
A girl steps away from the crowd, and the people around her erupt into cheers. I feel a prickle of jealousy as Giovanni takes her by the hand and pulls her onto the fountain beside him. She makes quite a show out of opening her mouth and slowly sticking out her tongue.
“What’s he giving her?” Mara shouts.
Giovanni places a small white pill on the girl’s tongue. She swallows, and he turns her around. The crowd surges forward as she plummets backward, catching her before she can hit the ground. The people in front of us pump their hands in the sky, jumping up and down and cheering. For a moment I can’t see anything, can’t hear anything. I’m entirely surrounded by noise and energy and people. It’s intoxicating.
“Another!” Giovanni shouts once the crowd has calmed down. His eyes find mine, and I feel my heart start thumping. He crooks a finger at me.
I don’t know if it’s the music pumping through my blood or if it’s Giovanni’s delicious smile, but suddenly all I want in the world is to be standing on that fountain next to him, closing my eyes as he places that white pill on my tongue. I start pushing my way through the people packed in around me.
“Are you serious?” Mara grabs me by the arm, jerking me back. “You’re actually going up there?”
“You think that’s a good idea?” Harper adds, twisting her fingers together. “I mean, this party is a lot like the one . . .” She swallows the rest of her sentence, then turns to Mara for help. “You know?”
“No,” I deadpan, even though I know they must be talking about my panic episode. “I don’t.”
I shoulder through the crowd, and they part to let me through.
“Sacrificio!” they chant. “Sacrificio!”
I let their energy propel me forward until Mara and Harper’s objections seem like silly, faraway things. Giovanni leans down and wraps his fingers around my arm, pulling me onto the fountain beside him. I stumble forward, catching myself before I get some of the “blood” smeared across his chest onto my dress.
“It’s corn syrup,” he tells me, pressing a finger into the pentagram. He lifts the blood to my mouth, and I wrap my lips around it, smearing the red over my cheek. It tastes sweet, like sugar.
Giovanni grins and leans closer to me. “I knew you’d be my sacrifice,” he says in my ear, his voice making the words curl and dance.
“Always.” I open my mouth, and he places the small white pill on my tongue.
I swallow.