“I’m meeting Dom at six for our date, so try to call me later tonight if you find out anything juicy,” she squealed over the phone. “And don’t forget to take pictures if you make it inside that house. You owe it to me. I’m too young to die from curiosity.”
I decided not to tell Millie that I would not be creepily taking pictures of Nic’s house without his knowledge. The idea of inviting him to a party was already terrifying enough. What if he said no? What if he said yes and then found out about my social-pariah status when he got there? “Only if you find out about Dom’s scar,” I countered instead.
“That’s a no-brainer. Good luck today. You won’t regret it,” she chirped before hanging up.
By the time I reached the Priestly mansion, I was a bundle of nerves. Restored to its rightful regality, the house was like something out of a fairy tale. Beneath the sun’s heavy beat, the windows were sparkling like diamonds, and without the ivy that used to slither across the walls, the entire exterior was an unblemished, alabaster white.
Just how was I going to do this? Hey, thanks for lending me your hoodie. By the way, why don’t you come to Millie’s party on Saturday? It’s coincidentally my birthday, too, but most people there will just ignore me because my dad’s a murderer, which technically makes me the devil’s spawn. So how about it, will you come? Smooth. And what if Nic wasn’t home and Luca answered instead? Hey, tell your brother to come to Millie’s on Saturday, but make sure you don’t show up because you suck. If Gino answered, I could just distract him with something shiny and hope Nic would come to the door eventually.
With the hoodie draped over my arm and my thoughts spiraling into all the possible ways this could go wrong, I rang the doorbell. When I didn’t hear it echo inside the house, I decided to use the brass knocker just to be sure. I waited. I knocked again.
What now? I hadn’t come up with any brilliant ideas about what to do if nobody was there. Was I supposed to just leave the hoodie outside the door and let that be the end of it? What an anticlimax. Without thinking, I drifted toward the side of the mansion, where the driveway tapered off into a narrow path that stretched around the house.
When I reached the back, I stopped in surprise. I don’t know what I had been expecting — a tennis court or a swimming pool, maybe — but certainly not what I found. Cramped and overgrown, the yard was a far cry from the affluent fa?ade of the house. Around the edges, clumps of weeds tangled into withered rosebushes. The grass was higher than my knees, and was a sickly gray-green color. At the very back of the ruined garden were the remnants of a fountain with elaborate bird carvings etched into chunks of stone; and in the center of the grass, a large wooden table balanced on three termite-eaten legs.
Behind me, double doors inlaid with stained glass panes looked out onto the yard. They were slightly ajar.
I rapped my knuckles against the glass, nudging the doors open, and peered into a sprawling kitchen. The walls and cabinets were a stark white, and the pale wood floors looked new. A black cast-iron stove reached up to a high ceiling, which was studded with spotlights.
“Who is it?” A musical voice came from within, startling me from my snooping.
I hesitated. If I didn’t know the voice, the voice wouldn’t know me, and so what good would my name be?
“It’s Sophie,” I said after a beat.
No answer.
“I’m just returning a hoodie.”
I opened the doors another crack. More of the kitchen filtered into my view. On the white walls were several ornately framed oil paintings. I recognized one as Da Vinci’s Madonna and Child — it had been a favorite of my grandmother’s — though the others, while also religious in sentiment, were foreign to me. I stared in surprise. I had never seen artwork like this in a home before — it was almost like a gallery, or a church, and I found myself feeling intimidated by the splendor. I considered taking out my phone and sneaking a photo to show Millie after all, but the rational voice inside my head stopped me.
Cautiously, I edged inside.
In the center of the kitchen was a marble-topped island, and beyond it was a glass table covered with several sheets of paper and scatterings of pencils. Sitting at the table was a boy. He was drawing.
“Hello?” I said again, though I could plainly see he knew I was there.
He looked up and his piercing blue eyes found mine immediately. I zeroed in on them, frowning, as my stomach turned to jelly. “Luca?”
He didn’t respond. He just put his pencil down and sat in silent contemplation, his elbows atop the table and his chin resting just behind his steepled fingers, as though he were praying.
I felt my breath catch in my throat. “Oh!”
It wasn’t Luca. It was the boy from the window. Just like on that very first night, his eyes grew, but this time in recognition. Set against his olive skin, they were a brilliant, startling blue. They were just like Luca’s, but something about them seemed different — warmer, perhaps.
“I recognize you,” he said in that pleasant, lilting voice.
I moved toward him, utterly captivated. He had Luca’s searing eyes, his golden skin, and his jet-black hair. But while Luca’s hair was shaggy, falling in strands across his eyes, this boy’s hair was short and clean-cut, combed away from his face entirely, revealing a pointed chin and severe cheekbones. He was thinner, too, and slightly hunched. I couldn’t tell if he was older than me — he didn’t seem it, but his likeness to Luca made me think maybe he was.
“You were watching my house last week.” He lowered his hands and rested them on the table in front of him, but his eyes remained hooded with caution.
I stopped when I reached the table, hovering uncertainly. I realized then why he hadn’t moved toward me, and why he hadn’t played in the basketball tournament last week. He was in wheelchair.
“Yes, that was me,” I replied. I tried not to stare, but he was so like Luca, and yet so unlike him, it was hard to reconcile. “I was just curious.”