“You rest, then.” He slid from the room, leaving the door open a crack.
Minutes passed, then an hour. The room ebbed from blue to purple to black. Francesca’s legs went dead, and her neck ached. Still, she did not move. She had slipped into a sweet numbness. She wondered if this was where Connie had existed before she died, when her body was overtaken by histamines and her mind stopped flashing, in this pale, cottony place of no feeling. It wasn’t so bad, she thought. She was resting.
*
Mira crept into the dark room. She felt for the lacquered dresser and placed a cup of punch on it, and fumbled with a lamp topped with a ceramic canary finial. The canary fell to the floor and splintered. When the light switched on, she saw it was split in two.
“Oh!” Mira said.
Francesca fell onto one hip, legs useless, propped on one arm like a tent pole. Mira snatched the paper cup from the dresser top and handed it to her. Francesca took a sip.
Mira thrust her neck forward. “Did Mr. Falso do something to you?”
Francesca laughed huskily, bright red punch dribbling down her chin. The depth of her voice was at odds with how weak and dejected she looked, on the floor. It frightened Mira.
“No, of course he didn’t,” Mira said quickly. “Mr. Falso would never do anything to you. I thought, since you were on the floor … never mind.” She scrambled up and pulled a dusty tissue from a box on the dresser. Kneeling beside Francesca, she dabbed at her sister’s chin tentatively, the way one approached a wounded animal.
Behind the tissue, Francesca smiled bitterly. “You’re right. He would never do anything to me.”
Mira crumpled the tissue and made a big deal out of tucking it into her little bag, giving herself time to consider how to yank Francesca back from her dark place. “It’s probably wrong to say, but he looks handsome tonight.”
Francesca laughed again, her pitch ticking up. Mira knew it was not right. Her laugh sounded sharp and rangy, like it was looking for something to puncture. Mira tucked her lip to keep herself from speaking any more. Minutes passed, and the silence between them thickened. Through Connie’s window, Mira saw the outline of a tree against the grape-colored night sky. The leaves trembled, and she buried her chin. The tree alarmed Mira, like a lot of things (the ropy underside of a dog’s neck, a dead mosquito fat with blood). Inexplicable threats that made her press the insides of her elbows into her forehead until her thoughts stopped racing. It was those times when Mira would remind herself that Ben Lattanzi was right next door, and she could go to him, and his presence would force her into normalcy. Connie could have used a Ben. She’d never had a real boyfriend, or real friendships, really, beyond her cousins. Everywhere hung reminders of the smallness of Connie’s world, flimsy, curly-edged things made of paper: ribbons, movie posters, photos with cheeks pressed together.
“I told him about my visions.”
Mira startled. “About the devil from your dreams? What did he say?”
The sockets in Francesca’s cheeks hardened.
“Visions. Not dreams. Of course,” Mira corrected herself. “What was his face like when you told him?”
Francesca struggled to raise herself on bloodless legs.
“I imagine he wanted to comfort you.” Mira lifted her slowly by the arm. “Protect you, I imagine.”
Francesca pulled away and steadied herself. “You can imagine.”
“He must have known you were terrified.”
Francesca shuffled toward the door. “The word he used was ‘exhausted.’ But the word he meant was ‘delusional.’”
Mira fixed on the point at Francesca’s waist where her leotard bagged, where a man might lift her, were she a real ballerina. She envisioned a man’s hands around Francesca’s waist, fingers overlapping. Why couldn’t this man, this “spiritual director,” lift her?
“He needs time.”
“He thinks I googled Saint Teresa of Avila, and that I’m acting out the things she wrote.”
Mira knew Francesca’s confessions to Mr. Falso were dangerous. He didn’t know how close to the edge Francesca’s mind twirled, that disappointment could cause her to spiral. Or maybe he did know. In that moment, she hated him, and the hate felt like something Francesca could see. She crossed back to the window to hide her face, tugging the curtains together against voices drifting up from the yard below.
Mira threw back her shoulders. “We’ll just have to try something new.”
Francesca sagged against the doorframe. “After what happened to Connie? You want to try again?”
“Not in the same way. Not with someone we know.”
“We murdered her.”
“Girls! Time to go!” Their father’s voice boomed from downstairs, a yell meant to smoke them out without having to stumble across something private and embarrassing.
Mira spun and stepped lightly across the room toward Francesca and closed the door softly behind them. “Truth be told, it was probably going to happen sooner or later. Connie wasn’t going to live like a teacup for the rest of her life. Eventually, she was going to test her limits. In some ways, it was a beautiful thing, that we were there as witnesses.”
“I should have been able to save her.”
“You’re not saying that you don’t believe in your own gifts anymore?”
“Girls!” their father called again.
From the bottom of the stairs rose the clucks of women rushing to aid Frank Cillo.
“You can’t discount Donata’s hands. Did you tell Mr. Falso about Donata’s hands?”
Francesca gazed at her sister, smiling, her eyes lit softly, like the faint glow from a long-dead star only now reaching Earth.
Mira swallowed hard. “Did you tell him?”
“It wouldn’t have done any good. He wouldn’t have believed me.”
Mira’s protests faltered as Francesca took her hands in her own, scars grazing their tops. She drew Mira’s hands to her mouth and kissed them.
“It’s always been that way for saints, since the beginning of time.” She dropped Mira’s hands and turned the doorknob. “He doesn’t want me while I’m living. But he’ll have me when I’m dead.”