Midnight at the Tuscany Hotel by James Markert

Author:James Markert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2019-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

“You’re slowly killing yourself.”

Vitto stormed across the piazza toward where his father leaned back in a wooden chair, eyeing the slab of untouched marble. “Don’t deny it.”

Robert leaned forward, suddenly too old to stand quickly. “Hush, boy.”

“Mamma drank from that fountain.”

“Lower your voice.” Robert surveyed the piazza, then grabbed Vitto by the elbow and walked him into the shadows nearby. When a cluster of guests emerged from the same spot, he redirected Vitto outside the hotel, where more guests played bocce and croquet. He redirected him again, this time along the wall toward the ocean. The thwack of a tennis ball echoed in the distance. Ocean breeze whipped Robert’s hair into a frenzy. And even though he appeared even weaker than he had yesterday, his hands still proved strong as he braced them on Vitto’s shoulders and looked deep into his eyes.

“Who told you this? Juba? Father Embry?”

“I guessed it. Father Embry was unable to deny it.” Vitto stepped out from under his father’s grip. “It was Juba who told me you’ve never been able to see color. Why did you never tell me?”

“I had my reasons.”

“I don’t care about your reasons, Dad. I spent my entire childhood trying to impress you with paintings you simply could not appreciate. Now, what is the water in that fountain? And why was Mamma drinking it?”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Try.”

“Vitto, it’s too hard to explain things I’ve never fully understood myself.”

“What did the earthquake do to that water?”

“Nothing. The water has always been the same. The earthquake did nothing.”

“It restarted that fountain.”

Robert pounded his chest with a fist. “I restarted the fountain, Vitto. With the turning of some knobs. Just as I turned it off the day your mother died.”

Vitto pointed out toward the front of the hotel, toward a stream he couldn’t see. “And what about that creek? Your River Lethe?”

“Stories, Vitto.”

“I know that, but the changing of direction. The water flow. You sent me down there with a boat to see for myself.”

“To get you to believe.”

“In what?”

“This.”

“What is this?”

“It’s not the first time a river or creek has changed directions, Vitto. Uncommon, yes, but the earth rumbles, shifts, moves under our feet. The land has been changing for centuries. That creek has changed direction before.”

“So that had nothing to do with the water in that fountain?”

“No.”

Vitto stepped closer, his voice more stern. “What is coming from that fountain, and why did Mamma drink from it?”

“I didn’t know she was drinking from it. We promised each other we’d never drink from it.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” He raised his arms incredulously, defeated. “I don’t know.”

“Water is life,” Vitto muttered, staring out toward the ocean. “Or is it death?”

“We live, Vittorio!”

“This isn’t the Garden of Eden,” said Vitto, “or the Elysian Fields. What was it about that water? From the beginning, what made you not want

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