The Demon Catchers of Milan by Kat Beyer

Author:Kat Beyer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781606843154
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Published: 2012-08-27T22:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

The Return of Lucifero

Sometimes I think it was Laura’s coffee that saved me during that time. No matter what was happening, what I’d seen or heard or felt the day before, the smell of coffee would reel me out of my room and into a seat at the kitchen table every morning like a fish on a line.

It occurs to me now that Nonna might have planned it that way.

She gave me the same cup each day, a bright yellow one about the size of a cereal bowl. My Italian having progressed to the point where we could have real conversations, she would catch me up on the news: the case had gone well; Francesca might be getting a cold; Alba and Emilio had had an argument, but everything was all right now. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think Nonna wasn’t all that happy about their reconciliation, either.

Cured by coffee, more or less, I could sit downstairs in the shop, studying and doing my meditations on the Virgin (now making more sense), slowly learning my few and pitiful methods for confronting the unknown.

Giuliano might not want to take me to cases, but at least he would talk to me about what they fought against.

“There are at least as many kinds of demons as there are human faults,” said Giuliano. “And like human faults, some of them can be corrected or changed, while others prove very hard to defeat. I think that the unquiet spirit who took over the unfortunate Signora Galeazzo was at least as upset as the signora herself to find herself where she was. I think her first thought was, ‘Wait! This is not my body! What has happened?’ She was lost for a long time, you see. Terrible things had happened to her in life, and she was still angry about them. Some spirits, it seems, find it very difficult to let go, while others move on or vanish without a trace.”

“But why?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Well, you and I, for example, we have different spirits, yes? We behave differently in the world, don’t we? My character, for example, might be a more clinging kind when the end comes for me. I might choose not to leave this world gently. Especially if I have suffered a great injustice, like the woman of Majdanek.”

“Do we have to call her that?” I asked suddenly, remembering for a moment what it had been like to look out across that plain of bodies. “I’m pretty sure that’s not the place she wants to be associated with. Can we call her by another name?” I continued shyly. “I mean, I know it doesn’t matter to her anymore.…”

“It matters to you, however,” he said. “I think it is a very good idea. What name shall we call her by?”

I thought. “What about the ‘woman of Signora Galeazzo’s house’? That’s where she used to live, wasn’t it?”

He seemed pleased by the idea, so we left it at that. Sitting in the shop

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