I thought about that quietly for a moment. I didn’t feel like I’d been changed, but there was no denying strange things were happening around me. I knew one thing for sure, though.
“I don’t want to hurt him. If me being with him puts him in danger . . .” I trailed off, knowing it was useless to continue. Having had a taste of togetherness with Dante, I knew I didn’t want things to go back to the way they had been—the almost-touches, the fleeting looks, the cryptic comments. Dante had trusted me with his heart and soul. I didn’t want to give them back now. I couldn’t. They had already found a home in me.
“Dante can take care of himself,” Leo said.
“So, rule number one,” I summarized, “is to keep the balance. Rule number two: no touching.” I frowned before I quickly amended it to “Limited touching. So what’s rule number three?”
“Rule number three is that you must not ask Dante what he sees downstream.”
“What does that mean?”
“Dante is unusually attuned to the river. Sometimes he is able to see events yet to come in the ripples and currents of time.”
“He can see the future?” I thought about what I had seen in the river. Some of the images had definitely been of the past, but some of them might have been of future events. I wondered if I should mention it to Leo.
“At times.”
“And I can’t ask him about it because . . . ?”
“Because lately all he is seeing is you.”
“Me?”
Leo nodded. “No one should know exactly what the future holds for them. Knowing what he sees about you could influence your decisions and your choices; it could change your life irrevocably.”
I swallowed.
“There is only one more rule, but it might be the most important one. You must never go back to the bank—I don’t know if it is even possible for you to go back. However it happened, it’s too dangerous to try to duplicate.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “That’s one rule I won’t have any trouble keeping. There’s no way I want to go back to the bank.” Just thinking about it made my ears feel like they were stuffed with cotton and my mouth taste like iron.
“That’s a good girl,” Leo said, patting the blanket covering my knee. He stood up to leave, but at the last minute, he leaned down and brushed a kiss on the crown of my head. “Sleep well, mia donna di luce,and don’t worry—I will look after Dante, and Dante will look after you.”
I thought about Leo’s words long after he’d left. I hoped Dante would be coming back from the bank soon. We had a lot we needed to talk about.
Chapter
20
Dante stayed on the bank for three more days.
Three very long, very stressful days.
Mom let me go back to school, under strict orders to call her if I felt even the first inkling of a sniffle. I felt fine, though, which was good, since I had more important things to deal with. I still had to help with the play. Leo wrote a note for Dante’s continued absence, which I dutifully delivered.
I apologized to Amanda for the fact that Dante had ruined Benedick’s mask; I offered to help repair it, but after twenty minutes of my “help,” Amanda took it away from me and said, “Thanks anyway.”
I tried to talk to Valerie—but she turned away from me whenever I tried to approach her.
Natalie and Jason came to the play every night—which was both good and bad. Good, because it was nice that my friends wanted to support me. Bad, because they sat together in the audience, often paying more attention to each other than to the play.
Though, every time I saw them together, I realized maybe it wasn’t so much “bad” as it was “weird.” I’d been with Jason for so long, it was still a little strange to see him with someone else—especially when that someone else was Natalie.
But deep down, I was able to wish them the best because deep down, all my thoughts were for Dante.
I missed him. I hadn’t realized how much he’d woven himself into my life until he wasn’t there. I counted the minutes in class until lunch, only to remember he wouldn’t be there at our table. I counted the cast before each nightly performance, always coming up one short. I counted the number of times Leo answered my question, “When is he coming back?” with “When he can.” It was more than I thought it should be.
~
I opened the door that night and grinned. Dante stood on the front step, his hands in his coat pockets, the collar turned up against the night wind.
“You’re back!” I said, flinging my arms around him.
“It’s good to see you too, Abby,” Dante wheezed as I tightened my hug.
“Come inside, it’s freezing out there.” I closed the door behind him and we stood there for a moment in the foyer, just looking at each other. I felt like I hadn’t seen him in forever and I traced his features with my eyes, relishing the familiar arch of his brows, the line of his jaw, the pool of shadow in the hollow of his throat.
“I’m sorry it’s so late, but I had to see you. I couldn’t wait until morning.”
“I’m glad you came.” I smiled warmly up at him. I led him into the front room. “My parents are out tonight, so I’m ‘baby-sitting’ Hannah, by which I mean she and her friends are downstairs watching a movie and don’t need me at all. I was doing some homework, but I’d much rather spend my time with you.”
Dante shrugged out of his coat, laying it over the back of the couch. I took a moment to appreciate the way his shirt stretched over his chest as he moved. Then he stripped off his gloves and set them down as well.
“I thought you didn’t want anyone to see those marks,” I said in surprise.
“I don’t want other people to see them,” he said. “I don’t mind if you do. I feel like I’m finally able to be myself around you and I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us, Abby.”
“I don’t think there are anymore,” I said as he sat down on the couch next to me.
He gathered me up in his arms, cradling my head against his shoulder. I loved how we fit together.
“I didn’t have the chance to tell you before,” I said, gently tracing a fingertip around the scarred brands clasped around his wrist, “but yes, I believe you. About everything.”
“I’m so sorry I put you in danger like that,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know it would get so bad so fast. All I did the entire time I was on the bank was worry about you. I am so glad to see that you are all right. I would never have forgiven myself if I’d let you come to harm.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I don’t know that I’d want to go through that again, but I’m okay. Leo said you told him where I was, how to save me. You shouldn’t have to apologize; I should be thanking you for saving my life.”
Dante closed his arms around me tighter. I felt him rest his forehead on the crown of my head. His warm breath flowed down the side of my neck.
“You can ask me anything,” he whispered. “And I will tell you the truth. Always.”
He was so serious, like a genie offering up three wishes. I hesitated, wondering what, if anything, I should ask.
I thought about everything I’d experienced with him on the bank. “Do you ever wish you could go home?”
“No.”
“That’s it? No hesitation? No qualifications? Just a flat-out no?”
“Some wishes are too dangerous to even contemplate. I have enough trouble keeping my balance here in the present. I can’t afford to divide my attention between wishing for the past and waiting for the future.”
“Still—seems like it would be nice to go back, to see your family again.”
“It’s nice to be here, to see you again.” He reached up, trailing his hand along my cheek. “Ask me another question.”
It was nice to be in his arms, no barriers between us, no secrets, just the truth.
“What does mia donna di luce mean?”
“Where did you hear that?”
&nb
sp; “Leo calls me that sometimes. Why? What does it mean?”
“It means ‘lady of light.’ Why would he call you that?” he mused.
I shrugged, wiggling a little closer to Dante. “Maybe because I’m so beautiful—like an angel,” I teased.
“But you are,” Dante said, his voice serious. “You are exactly like an angel.”
“I wish. Angels are free, unbound by any rules except to play their harps and keep their halos polished.” I sighed. “Lucky angels. Which reminds me—” I slid my hand up and down his arm, relishing the shape of his muscles under his clothes. I didn’t want to let him go, but I did anyway, untangling myself from his arms and leaning away from him.
Dante looked at me in confusion.
“Leo’s rule number two,” I said with a resigned shrug. “Limited touching.”
Dante reached out defiantly and took my hand in his, twining our fingers together. I could feel the sweet sensation of his bare palm pressed against mine.
“I’m supposed to help you keep the balance,” I said, though I didn’t pull my hand away. I enjoyed the comfort of Dante’s closeness too much. “Leo said that was rule number one.”
“Leo is famous for his rules. What else did he say?”
“Let’s see, rule three: I’m not supposed to ask you what you see about me in the river—even though I’m dying to know. And rule four: I’m not supposed to go to the bank.”
“Ah. Those are good keeping-Abby-safe rules.”
“So what are the keeping-Dante-safe rules? I’m sure Leo has some for you.”
“He does. And there are more than four.” A small, rueful smile crossed his face. Dante tugged on my hand, pulling me closer to him. I didn’t resist. He slipped his free hand into the pocket of his jeans, withdrawing a small necklace. “This is for you.” A heart-shaped locket lay in the hollow of his hand like a miniature moon, the chain spilling over his fingers like falling stars.
My fingers traced the intricate pattern carved on the face of the locket. The metal was warm under my touch. I felt the tiny hinges along one edge. My curiosity was piqued. “What’s inside?”
“The key to my heart.” He sat me up on the couch, gently brushing aside my hair so he could fasten the locket around my throat. He placed a kiss like a benediction on the back of my neck, right where the clasp rested against my skin. “And a wish.”
“Can I open it?”
I felt Dante’s lips smile against my neck. He turned me in his arms, so his face was close to mine. “Not yet. I’ll tell you when you can open it.”
He closed the distance between us, his lips touching mine softly, hesitantly, then, as the world around us slowed, more insistently, until the only thing I was aware of was the shape of his lips.
The kiss left me tingling and trembling.
“Where did you learn to kiss like that?” I murmured.
“From you.”
“You flatter me.” I blushed.
“It’s the truth.” He winked at me. “I remember the rules.”
~
In the following weeks, we both remembered the rules. And we both hated having to follow them. We kept our physical contact to a minimum—holding hands, mostly—but a sparkling shiver seemed to have taken up residence underneath my skin. I felt it whenever Dante ran his fingertips over my arm or my hand or my face; I felt it in the absence of his touch, waiting, longing for him to return.
We spent as much time together as we could. He would come to my house for dinner one night; I’d spend the next Friday night dancing with him to whichever band was playing at the Dungeon. We became regulars at Helen’s Café, sitting in the same booth by the window where we’d had our first breakfast together. Dante started teaching me Italian; I took him to the movies.
More often than not, we’d have to cut an evening short so he could go back to the bank. It was harder than I had thought it would be to find the right balance of time we could spend together and stick to it. The worst was when he’d have to be away for a whole day. I would try to keep busy with school, or spending time with Natalie, or, once, even hanging out with Hannah and her friends when they needed another player for A&B Clue.
As bad as the absences were, they somehow made our time together sweeter, more intense. I treasured every moment.
~
One Friday night, Dante and I went to the movies and then to dinner. Nothing Italian, though. Dante said what passed for Italian food here didn’t taste the same way as he remembered it. We’d stopped for late-night Chinese instead. His fortune cookie said, “You are wise beyond your years,” which I thought was less of a fortune and more of a comment about his character. Dante just laughed, pointing out that now he had proof that he had more than five hundred years of wisdom behind him.
My fortune cookie said, “Remember June 4th. Great things are in store for you.”
“Now, that’s a fortune,” I said, holding up the slip of paper. “They never pin down a date. And I know this one will come true: June 4th is graduation.”
Dante popped my cookie in his mouth. “Ah, omniscience is delicious.”
I tucked the fortune into my purse and we laughed all the way home.
“See you tomorrow?” I asked Dante as he walked me to the door.
Dante paused. “Maybe Monday.”
“You have to go back already?”
He leaned in to kiss my frown away. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
I watched until his lights vanished into the darkness before turning and going inside.
I lay in bed for a long time that night, thoughts and memories roiling through me in a slow boil. Fragments of moments floated to the surface and I turned them over in my mind, trying to see how they fit together, or even if they did. I felt sure all the ragged bits and pieces were connected, if I could only figure out how.
Dante’s hands on my neck, tilting my face to meet his in a kiss that changed me from the inside out.
Zo, standing on stage at the Dungeon, drenched in light, casting a deep, impenetrable shadow.
V wrapping his strong arms around Valerie, turning her face to his, turning her body into his embrace, turning her away from me.
Leo’s gentle smile at odds with his words warning me against kisses shared at midnight and wishes made at dawn.
Sighing, I slipped from my bed and sat on the edge of the window seat, dragging the quilt from my bed and wrapping it around my shoulders. Leaning against the wall, I looked out into the night sky. The moon seemed so close tonight. The thin skiff of clouds drifted slowly across the sky like encroaching blindness across a milky, white eye. I knew it was corny, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Dante could see the same moon from where he was on the riverbank.
I smiled ruefully. Of course he couldn’t see the moonlight. I’d been there. I’d seen the vast emptiness and the light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I wondered once more how long he would be gone. All I wanted to do was spend time with him, and it didn’t seem fair that the more time we spent together now, the longer we had to stay apart in the future. If only there was a way I could reach him even while he was gone.
I opened my window. The cool night breeze breathed over me, drew soft fingers through the curtains and over my face. I closed my eyes, remembering falling through the river, the tingling sensation on my skin as the waters of time closed over me. I breathed deeply, half asleep, half remembering, half wishing.
I heard the wind whisper with Dante’s voice, so close he might have been outside my window or even inside my room. I smiled in my sleep—when had I fallen asleep?—and turned my face to the night.
“What are you doing here?” Dante asked, his voice drifting to me on the wings of a dream.
What was I doing where? I wondered. I was asleep in my room, dreaming, wasn’t I?
A picture filled my mind: Dante, standing so still on the riverbank I thought at first he was a statue—a carving left behind to mark the way, or to warn away unwary travelers. The flat li
ght of the bank fell in strange angles on his skin, making the lines of his body sharp. His whole body was on edge. Thin. Tapering off into shadow—shadows that encased his wrists in heavy black bands, weighing him down, anchoring him in place.
It hurt my eyes to look directly at the chains on his skin. It hurt my heart to see him trapped and miserable. I opened my mouth to call his name, but as the dream unfurled its wings in my mind and the images and pictures became clearer, more defined, I realized Dante wasn’t speaking to me; he was addressing a dark figure who hovered at the edges of my vision.
“I didn’t think you liked coming here.” The words may have been spoken in Italian, but I heard them in English in my mind. And Dante’s contempt needed no translation.
“No one does.” Zo’s voice preceded his appearance in my dream. He strode into the scene like an actor commanding the stage. Heavy black shadows writhed around his wrists too, but, unlike Dante, Zo embraced his bands, wore them as a mark of honor and pride.
I felt a ripple of apprehension pass through me; I wasn’t sure I wanted to be anywhere Zo was. But this was just a dream, right?
It certainly felt like a dream . . . but with the promise of something more. It was like I was standing on a ledge and one more step would push me over, set me on the bank for real. I felt the edges of my dream bend and flex—and I mentally took a step back, staying safely on this side of the dream.
“Why are you here?” Dante clenched his fists and I saw streaks of red shoot through the black shadows, arrows of anger seeking a target.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Zo said. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
Zo laughed, the sound cracking from his mouth and dying in the void between the two men. “That hurts, Dante. It’s important that we trust each other. You of all people should know the importance of trust. And the power of secrets.”