Read The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One Page 19

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  It’s hard to figure out what to tell her and what not to tell her. It’s against the rules to tell her anything at all. She’s a woman, she’s not jettatori, and she’s not even Calabrese. But she is my family, and she’s the most knowledgeable person about magic that I know. I decide to tell her what I know, but not how I know any of it. I tell her that I think that the family is changing the magic in the charms somehow. When she asks how I know this, I say, “I can’t tell you, Nonna. It’s safer that way for me and you.”

  She shakes her head. “Olivia, you are getting yourself into something dangerous.”

  “If we can find out what happened to Mom, I think it’s worth it,” I say. I tell her about what I saw the Fazioli doing earlier. How they use different chants that the Calabrese family uses. This is the hardest thing to admit, because they are tightly guarded secrets. Letting a benedetta know about jettatori magic is a betrayal of everything we stand for. I feel guilty, but I do it anyway. “Can you tell me why they’re different? Can you tell me what our charms are doing?”

  She gets up, her knitting forgotten. “Maybe if you wrote them down, if I did some looking.”

  I don’t want to write them down. That seems worse than telling her. Then they’ll be out there, where someone could find them. But I nod. I write them down.

  “It will take me some time,” she says. “I want to help you, though.”

  I realize suddenly what a dangerous thing I am asking Nonna to do. She is going up against my family, a very powerful force in this part of the world. She could be hurt. I almost take the chants back. “I don’t want you to be hurt, Nonna.”

  She smiles at me, and she looks young and brave. “I can handle myself. Don’t you worry about me. You just worry about yourself. Whatever you’re digging yourself into, it might not end well.”

  She’s right, of course. She tucks the handwritten chants away. And then, it’s almost as if the entire conversation has been forgotten, and she is my old Nonna again. “So you stay out all night and do not even call me to tell me that you are okay? And what is that bruise on your face?”

  “Nonna, please.”

  She wags her finger in my face. “I don’t like this one bit, Olivia Calabrese. You are not behaving like a good young lady should. I haven’t a clue what to do with you.”

  Somehow, her scolding comforts me. I smile. “What’s for dinner?”

  She sweeps into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator door. “You expect me to believe you never saw that boy?”

  I follow her. “He’s in the play with me. Of course I saw him.”

  “He is a handsome one, that one,” she says. There is a twinkle in her eyes as she looks at me. “But bad for you.” She hands me an onion. “Chop this fine.”

  I get out a cutting board. “What kind of boy would be good for me?”

  “Well, I had high hopes for the D’Annunzio boy. So polite.”

  “George? He has buck teeth!”

  “He is going to be a priest, however, from what his mother tells me.”

  “Good for him. He’s so ugly, only God could love him.” I slice into the onion.

  “Olivia!”

  I think I’ve done the right thing. Telling Nonna. I can’t be sure, but I think so.