I write his name on the label and wrap it around the tube of crimson blood, dropping it into a padded envelope. I give the envelope to a maid to send out with a courier. Luca relented so easily this morning, allowing me to take his blood even though he is certain it won’t reveal his problem. He truly feels that he cannot be helped and that breaks my heart.
He is secluded now, closed away in his cave. He doesn’t want me there. He wants to remain there alone until he sees that his curse isn’t returning today, until I can try and figure out how to help him. The bruises that he left on my neck filled him with such anger and self-loathing that he couldn’t even look at me. I tried to tell him that he didn’t rape me, that I could have stopped him.
But truthfully, if I had wanted to stop him, I don’t know that I could have. But I didn’t tell him that part. I didn’t have to. He already knows and it is tearing him apart. I picture him, alone and chained in his cave and my heart splits into two. I cringe and my eyes grow hot. But I push that away. I can’t help him if I fall apart. And I know that in order to help him, I need to speak with someone who has been there all along, even longer than Adrian.
I have to speak with Melina.
I find myself at her door, a tiny tape recorder in my hand.
I knock and Sophia answers, her face surprised.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Talbot,” she tells me politely, her body blocking the entrance to Melina’s rooms. “But we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow. She’s not even dressed.”
“That’s fine,” I tell her. “I’ve just had to rearrange my schedule. I’d like to see her now.”
I practically push past her. Nothing will deter me.
“Very well,” Sophia says, allowing me to pass. “She more lucid in the mornings, anyway. You will probably be able to help her more this way.”
Her words don’t surprise me. Most people with dementia are this way. But since Luca wanted me here in the evenings with her, to help diffuse difficult situations, that is what I did. Someone with dementia truly can’t be helped, their disorder can’t be healed. It can only be controlled as well as possible with medication and therapy. There was no way that I could heal her by meeting with her during lucid mornings. But I can glean information that I can possibly use to heal her son.
I find Melina seated at her dining room table, an elegant shawl wrapped around her thin shoulders. She looks up in surprise.
“Dr. Talbot,” she greets me. I am surprised that she remembers me. She hasn’t yet done so in any of our other sessions. “Please sit, have breakfast with me. You are here quite early today.”
She is acting as though nothing is out of the ordinary, even though she seems as lucid as I am. I am flabbergasted as I sit across the table from her and inconspicuously push the button on my digital recorder to “Record.”
“Mrs. Minaldi, you seem bright eyed and bushy-tailed this morning,” I tell her with a polite smile. She looks up at me, intrigued.
“Is that an American saying, dear?” she asks, as she butters an English muffin. She offers one to me, but I shake my head.
“Yes, it is,” I answer. “It’s an idiom that means you are full of energy and ready to face your day.”
She smiles at that.
“Of course I am,” she tells me. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She proceeds to eat her breakfast, oblivious to the fact that I am astounded by her clear state of mind. It is normal for a person with dementia to be clearer in the morning. It is not, however, normal for that person to be completely lucid, a night and day difference. That is not normal at all.
I don’t point that out. Instead, I observe her and plan how to get crucial information from her. The woman that Luca had described from his childhood would most likely not offer that much up voluntarily. I watch her eat for a moment more before I speak.
“Mrs. Minaldi, do you remember much from Luca’s childhood?”
She stops what she is doing and lowers her hands to the table. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
I consider my next words carefully as she watches me with a hawk-like gaze. Gone are the clouds of delirium. I’m sitting in front of a person who is as sharp as they come. I feel slightly like I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.
“When did you know that he was different?”
Melina stares at me.
“Different? You mean, when did I realize that he walks in his sleep?”
She isn’t going to tell me anything. I can see that from the determined set to her jaw.
“Yes,” I reply limply. “When did Luca first start walking in his sleep?”
Melina picks back up her roll and takes a delicate bite. After she has chewed and swallowed, she answers, “From the time he was small.”
“How small?” I choke out. I’m finding this situation a little overwhelming.
“Very small,” she levels a gaze at me. “Why are you asking me these questions?”
“Because I’m trying to help him with his sleepwalking problem,” I answer, still playing by her rules. If she wants to call it sleepwalking, so be it.
“You can’t,” she answers calmly. “There’s nothing to be done.”
But we’re interrupted by Sophia now, as she enters with a tray.
“It’s time for your tea, ma’am,” she says to Melina. Melina smiles at her.
“Thank you, dear.” She takes the delicate china cup and pulls the bag from the steaming liquid, placing it on a fragile saucer. She takes a sip, closing her eyes. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”
Sophia nods, then backs quietly away.
Melina is a perfect lady now, with exquisite manners and I know that I’m getting a glimpse of the dignified person that she used to be.
“Did you really used to tie him to his bed?” I ask, unable to stop myself. The images of Luca as a little boy, scared and alone, have tormented me since I first heard of it. Melina’s gaze practically stabs me now, impaling me through the heart.
“Of course,” she answers simply. “How else could I keep him from hurting himself?...or someone else?”
I suck in my breath because her voice has changed now. It’s not the pleasant, normal voice from a bit ago. It’s now the icy, strange voice that I have grown accustomed to from her. I look up quickly to find her slightly unfocused gaze upon me, inky black.
“Don’t poke around where you shouldn’t,” she tells me eerily. “You can’t help my son. No one can. And you can’t help me, either.”
She pauses, one bony finger pointed at me. “Unless you
want
to help me,” she adds. “Do you?”
I am frozen, my eyes on hers as I nod. “Of course I want to help you,” I tell her. My heart is pounding hard now.
“Then help me end it,” she says. “Just help me end it.”
She slumps against the back of her chair and I am appalled at the sudden change in her demeanor, of her mental state. How can she go from completely and utterly lucid to completely and utterly out of it in one moment? It defies logic and medical explanation. Does the curse somehow affect her, as well?
I am somewhat sheepish that I am referring to it as a curse. I know that there is no such thing. But I am unsure what to call it.
The affliction
, I guess. That’s what I should call it.
“Are you afflicted too?” I ask her. She looks at me as if I’m foolish.
“Of course not,” she answers croakily. “Am I a Minaldi man? I am afflicted only in that I’ve had to watch these goings-on for years. And I’m weary of it. End it for me, Dr. Talbot. You can end it for me. Just give me a triple dose of my evening medication. That should do it. End. It. For. Me.”
She is lucid, yet insane now as she spits the words at me. I have chills running down my back as I push away from the table.
“I can’t do that,” I whisper, shaking my head. Her eyes are glued to mine.
“This won’t end unless it ends with us,” she tells me. “Luca and his brothers and me. We’re the only ones left. It must end with us. The Minaldi line must end. It has to.”
Her words are chilling, the meaning of them even more so.
She wants to die. She wants her sons to die. She believes so strongly in a curse that she wants to die to end it. And she is willing to sacrifice her children. It is unfathomable.
Her eyes are burning into mine and I find that I have to turn away. I can’t take it anymore. As I leave the suite, she is still calling from behind me.
“It has to end!”
I’ll never get the sound of her voice out of my head. It is embedded there forever.
I head out to the English Maze, to the heart of it where the entrance to the cave lies. I knock against the statue of Hades, knowing that the hidden cameras around it will reveal my presence to Adrian, who I am sure is keeping Luca company below.
I am correct, because it isn’t long before the statue slides backward and Adrian steps out.
“Is Luca alright?” I ask him.
Adrian’s face is filled with sympathy as he nods.
“He’s fine. He’s calmer now.”
I nod. “I’d like to see him.”
Adrian shakes his head, regret pooling in his blue eyes.
“I’m sorry. He doesn’t want to see you yet. He doesn’t trust himself. I have to agree with him, Eva. He’s fine right now, but as you saw for yourself last night, that can change in one instant. The frequency of the episodes is increasing. The onset is coming more quickly. Luca is a danger to himself and to everyone around him until we get this under control. He understands this. You need to understand it, as well.”
Adrian is stern now, watching me for signs of agreement.
“I can help him,” I tell him limply. “I just need a chance to try.”
Adrian shakes his head again, his big body filling up the entrance of the passageway.
“You can’t,” he tells me softly. “I know you want to. But you don’t understand what you’re dealing with. It’s not anything that medical books have seen before. It’s unexplainable. What you can do right now to help him is to do what he asks. Give him some space. Allow him to calm himself down and hopefully bring himself back under control. That’s what you can do.”
I’m numb as I slowly nod.
“Alright,” my traitorous lips say. I want to scream and shout and demand to see Luca, but I know that Adrian will never let me pass. He is loyal to Luca. He will never go against Luca’s orders. “I’ll give him space. When does he think he will return to the house?”
Adrian softens now, staring at my face. “I don’t know, Eva. Hopefully soon. We don’t have cable out here.”
He’s attempting to joke, to lighten the situation. But it doesn’t help. I’m in no mood. I nod.
“Please let me know the second that you are back. And please, tell Luca that I came.”
Adrian nods. “He knows.”
“Okay,” I whisper, as I turn to leave. There’s nothing else to do. Luca controls everything that happens on Chessarae. If he doesn’t want me to see him, I won’t be seeing him.
I choke back tears as I make my way back to the house.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Luca
“She’s gone?” I ask Adrian as he returns from the passage.
He nods, not saying a word.
“Was she upset?” I ask, although I know the answer.
Adrian nods again.
“Luca, you know you have to do this. You don’t want to harm her.”
I flex my wrists, straining them against the manacles that restrain them. I slump against the headboard.
“No, I don’t want to harm her.”
Adrian returns to his book, and I return to thinking about a life that I can never have. Both of us are waiting for me to snap, to re-enter the darkness that has consumed me of late. So far, it hasn’t come. But it will, because it always does.
I am more alone than I have ever been.
I bow my head and close my eyes.
I would pray, but I know that God doesn’t want to hear from monsters.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eva
I have dubbed Luca’s affliction Dr.Jekyll/Mr.Hyde’s disease.
I cannot bring myself to continue calling it a curse or even an affliction. It is a medical condition because there is no such thing as a curse. As a physician, I know that. And as a medical condition, there has to be a cure somewhere. We just have to find it. Depression, schizophrenia, polio, measles, mumps… they all started out as incurable diseases and now they all have treatment. Luca’s disease will be the same. This thought is what is keeping me going.
It has been two weeks since Luca secluded himself in the cave.
The darkness of Chessarae has closed in around me and for these two weeks, I have been a woman obsessed. I have had one singular thought and that is to help Luca. I have spent my time creating endless notebooks filled with notes and more sessions with his mother. I have scoured the internet and medical research books looking for any indication of similar diseases reported by others.
So far, there is nothing.
I am utterly dejected and I feel like I haven’t slept in days.
I sent an email to a mentor of mine, a renowned psychiatrist, asking his input. I am anxiously waiting for his reply. I didn’t include all of the details, of course. Only the sketchy basics and obviously, I didn’t include the part where Luca has acted on his violent tendencies.
At the thought, my hands automatically flutter to my throat, although the bruises from Luca’s hands have long faded. That night flashes through my memory like lightning in a storm. His face was so dark and troubled as he clutched me to him, then thrust me away. He turned me over and entered me from behind, pulling me to him, closer and closer, as he thrust harder and harder. Then he wrapped his fingers around my throat and squeezed, whispering words that I couldn’t hear or understand.
My words, my pleas for him to stop, grew louder until he finally listened. He turned me around and looked into my eyes and I begged for him to focus, to focus on my face. His eyes grew slightly clearer and filled with distress before he curled up and fell asleep. I had stroked his hair until I fell asleep myself, hunched over him.