Is this curse thing real?
I don’t know.
Is Pia real?
To me, she is. And if my talking alter-ego is real, this curse thing might be too. I don’t know. I need time to process. And maybe I’m not all up on the whole Saint Mark’s curse and everything, but it doesn’t take a genius to understand that siding against the beast in charge isn’t in my best interest.
On the other hand, if I’m truly stuck here, I don’t want to alienate Tomas. So there is just one thing left to do. “No,” I tell Tomas.
“No?”
I look over my shoulder at Pell. “No to you as well. I don’t know what’s going on here. Perhaps I’m just dreaming and in a little bit I will wake up and laugh at the absurdity of it all. But then again, maybe not. It wouldn’t be the first time the gods have frowned upon me. All I know is…” I pause and look the beast straight in the eyes. “I don’t need you. You need me.”
Then I turn my head and look at Tomas. “And I like you, Tomas. I think you might be a good man and you’re kinda hot—but while I’d love to trust you, I’ve learned a thing or two about trusting attractive, charismatic men who take an instant interest in me. So I don’t need you, either. I don’t need either of you. I’ve been traveling through this life on my own, with just my pet at my side”—I sneer the word at the monster—“since I was nine. And that’s how it’s gonna stay. So you can tell me where Pia is”—I point at the beast—“or not. She is me, and I am her, and I will find her with or without you.”
The beast called Pell straightens. And this makes his absurdly large male appendage straighten as well. “For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, turning my head to the side. “Can you please put on some pants?”
I turn on my heel, push past Tomas, and walk out into the grand entrance hall. Unsure of where I’m going, just very sure I need to get out of that room and away from that beast.
“She’s up there,” the beast calls. And when I look back at him, he’s pushing past Tomas too. Then he points to the ceiling. “She’s up there. I saw her earlier.”
I eye him with suspicion. Because his tone has changed once again and this time, the softness doesn’t feel like a lie. But it still could be. He’s probably just being helpful to make Tomas mad. But right now, I’ll take any assistance I can get if it helps me find Pia.
So I squint up at the ceiling. It’s a very beautiful ceiling. Like the Sistine Chapel, almost. But with beasts and monsters instead of angels or whatever.
“Pia!” I call. Is she scared? Is that why she flew off? Why isn’t she calling for me? The last time I remember talking to her, we were outside that gate near the cottage. I picked up the ring and… oh, fuck. I wilt a little.
It’s the ring. I put in my pocket and she crawled in there and when the beast threw me up in the air, she flew out of my pocket and disappeared.
But the monster said he saw her and he said bird. But when she flew away, she was a moth, not a bird. I turn to the beast. “What did she look like?” He and Tomas are both staring at me. They are side by side, the monster towering over Tomas, who is well over six feet tall himself. “Hello? I asked you a question. What did the bird look like?”
The beast shrugs with his hands. “A bird.”
“That’s not helpful. Maybe it’s not my bird? Maybe it’s some other bird?”
“There are no birds here,” Tomas explains. “No animals at all.” Then he hooks a thumb towards the monster at his side. “Well, except for him.”
“Fuck you,” the beast snarls back.
A flutter of wings high up in the ceiling draws all our eyes upward.
“There,” the beast says. “That’s her.”
And maybe it is. I hope it is. But even if I squint, I cannot see that high up. “It’s too dark in here,” I say. “Where are the lights?”
“We don’t have lights in the cathedral,” the beast says. “We have sunshine.”
“And sconces,” Tomas adds, nodding to the sconces on the stone walls, which I hadn’t really noticed before this moment. “But we don’t have electricity in here. So. No lights. Everything runs on gas.”
“Everything?” This can’t be right. “Where does it come from? Who pays the bill?”
“None of that matters,” the beast says. “There is no electricity here, so if you are not used to cooking with fire, you should grab a book on it when you go to the store tomorrow.”