RoseBlood(43)

That was before Ben.

Nausea sweeps through me at the thought. After our encounter, I realized why I was enchanted by the spider’s feeding rituals, that there was something in my gypsy blood—something tainted and wrong . . . just like Grandma said.

The water in the baptismal surges again. If it is a rat, it’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen. The bulge pressing up from underneath is now the size of a basketball.

I try to adjust my light, but my trembling fingers knock the neck off-kilter so the beam shifts to my toes. Before I can fix it, a wave rises, sloshing water across me, the cat, and the floor.

Feathers and wings emerge in sync with a cavalcade of lightning. A long, graceful neck unfurls into the most beautiful swan I’ve ever seen—as red, bright, and vivid as the blood seeping from the roses earlier.

Thunder rolls, and Diable lunges at the bird. He loses balance, plopping into the water belly first.

The swan releases a trumpeting croak then flaps its wings. I dodge its webbed feet as it swoops over my head on a gust before landing safely in the shadows at the back of the chapel, out of sight. The bird grows silent, to the point I wonder if it’s still there.

Yowling and sputtering, Diable snatches my attention. His battle against the water has propelled him into the middle of the baptismal. I try to reach him, but even when my thighs hit the basin’s edge, my arms aren’t long enough.

My throat lumps. I hesitate, telling myself this isn’t like the time when I was little and my Les Enfants Perdus fairy tale book fell into the river . . . the water isn’t deep enough to cover my head. My grandma’s not seated on the dock beside me, waiting to push me over the edge and trap me under a crate when I try to retrieve the one thing left of Daddy.

In my book light’s beam, I watch the cat’s head disappear.

Fingers digging into the bricks, I pull up onto the edge and balance my right hip there. I lean sideways, anchoring myself with my legs bent over the outside lip, and dunk my arm in. After stirring the cold water around, I snag the flailing ball of fur by his collar.

“You know, a dishrag would have the decency to lie still,” I scold him as he fights against me until chilly water coats both my arms. My book light falls off during our wrestling match, submerging in a shimmery trail.

Our surroundings grow dim again, broken by sporadic slashes of lightning. I tug the cat close enough to the edge so he can climb out. Startled by a clap of thunder, his front paws latch onto my knee with razor-sharp barbs. Yelping, I writhe to free myself. We break apart, him tumbling to safety and me teetering headfirst into the water, swallowed up by frigid, liquid shadows.

I capsize, unable to right my body, clawing my ponytail loose in the struggle. The book light descends below in slow motion—like a hazy yellow star orbiting farther and farther off in the distance—illuminating the bubbles and swirling currents caused by my violent entry. The depths seem to be unending.

My body seizes in fear, as brittle and dysfunctional as a cricket’s empty exoskeleton after being drained by a hungry spider. My deadweight limbs drag me down, suspended in a web of dread, and it all comes rushing back . . . the squeeze of my lungs begging me to breathe, the tear of my fingernails against splintering wood, the swirl of my hair tangling around my neck.

Grandma, why?

An arm binds my waist from behind, stopping my descent with a jolt. Somewhere beyond the muffled swish of water filling my subconscious, that familiar violin song pricks at my eardrums—poignant, pure, and enticing—my maestro commanding me to fight. A spark, hot and charged, like a shock from an outlet, leaps from my rescuer’s body to mine, and I revive enough to start kicking again.

I’m dragged out and over the edge like a piece of luggage, hacking up the flavor of bile and soured water. My feet squish inside my waterlogged boots as I try to stand. The soles slide out from under me and I miss busting my head on the brick basin by inches when a pair of gloved hands catches me. They settle me to sit on the floor beside the well, raking away the slimy hair glued across my eyes before tilting my chin back as if inspecting me for bruises.

Coughing again, I jerk free and look up in the dimness, half expecting to see Grandma in my fevered state, half expecting her to finally offer some explanation for trying to drown me.

Instead, the looming silhouette takes a different shape: broad shoulders and a masculine build inside dark clothes. So intent on him, I barely notice that the rain has let up—that the clouds have started to thin and a gauzy gray light gilds the room. The figure standing over me comes into sharp focus before I’m even aware of it.

Thick curls of dark hair cascade across his forehead and drip water along the nose of his porcelain, white half-mask. Rivulets stream down the naked side of his face—some real, from the bath he encountered while fishing me out of the well, and others impressions, from the drizzling rain and jagged colors stamped onto his skin by light filtered through the stained-glass windows. I choke back a gasp of recognition.

It’s the gardener . . . the Phantom.

I haven’t been imagining things at all. They’re one and the same.

The description of his deformity from every incarnation of the story, what hides beneath the cover-up, taunts me: rotting yellow skin . . . no nose or upper lip . . . sunken forehead and eye. But my attention strays to the left side, and the features both symmetrical and sensuous. He’s his own foil—two polar opposites, squashed into place like mismatched halves of clay onto one man’s immaculate form.