The Demon Catchers of Milan #2: The Halcyon Bird Read Online Free Page B

middle brother, Martino, and Nonno’s son, Luciano, had crossed the ocean and taken over my body and my mind, Giuliano and Emilio had arrived to rescue me. That was the first time we’d met them, since my own grandfather Roberto had never even mentioned their existence. Grandfather Roberto, cousin to Nonno, had left Italy in 1958 for reasons he never told any of us. He had certainly left out the part about coming from a family of exorcists.
    It had come as a shock to Dad when the priest, calling Rome for help as I thrashed around in the air, had been refused:“Under no circumstances was an exorcism to be performed on a Della Torre,” Dad had repeated later, dropping his deep voice even deeper. “Their exact words, Father Amadoro told me later. Can you believe it?”
    I could now.
    After Nonno and Emilio had come to Center Plains and performed the exorcism, they had brought me to Milan, to a strange and unexpected homecoming. I hoped, if his spirit was still out there, my grandfather would one day forgive me.
    My demon had come back to Milan, too. And for the first few months after I arrived, I had had to stay inside our apartment or in the candle shop, going outside only with the family to protect me. Finally, Signora Negroponte, a witch from Lucca who is a family friend, had helped me find a talisman that would protect me outside. She and I had spent quite a bit of time testing different objects, a harrowing process since it involved me stepping out into the street to see if the demon would come while I was holding a sacred acorn or wearing a smear of evil-smelling paste or clutching a splinter of wood pulled from our stairs. In the end, I found my talisman myself: a bell that had hung on the door of the shop. It was smaller even than Francesco’s Guatemalan bell and had a miniature bird engraved on its side, the same one that was carved in stone above the shop door. Now I wore it on a leather string around my neck.
    “In Italia i treni arrivano tanto in ritardo che bisogna fargliil test di gravidanza,”
Uncle Matteo was saying. “In Italy, the trains are so late they need a pregnancy test.” Égide threw back his head and laughed at the ceiling. I knew that the family hadn’t been all that excited the first time Francesco had brought home a six-foot black man (in some ways, sadly, they aren’t that different from other Milanese), but they seemed to have gotten over it. Aunt Brigida scolded her husband halfheartedly, but Nonna was laughing, too, finally taking a seat at the table with her own coffee.
    Uncle Matteo took a long, appreciative sip of his. “Ah! So good,” and Égide nodded.
    I asked myself for the first time why we had never met any of Égide’s family. I knew his father had brought him over from Rwanda, and that was all. I also noticed that Uncle Matteo didn’t ask Francesca about her work.
    “We have to get going if I am to walk you to the office,” Égide said to her, and she nodded.
    “We’ll get out of here, too,” said Aunt Brigida. “Any errands, Laura?” she asked, looking at Nonna.
    “Nothing, thanks.”
    The kitchen emptied; I picked up the cups and took them to the sink, looking out the window at our lavender plants and the courtyard next door while I ran the hot water.
    “Thank you,” said Nonna, still sitting at the table. The winter sun picked out dust motes in the air. After a while, she asked, “How did last night go?”
    It seemed to me that there was another question she really wanted to ask instead, and I wished I could work out what it was.
    “Pretty well,” I said. “The demon jumped from the husband to the wife, but we got him in the end, and I think they will be okay. I hope they will stay together.”
    “You think that would be the best thing?” she asked.
    “Yes. Or … I don’t know,” I said. “But it was the
Festa di San Valentino
, after all. I guess they could work it out. They seem to love each other.”
    “It can take more than that,” she