The Demon Catchers of Milan by Kat Beyer Read Free Book Online

computer. He belonged in the old candle shop in the flickering light, quiet, sturdy and, above all, old school. I tried to picture him Googling demons. It didn’t work.
    I took a shower ( C is for calda!) , then tried to figure out which of my clothes would make me blend in the most. I laid out skirts and shirts, and my one dress, running back and forth into the hall to look in the full-length mirror. Someone was carrying on a conversation, and I found myself trying to catch their words as I scrubbed at a spot on my one good pair of dress shoes. I couldn’t tell if they were in the apartment behind us, although sometimes they sounded like they were coming from the bookshelf, sometimes by the window.
    A woman spoke most of the time. She sounded prettyuptight and pompous. Someone else answered her in a gravelly male voice that made me feel cold. It sounded almost familiar. I listened hard over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. I reminded myself that the Della Torres had said the house was well guarded from the demon. No, I decided at last, it wasn’t the demon’s voice, but it did sound an awful lot like him. Trying to make out their words, I leaned closer to the wall.
    “She shouldn’t wear that yellow shirt,” said the woman. “It’s so bright, yes, but with her skin it makes her look like a jaundice patient. I hope she tries the dark blue.”
    There was a yellow shirt lying among the choices on the bed, and a dark blue one, too. Could they see me? Where were they? I spent the next ten minutes investigating the wall to see if there were any peepholes, like in some horrible gas station bathroom on the highway. There weren’t. As an experiment, I picked up the blue shirt.
    “Yes, and that simple skirt, the one without the frills—very tidy. I really prefer more lace, and the whole business of raising the hem above the ankles is quite tawdry, but it will do.”
    “I like the white skirt,” said the gravelly voice.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve never worn a stitch of clothing in your whole life, so you can have no opinion.”
    The one with the gravelly voice wandered around naked? Who were these people?
    “I’ve been around you long enough to have opinions,” answered Gravel Voice, which was just about what I was thinking. Pompous Voice ignored this.
    I smoothed out the skirt she liked, which I had never worn with the dark blue blouse. I couldn’t see how they would work together, but somehow her advice seemed worth listening to.
    “Now, for shoes, are those all she has? Oh, dear. They might do in America, poor thing, but she is in Milan now. She must talk to them about shoes. For tonight, let’s just pray to the Heavenly Queen that no one will look down. And jewelry: let’s see. That plain gold chain, and the small cross. Nothing else for a girl so young.”
    With this strange help, I chose my outfit, but I carried all the clothes to the bathroom to change, just in case they could see me. When I stepped in front of the hall mirror again, I was surprised to see how nice I looked. So was Emilio, I’m afraid, when he came upstairs from the shop.
    “Ready? Oh, you are. Very nice.”
    I saw him glance down at my shoes and start to shrug. I wondered if he could tell I had had help. As I followed him downstairs into the candle shop, a thought came forward. The voices hadn’t been from an apartment behind me. They had been in the room. Of course.

SIX
    La Famiglia
    T he tiny shop was crowded, and everyone seemed to feel they had been introduced last night, when they came to the airport, so nobody gave me their name when they said hello. As we passed into the street, I tried to get them all straight: Giuliano and his wife, Laura, and Emilio; then a woman a little older than Emilio, with sleek, dark brown hair drawn up into an elegant chignon. She talked so familiarly to Emilio that I thought, with glum shock, that she must be his curlfrond/girlfriend, Alba—until the tall, dignified, African-looking