“Psychic.” Tennyson tapped his temple. “I see the future, remember?”
I nudged him with my elbow. “Yeah, but you don’t see everything. You’re not omniscient.”
He snorted. “More’s the pity.”
“I’m not giving you a pass on this, Tenn. You need to put yourself out there—”
“Enough, Chiara.” His tone dead serious. “I meant what I said. I’m not cut out for love.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. Of course you are. Remember Lucy? The woman you were crazy about for like . . . ten years?”
“The Lucy currently married to my brother?” His voice was so very dry.
“Tenn—”
He shook his head, exasperated and resigned. “I hurt Lucy by holding on to her for so long. I used her as an emotional crutch. I loved her, but I wasn’t good for her. It was a sick sort of love.”
“So?”
“So . . . I’m bad news for any woman. My outward handicap—” He swept a hand over his missing leg. “—is just a physical symbol of what’s missing inside. Babbo’s descent into madness was horrific for all of us to witness. It nearly destroyed Mom. I can’t do that to a woman I love.”
“Stop. You are doing a lot better lately, and there’s no saying you’ll end up like Babbo.”
“I won’t do it, Chiara. I won’t mess up some poor woman’s life with my horrific issues. I won’t bring children into the world to face the same problems I have. Worse, if I did fall in love, I don’t know that I could be strong enough to walk away. Lucy proved that to me. I love too hard and too deep. If I fell for a woman, I would end up smothering her under the mountain of my obsessive affection. The only solution is to avoid falling in love altogether.”
“Tenn, that’s so emotionally unhealthy, I don’t even know where to start. And you keep calling me out onmyissues.”
“No, it’s my reality, Chiara. It’s the best choice out of all the crappy options life has handed me—”
“I may have found something!” Jack’s excited shout interrupted us. He popped up from behind a group of stones, face flushed, eyes bright. “This stone was tucked back here, and I hadn’t really studied it yet. But it might have some text on it. Do we have any paper and charcoal to do a rubbing?”
A short while later, I held a piece of paper over a stone as Jack carefully rubbed a stick of artist charcoal over it.
“These stones are so old and weathered, any engravings are seriously worn,” Jack explained. “Lichen, moss and the weather take such a toll. The rubbing should reveal patterns that are hard to see with the naked eye.”
“What do you think this is?” I asked.
“I have no idea. I just noticed a couple stray mason’s marks on this block and was curious. As I said, most of the tower was built from repurposed stone, so the marks could date from just about any time period.”
Slowly, under his hand, letters appeared, blocky and angularly cut. It was nothing I recognized. The letters were Roman, but the language didn’t appear to be Latin. It certainly wasn’t Italian.
The more the lettering was revealed, the harder Jack’s hands shook.
“Well?” Tennyson asked once Jack sat back on his heels, surveying the entire thing.
Reverently, Jack touched the words. “It’s ancient Etruscan. Let me take this inside and see if I can translate it.”
“Do you think it has any reference at all to old Cesareil Pompaso’sfloorplan?” I asked, following at his heels as he crossed the wide terrace to the French doors.
“It’s impossible to say. Etruscan ruins aren’t exactly unusual around here.” Jack hedged, spreading the rubbing onto the games table just inside the drawing room. “Let me decipher it first.”
Tennyson and I exchanged a look and sat ourselves down on the large sofa.
I watched Jack as he worked, scribbling in a notebook, looking up things on his tablet. His hair flopped forward and he threaded his hand into it, mussing it. Sunlight rimmed his strong jaw and the curve of his shoulders. He still used voice commands incessantly, despite having his body again. So things like, ‘Hey Siri, take a note’ broke the silence from time to time. Every now and again, Jack would lift his head and seek my gaze. We’d smile and he’d go back to his work, and I would go back to my creepy staring.
See? Psycho girlfriend.
An hour later, Jack looked up from the rubbing, shaking his head.
