“Oh. Well, I don’t want to interrupt your lunch break. I can come back when?—”
But Luca was already shaking his head. “No, it’s fine.”
He just stood there, smiling pleasantly at me, until I finally said, “So… uh, did you have any luck? With your uncle, I mean?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. He said it was fine if you wanted to borrow some of the stuff in long-term storage. It’s been in there for years, so he has no idea what’s in there, but I can take you over and you can just have a poke around.”
“That would be great, thanks so much,” I said, feeling relief wash over me that I hadn’t gotten Zale’s hopes up for nothing. “Is it okay if I text Zale and have him meet us? He probably has a better idea of what would work than I would.”
“Knock yourself out. Tell him to meet us at storage building 4.”
I shot off a quick text and then set off across the grounds, jogging along beside Luca, who had incredibly long strides. I tried to think of something—anything—to say to make small talk, but my mind felt like it had been wiped clean. Luckily, Luca didn’t seem to mind in the least. He was whistling contentedly as he walked, hands tucked into his pockets, completely at his ease. It made me feel even more pathetic. Here I was, stammering like a fool in his presence, and he could not have been less affected by mine. I thought of Persi, of her magnetism, the way she drew every eye everywhere she went and wished, for one wild moment, that I was more like her.
“So you’re a Vesper, huh?”
Luca’s voice burst in through my thoughts, catching me off guard.
“Uh, yeah.”
“So, how is it that you seem to know even less about this festival than I do?” he asked, shortening his stride so that I could walk alongside him.
“Oh. Well, I haven’t lived here in a long time. My mother moved us both to Portland when I was a toddler.”
Luca’s eyes disappeared into his mess of dark hair. “Really? Haven’t the Vespers lived in this town since… forever?”
“How do you know that? I thought you were an outsider,” I said, and then slapped my hand over my mouth in horror.
But Luca just laughed. “An outsider who’s visited all the tourist attractions about a dozen times. I know the local history.”
“Sorry,” I said, dropping my gaze to my feet, “about the outsider thing. It’s just what some of the other kids said last night. I mean… I’m basically an outsider, too. Sort of.”
“It’s fine. I’m used to it. It’s kind of crazy that you can spend every summer of your life in the place and still be considered an outsider, but that’s Sedgwick Cove for you. I used to think it was just a money thing, but I don’t know. It seems to run deeper than that here.”
“A money thing?”
“Yeah, you know, people looking for seasonal second homes, that kind of thing.”
“Where do you live during the school year?” I asked.
“Manhattan. My great-grandmother was from Sedgwick Cove originally. That’s how my great-grandfather ended up buying this place to begin with.”
I had to press my lips together to prevent myself from asking the question I really wanted to ask, which was, of course, whether his mother’s side of the family were, in fact, witches.But that wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you can just come out and ask someone you’ve only known for a day. Still, the curiosity burned in me like a coal as we walked around the back side of the theater, and down to a row of low rectangular buildings that looked almost like an army base. Each building was made of concrete, painted gray, with a sloped metal roof and small, high windows. A huge numeral was painted on the side of each building in tan paint to denote which building it was. We walked along the lefthand row to a building marked with a massive number four. A metal sign beside the door read, “Storage 4: Long Storage.”
Luca pulled out a ring of keys that would make a custodian insecure, and flipped through them until he found the key to the padlock. He unlocked it and pushed the door wide, gesturing me through. “After you, Miss Vesper.”
“Should we wait for Zale?” I asked.
“I’ll leave the door propped for him. He’ll find us,” Luca said.
I nodded and stepped through. Luca followed, and mashed his palm against a bank of light switches.
Row after row of fluorescent lights buzzed and popped to life, revealing aisles of costume racks lined up all along the center of the room, so that the place looked like a fabric maze. The four walls were built out floor to ceiling with heavy-duty shelving that housed an impossible number of bins, boxes, and bags —each one neatly labeled with electrical tape.
“Holy shit,” I muttered. “How many buildings do you have?”
“Storage ones like this? Six,” Luca said. “Some for costumes, some for sets, some for props. My grandfather kept adding them as the theater grew.”
We walked forward, our footsteps oddly muffled by the sheer amount of stuff crammed into the space.
