The Tortured Life of Jane Volturi
Chapter 1
When I was born, I was not expected to live because my twin brother and I were so small. We weighed only about as much as a loaf of bread, combined. My mother didn't even bother to name me until I was two weeks old and there was a 1% chance that I would live. She named me Maria Ariana Gianni, and my brother Alessandro Dmitri. I had ten older brothers, and by the time I was seven I had four more. We were a family of eighteen, though only five survived until we were thirty. My parents hated me, and I can confidently say this. I was the only blemish on a perfect record. They had almost had sixteen boys, but I came along and ruined their dream. Therefore, almost every chore in the household was enforced on me.
We were exceedingly poor. I think that's part of the reason Mother didn't want a daughter – she didn't want to have to pay a dowry. We had a little farm out in the middle of nowhere, and I had to care for all the animals and plant all the crops. In the fall, I had to harvest all the crops and kill the livestock, then traverse five miles with a loaded wagon to sell them. It was hot, hard, work without an ounce of glory. I got no respect from my family members, except my younger brother. Marcus was two years younger than me, and yet I felt he was closer to being my twin than Alessandro was. He called me Gianni. I had once asked my mother what the Gianni part was doing in my name – most people didn't have one middle name, let alone two. She said it had just been an impulse, something you could easily throw away. For that reason, it became an uncontested part of my name. Marcus called me Gianni whenever I talked to him in secret.
And we did talk secretly, often. When I was seven, a horrible smallpox epidemic ravaged our little town. The first person to get it in our family was Mother. She had a small fever that simply did not go away. Then she started getting marks on her skin. Soon, Father and almost every one of my older brothers had it. My younger brothers all died within a week, save Marcus. Mother buried Giulianno, Mario, and Ricardo tearfully. Then they just started dying like the chickens at slaughter time. It got to the point where the only living humans in the house were me, Marcus, Alessandro, Mother, and my eldest brother Pietro. At this point, I felt like my life had reached boiling point. It was so terrible, so awful that nothing could go wrong anymore. It had to improve from here.
As was expected, I was wrong.
I was mopping Mother's forehead with a cool rag to lessen the fever when suddenly she started kicking in her bed. I was sure it was one of the "fever fits," but it turned out she was lucid. "No!" she shouted, very loudly for someone who was sick. "I don't want you to take care of me!"
I stopped the rag, confused. "Mother, you have a fever, you're delirious."
She kicked over the bowl of soup I'd set next to her. Three hours' worth of toiling splashed onto the floor. I gasped and hastened to wipe it up. Mother continued her tirade. "I don't want to owe you a debt," she commanded. "Go away. Don't care for me. If I live, I don't want it to be because of you."
Certainly, she wasn't coherent. I wrung out the towel into the bowl and picked out little specks of dirt. "You don't know what you're saying. Rest. Go to sleep."
She pushed me weakly, but it was hard enough that I splashed more soup on myself. "No. I don't want you. Go away." Her words stung. For the first time, I believed she might actually know what she was saying. Arguing with her was like taking tiny footsteps toward the edge of a cliff, knowing I would have to jump. "Get one of your brothers to help me. Not you. I can't owe you."
I stood at the edge, looking down into a deep chasm. "No, Mother. You have to live. I...I love you." I'd jumped. I had made the fatal plunge. There was no guarantee at all that anything could catch me. I had never told anyone I loved them before, not even Marcus and especially not Mother. With the former, it was kind of implied. With the latter, it was setting yourself up for heartbreak. You knew it wasn't mutual. Mother loved no one. She swatted me away weakly from her bedside.
"I don't care. I don't want your love." Fallen. I was lying beneath the cliff, a thousand spikes sticking through me. I wanted to throw up, wanted to die from the smallpox, wanted to burst into tears, but I couldn't. I could never show Mother I was weak, never show her how she had stabbed me through my heart.
I ran to the kitchen where Pietro was lying on the floor. The tall emaciated nineteen-year-old took up little space on the kitchen floor. I looked at his tattered brown hair, his closed eyes that were such an angelic blue when they were open. I tried to shake him awake and was instantly repelled. His skin was like ice, hard and frozen. I drew in a breath. "No," I breathed silently, but it was too late. I couldn't tear my eyes away from him, this brother that I had always looked up. He thought of me as nothing more than a pest; I thought of him as my savior, and the world's. In life, he had been a vampire hunter. I remembered the wonderful stories he used to tell.
"Any action with the monsters?" my father asked as he slurped his vegetable soup. My brother was home for a few days, a priceless treasure. I hung on to every word he spoke when he was here. I idolized him. I worshipped him.
Pietro took a bite of his lamb. Mother had had me kill a lamb especially for Pietro's homecoming dinner. "Yes, sir," he answered Father respectfully. "We've been having some trouble with vampires."
"Vampires?" Mother repeated, a frightened look in her eyes. Pietro nodded.
"Vampires," he confirmed. "They're horrible creatures. They look beautiful. Their skin shines like a marble statue, and in the sun it glitters like a priceless gem. They smell like the freshest flowers, but it's all a lure. They use this to make their prey follow them, come willingly with them. Then they suck all their blood from their body. When they've fed, their eyes are demonic. The only way to keep them away is to use garlic, or baptize them. But the most efficient way is to burn them at the stake. It's the only way. If you tear them to pieces, the pieces reassemble themselves. They're frightening."
I had seldom been allowed to listen, but when I did, I memorized each and every word. Later, I repeated them to Marcus, who wrote them down. I ran up to the attic, my bedroom, and pulled out the pieces of parchment from behind a pile of straw. Phrases jumped out at me.
Can't stand crosses...met one once in France, you should see the scar...when hungry, they can't resist feeding...
I held these pieces of paper in my hand for a second, then raced back down to the kitchen. "Pietro, you can't be dead," I croaked. "Look. I still have some of you left." I waved the papers in front of his face, but his thick eyelashes did not flicker open. His skin did not lose its cold, preserved feeling.
Disregarding Mother's feeling, I lay down beside his body and cried. Two people had deserted me. They wouldn't be the last.
