I heard her gasp. “Uncle Ethan…”
“What the wife says goes,” he said, snipping the back of the boy’s hair with two different scissors.
She hung her head and turned around, marching back to her homework, but before she got there she turned to him.
“Do you have a nickname, Uncle?” she asked.
The whole room seemed to have frozen, everyone a little stiff, everyone a little wary, glancing at each other. Ethan, on the other hand, simply spun the boy in his chair, wiping him down before taking the cape and neck tape off.
“I do,” he said to her when the boy got up, checking his hair. “It’s Mani di forbice.”
“Cause you cut hair?” she asked him even though I didn’t understand.
“Sure.” He nodded at her.
She thought about it for a little bit. “It’s kinda long but cool, I guess. Dad, I’m going upstairs to call Mom!”
She waved at me as she ran back into the back.
“Mani di forbice?” I asked him as an older man sat in the chair, pointing to his chin for a shave.
“Scissor hands,” Giovanni answered when he didn’t.
“Oh.” I understood if he worked here why that would fit. But I also understood from the way they reacted, and from the way Ethan wasn’t communicating anymore, that it was much deeper than that. He told me we’d go out so I could find out more about his past, so I wasn’t going to back down.
“Why, though?”
Giovanni was the only one speaking now and it wasn’t as cheerful as it had been earlier. “Rumor has it that when he was young he went to confession with his family for the first time. The priest told him to confess his sins to the Lord, and Ethan said he was sinless and would only confess when he was no longer sinless. They got into a long argument until the priest could no longer remain with him and left. Ethan, sensing something was wrong with the irate priest, followed him into his chambers, where he found the priest was breaking his vows of silence. He was trying to use Ethan as a way to get information on his father and mother in order to save himself from prosecution. He was a child molester. Upon discovering this, Ethan stabbed the priest with two blades, one a gift from his father, and the other he was holding for his brother. When they found him, he stood over the priest, holding both blades, covered in blood, and confessed to God his sins then.”
“As far as I see it, any man touching children deserves to die, and it isn’t a sin,” Marco muttered under his breath, shaping up the edges of a man’s forehead.
My eyes shifted to Ethan, but it was as if he wasn’t here anymore. He just carefully glided the razor up the man’s neck, who either had balls of steel or didn’t believe the “rumor.”
“What happened after that?”
Marco shrugged. “The church was closed for a few hours, but news broke he was a pedophile. Everyone was furious with the detectives who tried to use another child as bait. Other people were so terrified of him they blessed themselves when he walked by. His mother made him work for her afterward. People got used to him being around, but no one ever let go of the name Ethan Mani di forbice Callahan.”
I looked at Ethan, who still pretended not to hear or care that they were talking about him.
Feed his dark side, enjoy being there with him. Don’t change him. I made him and he is perfect. There is nothing to change. Melody’s words came to me.
“Bloody Melody and The Mad-Hatter,” I said aloud, spinning slightly in the chair. I made it obvious I was thinking. “That follows together so nicely. How the hell am I going to find a name that flows with Mani di forbice?”
That was the only time Ethan paused, standing up straighter, his green eyes piercing into mine so intently I had to look away from him at Giovanni.
“Great names are given. You can’t choose them yourself,” Giovanni said to me.
It was then I looked back at him.
The man who’d loved me since we were children.
The man who’d pulled me out of the pit of hell and sat me on the right seat of him.
The man I was falling more and more in love with as each day passed.
“Give me a name.” If it was something people would still call me even after I died, I wanted it to be from him, no one else.
“Belladonna,” he said, still staring at me.