The Penates' Table - A Riordanverse Fanstory

My last day as an ordinary human began with a scream in the middle of a half-sleep.

And, weirdly enough, it wasn’t mine.

A deafening “Happy Birthday, Francesco!” shrieked into my sleeping ears by my six-year-old cousins. It’s a ritual that tastes bitter today, but back then, it was something I looked forward to more than Mrs. Frangipani’s car—the one that drove me from the group home to the Penates’ Table.

See, normally I didn’t live there, in San Pasquale di Rocca. I lived in Bologna, specifically in a grey, soul-crushing apartment block with twenty other kids like me: no parents to raise them, just parked between school and social services.

Why I hadn’t been handed over to my paternal grandparents after my parents died was a mystery I wouldn’t unravel until that summer. For the moment, all I cared about was that I was officially an adult today. From now on, during winter weekends, I’d be able to head back to those godforsaken hills on my own to cook and serve with my relatives.

“Thanks,” I wheezed before they pounced on my stomach, light as usual.

They were just kids, after all.

I sat up, the two little terrors perched on my legs like overgrown Maine Coons. Both had dark blonde hair and hazel eyes; they often swapped roles just to mess with whoever was unlucky enough to be nearby—usually me—leaving me guessing which was him and which was her.

Today they were clearly in the mood for games. She was already wearing a blue party dress stained with dirt and grass; he was in a shirt that was miraculously still white, complete with suspenders and Sunday slacks that had seen better days.

I lifted Annina like a feather, setting her down gently, then grabbed Danilo and tucked him beside his sister. They giggled and bolted for the door, vanishing down the stairs toward the family restaurant.

The noise from downstairs drifted into the hallway, echoing between the bedrooms, the bathrooms, and the living room. I stretched, throwing the covers back with a wide sweep, leaving them open to breathe after a strangely quiet night.

Someone had already opened the window, letting in the late-July heat. Probably Grandma Maria, busy clattering about with her pots and pans while gossiping with Aunt Anita. The scent of Bolognese ragù was already simmering on the stove with the slow patience of someone who knows they aren’t working today.

They always did that for my birthday: they’d close the Penates’ Table and turn it into a massive party for fifty-odd relatives—from eighty-five-year-old Grandpa Pietro to Uncle Cornelius, who was over a millennium old.

“People don’t live to be over a thousand!” you’re probably saying.

Well, in my family, apparently they do… and, to be honest, up until that day, I hadn’t even questioned it.

Partly because that’s just how it had always been, and partly because my brain tended to “rationalize” everything around it: Uncle Cornelius’s “millennium” was just a family joke; Grandma Maria’s cold hands were only because I was warmer; the shadows wandering the house were just hallucinations born of past trauma.

I dressed slowly, savoring every second of a day dedicated to celebration.

The chatter downstairs was deafening—a mix of dialects and accents blending into a secret language that, in some parts of Italy, was already fading away. I lingered, listening while I laced my shoes and looked at the photo of my parents on the nightstand. They were the only ones who’d been missing for the last eight years.

He had turquoise eyes like mine and honey-blonde hair; she had the chestnut waves I’d inherited resting on Mediterranean shoulders, and eyes green as fresh basil.

I pressed the photo gently to my chest, tracing the edges with my fingers, then put it back next to the icon of San Francesco Caracciolo—patron saint of cooks and my personal guide.

“Among the burners you protect, with the ladles you renew.”

I’d never understood that phrase, but reading it every morning gave me a certain relief. I slipped out the door, set into the crooked walls of the farmhouse, and brushed my hand against the thick stone that kept the summer heat at bay.

I moved to head down the stairs, but a mountain of tablecloths and napkins blocked my path with a chirpy, “Permesso!”

“Don’t we have a freight elevator?” I asked, eyeing the moving pile of laundry.

“Technically, yes, but those two little monsters, Annina and Danilo, are using it as an elevator,” my cousin Beatrice explained from inside the fabric.

“Need a hand?” I offered, trying to take some of the linens.

“Don’t even think about it!” She readjusted the load in her arms, sounding annoyed. “You’re becoming an adult today. Leave this work to those who aren’t…” She trailed off as she continued her climb toward the third floor. “And besides, before you do anything, you need a proper Italian breakfast. Aunt Anita is pulling the cornetti out of the oven right now.”

I watched her for a second to make sure she didn’t tip over, then decided to head down to the tavern kitchen.

The room was large enough for a six-person table, though it spent most of its life serving as a workbench for rolling out pasta dough and lining up prep bowls.

The furniture was arte povera and county stile… or at least, that’s the fancy label people would slap on it today. In reality, the pieces were just old—no-frills stuff that didn’t quite match. My grandparents had tried their best to make the place look cohesive, scavenging through family hand-me-downs and flea markets, but the kitchen had never been their priority. Their real devotion was always saved for the massive dining hall meant for the guests.

“’Giorno,” I said, approaching the stove to snag the last cup of coffee from the moka pot.

Uncle Cornelius was already busy reading the newspaper, grumbling to Grandpa Pietro about the state of the world.

“More and more of the countryside is being deserted, and what does the government do? Gives money to those who leave. Bah, I don’t get it,” Grandpa muttered, sipping his caffelatte with stale bread.

“Luckily we have Cesco. He never lets us down. Right?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah…” I said, splashing some milk into my cup to cool down what was already lukewarm.

Grandpa frowned, searching my distant gaze across the kitchen table. “Everything okay, Cesco? You look like a ghost.”

The relatives around us laughed like he’d cracked a joke.

“No, no, it’s just…” I gripped the cup. “I was thinking about Mom and Dad before I came down.”

The oven behind me chimed right then, and I stepped aside so Aunt Anita could pull out a tray of steaming cornetti. The fragrant scent of pastry snapped me out of my dark thoughts.

“Anyway, I heard people talking about it in Bologna, too—incentives for people who want to move to the city,” I commented, watching the scorching tray.

Annina and Danilo lunged at it immediately, popping out from the pantry, snatching a couple of pastries, and bolting out of the house like hares while Grandma Maria cursed at them, waving a ladle.

“Especially for those who want to open a business downtown,” I continued, trying for a normal conversation. “I was thinking about it, once I finish culinary school…”

The room went ice-cold. Ten pairs of eyes locked onto me, looking absolutely shell-shocked.

I swallowed a mouthful of caffelatte with difficulty. “What? What’d I say?”

“Cesco,” Grandpa began. “You hate Bologna. You say it every summer.”

“I hate the Bolognesi,” I specified, grabbing a cornetto. “Not that there are many left. But a restaurant downtown would be a lot more profitable than a Table with a cemetery attached.”

Our family’s crowning jewel: the village cemetery with its annexed deconsecrated church—thirty headstones between the floor and walls that even the relatives of the deceased had forgotten existed. Maybe someone came to visit on November 2nd—celebrated in Italy as the Day of the Dead—but I was always in the city then, so I couldn’t be sure.

“So you hate Bologna,” Uncle Cornelius concluded.

I furrowed my brow. “Why?”

“Because you can’t hate the people and love the city. In my day, if you hated Carthage, you hated all of it.”

“From what you tell us, in your day, Nero burned Rome,” I pointed out, rolling my eyes. “Sure, I don’t love the place, but I recognize the potential. An authentic kitchen would kill it in the middle of that mess of tourist traps.”

Grandpa grunted, biting into a cornetto, crumbs like stars caught in his thick beard. “And in no time, you’d become a tourist restaurateur too, with Spaghetti alla Bolognese and Carbonara with cream on the same ‘typical’ menu.”

“He’d never do that. Right, Cesco?” Grandma Maria came to my defense, planting a kiss on my cheek while stirring the ragù.

That woman was spectacular: she could do three things at once, all with the perfection of an old-world housewife.

“Absolutely! My personal crusade against pineapple pizza goes way beyond wanting to make a buck off tourists.” I toasted Grandpa with my empty cup before setting it in the sink.

Before it even touched the ceramic, Aunt Anita had already washed it and put it on the drying rack.

“And where would you put the temple and the necropolis in downtown Bologna?” Uncle Cornelius asked.

I raised an eyebrow. “Why would I need a temple and a necropolis?”

“Because no one’s ever heard of a Penati without a temple and a necropolis. Even your parents—”

“Cesco, will you go change the water for the flowers in the cemetery?” Grandma interrupted, sweet as poisoned pudding. “I need to keep the ragù from sticking and get the trays of lasagna ready. I’ll be in this kitchen all day if someone doesn’t get their ass out of that chair in the next ten minutes.”

Uncle Cornelius and Grandpa Pietro bolted upright as if they had sea urchins under their seats, clearing the table and prepping the board to roll out the pasta.

“Why can’t they go change the water? They’re basically here on an internship, I should be the one cooking,” I argued, crossing my arms.

Grandma pinched my cheek, her hand warm from the ragù steam. “Because today is your birthday, nipotino. The only thing I’ll let you make is the cake.”

“If it’s my birthday, I should do what I like, not change the water for graves that aren’t even family,” I grumbled. Grandma Maria gave me a passive-aggressive look—the kind that leaves no survivors. “I’m going. I’ll change the water.”

“Good boy, nipotino,” she smiled with the honesty of a serial killer, and I walked out of the kitchen toward the dining room. She stopped me just before I turned the corner. “Did you make your bed?”

I raised a finger, wagging it as I pulled a U-turn back toward the private stairs, biting my lip at the mistake I’d almost made.

“And when you get back, remember the offerings for Saint Martha and Saint Martin,” Aunt Anita added, prepping the sweet rolls by the pass-through window.

I gave a thumbs-up without looking back, climbing the ancient terracotta steps.

I reached the top with the slow ease of an Italian morning, naive as I caught sight of my bedroom door. Suddenly, something made me shiver—an unpleasant sensation crawling from the nape of my neck down my spine.

The covers were twitching, an invisible shadow trying to pull them away.

A smoky fragment, about the size of a fist, with red eyes that locked onto mine.

I found myself hyperventilating as the memories of my parents’ bodies slumped over me came rushing back. Fast as hell, I reached into my pocket, grabbing the schizophrenia pills prescribed by my psychiatrist.

I shoved one down my throat, running into the bathroom for a glass of water to kill the bitter taste, taking deep breaths while leaning over the white sink.

‘It’s not real…” I gasped. “It’s not real. It’s an illusion.’

I closed my eyes for a second, and those red spheres burned into the back of my eyelids.

‘It’s not real… it’s not real… it’s just the trauma, it’s not real…’

I washed my face desperately, my body shaking harder than usual.

‘An attack was the last thing I needed on my birthday’

I took a deep breath, waiting for the pill to kick in, and dried my face.

‘I’d been doing so well, please!’

It always happened during the quiet moments, as if to remind me of the pain before the joy.

“You shouldn’t take that stuff.” My cousin Andrea’s voice hit me like a cold shower. Cigarette in mouth, he was the only one in the family who stood apart from the Table’s enchantment.

Even I felt lighter when I came back to the restaurant, but he lived here year-round and remained a hardcore realist. Half-fatalist, half-20th-century philosopher—pretty weird for a twenty-year-old. From what I knew, he’d lived in the city too, in Milan, witnessing the rampant industrialization and the annihilation of the heart.

“The doctor prescribed them,” I shot back, regaining my cool. “I don’t recall anyone prescribing you cigarettes.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Heading to the cemetery?”

“Yeah,” I replied curtly, heading back to the room. The shadow was gone; the covers were barely fluttering in the breeze from the window.

Just my imagination. Like always.

I set the pills on the nightstand and made the bed with the apathy of a notary, pulling the blankets until they were a calm sea.

“I’m coming with you. Wouldn’t want you drugging yourself again.” He threw an arm over my shoulder, cold as a mint granita.

“It’s not drugs.” I glared at him but didn’t push him off.

“That’s the effect.” He patted me twice and started toward the stairs. “I’ll wait for you downstairs, idiot.”

I overtook him with a couple of long strides, jumping three steps at a time at the risk of breaking my neck. “I don’t need you, moron.”

“Just don’t kill yourself, jerk.” He pulled me into a gentle headlock, rubbing my scalp with his fist.

We slipped outside, bickering like overgrown children, savoring the crisp late-morning air. The road was deserted as usual, ivy taking over the abandoned houses.

“This place has no future,” Andrea said for no apparent reason. “However, the old man is right. You shouldn’t think about opening a Penates’ Table in the city center.”

I looked at him, confused, my brow furrowing more than usual. “Why would I open a ‘Penates’ Table’?”

“Because our family has run a Penates’ Table for generations. Same name, different places. Cornelius had one in Rome; I opened one in Milan.” He tapped his cigarette against the pack like a seasoned smoker. “Trust me. Don’t open it in Bologna.”

I stared at him for a few seconds.

“Assuming for a moment I even must open a ‘Penates’ Table,’ why shouldn’t I do it in the city?”

He stuck the cigarette between his lips without lighting it. “The city squeezes you, drains you, annihilates you. Today more than yesterday.” He took a moment to find his lighter. “Besides, a Penates’ Table in the city always pisses someone off.” He lit the cigarette and took a drag before waving his hand dismissively. “And come on, I see the look in your eyes when you arrive and when you leave. You hate that place.”

“I hate the group home, not Bologna,” I said, more to convince myself than him.

It wasn’t hate. I couldn’t call it hate.

Maybe resignation. Maybe frustration. A city that was changing, choking its history and traditions in the name of sterile ideals, ignorant of its own identity.

I picked up the pace as we climbed toward the hill. The deconsecrated church on the right was decorated for a party for reasons I didn’t quite understand, while the cemetery just ahead was polished clean by the patience of Great-Uncle Dino and his wife, Elide.

“Bologna is lost, Franci,” Andrea commented apathetically as we passed through the lopsided gate. “If you really want to save something, save San Pasquale.”

“Is there even anything here worth saving?” I raised an eyebrow, filling the watering can and grabbing the ladder to reach the higher headstones.

“Yes, there is. Or rather, there are,” he held the ladder while I emptied a vase on the ground and refilled it with water. “If only you’d give yourself the chance to see them.”

I frowned as a bitter laugh grated in my throat. “And what would they be? Ghosts, maybe?”

Andrea didn’t answer, just nudging the ladder slightly to let me reach the next stone. “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” I echoed, taking a moment of silence myself. “At least we agree on something.” I reached out to change the water, my gaze drifting toward the valley.

From this height, the mountain filled your vision—green as an ancient, mystery-laden hill. In the distance, the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca stood tall against the clear sky, an untainted bastion protecting Bologna.

Doing a poor job of it, in my opinion, but at least it was trying.

I went back to my headstones.

“Do you know why my parents weren’t buried here?” I asked, cleaning a photo so you could actually see who was resting in that niche.

“Your mother’s family was from Turin, right? They must have been buried there.” He took a drag of smoke. “You never met them?”

“They never approved of their daughter’s marriage, as far as I know.” A sharp pang of emotion opened in my chest at the thought. “That’s why they didn’t want me when…”

“I get it,” he interrupted coldly, sealing the tears in my eyes with a single word. “Some people are better lost than found.”

“You think?”

Andrea nodded, moving me back to the start for the second row of headstones.

“But you might have the power to make them come to their senses.” He looked toward the cemetery entrance as if he’d sensed something moving.

“Is someone there?” I asked innocently.

“Stay here.” Andrea let go of the ladder gently, crushed his cigarette under his shoe, and tucked the butt into his pocket, his eyes fixed on the area outside the cemetery.

“Should I be worried?” I leaned toward him slightly.

“It’s probably just a cat,” he grumbled evasively. “You keep going. I’ll be right back.”

His “right back” lasted the whole summer.

But that’s another story.