The Oracle of Cumae

by Melissa Hardy

  When I returned home for the evening, just as Vespers were being rung—a virtual cacophony of bells—I felt both exhausted and exhilarated. Satisfied that the spell had worked and, in any case, not wishing to repeat the awkward ordeal that had been my lunch with Cesare, I told Antonella that I would take a light supper in my bedroom, collected Cico from Flora, and retired for the night.

  I was still telling the Oracle about all the places I had seen, when there came a sharp knock on my door. We fell abruptly silent, then I cleared my throat and called out, “Come in!”

  Antonella opened the door. She was carrying a tray with my supper on it—a small basket of bread and a bowl of gnocchi in a bechamel sauce. “Talking to yourself again? That’s what crazy people do.”

  “I was telling Cico of my adventures,”

  “Might as well tell a post or a donkey for all he understands!”

  “That’s how babies learn to talk. By listening. Everyone knows that.”

  I relieved her of the tray and was turning back toward the small table where I took my meals, when Antonella cleared her throat. “I was wondering. Might I have a word with you? I don’t know who else to talk to.”

  I hesitated, but then said, “Well, of course.” I set the tray down and turned to face her. “If you want.”

  “It’s just that…have you noticed that my cousin has been acting…I don’t know… weirdly?” She looked very awkward, standing there in the door, wringing her hands and shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

  I smiled. “Only that he appears very fond of a certain young lady.”

  Antonella blushed. I had never seen her blush before; it made her look like an eggplant. “He…he just asked me to marry him.” She had difficulty forcing the words out, as if she could not quite believe what she herself was saying.

  I shrugged. “I suppose I should be upset seeing my sister so rapidly replaced by another. But, you know. Life goes on.”

  “So you think he’s…serious?” Antonella asked.

  “Why not?”

  “Because the way he’s acting…it’s like the way he was acting toward you earlier.”

  “Better you than me!”

  “But why? I don’t understand. Why the sudden change?” She slumped despondently against the door lintel, which looked not in the least comfortable.

  “Why not? You are a woman. He is a man. I personally don’t get it, but it seems to be the way things work. If you don’t mind, I’m going to start eating. I don’t want my dinner to get cold.”

  “Go ahead,” Antonella replied glumly. I sat down and unfolded my napkin. “He insisted I eat dinner with him,” she said. “It was hellish. I kept telling him that if his mother knew I was sitting there with him at the table, she would be turning in her grave. She never allowed me to sit at table with them. Never. And he said he didn’t care what his mother thought; she was dead. And I said, maybe dead to you. And he said never mind her and tried to give me the ring, the one he gave Concetta, his mother’s ring. Right then and there he got down on his knee and tried to squeeze that ring on my finger.”

  “Yes, and…”

  Antonella let out a kind of anguished yelp. “I ran out of the room and locked myself in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t know what the fuss is all about. It’s a very handsome ring.”

  “Don’t you understand? It’s her ring—hers! No sooner had it touched my flesh than it burned me! A ring of fire!”

  “Don’t be such a ninny!” This from the Oracle.

  I froze, my fork in midair, my mouth half open.

  Antonella stiffened. She clutched her throat and glanced wildly about the room. “Who’s there?”

  “Who do you think, you useless chit?” asked Sibylla. “It is I, Lucrezia Bacigalupo, your cousin and tormenter!”

  I ducked my head and pretended to cough into my napkin.

  “You see?” cried Antonella, distraught. “I told you this room was haunted!”

  “I didn’t dispute that it was haunted,” I pointed out. “Just that you let that put you off.”

  “How can that not put you off? A ghost who’s forever telling you you’re stupid and ugly and not worth the food you eat?”

  “Ghosts are always cranky. They are neither here nor there and such ambivalence irritates them no end. My nonna was as mild as a day in May when she was alive, but she made a most unpleasant ghost.”

  But the Oracle was not done with the housekeeper. “I hear that you’ve sunk your claws into my poor son’s heart! That he has given you my ring. Will you marry him for his money and station and play him for a fool?”

  “I want nothing to do with your stupid son or your ring!” Antonella stamped her foot. “It’s him who’s after me!”

  “I doubt that!” the Oracle mocked her. “What man in his right mind would want you for a bride?”

  “Your stupid son, that’s who!”

  “If he is, then he has been bewitched. Have you bewitched him, vixen? Are you a witch?”

  Sibylla was skating a little too close to the truth here for my comfort. “Uh—” I began, but Antonella overrode us both.

  “I haven’t bewitched him and I’m not a witch! You’re the witch!”

  “No, you’re the witch!”

  “No, you!” Antonella was furious now, red-faced and shaking with rage. “You’re just angry because I poisoned you and you didn’t see it coming. Did you? Did you? Not until it was too late! Not until you were dying!”

  A split second later, realizing that she had actually spoken these words aloud and in the presence of another human being, Antonella clamped her mouth shut. She looked at me, eyes widening with terror. I stared back, rendered temporarily speechless by her confession. Then the housekeeper twisted to her right, her left arm coming up alongside her head as if to shield it. She dropped to one knee, where she cowered, trembling. “Addio!” she sobbed. “Addio! I am ruined!”

  I hesitated for a moment, then put down my fork and laid down my napkin. I stood awkwardly and made my way over to the housekeeper, placed a hand on her heaving shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, Antonella. I won’t reveal your secret…on one condition.”

  The housekeeper looked up at me, her eyes swollen, her face tear-streaked. “Condition?”

  “That you accept my brother-in-law’s generous proposal.”

  That night, shortly before midnight, I was awakened by a loud creaking and rending noise, accompanied by the high-pitched whine of glass under stress. Moments later came the sound of an explosion, followed by a crash. I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding. “What in Heaven’s name?”

  “Oh, not to worry!” The Oracle sounded gleeful. “Just a little something I cooked up.”

  “Cooked up?” I demanded. “What do you mean ‘cooked up?’”

  “Oh, just a wee thing called an earth tremor.”

  “You caused an earth tremor?”

  “Who else? The fairies? Those silly dwarves? And if my aim was true, that little chapel your brother-in-law is so fond of is in ruins right about now.”

  “The Capella Cola?”

  “The same!”

  Cico emitted a thin wail.

  “Look what you’ve done!” I cried with exasperation. “You’ve woken Cico! And Flora’s not in until tomorrow morning. I’m going to have a devil of a time trying to get him back to sleep now!” I stumbled out of bed and made my way over to his bassinet. Just as I was picking him up, I heard Cesare’s door open and his footsteps in the hall. A moment later and he was rapping on our door. “Is my son all right?” He paused only long enough to hear my reply before noisily descending the stairs, two at a time, calling out, “Antonella! Antonella, my dove! Are you injured?”

  This was followed a moment later by the sound of scuffling. “What? What are you doing?” Antonella screeched. “Leave me alone
! Have you no decency?”

  Holding Cico, I opened the door and stepped out into the hall. Cesare was trudging back up the stairs. “Where are you going?” I asked. “Don’t you want to see what made that terrible noise?”

  He shook his head, despondent. “Whatever the damage was, it will be there in the morning and that will come soon enough.”

  “Not for me!” I said. “I want to see what happened.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said glumly. “I’m going to bed.”

  As soon as we heard the door to his bedroom shut behind him, the Oracle cried, “Well, what are we waiting for? I want to see my handiwork! It’s been quite a few hundred years since I’ve wrecked anything. I want to see if I still have the touch!”

  A quarter of an hour later, I joined Pasquale, his parents, and Padre Eusebio—all of us in our night clothes—in the ruined chapel. The damage was extensive, though by no means complete, much to the chagrin of Sibylla, whose jug I carried in a bag slung over my shoulder. The tremor had caused the wall directly behind the Cappella di Cola’s altar to crumble into limestone dust and collapse into the chancel, burying the ancient altar. Spikes of brightly stained glass peppered the pile of stone and debris. And where the upper wall of the clerestory had loomed there now stretched an expanse of night sky, black as soot and pocked with bright stars. Not utter devastation, but impressive nonetheless.

  I was for once unencumbered, having resolved at the last moment to leave Cico in Antonella’s charge. I was beginning to realize that knowing the housekeeper’s dreadful secret gave me considerably more leverage over her than I had had previously.

  “Ker-choo!” sneezed the priest. A cloud of limestone dust hung in the air; more dust mantled every surface in the ruined church. “Ker-ker-choo!” He peered at me, squinting and frowning. “You look familiar. Aren’t you the little girl who put mugwort up my nose?”

  “I am.”

  “What was your name again? Maria? Marianna? No. Marina!”

  “Mariuccia.”

  “That’s right. Mariuccia Umbellino. Why are you here, Mariuccia Umbellino, and not there in those terrible mountains full of witches?”

  “She is staying with the Prior, Padre,” said the sacristan. “I told you and so did the Prior. You remember. The Prior married the family’s eldest daughter.”

  “Yes, yes, of course!” said the priest. “Slipped my mind. My mind is very slippery these days. Practically nothing sticks. So, what do you think? Is God moving in mysterious ways? Should we be reading anything into this calamity? Is it a sign? Or…oh, but…but…wait! Perhaps this is the Witch of Monte Vettore’s doing! Mariuccia Umbellino, did your mother not warn us that the Old One would take revenge upon her persecutors?”

  Much to my relief, given that this was indeed what had happened, Pio put an end to this line of inquiry. “Now, Padre, you know that this was bound to happen one of these days, given the sorry state of the foundation. It’s time to fill in the crypt.”

  “What’s a crypt?” I asked.

  “Burial vaults located under the church,” said Pio. “In the old days, parishioners were laid to rest there. Then the Edict of St. Cloud was proclaimed, requiring corpses to be buried outside city walls. My father before me—also this chapel’s sacristan—had to remove all the bodies from the crypt and rebury them in the San Vivaldo cemetery in order to comply with the law. This left a large crawl space beneath the church that was not reinforced by beams or posts or any other structural elements—highly unstable. That’s what accounts for the buckling you see and the uneven floor.”

  “Enough of that kind of talk!” said Padre Eusebio. “I won’t hear of it! While there’s breath in this old body, every tile in this floor is going to remain exactly where it is!” Turning on his heel, he stomped off in the direction of the sacristy. A moment later there was the sound of the door that led from the sacristy to the outdoors opening and closing.

  “What’s with him and this floor?” Pasquale asked. “Every time you mention reinforcing the foundation, he has a fit.”

  Pio sighed. “You tell me. I’ll fetch the Prior first thing in the morning. He can decide what’s to be done. We should all get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day. Pasquale will light you to your door, Signorina Umbellino.”

  With that, we went our separate ways, Pio and his wife in the direction in which Padre Eusebio had exited and Pasquale and I through the door that led from the church to the piazza. Pasquale held the lantern aloft so that I could pick my way safely through the rubble and escorted me all the way to the front door of the Casa Bacigalupo where he wished me goodnight.

  “Mark my words. That boy has eyes for you,” the Oracle advised me once we were safely inside.

  “Well, I don’t have eyes for him,” I replied. And I didn’t.

  As the bells in the campanile tolled nine the following morning, I deposited Cico with Flora, fended off the Oracle’s pleas to, once again, be borne along with me, and headed next door to see the damaged chancel in the daylight. It was already a bustling scene. People milled around in the piazza, poking their heads in for a gawk, while Cesare presided over the work, looking pompous and self-important. He was joined by Dr. Pellicola and another, rather fantastical looking individual—small and wiry, with a wooden peg leg about an inch shorter than his remaining limb, a discrepancy that caused him to list to one side when he stood and to lurch when he walked. The three men looked on as Pasquale and another boy named Giorgio loaded rubble into wheelbarrows.

  I made my way over to Pasquale’s mother, who was sweeping shards of stained glass into a pile. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Once the rubble is removed, they’re going to lift up the tiles and pour sand into the vaults,” Signora Assaroti explained.

  “But what about Padre Eusebio? Won’t he be angry?”

  She shrugged. “Yes, but I let him sleep in this morning. By the time he realizes what’s happened, it will be too late.”

  “Who is that man with Cesare and Dr. Pellicola?” I asked.

  Signora Assaroti snorted. “That’s Dr. Pellicola’s appalling cousin from Fermignano. Giuseppe Passalacqua is his name—Pepe for short. He went to Egypt with Napoleon twenty years ago and has only just returned. It is rumored he was fleeing French authorities who sought to imprison him in Château d’If for the crime of selling Egyptian antiquities he didn’t own. At his best he is a most terrible ne’er do well, a slackard perpetually at loose ends; at his worst, a thief and a blackguard.”

  I wandered over to where Cesare and his companions were standing.

  “The little patient!” Dr. Pellicola greeted me. “Good to see you up and about, Signorina Umbellino! Feeling a bit better, I take it?”

  “Much better, thank you.”

  “Allow me to introduce you to my dear cousin, Giuseppe Passalacqua, who is staying with me for a while. Pepe, this is Bacigalupo’s little sister-in-law. She has been very ill of an ague, but now, as you may discern from the roses abloom in her cheeks, her health has improved considerably.”

  Pepe smiled down at me. It was a ghastly smile. His haggard face was tanned to leather by the Egyptian sun and a livid scar bisected his right cheek. “Charmed, I am sure,” he said.

  Embarrassed by the attention and not knowing what else to do, I muttered something vague.

  “This work would go much faster if we had more than just the two wheelbarrows,” Cesare observed. “Unfortunately, these were all my foreman could spare today.”

  “Too bad this didn’t happen in Fermignano!” Pellicola said to his cousin. “If it had, there’d be no lacking for wheelbarrows!”

  The two men laughed. “You’ve got that right!” said Pepe. “In Fermignano, every family has its own wheelbarrow. What’s more, they are most beautifully painted. Indeed, some you might call works of art!”

  “Painted wheelbarrows?” asked Cesare. “Really?
But what do the Fermignani use these decorative wheelbarrows for?”

  “For the famous Palio della Rana, of course! The Frog Race! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of the Frog Race?”

  “I have not!”

  “Then I am astonished at your ignorance! The Palio della Rana is nothing less than my town’s signature event! It is a celebration of the greatest magnitude and solemnity, held on the first Sunday after Easter and preceded by a magnificent procession in historic costume.”

  Cesare shook his head. “I’m sorry. Never heard of it.”

  “What about you, Signorina?” Pepe turned to me. “Don’t tell me that you too, have never heard of the Palio della Rana?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry. No.”

  “It is an extremely odd festivity,” said Dr. Pellicola, “and a mysterious one. No one knows its origin, which dates back to pre-Roman times. Pepe, you tell.”

  “Each of Fermignano’s seven districts is represented by a wheelbarrow in which there sits a frog,” Pepe explained. “A district champion is selected whose job it is to push the wheelbarrow. There is a course laid out and whoever reaches the finish line first with his frog still in the wheelbarrow wins. The challenge, of course, is to keep the frog from jumping out of the wheelbarrow. You would not believe how difficult that is.”

  “If memory serves, you won the Palio one year, did you not?” the doctor asked.

  Pepe shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. Unfortunately, I was disqualified. As soon became clear, my frog had expired en route. Beatrice was its name. After my fiancée.”

  “It died as a result of breathing the glue fumes,” the doctor explained. “Am I remembering that correctly, Pepe?”

  “You are, cousin, for you see, I had glued its back to the inside of the wheelbarrow.”