Scheme

by Jennifer Sommersby

  “Napoli Sotterranea draws thousands of tourists a year, and Circo della regina is just one small part of the beauty. We look forward to welcoming you into our Circo della regina family!”

  “Doing a little reconnaissance?” Henry’s voice makes me jump. “Ahh, food.”

  I fold the brochure closed and slide it onto the table. “Reading—and watching the street. Holding my breath Xavier doesn’t come waltzing down the cobblestone.”

  “We’re going to need real food here soon,” Henry says. “You need to eat an entire cow to replace the blood you lost last night.” The second chair creaks under his weight. “How’s the arm?”

  “Sore. But better, I think.” To be honest, I’m afraid to look. “So—I’ve been thinking . . .” I let the flimsy curtain drop back over the window.

  “Uh-oh, that look on your face means mischief,” he says, peeling an orange.

  “Naturally.” I stand to reach under my bunk’s edge and grab my black boots. “And yes, we do need some real food this morning—I’m going to need the strength for our little show.”

  Henry puts his orange aside and digs into his pack for the four-inch automatic knife stored within. We both have one, except today he’ll use his to slice into his own flesh.

  “Lift your shirt,” I say. He does, and I draw a line with my fingertip where he should slice. “Don’t cut deep—and cut over the shirt. We need it to bleed a lot and the blood to soak into the fabric so it looks more dramatic.”

  “Is this something you did to get out of school?” he asks, his face a bit pale. I lean over him in his chair, cupping his cheeks in my hands.

  “Everything will be fine. Trust me.” I kiss him.

  “I do. I just don’t like pain.”

  “Think of it as taking one for the team.”

  “We’d be cooler if we had a team name,” he says.

  “At this rate, Team Carnage seems appropriate.”

  Henry laughs and offers his fist for a bump. “Team Carnage it is.” I meet his fist with my own. “Now, my clever co-conspirator, let us find a stage for our play, shall we?”

  Neapolitans are a boisterous, loud group. The caffetterie, shops, vendors of everything from produce to purses—it’s busy. The buildings are coated in graffiti, the streets packed with people and a million mopeds. The air at ground level early in the morning is cold but stinks of exhaust—the tightly packed structures on every single block seem to prevent the sun from reaching us all the way down here.

  Henry and I took a huge risk leaving our packs in our room but having them on our bodies seemed even riskier. Besides, if everything goes to plan, we won’t be on the street for long. Once we’re done with our outdoor display, we’ll sneak back to the hostel and plant ourselves in front of the window to watch what comes next.

  We find a trattoria a few blocks over that serves the strongest coffee ever and sfogliatella, made with layers of crispy, flaky pastry and dusted with powdered sugar. Henry’s had it before on prior trips to Italy; I have not, and I tell him maybe we should consider relocating here forever.

  “You said that about the churros in Spain,” he teases.

  “I’m definitely on the wrong continent.”

  Next, we stop at a tourist-trap shop to buy Henry a long-sleeved white shirt—the three shirts we have left between us are all black, and we need something to showcase his blood—a touristy white sweatshirt for me that says Italia across the green, white, and red Italian flag, two burner smartphones, as well as sunglasses to go with our knitted caps. When we catch our passing reflection in a shop window, we agree that we look like low-budget bank robbers planning a heist.

  Which is sort of not too far from the truth.

  When human and vehicle traffic on Via dei Tribunali—the street where our hostel and the gloriously ornate Napoli Sotterranea are located—seems to hit a frenzied peak, it’s showtime.

  We establish a post-event rendezvous spot, an art gallery two blocks southeast, and then we split. I stroll into a caffè just off the Piazza San Gaetano, across from Sotterranea, grateful they have outdoor seating, though I do have to wait a few tense moments for a table to come available.

  I order an espresso and thumb through an Italian magazine someone left behind. The pictures are beautiful, which is good since I can’t read a single word in the articles.

  When it seems the time is right, I text Henry’s new burner a single word:

  Go.

  I try to look casual, like I belong there. The first scream from my right tells me the show has begun.

  Henry stumbles out of an alley just down from the Napoli Sotterranea, his white shirt drenched in blood under the hand that clutches his abdomen. Chaos erupts on the street as he makes eye contact with me and drops to his knees on the sidewalk across the way.

  Powered by pure adrenaline, I jump up from my table and leap past the black barricade poles cemented into the ground to keep people and cars separate on this busy street. I run across to where Henry has collapsed, shoving people out of my way.

  I burst through the last few bystanders to see that a shopkeeper already has a phone against his ear; another woman is shoving her coat under Henry’s head. I throw my hands in the air.

  “Posso aiutare! I can help!” I yell, likely butchering the Italian Google Translate taught me an hour ago. I tear off my gloves, the left one still stiff and mildly damp from Henry’s earlier efforts to wash clean the blood. “Sir, what’s happened? Let me help you.”

  When another man tries to shove me out of the way to see what’s going on, I deliver a quick jolt to his wrist that puts him on his knees, but people are so focused on the blood spilling out of Henry’s exposed stomach, they don’t notice when the other guy’s teeth knock together from the surge of electricity. At least he lets go of me.

  “Stand back!” I yell. And then I close my eyes, a few breaths in, and I let the nuclear reactor in the back of my head take over and push the electricity aside. My hands on Henry’s bleeding belly, I shove all that healing energy into him, my wound singing with renewed pain. He did a good job cutting into himself—almost too good.

  When his eyes flutter open, a collective gasp rises from the crowd. I exhale, wishing I’d thought to stuff a bottle of OJ in my pants pocket.

  I help him to sitting, asking again if he’s okay. “Sì. I’m okay. Grazie mille,” he says. A bystander hands me tissue to wipe off my hands. I take it and then help Henry stand, glad for the sunglasses that still shield my eyes from the dumb-struck faces surrounding us.

  People are stunned silent, and more than a few cell-phones record the event.

  Perfect.

  “Merci beaucoup, mademoiselle,” Henry says, his French accent flawless. “You saved my life.” His words sound a bit stilted, but I don’t think our rapt audience is much interested in any dialogue exchanged between us.

  “As long as you’re sure you’re okay,” I say.

  He nods. “C’est bien. Je suis bien.”

  “Okay, well, good luck, then. And be careful.” Our eyes lock when we hear sirens in the distance—definitely our cue to get going.

  I disappear into the crowd, pushing myself into a fast walk, forcing what little energy I have into my legs the closer the sirens get. I jog down the block and dip into an arched recess in a dank alley where a desperate cat watches under a garbage bin; I pause to tear off the Italia sweatshirt, the sleeves damp with Henry’s blood, as well as the sunglasses and the black knit cap, throwing everything into the trash. I replace the hat with a muted gray one and then I’m moving again, slower, so I can catch my breath.

  Instead of bounding into the art gallery sweaty and shaken, I slow down and rejoin the throngs of tourists on the sidewalks, pausing to buy a few apples from a vendor across the narrow, cobbled street. I watch the surroundings, the art gallery door, looking for evidence that I was followed or that someone maybe saw what happened a few blocks over. My heart feels lodged in my throat, which makes swallowing even small bites from my swee
t apple difficult.

  When Henry finally emerges from an alley down the way, he’s changed his shirt and has his sunglasses and a new knit cap on, a newspaper under his arm. I’m so relieved, I almost collapse.

  I finish the apple—I need the sugar—and dodge scooters and crazed tiny cabs, following him into the art gallery at a safe distance. It’s a small place but brightly lit, the air a mix of cologne, old building, and paint thinner. Bold, multicolored canvases hang on the snow-white walls next to florals and nudes; sculptures of glass, metal, and reclaimed items on pedestals split the main room in half. Areas not available for viewing are cordoned with red-velvet rope between ancient-looking brass posts.

  I watch Henry from across the cavernous space, marking the time; we are to browse for two minutes and then leave, me first, then him. As the clock clicks to that 120th second, I walk out of the gallery, looking back only once to make sure Henry’s behind me before I slide my new sunglasses into place. We make our way southeast and then loop around, back to the hostel.

  As I pull open the front door, I’m relieved to see Maria is busy talking to other guests—a young couple with their own heavy travel packs still on their shoulders. It feels like the fire of hell is breathing down my neck as I break into a run up the staircase and down the hall to our room.

  It’s not the fire of hell, though. Just Henry, his face as flushed and his eyes as worried as my own.

  When he throws the secondary safety lock, we collapse, him against the door, me on the bottom bunk.

  “We did it,” I say.

  He smiles. “Now let’s hope our performance gets rave reviews.”

  26

  WE TAKE TURNS IN THE BATHROOM WASHING OFF THE REST OF THE BLOOD—his, this time—before positioning one of the wooden chairs in front of the window. Maria’s hostel has free Wi-Fi; Henry opens up YouTube, and sure enough, we’re there. We’re on Twitter too—“Miracle Girl Strikes Again”—the video shitty secondary to the low-quality phone. No matter, though. The intended damage has been done.

  “Show me again who we’re looking for?” I drain the last of my sparkling water. Henry sits on the bottom bunk and reaches for me, flattening his hand over my open palm, making contact, the warmth rushing through me as the Guardian’s face appears on the screen in my head: he’s a small-statured man with thinning grayish hair and crooked teeth and large, hooded brown eyes topped with thick, unruly eyebrows.

  Just as quickly, Henry withdraws, but the visual stays put.

  “Those eyebrows should make it easy to spot him.” Henry smiles and scoots back.

  “Sort of like yours.” I nod at him. “We should pencil in that missing slice. It’s pretty noticeable.”

  “We could use a Sharpie.”

  I push my face against the window again, afraid to miss a single moment of scanning the activity on the street below.

  “You should also know that Xavier is in the city,” Henry says, his face serious again.

  “We knew he’d make it here. Tell your mother thank you, for me,” I say, not knowing if Alicia is in the room with us. “Any idea how much time before he finds us?”

  Henry closes his eyes for a beat. “No. But if we can’t spot the Guardian by sundown, we should move to a different hostel. Just to stay one step ahead.”

  “Except he’ll probably notify the Guardian that we’ve gone rogue. Maybe the guy won’t meet with us without Xavier,” I say, biting at my lip. “If only one of us could tell the future instead of the past.”

  Henry chuckles. “Now, what would be the fun in that?”

  We decide to break up our watch into one-hour shifts. If we don’t spot the Guardian by dinner, we’ll look for another place to hide out and come up with a plan B, likely involving another day of surveillance around this neighborhood. Maybe the Guardian doesn’t have access to the internet, so he won’t see the bright, shining beacon we’ve thrown onto the sky of the web.

  During my first watch, Henry steals downstairs with more of our dwindling cash stores to talk to Maria about food for the rest of the day, and a request to look through the lost and found for any clothes that might fit us. We concoct a story about how our luggage went missing so until we can get our new traveler’s checks, shopping in the fashion capital of the world won’t be possible.

  The street below is so busy, and the angle of our window makes it frustratingly hard to see the Sotterranea very well. My eyes are tired from too little sleep and too much anxiety, and the longer I sit here, the more I worry this plan was stupid from the outset, that I’ve done nothing but put us in more jeopardy.

  Henry returns with a few new-to-us shirts draped over his shoulder, three plastic-wrapped rolls of gauze in his pocket, a tray with a huge bowl of pasta with tomato and fresh basil, a loaf of Italian bread, and more sparkling water. “Any luck yet?” he asks.

  “No.”

  He pushes the door closed with his foot. “I think Maria likes us.”

  “Oh my god, that smells so good.”

  After we eat, it’s Henry’s turn to take watch. My arm aches and when I pull my shirt sleeve up, I’m not surprised to find the sanitary-napkin-bandage soaked through. I grab the gauze Henry brought back, my medical kit, and then close myself in the bathroom to clean the slices in my flesh.

  Say hello to Daddy for me.

  “You’re a psycho, Aveline,” I say to the tight space, holding my breath for a beat as I wait to see if the Etemmu will take offense and find me.

  Nothing but the drip of the old faucet.

  Once the wound is cleaned and the bandage wrapped tight—without any of Xavier’s/Delia’s yarrow that I really wish I had—I clench my jaw and stab myself in the butt with another of the antibiotic injectables. Which, of course, leads to thoughts of Baby and how he’s doing. “Alicia, check on Baby. Please. Tell Henry how he’s doing. Tell Baby and Mom I love them,” I whisper.

  Before I rejoin Henry in the main room, though, there’s one more person I need to check in with.

  From the thigh pocket of my black cargo pants, I dig out my burner phone, hoping the pay-as-you-go service plan Henry paid for will reach America.

  Vi, it’s Gen. New phone. Tell me if you get this.

  I wait, watching the screen, holding my breath. Google “current time in Eaglefern, OR.” They’re eight hours behind Naples, Italy, which makes it—

  Gen, OMG! Hi! Prove that it’s you.

  I think for a moment. What would be one thing only Vi and I would know about each other?

  Your 1st kiss was with that redheaded kid in

  LA & we planned your wedding & decided

  you’d name all your kids after the Weasleys.

  I smile, staring at the phone as I await her response.

  I’d marry him if he showed up again!

  LOL . . . hi, sis. I miss you. How’s it going?

  Miss you too. Cece & Ted & Ash OK?

  Elephants and Othello?

  Everyone here’s OK but worried. Still lots of

  police. Dad is making us rehearse nonstop & we

  might be going to another show if Cinzio folds.

  The thought of the Cinzio Traveling Players closing down hurts my heart. Ted and Cecelia Cinzio built that show from nothing and have traveled with it for nearly thirty-five years. If it goes under, it will take the livelihoods of dozens of my closest friends with it. And where will Gert and Houdini and Othello end up?

  I don’t even know how to respond. How can I ever apologize for doing this to my family?

  Gen, you there?!

  I’m so sad—I hope I can get home before Ted

  has to close the show.

  My eyes burn; my nose stings. This is all my fault. If I’d just given Lucian the book . . .

  Dad’s adding Mara to our act. She’s really

  great on the trapeze. Will help us get a new

  gig, maybe even in Europe, if we have more

  trapezists.

  I’m shaking so hard, I can hardly hold the phone. Avelin
e is still there—but why? Why is she not in Europe with Lucian looking for us?

  Gen, you should call Cece.

  She’s not doing very well.

  I’m going to implode from the pain.

  Vi, can you tell her in secret that I’m OK & I’ll be

  home as soon as I can & she shouldn’t worry?

  Which is a lie. She should totally worry. I may not make it home ever.

  Henry taps on the door. “Genevieve? You need any help?”

  “No, I’m good. One sec,” I say, hiding my phone under the hand towel. When I hear the old chair squeak with Henry’s weight, I pull the phone back out.

  Vi, I gotta run. I’ll check back ASAP.

  I love you guys.

  Love you too. Please be safe.

  I power down and tuck it into my thigh pocket before opening the bathroom door.

  “How’re you doing? See any possibles?” I flop my backpack onto the lower bunk.

  “No one yet.”

  “Can Alicia not find this guy for us?”

  “She deals in memories, not soothsaying,” Henry reminds me. “Plus, I already asked. She can’t see him. He might be protected by the same spells that kept Lucian blind to you, and the Etemmu blind to me.”

  “We could live a thousand years and never understand this magic, Henry.” I’m half joking but I realize as the words cross my lips that I shouldn’t give him an invitation to discuss anything other than destroying the texts. With every passing moment we spend together, I see what a good team we make. If we were to live long lives, what greatness could we accomplish together?

  Destroying the texts will take that all away. Will our friendship change if we are no longer magical? Will we become “normal” young people who go our separate ways, to our own lives at different universities, on different trajectories, and realize that long-distance relationships at our age are silly, that we’re not mature enough for real love, that there are too many other temptations?