by Megan Chance
He studied me for a moment, and then he nodded. “Very well. If it will make you feel better, there’s no harm in looking.”
“You’re going to the church?” Samuel rose. “I’m coming too. Let me get dressed.”
It didn’t take long for Samuel to finish. When he put on his overcoat over his suitcoat—no vest, no tie or collar—Nero said, “The two of you look like a matched set.”
Because of the bruises, I realized. Samuel’s were now dark and spreading, large purple pearls ringing his throat, obvious without the collar or tie. I knew from looking in the mirror this morning that mine looked the same, though more livid, because beneath the darker thumbprints were also healing bruises, mottled green and yellow.
We followed Nero to the courtyard gate. Giulia came flying after us, her voice rising. Nero said something brusque to her, and gestured for us to follow him out into the campo, closing the gate again firmly in her face. “She’s sent Zuan for the police.”
Neither Samuel nor I answered, though I was somewhat relieved. Our worry had become contagious; Nero’s mouth was set, anxiety chiseling his face as he led us over the slick bridge to the Madonna dell’ Orto.
The snow began to fall more heavily, though it was still little more than a soft sprinkling of cold. The dell’ Orto was not so quiet today as it had been when I’d visited it with Madame Basilio. People—mostly women, heads bowed beneath black shawls—dotted the pews. I heard the soft whispers of prayers, a murmur I found vaguely comforting.
Several glanced our way, their prayers paused by curiosity, and I couldn’t blame them. Nero strode down the aisle with purpose, and Samuel and I scurried like acolytes behind him. What must we have looked like—neither man wearing a hat or a tie, Nero’s face set like stone, Samuel limping as he tried to keep up, I too would have wondered what such urgency could mean.
Nero went to the archway leading to the offices, where we were stopped by a priest. Nero spoke to him impatiently. The only words I understood were Padre Pietro.
It became clear that the priest was not going to let us through, and Nero’s words became shorter and more clipped. Samuel limped up beside. In French, he said, “Please. If you would inform Father Pietro that his . . . patient from yesterday is here, and I am sorely in need of his aid. It is all I can do to hold the demon at bay. I am terrified for my soul.”
It was evident that the priest knew of the attempt at exorcism. He drew in his breath sharply and stepped back.
“Please,” Nero said, tense with strain and impatience and worry.
Nervously, the priest nodded. Now it seemed he could not let us through quickly enough.
Nero didn’t bother to knock at the office door. He opened it so quickly Father Pietro started, dropping the pen he held. It rolled across the floor.
“Signor Basilio! And Signor Farber—”
Nero interrupted him, each word in his question bitten off.
The priest shook his head, looking puzzled as he spoke.
Nero turned to us. “She hasn’t been here. He says to try the Merceria or the Rialto. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. He suggests that she may have gone shopping.”
Christmas Eve. It seemed impossible that time could have passed so quickly. More than that, it seemed incongruous that there could be anything happening beyond the events in the Basilio, that there could be people shopping and preparing, that anyone could care about Christmas now.
“Do you think she may have?” Samuel asked.
Nero shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”
“Giulia said she would not have gone alone,” I reminded him.
The skin around Nero’s nose whitened. “There is much Giulia doesn’t know about my aunt.”
“Zuan was still there, so she didn’t take the gondola.”
“Or she hired another,” Nero said.
“Why would she have done that?”
“To keep a secret,” Samuel suggested. He leaned heavily against the door, easing the weight from his knee. “But if she’s gone there, we’ll never find her. It’s too crowded.”
Thoughtfully, Nero said, “She has her favorite shops. They haven’t changed in years. I suppose it would not hurt to look.”
Father Pietro watched us carefully—well, Samuel, anyway. It was discomfiting, how avidly he stared, as if he wanted nothing more than to wrestle Samuel to the ground and wrench the devil from his chest.
I said quietly, “Zuan’s gone after the police. Wouldn’t it be better to have them search?”
Nero shook his head. “It will be at least an hour before they come to the palazzo. In that time, we could already be at the Rialto.”
“If she’s there, she’ll finish her shopping and come home,” I said hopefully.
Samuel said, “I don’t think she’ll be coming home, Elena. Neither do you.”
Nero bit off a curse. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing. Come or not, as you like.”
Samuel and I didn’t confer; there was no need. I knew we would not abandon Nero now. With an apology and thanks to the priest, we left the Madonna dell’ Orto and stepped out into the wet, cold day. There were no gondolas to be hired here, and so Nero led us to the nearest traghetto station, where the gondoliers lingered for fares, and we quickly hired one and set off for the Merceria.
It was thronged, so much so that the falling snow never hit the ground, but only seemed to hover above the streets, melting on heads and shoulders and vast piles of goods. The snow lent a greater air of gaiety, so the Merceria had the aspect of a fair, even in the cold, though coughing and sniffling seemed to be the order of the day, and I saw the red sores of chilblains on too many hands and cheeks. Peddlers called out as they pushed through the crowd. Merchants stood at the doors of their narrow, dark little shops, displaying their goods, their arms full of brightly colored scarves or housewares.
Samuel struggled to keep up, and I put my arm through his and kept closely to him while Nero dodged into one or two shops that had been favorites of his aunt, coming out each time looking grimmer than ever, a short shake of his head, a terse, “He hasn’t seen her in days.”
I could see the strain in Samuel’s eyes as we reached the part of the Merceria that expanded into a campo so filled with stalls overflowing with clothing, Christmas mustard, and boxes of mandorlato that it was a maze. We would follow the flow of the crowd only to come to a dead stop before one and then have to untangle ourselves to join another flowing river of people, only to have the same thing happen again. The campo seemed paved with crockery and glassware.
“Only the fish market left,” Nero said, sending an apologetic look to Samuel. “If she’s not there, we’ll go home.”
Fortunately for Samuel, we could not move quickly, or he would have collapsed long before we reached the fish market, where people stood in long lines waiting for eels to be pulled from barrels splashing with their writhing bodies and bled out.
“They’re a tradition on Christmas Eve,” Nero told me when I grimaced at the pools of blood. “Aunt Valeria buys them every year.”
Samuel had gone pale. He licked his chapped lips and said, “We should go back.”
“Just one more place,” Nero insisted.
But it wasn’t just one more place. We followed him from stall to stall as he gestured and shouted his question about his aunt, in return getting only shaking heads and shrugs and short sentences that even I could tell were negative. The day began to feel unreal—crowds and snow and Christmas shopping, that festivity that was at such odds with the three of us that it felt as if I’d entered a dream. With every passing moment, Samuel grew more strained; I grew more afraid; Nero grew more desperate. Whatever he had believed about his aunt’s whereabouts before, it was clear he now felt as Samuel and I did—there was something wrong.
“Nero,” I said finally. “She’s not here. We should return.”
&nbs
p; He turned to me, his gaze sweeping past, searching the crowd beyond. “One more. Old Gio’s—just down there.”
Yet, just as he had each other time, Nero didn’t stop when Old Gio hadn’t seen Madame Basilio either.
“Calderario’s,” he insisted. “Just there.”
I glanced behind at Samuel, who leaned against the post of a stall. “Samuel’s going to collapse any moment.”
“Then go to a café. Wait for me there. I’ve only a few more places—”
“She’s not here, Nero.”
“She is. Somewhere. I’m sure of it.” His eyes burned with fear, and obsession now too—I recognized it. Like the patients at Glen Echo, who became trapped in endless cycles of compulsion, he would not stop until I stopped him.
He started to move off. I grabbed him again, pulling him back.
“What is it?” he asked impatiently.
“She’s not here. We need to go home.”
“Not yet—”
“Nero.” I gripped him harder, forcing him to look at me. “Enough. We’re only wasting time.”
He tried to pull away. “Just the jeweler’s—”
“To buy what? With what? Why would she have gone there? No one’s seen her. Please.”
Nero stilled. I saw when my words hit him, this terrible desolation.
“It’s all right,” I whispered. “She’ll be in her sala. She’ll laugh that we were so concerned.”
He stared at me searchingly. Then he glanced away, and I saw that his eyes were wet with unshed tears. “She won’t be. Giulia’s right. She would not have gone on her own.” He pulled me close, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’m afraid to return.”
“Everything will be fine.” I said the words only to comfort; I did not believe them.
His fingers scrabbled at my waist, the barrier of my corset keeping him from anchoring me as hard as he obviously wanted to. “Everything’s a disaster. Let’s not go back.”
“Elena,” Samuel groaned.
I turned to look just as he collapsed to the ground.
Chapter 31
Nero and I sprang apart and rushed to Samuel, who lay in a heap at the edge of the stall. Nero reached him first, squatting in a pool of mud and eel blood that spattered his boots—as it had all of Samuel, so he looked bloodied and hurt.
“He’s swooned,” Nero said.
Even as he pulled Samuel into his arms, Samuel was rousing, blinking, disoriented. He put his hand to his eyes. “Christ.”
“Come on, amìgo. Let’s get you up.” Nero pulled Samuel to his feet, keeping a firm hold, which was good, because Samuel swayed, falling into him.
I dragged Samuel’s chin so I could look into his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m tired.” He jerked his chin from my hand as if he couldn’t stand my touch.
“I’m sorry. We should have gone back earlier. I knew you were—”
“That’s not it.” He pushed away from Nero. “I’m all right. I can stand on my own. Christ, look at me. Fish blood everywhere.”
“You look like you came out on the bad end of a knife fight,” Nero said.
“A bad end would be dead,” Samuel said dryly. “And I fear I’m very much alive.”
“Can you get to a gondola?” I asked.
“I’m not helpless.”
But he was, mostly. Nero looped Samuel’s arm around his neck, and I lodged myself under his other arm, and even so, he was breathing heavily and sagging before we’d got a few yards. It didn’t help that the crowd jostled and pushed; none of us could keep our balance well.
Finally, Nero jerked his head toward a small gathering of tables and chairs near the door of a café. “It will take more than me and Elena to get you there. The two of you wait here while I hire a gondola. I’ll bring the man back to help.”
I was surprised when Samuel didn’t protest. We limped over to the café chairs, and he let out a loud sigh of weariness as he sank into one of them. Nero gave me a quick, worried look. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
“We won’t,” I assured him.
He hurried off, disappearing almost immediately into the crowd. The moment he was out of sight, Samuel straightened, his exhausted expression disappearing. He looked perfectly well, so much so that I exclaimed, “There’s nothing wrong with you at all! You swooned deliberately.”
He wiped at the eel blood on his trousers. “I think I ruined these.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“You could have done that back at the Basilio.”
“Could I have? Since he’s crawled into your bed?” He glanced away as if to assure himself that Nero was nowhere near. “He’s been stalling.”
“Not stalling,” I corrected. “He’s worried. He thinks something terrible has happened, and he’s afraid of returning to bad news.”
Samuel looked thoughtful. “Perhaps. He didn’t seem too worried about his aunt until Giulia said she was sending for the police. Do you believe him when he says he doesn’t believe in the ghost?”
“I think he’s afraid to believe in her. Otherwise he would have to acknowledge that she’s still unhappy. It would be painful for him. He cared for her very much.”
“Perhaps too much.” Samuel reached out, flicking a loosened tendril of my hair meaningfully, and I understood. My chestnut hair, so like Laura’s. “I think I should tell you something.”
My stomach tightened. “Please don’t.”
“You need to know this, Elena. That lover of Laura’s . . . she wanted to marry him, but her mother wouldn’t let her break her engagement to Nero.”
“There was a duel,” I said, irritated that he was telling me nothing new after all his intrigue. This was a waste of time. “He killed the man when he didn’t have to.”
Samuel looked surprised. “He told you? Well then, it seems my little act was all for naught, given how fully you know each other. And I’ve ruined my trousers for nothing.”
He lifted his face to the sky. Snowflakes splashed his cheekbones, his nose, melting into droplets. He blinked away one that landed on his eyelashes. “But you’re right about how much he cared for her, and you should remember it. When he returned from Venice to the news that Laura was dead, I thought I might lose him. I tried to cheer him up with every diversion I could find in Paris, but his despondency lasted for weeks. He told me he hadn’t the courage to take his own life, but the life he was living was suicide of a sort. Too many women, too much wine . . . but he took no pleasure from any of it. I thought he was punishing himself. I still think it.”
Something in what he said jarred. “You think that’s why he chose me, you mean? To punish himself?”
“I can promise that you remind him of Laura, Elena. I don’t want to think that’s the reason he’s pursued you, but you know I do.”
We fell into silence. I was angry with him for doubting Nero’s feelings for me, and sorry too, that he felt as he did. I was relieved when Nero pushed through the crowd a few minutes later, bringing with him a tall, muscled gondolier.
“Do you feel any better?” Nero asked Samuel, who had allowed his shoulders to roll forward, his chin to sink.
“A bit,” Samuel said.
Nero gestured to the gondolier, and the two of them lifted Samuel from the chair, and Samuel made a show of grunting with pain and limping as we all went to the gondola.
Nero was nothing but tension as we headed back. I reached for his hand, weaving my fingers through his, and he gave me a grateful look and brought my hand to his mouth, kissing it, drawing me closer into his side.
The very air in the cabin felt heavy with dread; hard to breathe in. We were all aware, I think, that we were heading to a place where the news could not be good, no matter how much we wished for this fe
eling to be nothing but imaginations run rampant, a dream that had somehow followed us through the day, nothing but a dream.
And so I was not surprised when we disembarked to see the police boat moored before the palazzo, black with a green box of a cabin.
Zuan met us at the door; he had obviously been waiting. He had been crying, and I knew.
Nero stopped short, tripping Samuel, who was close behind him. I grabbed Samuel’s arm to steady him. Zuan spoke. It was very short.
Nero staggered. He looked over his shoulder, searching for me. “They’ve found her.” His voice was only a harsh whisper. “She’s dead.”
After that, the rest of the evening passed in a daze. The police were waiting in the courtyard, gathered around a body covered with a sheet that was so damp with melting snow it molded to her contours, making her look like a statue carved of marble—how exquisitely the artist had managed the cloth; she seemed to be wearing a veil, so beautifully diaphanous, how had he done it?—while all about her were gathered puddles from melting snow. I wondered why they’d put her on the cold, wet stones rather than somewhere dry and sheltered, and then I realized that it wasn’t just the snow that made the sheet cling that way, but the fact that she was soaking wet; she had been found floating in the canal between the Madonna dell’ Orto and the Basilio, caught beneath the bridge we had crossed so hastily hours before—had she been there then? How had we not seen her?—and all I could think was how glad I was that she had not drowned in the dyer’s canal, where her daughter had died.
“They think she slipped from the bridge on her way to see Father Pietro,” Samuel told me after a quick conferral with Nero, who was now secreted away on the piano nobile with the police. One could see their figures through the windows, silhouettes against the drawn curtains, pacing and gesturing. It made it hard to leave the courtyard, because I could watch him from where I stood. He might need me; at any moment he could pull aside the curtain and look out to see me standing there, the reassuring presence I hoped to be.
“Planning another exorcism attempt, no doubt,” Samuel went on.
“I don’t think that’s what it was,” I said. “I saw her face that day. Whatever she saw gave her the answer she was looking for.”