“It’s not too bad.” I picked up the pace. The faster we got there the better.
“Please. This is even worse than Latchke’s class.” She gave me a wink as we finally reached the large stone entrance that had served as Civita’s gate centuries earlier.
Walking through the gate’s archway, we entered the eerily quiet town. Only the creaking sound of a restaurant sign moving in the wind greeted us. There were no cars, no animals, and no people.
“And the only clue your father gave you was to find the man that no one sees and get him to ask a question?” Asher asked for the third time.
“Yep, that’s it,” I said.
“The guy might be a hermit … that’s why no one sees him,” Simone speculated. “Especially living in a place like this.”
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough.” I pointed to the restaurant. “Let’s ask inside.”
Simone followed me, with Asher bringing up the rear, his eyes still scouring the area.
A balding man was behind the restaurant’s bar organizing some bottles, his back to us. “Scusi,” I said, trying to get his attention from the doorway.
The man turned around and smiled. “Ah, visitatori!” He waved us inside. “Entrare! Entrare!”
The small restaurant had walls that seemed to have been carved out of the mountain itself, and six small square tables. I couldn’t imagine there being many customers, but the town had apparently been “rediscovered” by some travel agents who offered escapes from modern life on weekend day-trips from Rome.
I smiled at the gentleman and leaned closer to Simone. “Ask if he knows of a man that no one sees.”
“Ah, American.” The man nodded as if he had gained all the information he needed to know about me. “I practice my English,” he declared with a strong accent. He walked around the counter and pulled out a bar stool for me. “Ora dimmi, how can I help you? You parents around here? You like breakfast?”
Asher spoke in fluent Italian. “No, we’re actually in a bit of a hurry and—”
“Tsk, tsk,” he chided. “In Civita, there is always time,” he said, smiling. “A cappuccino, yes?” He was already walking behind the bar and pulling out three cups and saucers. “I am the owner, Giovanni, and the caffè is … how you say … ?” He turned to pour the milk from a metal pitcher. “Ah, yes.” He looked at us over his shoulder. “It is on the house.”
The loud whirring sound of the machine steaming the milk drowned out anything else we might say, so we sat on the bar stools and waited. The smell of the espresso brewing made me think of my dad. For as long as I could remember, he always made Cuban coffee first thing in the morning. “The first drops are the key to making the espumita on top. Just like in life, you have to start the right way,” he’d say as he poured the beginning of the brew into a large mug with sugar in it. The clack, clack, clack noise of the spoon hitting the sides of the cup as he beat the sugar into a creamy froth would jar me awake. “A good Cuban knows how to make coffee,” he’d tell me with a smile. Then he’d pour a little of the espresso in a cup of warm milk and let me have a very light version of café con leche.
“Now, you tell me,” Giovanni said as he poured the hot milk, followed by a little bit of coffee, into each cup, “what bring you here? You visiting Italy? You are a bit young to be alone.”
“No, we are, uh.” Asher took a gulp of the coffee to buy some time.
“We’re doing research,” Simone piped up. “For our school.”
“Yes, for a project,” I added. “Have you ever heard of a man living in Civita that no one sees?” I asked. “I know this sounds strange.”
“No, but this is second time I get asked this.” He looked at Asher for clarification. “Maybe it is a man that cannot see? Un cieco?”
“No, not a blind man,” Asher said. “A man that no one sees. L’uomo che nessuno si vede,” he said, translating the riddle to Italian.
Giovanni shrugged.
“You said someone else asked you about this.” I tried to gauge his reaction to see if he was really clueless or keeping secrets. “Who was it?”
“A man, I think he said he was a professor in Roma.” Giovanni scratched the side of his face. “Is he your teacher? He said he would come back again, because he couldn’t find who he was looking for that day.”
I wondered if it had been my father. Had he been here and not found the spear?
“Um, yeah. The professor sent us to try and figure it all out. It’s a riddle.” Simone sipped her coffee. “Un enigma. Maybe the man you can’t see is someone you normally don’t think of.”
“Hmm, I don’t know.” He wiped the bar where a little coffee had splashed. “Like I told your professor the other day, few families live in Civita. Everyone you can see. Everyone see you.”
“Well, we should keep asking around anyway.” Simone hopped off the bar stool. “Leave something for the coffees, Asher.”
“It was on the house,” Asher argued, but he was already fishing out a few euros from his pocket.
Outside, the day was getting brighter and warmer, but the town remained vacant. It was easy to see why it was called a dying town. Besides the fact that the buildings were falling into the valley below as the plateau continued to shrink, the people had also left. After thirty minutes of walking around and knocking on different doors, we’d spoken with seven people and none had been able to help. I was starting to think that this was a waste of time. That I’d misinterpreted what my dad wrote. Maybe he’d already come here and found nothing. Maybe the dying city was Detroit and CDB was someone’s initials.
But even if I was wrong about this place, I couldn’t give up until I was absolutely sure. “Up there.” I pointed to a second-floor window. “I think I saw someone.”
Asher ran—no, it was more like he flew up the steps. One foot barely touched every fourth step before he was up in the air again. In the blink of an eye he was at the top, grinning down at me. He turned and knocked on the door.
“Did you see what he just did?” I asked.
Simone sat down on the first step and shrugged. “So he’s fast and knows a little parkour. Big deal.” She took off her shoes and stretched out her toes. “Why don’t you go up with him? I’ll wait here and give my feet a break.”
“Want to switch?” I offered, lifting up my brown flats.
“No.” She slipped her feet back into her shoes. “I think wearing your size sixes on a size-eight foot would be worse. I’ll buy some shoes later.” Simone pulled out the burner phone from her pocket. “My mom just texted me. She says she’s flying back to Rome.”
“I thought you’d taken out the battery from that phone after you replied to her earlier text. You know that’s the whole point of these burner phones. One use and done.”
Simone smiled. “You’ve watched too many spy movies, Cassie. I doubt someone figured out that I was the one texting her when she gets a million texts every day. Plus, my mom has more security and antihacking systems than most governments. It’ll be fine. I’ll just send her a quick reply.” She started typing.
I stared at her, not saying a word. This didn’t seem like a good idea.
“What?” Simone paused and looked at me. “Listen, I’ll pull out the battery afterward just in case. I just want to send this one text. This parent-being-worried thing, it’s something new for me.”
Asher’s voice from the top of the stairs caught our attention, and we both looked up. He was speaking with someone.
“Go keep an eye on Parkour Boy and I’ll wait for you here,” Simone said.
There was no time to waste. “Okay,” I said, hurrying up the steps. “I’ll be right back.”
“Who else is there?” asked the old woman, in Italian, as I approached. She was staring straight ahead, but there was a cloudy glaze covering each eyeball that created an unnatural tint of blue. Behind her, the house was completely dark.
“Mi chiamo Cassie,” I said, realizing she was blind.
“Eh?” She leaned
forward, her arm outstretched.
I took her crinkly hand in mine and repeated. “Cassie. Cassandra.”
She touched my ring and nodded. “Ah, Cassandra.” The old woman then touched her chest and said, “Io sono Signora Pescatori.”
“Nice to meet you, Signora Pescatori,” I answered in my best Italian.
“She told me she’s the oldest person in Civita and that she’s never heard of a man that no one sees,” Asher said.
My shoulders dropped. It wasn’t completely unexpected, but I was still holding out hope that someone knew what my father was talking about. We were running out of options.
“Grazie, signora. Arrivederci.” I turned to go down the steps.
“No!” The old woman stumbled out of the doorway into Asher’s arms. She put up her hands and felt his face with her fingertips. She asked him something in Italian, her voice quivering just a bit.
“Where am I?” Asher chuckled. “I’m right here, on your doorstep. You’re not going to fall.”
“No.” She shook her head defiantly. “Dimmi dove,” she repeated, an expectant tone in her voice.
Asher looked down at the floor, and then over at me. “I’m here in front of your door.”
Signora Pescatori looked confused by his answer. “No.” She waited a moment, then pushed away from Asher as hard as she could. “No, no, no!” she yelled and threw her hands up in the air, muttering something else under her breath.
We stood there in shock at her sudden change in mood.
“Vai via,” she said, shooing us away. “Go away!” she yelled again in Italian as she slammed the door.
“That is one crazy lady,” Asher noted as we walked down the stairs.
“What was that all about?” Simone asked. “Asher trying to make more friends?”
“Very funny,” he answered. “I don’t see you trying to figure any of this out.”
I walked away from the two of them toward the railing that overlooked the valley and the barren hills that stretched out as far as the eye could see. This was the current edge of Civita, but it wouldn’t be long before more of the mountain would crumble and fall into the valley below, continuing Civita’s demise. Just down the street, the only thing that remained of the old palace was its front facade, the back walls and rooms having already dropped the three hundred plus feet to the valley floor below. It was a reminder that even in Civita, time would take its toll. And time was something I didn’t have much of.
I kicked a small rock over the edge of the cliff a few feet in front of me and twisted the Hastati ring around my finger. If I didn’t figure this out, I’d have to go back to the monastery and wait for another clue or for someone else to find the spear.
“Think, Cassie. Think!” I pounded my head with my fist.
“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” Asher said, coming up to stand next to me.
Simone leaned against the railing on my other side. “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” she repeated in a voice almost identical to Asher’s.
“I don’t sound like that,” Asher said dryly, but a part of him had to be impressed with her talent.
“You actually do, but whatever,” Simone retorted. “So tell us, O Wise One, what should we be doing?”
“You can be quiet. And, Cassie”—his expression softened when he looked at me—“I want you to close your eyes and think back to what your father told you.” Asher waited for me to do this, and when I didn’t, he continued. “There could be a clue in how or what he said.”
I bit my lip. The journal was in the small messenger bag right next to my hip, but I hadn’t wanted to show it to him. “Um, well, he didn’t so much as say it. He more or less …”
Asher’s eyebrows scrunched together, forming a little vertical line between them. “Wait, didn’t you say he told you to come to Civita and the thing about the man no one sees? Did you make that up?”
“No, of course not. He really did tell me.” I was feeling uneasy with all the questions. “It’s just I don’t know if I should say exactly …”
“Hold on.” Asher took a step back. “If you’re not telling me everything, how am I supposed to help?”
“No one here asked for your help,” Simone chimed in.
“I know, but Cassie agreed in the car to—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t agree to anything except letting you come with us,” I said. Asher might seem trustworthy, but I was not about to drop my guard.
“Yeah, but you already told me about the riddle,” Asher argued. “So if I’m helping find this mystery man, I need to know all the facts.”
“He has a point,” Simone interjected.
“What?” I couldn’t believe that Simone, of all people, was siding with Asher.
Simone continued. “I mean, what difference will it make if he knows your dad wrote you the message as opposed to telling you? Maybe those years in the monastery could come in handy. Don’t monks rewrite the Bible and stuff for fun?”
I glared at her. It wasn’t Simone’s job to spill my secrets.
“What?” She widened her eyes. “You know I’m right. It’s for the best.”
“So wait, your dad wrote it down somewhere?” Asher’s eyes danced with excitement. “You know, if it’s a code that your dad created, I might be able to crack it. First letter of each word might spell out something. Maybe it’s a rotational pattern. I don’t know. The Hastati use a lot of codes, so I’ve had some training in deciphering them.”
“My dad isn’t Hastati.” I grasped the top of my messenger bag. “At least I don’t think so.”
I didn’t know what to do. Simone shouldn’t have said anything. Sharing all the information I had with Asher wasn’t part of my original plan, but he did know a lot more than we did about the Hastati, the spear, and codes. Maybe Simone was right.
Asher gazed down at me. “Cassie?” he asked. “Are you going to show me?”
I went through all the pros and cons in my head. It boiled down to the fact that Asher had helped us, and yet, there was still something that felt off. It was in his eyes. He was keeping a secret, but I couldn’t tell if it was about me or not.
“I didn’t find anything hidden in here.” I opened up the bag and pulled out the notebook. “But you might be able to find a clue.”
Asher looked surprised. “Is that the Guardian’s Journal?”
“No, we really did leave that one behind,” I explained as Asher flipped through the pages. “This is more of a personal notebook that my dad kept.”
Simone pulled the sweatshirt off and tied it around her waist. “But it did have the stuff about the dying city, so maybe there’s something else in it.”
Asher crouched down and flipped through the pages. “Your dad made a lot of sketches of things. There are even a few of you.” He stopped to analyze the drawing, and then looked up at me. “He’s actually pretty good.”
“I know,” I said. “His whole life is about art. It’s how he sees things.”
“Hm.” Asher stared at the last sentence for a couple of minutes. “If it’s a code, it isn’t a basic one. I’ve studied medieval codes, Renaissance cryptanalysis, and ciphers of the Dark Ages, and this doesn’t seem to fit any of the ones I remember.”
Simone shook her head. “Such a freak,” she said under her breath just as a loud “Buongiorno again!” rang out.
The restaurant owner, Giovanni, had just stepped out from a side door in a nearby building. A little girl, no more than four or five years old, trailed after him. “Did you find the man you are looking for?” he asked, carrying a crate full of potatoes.
“No,” I answered. “Still searching.”
Giovanni stopped, and the little girl hid behind his legs, trying to peek around to see us. “Try upstairs.” Giovanni lifted his chin and motioned up to the crazy old woman’s apartment. “Signora Pescatori is older than these mountains. She knows more than anyone.”
The little girl stuck her head a little farther o
ut and smiled. Asher gave her a small wave, causing her to dart back behind Giovanni.
“We already asked her,” Simone responded. “She didn’t know.”
“Oof, if Nonna Nadie does not know …” He pursed his lips as if in pain. “Too bad, but if you are hungry later, you come by the restaurant. I am making gnocchi. Better to think on a full stomach, no?”
“Nonna Nadie?” I asked.
“Signora Pescatori. We call her Nonna because she is like the town’s grandmother.”
Giovanni was still saying something, but I’d stopped listening. All I could think of was that Signora Pescatori’s first name was Nadie.
I stared off into space and thought about the note written in my father’s journal. En la ciudad que se está muriendo, nadie recibe el secreto hasta que el hombre que nadie ve contesta la pregunta. Could it be a play on words? I had translated the Spanish word nadie both times to its most common meaning of “no one,” but what if it actually referred to a woman’s name … Nadie. So it would actually say “in the city that is dying, no one receives the secret until the man that Nadie sees answers the question.” The old woman had the secret!
“Hey, Cassie,” Simone called out. “You okay?”
Asher snapped his fingers in front of my face, his ring flashing before my eyes. “Cassie?”
“Huh, what?” I blinked and looked around. Giovanni and the little girl were already gone. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine.” I started chuckling, which turned into a full-on laugh attack. All my worry had finally found its release in the form of hysterical laughter.
“Cassie, you’re not acting normal.” Simone got closer to me and touched my forehead as if I had a fever. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, oh.” I bent over and caught my breath. “You’re not going to believe it.” Asher was now next to Simone, giving me an equally concerned look. “Brace yourself … I think I figured out who we’re looking for.”
“You did? Who’s the man that no one sees?” Simone asked.
I smiled from ear to ear and pointed to Asher. “He is! And he’s going to get the secret for us!”
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