by Noelle Mack
Sarah put her arms around him and looked into his soulful eyes. “Feeling sad? Me too. Just a little. I don’t know why.” She rubbed her cheek against his, and kissed him on one ear, a little clumsily because his head moved. He didn’t seem to mind, just embraced her as best he could, his tall body enfolding her and his hands rubbing her back. Whatever initial awkwardness there had been between them—and there hadn’t been much—had melted into a soul-stirring intimacy right away. He made love like he meant it. Oh oh oh. It was going to be hard to walk away from sweetness like this.
Sarah closed her eyes and felt unexpected tears well up. She squeezed them back, rubbing her eyes when she opened them, and happened to glance over his shoulder at the window behind him. Her eyes widened.
“Marco! Look!”
Alarmed by her cry, he turned around, half-holding her but facing the window, and saw what she saw: shadowy figures, ethereal but with expressive faces and gestures, caught in the swirling mist, in the dresses and costumes of old Venice. Then the vision faded away, and the fog was blank and gray once more.
“Roll down the shade!” She almost screamed the words.
He did, quickly, kneeling on the bed. She hugged a pillow to herself as if it would protect her from the phantoms at the window.
“Did I really see that?” she whispered. “Who are—who were—they?”
“I don’t know.”
2
“You are a sorcerer,” she said, trying to control the shaking in her voice. She was giddy from the prosecco, that was for sure. She wouldn’t let him hold her now. He seemed troubled by that, but she wanted an explanation. She might be a little drunk but she had seen something.
“No one has such powers, Sarah,” he replied after a while. “I do not, you can be sure.”
“But didn’t you say you summoned the fog?” She didn’t want to say those people.
“I was teasing you about that. I wish I could explain but I can’t. The spell I read to you in the café is almost impossible to render in English.”
“Don’t say it in any language, thank you very much. It seems to be very effective.”
He glanced in the direction of the window and looked back at her without replying. His lips were pressed into a tight line.
“Where did you get that book, anyway?”
“I found it in an antiquarian shop, as I told you, and bought it for a few euros.”
“Right. Just checking. So it’s not a family heirloom or anything.”
“Not quite.” He smiled slightly.
“What do you mean? I don’t like vague answers.”
Marco seemed to be trying to collect his thoughts. “Sarah, I don’t know what to say. How could I be the only owner of so old a book? Other people scribbled notes on its blank pages—”
“Saw those,” she said in a tense voice. “I didn’t think you were the kind of person who wrote in antique books.”
“No, I am not,” he said. “Anyway, none of them seemed to understand it, something that intrigued me. I studied the verses for a while and realized that I could. And when I examined the frontispiece, I knew I had a distant connection to its author. We share a last name. Some of those who bore it were practitioners of the dark arts.”
“Which is why you go by Marco. No last name. Nothing to hide, huh?”
“No,” he said vehemently. “That was centuries ago, when superstition and science were often the same.” He sighed, obviously not sure that he had convinced her.
Of course, there was more than one way to do that. She resisted the appeal in his soulful gaze and stayed where she was. “No argument there. But there’s something strange about that little book, and you did know it.”
“Sarah, I am a rational man.”
“Hmph.”
Marco leaned back against the bedstead. “As I said, a friend of mine, the scholar in Paris, thought it was all very interesting and asked me to translate it into French for him.”
“Scholar, hah. Warlock, more likely.”
Marco groaned. “I tell you, there are no such things. But perhaps…”
She eyed him warily.
He took a deep breath and began again. “Perhaps there were, once upon a time. Every time I translated one of the spells, some odd thing would happen in the next minute. Minor things—a full cup would suddenly be empty, or I would hear footsteps in midair. But everyone’s mind plays tricks like that. I never saw anything like those people in the fog.”
She shuddered, but an adventurous part of her wondered if it was possible to see them again. They hadn’t seemed evil or malignant. Maybe Venetian ghosts knew how to have a good time. Maybe the supernatural side of the world rocked. Who knew?
“Once I had translated the spells—”
“That book doesn’t have very many pages. How long did it take you?”
He smiled. “A while. I also had to work out the arcane geometry hidden in their rhymes—”
“Whoa.” She held up a hand. “I flunked geometry twice in high school, but I don’t remember Mr. Friedrich saying anything about using it in spell-casting.”
“Geometry was fundamental to magic. So was algebra.”
“Now that was a subject I aced, for some reason. But we never got around to spells.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said patiently. “What I am trying to say is that I spent a great deal of time with that book, and I never saw visions.”
“Until now. You did see those people, right?” There. She’d said it. There had been people—or the shadows of people—outside that damned window. Why was he pussyfooting around? He’d seen them too—he’d said so. I wish I could explain but I can’t.
“I think so.” Marco shot her a look. “Anyway, once I was done with the translation, I began to use the book for a different purpose.”
“Uh-huh.”
“A relationship had ended—it was companionable in its way but there was not much more to it than that. After she left me, I was alone too much. It was like a game: a man sits in a café with a small book, a woman observes him without being observed herself, and if she is interested, she asks what he is reading. Eventually he goes to bed with her…or not.”
She pointed an accusing finger at him. “Won’t wash. I looked you up on Google. You’re on everybody’s A-list. You don’t need to sit around cafés to catch women. They jump into your lap.”
“Would you believe me if I said I was tired of that?”
“No. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Not at all. But last night, after we left the party and happened to walk to my uncle’s place, I realized that I had left the book there.”
Sarah listened a little suspiciously.
“I had my morning espresso there and brought the book with me. I wanted to look over the spells one more time so I could answer a few questions for my friend.”
“OK. So?”
“I was saying them under my breath to be sure I had them right.” He hesitated. “There was a spell for love—there always is in such books.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Anyway, I said it to myself. And when I saw you at the dance hours later, I thought for a moment that I had conjured you. “
“Oh please.”
“You were so pretty—I watched you watching the lovers on the rope, you know.”
“Don’t tell me you conjured them.”
He shook his head. “No one noticed them as you did, though. Perhaps Venetians are too jaded. You are not.”
Ah. She was beginning to understand that her lack of sophistication was what Marco liked about her. He definitely had the advantage there. She mentally conceded the point, as vulnerable as it made her feel. “Who are they? Friends of yours?”
“Performers.”
“They looked like lovers.”
“Perhaps.” He raised an inquiring eyebrow. “I am glad you liked them. They were fearless—and shameless.”
“They were beautiful. They made me think…” She didn’t want t
o finish the sentence. The man and woman on the golden rope had made her think about what could happen when you really trusted someone else: the world disappeared. It had been just the two of them. She didn’t want to discuss that at the moment.
“Sarah, it is no wonder that you liked them. You are just as fearless. You had come alone, but you were having a great time dancing the night away. You seemed so alive, so open”—he stroked her cheek”—ah, you are lovely. I could look at you for always. And yes, OK, you have a great body. Why do you think I ordered champagne? So I could talk to you.”
“And that was all you wanted.” Her tone was brusque, but she actually wanted to believe what he was saying. How romantic. A man sitting at a café table, casting a spell that might bring him love…seeing the woman of his dreams at a dance…walking her home in the snow…and being such a gentleman that the woman of his dreams had to wait for what she wanted, something Sarah had never been very good at.
“Well, no.” He fell silent.
Meeting someone at a party in Venice was nothing new. That had been happening here for centuries. She thought again of what they’d seen at the window: a spectral party. Sarah fought back her increasing curiosity. She was damned if she was going to look into the fog again. Maybe she could make him do it.
“A friend of mine gave me her invitation,” she said at last. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten past the bouncers. I really wasn’t expecting to meet anyone.” That was a lie. Well, maybe not. She hadn’t expected to meet him. Just somebody, eventually. “But there you were.”
“So you see, there was no spell.” He shook his head a little sadly. “Just as I said.”
“Right.” Her eyes met his, and they both looked at the shade covering the window. Neither made a move.
At last he spoke again. “I am sure you know Venice is famous for its ghosts. However, I assume you don’t believe in such things, and I do not. Perhaps it was an optical illusion. There is a rational explanation for most phenomena of that kind.”
At this point, she wasn’t sure if she believed in ghosts or not but she knew she could definitely make him look out the window. He had to, if he prided himself on being rational. Sarah was calming down. Fog was fog. They hadn’t slept well after their wild lovemaking, and they’d just polished off a bottle of prosecco in less than three minutes. They were so tired and tipsy they were seeing things.
“Then…lift the shade.”
He reached over and grasped the cord. “Are you sure you want me to?”
She nodded. He made a point of rolling it up slowly. Inch by inch the window was revealed. There was nothing outside but the fog. The everyday sounds of Venice—the vaporetti engines and the boatmen’s harsh cries—were far away and muted. The only other noises were the soft slap of water on stone and footsteps going up the stairs of the house across the canal. Ordinary, end-of-the-day, tired, heavy footsteps. Not the midair kind, which she imagined were lighter.
“There. I was right,” he said with satisfaction.
She was relieved but still preoccupied. He let her think.
“So who is the author of that book, Marco? You never did say.”
It was obvious from Marco’s face that the subject made him uncomfortable. She waited, looking at him expectantly.
Marco sighed. “An alchemist and a mage who lived centuries ago. A conjuror, too—not the kind you see at a fair but a man of learning and intelligence. I researched his history. Whether his magic was illusion or real, no one ever knew.”
“Aren’t you in the same business?”
Marco raised his hands and looked up, as if he wanted a heavenly being to provide the obvious explanation. “No. What I do is stagecraft and illusion on a very grand scale. People want to believe what they see.”
“Huh.” She had certainly wanted to believe the two angels at the party could fly. In their loving way, they had.
“Can I get back to my ancestor?”
“Please do.”
“He wrote down his spells, and eventually someone published them in that book.” He stopped talking and gave her a worried look, then took a deep breath. “He was my seven-times-seventh cousin.”
“That sounds significant. If you believe in that kind of thing.” She stared at him. Seven times seven. That intrigued her. “And you just happened to find the book? And you just have to say the spells and they work?”
“I don’t want them to.” He thought that over. “Except where you are concerned.”
“Oh. So you did cast a spell.”
“We are talking in circles.” He laughed a little nervously. “No. What happened between us—at first, that was just sexual chemistry. Not a spell. Not at all.”
“Explain the difference.”
Marco waved his hand nonchalantly. “When I saw you dancing, that was a magic moment. Then we looked into each other’s eyes. That was magic too—but it happens every day to millions of people.”
“Yes, of course. But did you say just sexual chemistry?” She gave him an indignant glare. “Don’t knock it. It’s the secret ingredient of a fabulous fling.”
He gave her another thoughtful look. “Is that all this is?”
Oh, so that’s why he was pussyfooting around. He seemed to be hinting that he might be falling in love. Or was that her Inner Girl kicking in and making this encounter into something more than it was?
Inner Girl was a hopeless romantic, that was for sure. But Marco was awfully hard to resist. The intelligent-sexy-tender-slightly-confused approach was much more effective than mere magic. However, in her experience, men who fell in love fast had a way of falling out of it even faster.
“Like I said, I have four days left.” And then she would have to go back to Brooklyn, find a new job, date somebody else…ho-hum. Big fat ho-hum. But it worked as a boundary. She couldn’t just land in his lap and stay in Venice, ghosts or no ghosts.
“Please don’t go.”
The emotion in his voice astonished her. He wasn’t crazy, as far as she could tell. The business about the book was, though. However, Sarah was a pretty good judge of character. Being cynical helped.
But what if he was…The One? She had nothing and no one at home to go back to. The thought made the same sad feelings she’d had just a short while ago well up again. She looked at the closed book of spells on the nightstand. The letters glowed. Curioser and curioser.
Marco threw up his hands. “You don’t want to listen. You don’t care.”
“I didn’t say that.”
He gave her a hopeful look. She countered it with a scowl. Naked, unbelievably beautiful in a male way, pleading to be understood: if he wasn’t The One, he certainly looked like what she had always imagined The One would look like. She was in trouble. Sarah reminded herself that she had known Marco less than twenty-four hours.
“Sarah, forgive me. I am acting a little crazy, I admit it. It is you, or the strange weather, or—I don’t know what it is. The hallucination for two, maybe. What we saw—if we saw it—was not real. I should not have let you drink so much prosecco, and I should not have had some myself.” He sounded huffy, maybe because he was annoyed at her for not melting at his feet.
“You know, I’m really beginning to think it was the book.” She had a feeling that he was trying to distract her again. Too many rational explanations tended to cancel each other out.
He clambered over her to get out of the bed. “Mamma mia, you are impossible.” He tossed the little book at her. “Maybe you can cast a spell that will clear the air. I’m going to take a shower and then I’m going to make a pot of coffee in case it doesn’t work.”
She caught it, deciding to take him up on his challenge, feeling strangely confident with the old book in her hands. Suddenly she opened her mouth and more words came out that she could swear were not hers. “Your seven-times-seven-whoever, the alchemist, knew what he was doing. That spell did work on me.”
The significance of that remark seemed to go right by him. She was on the verge of t
elling him that she seemed to be falling in love with him. Holy cow. Good thing he was in oblivious-man mode. He probably had to pee.
“It was destiny, Marco. So hah.”
“No,” he said flatly. “A superstitious person might say that I was destined to find that book, but it was no more than coincidence.”
Sarah held the small volume without opening it and admired Marco’s tight butt as he headed off to the bathroom. She heard a flush, followed by the clanking of unpredictable Venetian plumbing. Wisps of steam curled out from under the bathroom door. He was taking a long, hot shower.
Good. That gave her a few minutes.
She went to the shelf looking for a Venetian dictionary, found one, and sat down with it and the book.
Sarah had read every spell as best she could, being careful not to say the incomprehensible words out loud, when she looked up from the book to see, first, a noble pair of knees; second, big man thighs; third, a long, soft cock nestled in black curling hair that was being vigorously dried by the cock’s owner.
Marco scowled and snapped the towel at her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You said I should look at your spooky little book. I still can’t make head or tail of it. Even phonetically.” She mouthed the syllables of a spell on the seventh page.
“Ahhh…” Marco gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “You’ve done it.”
“What? What did I do?” A creeping sound made her look up in wonder at the ceiling, which was changing before her eyes. Elaborate gold ornamentation literally crawled along the beams, spreading like ivy everywhere. The antique furniture in the room was changing, too—its modern black-and-white upholstery morphed into cut velvet and silk brocade. The bed grew four carved posters that shot up like young trees, twining their thinnest branches into a canopy of trembling leaves.
“Wow! Quite a trick. OK, Marco, put things back the way they were.” She had no doubt that he’d had a stage designer set that up. It wasn’t magic. Just a scenery change. He was playing major games with her mind. Then the lights went out. “Marco!”
His voice came from the darkness. “I can’t change it. But do not be afraid.”