by Noelle Mack
“Marco, in about twenty-four hours I’m getting on a plane back to New York. I have to go—”—she didn’t really have to do anything but she felt compelled to say she did—“because I need to get away. And just sit and think.”
How come the right thing to do always sounded so unpleasant? New York in February was grim. And oh—Valentine’s Day was coming up. She was going to spend it alone.
“May I call you? May I e-mail you?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“No contact?”
“No. And no shazamming either. This has to be—it has to get—real. No changing the setting. No magic.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded really fast. “I’m sure.”
“Why not?” He waved his hand airily. “We could go anywhere in time you wanted.”
“No. I don’t want to. And don’t wave your hand like that. It looks gay.” She knew she was finding fault for no good reason, but she couldn’t help herself.
He frowned. “I’m not.”
“OK,” she conceded. “Call it European.”
“Is there a difference between looking gay and looking European?”
“Sometimes it’s a fine line.”
He made a wry face at her. “Rockerina told me the same thing. She was—”
Sarah pretended to type on an imaginary keyboard. “Saw a photo of you two online. She’s a singer in a punk band. One of your many girlfriends.”
“Ah. You did mention that you looked me up. You didn’t trust me even then.”
“Trust. That is a very important thing.”
“I trusted you, Sarah.”
“You had nothing to lose. What can I say? I didn’t care at the time. All I was after was a fabulous fling. Bang, bang, bang. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Take a shower, call a taxi.”
“How American. How unromantic.” He gave her a melting, incredibly Italian look.
Sarah resisted it. “Don’t start.” She changed the subject. “There’s one more thing. What about Veronica?”
Marco frowned. “Ah, she can go to hell.”
“Isn’t that a little harsh?”
Marco sighed. “Veronica would be right at home there.”
Sarah shook her head slowly. “She’s not that bad. You know, she sent Ombra to jump into my lap and comfort me when I was crying over you.”
Marco tried not to look too pleased. “You cried over me?”
“Before the party at your palazzo, yeah, I did. I was homesick.”
“Ah, yes. But Venice called to you.”
“The music was great, and I was in a mood. But I got over it. I can go home. My ticket and passport are stashed at Signora Dolcetti’s.”
“I do not want you to leave,” he said suddenly. He went to the underwear drawer she’d rummaged through and pulled out a pair for himself.
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll miss you. And how can I protect you if she follows you back to New York?”
“She can do that?”
“Yes. Her powers have not waned that much.”
Sarah laughed. “I know a nice Goth club she could hang out in. It’s full of young sorcerers looking for sugar mamas.”
“Are you suggesting that I was one once?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. How would I know details like that? You said she initiated you and that was about it.”
“Veronica taught me the craft.”
“Is that all?” Sarah stared him down. “Don’t forget to lie.”
“Oh, you mean—”
“Yes, I do.”
“I was young. I didn’t know you were going to come along in four hundred years or I wouldn’t have done it.”
“Yes you would have. She’s still beautiful. I bet your love burned bright.”
Marco snorted with disgust. “We burned each other up. But that is all in the past. The very distant past.”
Sarah held up a hand. “I guess I’m prying. I really just wanted to find out if you could tell the truth. You can. You get a gold star.”
“Then can we start again as if none of this had happened?”
She began to pace. “No. I think I need a few more answers or I won’t be able to digest my breakfast.”
“Go ahead,” Marco said resignedly.
When in doubt, play offense. “Why did you keep me in the eighteenth century?” He hadn’t but he had been happy enough to want to stay there with her.
“I did no such thing. I tried to get you back as soon as possible. But I enjoyed showing you my Venice. It is not gone forever.”
Sarah stopped at the window and looked out. He had given her a unique perspective on the city—and on life itself, in all its beautiful, cruel, and random glory. Which begged another question.
“Are you going to live forever?”
“No, Sarah. Sorcerers die.”
“I don’t know any other guys who are over four hundred years old. I couldn’t say.”
He came and put his arms around her. “I will be with you all your life. There is nothing evil in my magic.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You will like this part—I can promise you that you will never have wrinkles.”
Now he was talking. Sarah went all melty inside but not for very long. “OK, OK. I can deal with that magic. But how will I know I’m the only woman in your life?”
“You will be. You are. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I love you. Do you love me?”
She managed a look that was semi-adoring. All of a sudden she was very, very tired. “I think I’m getting there. But I’m still not sure I trust you—and without that, it doesn’t matter if I love you.”
“Oh.”
“Look, Marco, I know you put your own future on the line to get me back to this time. And you’re a lot of fun. And the sex is great. But I have to be able to trust you totally. That’s just how I am.”
“Hmm.” He grabbed jeans and a long-sleeved jersey from his drawers. “Well, we can continue talking. If you have twenty-four hours in Venice, then we have to make the most of them.”
They wandered through the city for the next eight hours. Sarah couldn’t resist going by every place they had been to in the past. Virtually everything was unchanged.
The waterfront was different. A gigantic cruise ship was docked in the harbor, as big as a city itself, dwarfing the skyline of Venice. The smokestacks and factories of Mestre, to the northwest of the lagoon, cast a pall over the sky.
But the streets and canals were much the same. Once they got away from the tourist areas, a familiar serenity was evident. The warm colors of the stucco walls, the small bridges, the gently lapping water in the myriad canals, were just the same.
They came to the Campo Santo Stefano, a long square filled with chic Venetians having a glass of wine together or enjoying gelato.
“Ooh. I want some,” Sarah said. After their meandering walk, she felt oddly happy, and rather calmer than she had been.
“Paolin has the best. Shall we go in?”
Sarah nodded. He held open the door and they waited to make their selection, taking their cups outside and finding a table.
She didn’t waste a second. One scoop of velvety hazelnut and one scoop of chocolate were smooshed together in her cup, a spoon stuck between them. Marco had chosen lemon and pomegranate. She fully intended to have some of his too.
Around them children played, watched by their parents and the occasional grandmother. Sarah and Marco ate their gelato slowly, trading cups and switching flavors as the mood took them.
She was watching an adorable pair of twin girls, about three, engrossed in a game of hide-and-seek. To hide, one simply closed her eyes, making her sister disappear, shrieking with glee when her arm was touched. They had dark hair tied back with ribbons and sweet little smocked dresses. Awww. Sarah thought of her own sisterless, brotherless upbringing, and was glad for them.
“Do you want to have children?” Marco asked suddenly.
“Yes. Not
right away, but eventually.” She spooned up her gelato, looking at him.
“Boys or girls?”
“Whatever. Just so long as—” As long as they were regular children. Not little sorceresses or wizards. She could just imagine what bedtime would be like for Marco’s offspring. “Hey, how does that work for you?”
He pushed aside his empty gelato cup and put his hands behind his head, leaning back. “I need a mortal. My mother was mortal.”
“Oh.” She remembered that his parents were no longer living. “They had a May-December marriage, huh?”
“That’s right. Do you want to get married?”
Sarah gulped down the cool, creamy lump on her tongue and pointed her spoon accusingly at him. “Stop trying to seduce me.”
“I was only asking.”
“The answer is yes, though. Someday.”
He shot her an enterprising look, as if he had gained a significant advantage without her knowing it. “To me?”
“Stop it, Marco. We’re not going to have this conversation. If anything happens between us…” She broke off, carefully scraping her cup while she thought about what she wanted to say. A lot of incredibly wonderful, weird, and delicious things had already happened. And it wasn’t as if some other man was going to be able to give her the life that he could.
But they still had to proceed at a mortal’s pace. She couldn’t keep up with him in his freaky realm or the magic and all that.
But doing the most ordinary things with him was just as magical. Oh, hell.
“Let’s go,” she said. Sarah collected their empty gelato cups, and got up. She tossed them into a nearby can, and headed down the first street she saw.
The street twisted and turned and got narrower. She kept on walking. Marco could easily have overtaken her, but he stayed a little ways behind.
Sarah looked up at the buildings, which seemed to lean on each other. Flowering plants trailed from wrought-iron balconies too narrow to hold anything else, intensely bright against the mellow walls of painted stucco and brick.
She saw the sign before he did: Arcana. Holy cow. The old bookstore was still here. Sarah stopped in her tracks and peered in the window. And it still sold magic books, by the looks of it. And scented candles and fairy windchimes and crystals and bedroom slippers embroidered with astrological signs.
“Do you believe this?” She turned to Marco, who caught up with her at last. “We have to go in.”
Sarah opened the door and led the way, inhaling the fragrance of incense and potpourri. She caught a flash of color toward the back, an indeterminate twilight hue, then saw who was wearing it. Someone with long white hair. Holy, holy cow.
Veronica.
The older woman’s back was to them and she was in the goddess section, taking down different books, glancing into them and putting them back on the shelf with a disdainful look.
Sarah went up to her. “Are you all right?”
Veronica turned to her. “Hello. I was wondering when you would find me.”
“Did you, uh, summon us?”
Veronica glared in Marco’s direction. He had stopped to chat with the plump, middle-aged clerk at the counter, who was obviously charmed by him. “I did. He kept blocking my vibration.”
“Oh.” It occurred to Sarah that it would be a very good idea to keep the two of them apart.
“These books are dreadful,” Veronica said. “And so inaccurate. I knew some of these goddesses. They weren’t anything like this.” She sighed and swept past Sarah, who noticed that her robes had dried, although they were wrinkled. “Come. Let’s go somewhere else.”
Sarah looked at Marco, who was pretending not to see a thing. “What about him?”
“Hmph.” Veronica pointed a finger and he vanished. The startled clerk emitted a ladylike gasp.
Sarah gaped. “Where is he? What did you do to him?”
“On Burano,” the older woman replied calmly. “It’s a fishing village. He will have to borrow a boat. Or steal one. I canceled his ability to transform for the next hour. He will probably just wait where he is.”
Sarah swallowed hard. If she protested, the sorceress might do the same to her.
Veronica swept out of the store, and Sarah followed her. “Where are we going?”
“To a favorite place of mine.” She went in a different direction from the way Sarah and Marco had come, almost gliding down the street, moving with such speed that Sarah found it difficult to keep up with her.
They ended up near the Rialto Bridge. Whew. Sarah blew out a breath. That was familiar to her. And it didn’t look all that different from when she and Marco had gone there in his gondola to the market.
Veronica went to a sidewalk café and chose a table that faced a church. “Sit down.”
Sarah was a little annoyed by her imperiousness, but she sat. Veronica ordered two glasses of white wine and an assortment of Venetian-style antipasti, and the waiter went away. In silence, they watched a few people walk by.
The sun was low in the sky, and the evening passeggiata would soon begin. Veronica glanced upward and Sarah did too, following her gaze to the tower of the church and its unusual clock.
“That is the oldest church in Venice,” Veronica said. “San Giacomo di Rialto. And it is on the site of a much older temple. One thing replaces the next.”
Sarah nodded. She was still looking at the clock, which was quite large, with many more divisions than she would expect.
“It is a twenty-four hour clock,” Veronica said. “It stops for a fraction of a second at midnight, before the twenty-fifth hour can begin. I will leave from here at that moment.”
“Oh.”
“But I wanted to talk to you.”
“About…” As if Sarah didn’t know. Marco, of course.
“He loves you, you know. For what it is worth. He didn’t love any of the others.” The anger in the older woman’s voice softened suddenly. “I can read his eyes. There is something very different in them when he looks at you.”
Just how did one conduct a conversation with a sorceress? General comments were probably best. “That’s interesting.”
“And you will meet again. He is impetuous but he is determined. He always has been. I could not hold him. I should not have tried.”
Sarah wished she could turn into a cat and slink away.
“To love someone younger is very difficult.”
Sarah looked up at the waiter, who had brought their wine and the food. She was thankful for the interruption, but Veronica waved him away when he’d set everything down.
Sarah picked up her wineglass and took a sip. Nice and dry. Sarah knew she would need it to get through a discussion like this. “I’m younger than Marco. By a few hundred years.”
Veronica smiled in a satisfied way. “Yes.” She attacked the plate of antipasti with a fork, spearing an artichoke heart and putting the whole thing between her full lips. She chewed slowly, with obvious relish. “It serves him right.”
“Can I say something?”
“Of course.” Veronica made another selection.
“I don’t know what happened between you, but you have to let go of the past.”
The older woman sighed and pushed the plate of antipasti over to Sarah. “Of course you are right. But seeing him again…it brought so many things back.”
Sarah chose a piece of salami, gossamer thin. It melted in her mouth, a flavorful slice of heaven.
“He was very young, and so many women liked him—it ended soon enough. I shouldn’t have, as I said. But there are very few sorcerers my own age. And they are far more vile than mortal men when they get old.”
Sarah drank her wine and ate. The evening shadows were beginning to slide over the buildings and beautiful old bridge.
“Anyway, I wish you luck,” Veronica said.
Sarah looked up, startled by the tenderness in the other woman’s tone. She couldn’t talk. She had an olive in her mouth and it had a pit.
“Love is wo
rth it. He does love you as he has never loved another. If you want him, he is yours.”
Veronica picked up her wineglass and drained it. “I do think the wine is better in the eighteenth century. “She patted her lips with the napkin, setting it aside as she rose from the table. “Ciao. You will have to pay for this.”
“Mrmf.” Sarah took the nibble pit out of her mouth to reply but Veronica had already walked away—or glided away.
She was glad that she’d stopped by the bed and breakfast to change and pick up everything a modern girl needed before going out with Marco. Sarah looked in her purse and pulled out a folded handful of euros. So Marco’s ex had stuck her with the check. Somehow it didn’t bother her. She felt sorry for Veronica.
Speaking of Marco, about an hour had passed. He had probably returned by now and was somewhere near his palazzo.
She had to pack up and get a good night’s sleep. Her flight left at midnight. He’d wanted to accompany her to the Marco Polo airport and she’d said no. Sarah didn’t want to make love with a big, gray, this-could-be-the-last-time cloud hanging over them.
From Marco Polo airport to Rome wasn’t too bad—an hour and a half. But once they’d landed a record-breaking storm hit, with torrential rain and high winds that grounded all flights. They weren’t even accepting bags, so she kept hers with her.
Sarah half-expected Marco to show up, claim responsibility for the terrible weather, and sweep her off to a fabulous hotel in Rome. But no. With thousands of others, she endured an eternity of standing in lines to get documents stamped, find something to eat, and wait for a bathroom stall. Everyone who could get out had gone and the stragglers wandered the concourse, looking unhappy. Sarah bought a new suitcase with wheels and emptied out her duffel bag, which was splitting at the seams. She tossed it, taking her time to repack, wrapping the gondolier’s sweater around her laptop. When she’d tried to return it, he’d waved her away, saying—Marco had translated—that his sweater was lucky to be next to her.
An airline employee announced that blankets and pillows would be handed out, and Sarah got in line for those too. She walked around the airport some more, laden with bedding, looking for something rare and wonderful: an electrical outlet. Old Faithful’s battery wasn’t going to last the night without it.