Love Spirits: What Happens in Venice: Book One (What Happens in Venice: The Trinity Ghost Story 1)

by Diana Cachey

  Louisa was now annoyed with the entire conversation. Ana asked questions that Louisa was supposed to be asking. Ana began to interrogate and offer information instead of Louisa doing it while slyly pretending to be there to reserve a room for Barbara.“I can reserve the room on the website and get the discount then maybe you can give her the canal view if I ask for it. Yes?”

  “Yes. Your sister’s trip, is about the ghosts in Venice?”

  Louisa found it harder and harder to refrain from asking Ana how she knew about the ghosts so she paused for a second to look directly into her eyes. She saw the answer. Ana learned it from Matteo, who knew everything. He most likely knew exactly when Louisa had arrived in Venice, where she was living, who she was associating with and what she was doing there. Ana’s knowing but concerned look said, be careful with Matteo, although Louisa recalled that Ana in the past had naively thought that all would be fine between the two lovers.

  Ana peeked over Louisa’s shoulder through the windows of the revolving door and became very busy with papers. She gave Louisa not a nervous glance but rather a compliant stance, one obedient not to the job but to whatever or whomever she saw outside. Matteo?

  Louisa clung to the hope of not being used again by Matteo or at least to the hope of resisting him. She ignored his sway on Ana and was emboldened. She decided to get the information she came for, despite whatever had been already said by Ana or anything that might have transpired outside the hotel’s revolving door.

  “Yes, I am doing research about the ghosts of Venice,” said Louisa,“and I want Angelica to tell me some stories about the hauntings in Murano,” said Louisa.

  Matteo’s older sister, Angelica, had been very close to Matteo until she married into a prestigious glassmaking family. Angelica, whose manner contradicted her name, led a life a crime with her brother during their teen years. The striking Angelica was also extremely jealous of Matteo as the only male offspring and primary heir to her father’s fortune in vineyards and other real estate holdings. When she married into the glassmaking family, it took her up a few notches in status and pitted her husband, Marco Demario, against her brother, Matteo. Thus, began one of those Venetian dramas that stemmed from wealth and influence, of which everyone never seemed to have enough. Angelica might be married to a rich and powerful man, but she also wanted the inheritance her father would bequeath to Matteo, unless he totally fucked it up.

  “Isn’t there a ghost, a fantasme, in your sister’s new house in Murano?” Louisa asked.“I remember a ghost that Angelica used to see.”

  “Ahm ... yea ... they says there was too much ghosts in Murano houses. And hers cause the home was a ... eham ... a nazisttower. I don’t know how to explique,” offered Ana using the best English she knew.

  A sharply dressed waiter walked by carrying a silver tray topped with crystal flutes and a plate of cheeses. Louisa had an idea. She put her finger up to Ana, a gesture for her to wait a second while she reserved a table for lunch near the piano. Louisa, certain that Matteo awaited her exit outside, intended to foil any plot to ambush her. Or whatever was the plan. Something was going on here that she had to fight. The game was on.

  “I want to know all about the Murano ghosts, the nazi tower, everything. Where can I find this history of her Murano house? And a history of nazisin Murano? What is the name of the Murano house? I can go research.”

  “There’s nothing, I think, public. About the house. Maybe in the municipio?”

  “The municipal office on Murano Island? What about your family?

  “My family I think maybe knows something or Angelica’s husband,” Ana said, who seemed not the least bit concerned with this conversation or about telling Louisa anything she knew of the Murano ghosts. Ana didn’t want to give too much information but she would offer enough to clue her in, to help Louisa figure it out, thereby protecting herself yet informing Louisa. Ana kept providing details and her enthusiasm increased with each new question.

  Louisa wondered about Ana’s motives.

  “What house was a nazitower?” asked Louisa.“When? What is the name of the calle, the street?”

  Ana eyes moved sideways, glanced towards the front door then she said,“I don’t know that.”

  Oh, but you do know that, and much more, thought Louisa.

  “Okay, this is good information,” said Louisa.“I miss your family. Say hello to Angie, to everyone, from me,” she said.

  She planned to walk away since Ana had clammed up but Ana, as if talking about hotel room reservations or giving directions to a customer, laid a map of Murano on the counter in front of Louisa. She pointed to a spot on the map near to the lighthouse, known as Faro. What she then said didn’t reference either the map or the beacon.

  “When I was young I saw one ghost in the house. I heard one girl singing.” Ana took a deep breath and appeared removed from the hotel. She seemed to be listening to the song of this ghostly girl.“I was really scare,” said Ana using the wrong tense of the word.

  “What did the ghost look like?” asked Louisa. She had not known that Matteo’s family had lived in Murano in the past. Matteo’s connection to the dead glassmakers just got stronger.

  “Mmm... white. She was praying, but she was without face. The face was completely black.”

  “Is that why you were scared? Because her face was black?”

  “You know, she were like Maria when were born Jesus. Yes, causewhen I saw her I get out from the bed and she look at me.” In her mind, Ana was clearly in that place where the vision took place, her home in Murano, not standing before Louisa at the DanieliHotel.“I run to my mother,” she finished.

  Louisa could see Ana consciously lose the haunted vision and return consciously to the front desk where rows of slots for keys sat behind her, room numbers under each one. She lifted a key and handed it to the guest who had walked up and requested it for that room number.

  “Mia mamma,” Ana began in Italian then decided to switch to English,“is always speaking of you.” She gently rubbed both of Louisa’s hands.“My mother holds everydaythe small book you gave her.” Ana, a darling teenager who graduated high school the previous spring, spoke English well but with an occasional wrong tense or missing word.

  “What is the small book that I gave her?”

  “Mmm something about a, mmm, angelo custode?It’s small, small, small.”

  “Oh, I think I remember now,” said Louisa. She recalled the book she’d given to Matteo’s mother years ago, a little book in Italian about angels. His mother said Louisa was an angel sent from God to save her son from his addictions and criminal inclinations. His mother had been wrong.

  Ana checked her watch.“Darling, I go eat,” she said, but not to stall or avoid the conversation. To the contrary, she wanted very much to continue telling Louisa about the Murano ghosts, but it was lunch time.

  Italians never work past this countrywide, almost legally imposed, unspoken yet understood, lunch deadline.

  “Okay, I go eat too,” Louisa said and pointed to the restaurant. She started to follow the host to her agreed upon table.“We talk later,” Louisa said in unintended, unconscious, broken English.

  Ana was already out the door, not wanting to miss the imposing lunch deadline.

  Yes, the lunch deadline.

  The mere thought of ghosts, haunted hotel rooms, Matteo and murder made Louisa hungrier and she wanted to eat more of the fabulous food they would spread before her. Very expensive food, she would relish at the Danieli, in its welcoming drawing room.

  The lobby boasted a stairwell of marble, intricately detailed with all manor of flourishes as was everything at this hotel. Bright and cheery, even on a foggy day, the lobby restaurant possessed a huge ceiling that beamed plenty of illumination through its ornate, hand-blown, stained-glass skylight.

  At night, however, the Danieli sometimes played the part of a haunted hotel.

  Louisa knew from experience that the hotel was haunted because a ghost in her room once got
so active it moved her to the point of yelling,“You’re scaring me, please leave.” To which, the phantom responded immediately. She heard it run from the bathroom, out the door, slam the door shut and clamor down wooden stairs. When she opened her door, locked from the inside, she found the hallway had no stairs nearby and its floor was not wooden but covered in the Danieli’s plush burgundy with green leafed carpet.

  A tuxedoed waiter arrived at her table with a plate of delicate cheeses, switching her Danieli experience from haunted memories to lunchtime.

  “Ahhhlunch,” she toasted with her Murano-blown fluted wineglass, an homageto her anticipated visit to the island’s municipal office and its ghost expert.

  **

  Otto (8) Ca’ Foscari Clue

  A writer from Murano named Roberto, an expert on Venetian ghosts, had been referred to Louisa by people at the municipality office. She knew of Roberto and had already written him about the ghosts. She’d mistakenly pretended she was asking about it for a Halloween party:

  Caro Roberto, I am interested in learning more ghosts on Murano. Where I can find in your book? We celebrate Halloween in American with pumpkin carvings and costume parties. I would like to include your traditions in my celebrations.

  The ghost expert, Roberto, although polite, seemed somewhat insulted by this request:

  Cara Louisa, I thought very much to your proposal, but I have to say,“No, thank you.” I want to explain myself and my position: this year, in more than 100 places in Veneto will take place“spettacoli di mistero”, a festival created using various kindof spectacles to give“voice” to several myths and legends of the places, exactly where they took life. Some stories risked seriously to be forgotten, and one of the reasons (not the only, but it helped), was the increase of Halloween parties, activities, events, that in the past 15 years took place in our society. The use of pumpkins is very ancient in our mountain communities, is used since centuries. We want to create a new conscience into young people, speaking of Ognissantiinstead of that Halloween. We don’t refuse it: everyone celebrates that night as he feels, but we cannot forget from where we come. So, it would be strange, for me, associate my name to an event to take place in Halloween contest. I’m sure you would agree with me. Sorry, not his time, not this event. Grazie per la comprensione, Un abbraccio (a hug), Roberto

  Louisa replied as followed hoping to repair the damage from her first email:

  Caro Roberto, You are so kind. Thank you for the history of Ognissanti and stories forgotten. I understand it is too important. Now I must tell you my true reason for contacting you. I am investigating for the police department and, I cannot say why I think this, you can help.

  Have you any information that might help locate houses occupied by Nazis during the war that could be haunted?

  His response, although cryptic, had led to the Ca’ Foscari library where she found a book containing a clue, a piece of paper wrapped in red ribbon and folded into a hexagram shape.

  When she unwrapped the paper, a poem was written in Venetian dialect, but for some reason, she could read it all. Another strange occurrence, she could only read the Ca’ Foscariclue once. After that she couldn’t understand the Venexiano. Too afraid to show it to a Venetian, she wrote out a translation from memory. Her memory of the poem was eerily perfect. It read:

  At night is when we walk the grounds,

  To find the places all around,

  Were we live a sober life,

  Free from watchful eyes and strife,

  We wondrous Venice ghosts abound.

  Beyond the sound of tolling bells

  But not so far from Venice swells

  Lies a ship of fishing fools,

  Lies a ship’s brass cutting tools,

  There sits a plate with tails that tell

  Louisa deduced that she would need to find the ship referenced in the clue. Probably she would have to scuba dive on it, explore it. To do that, she’d probably have to trust Matteo.

  The last thing she wanted to do, trust Matteo.

  **

  After her email correspondences with the ghost expert, she decided only to speak with him in person and not write anything else down. Before she met with him, she read all of his books about ghost legends, fantastic tales of haunted palaces and headless bodies or other frightening objects seen floating in canals or dancing inside abandoned buildings. Roberto documented, in a detailed fashion, many dark stories that Venetians had told and retold for decades.

  Roberto wasn’t happy about Louisa’s questions but eventually agreed to meet with her at his home. He told her to talk to a Burano fisherman named Bruno. Bruno could name every shipwreck in the lagoon.

  Louisa didn’t believe this was possible. She dove for years all over the world and treasure hunters continued to find new shipwrecks. The Venetian lagoon, although confined and shallow in spots, was also vast and remote. There was no way to tell how far out the shipwreck in the poem could be found. If it were off shore in the Adriatic sea, it could be sitting hundreds of feet deep. Even in the lagoon region, unknown islands, marshes and rivers existed that weren’t on any maps. Burano, a tiny ancient fishing village at the farthest reaches of the lagoon, was the next major island after Murano.

  She decided to visit Bruno despite her doubts.

  **

  The boat ride from Murano was uneventful. More than a few glass factory workers took the boat home after work to Burano, a fact not lost on Louisa. Nor did Louisa miss noticing that the Buranese were taller and stockier than most Venetians. Manlier men, perhaps?

  Once there, she tracked down Bruno easily. The island was much smaller than Venice, so everyone knew him. When Bruno saw the poem Louisa held in her hands, he shook his head then his fists. He refused to drink the coffee she ordered for him and mumbled to others in the bar. The bartender pulled both coffee cups off the bar and motioned her out the door.

  Alone and frightened, Louisa walked from the bar and tears swelled in her eyes. She’d not been shunned this way by any Venetian. Not even the meanest, jealous women from Venice, who felt her a threat to the handsome men, had treated Louisa as rudely.

  An old woman in a fur hat and coat came to comfort her, told her not to cry and silently mouthed the word, autiamo,help us. She stroked Louisa’s hand gently, looked into her eyes and again silently mouthed, verde, verde, verde, green, green, green. Louisa didn’t understand but when she tried to repeat it, the women slapped a hand across her mouth and rapidly shook her head back and forth. Then she turned and hobbled away.

  Louisa’s hand burned where the woman had touched it. She swore she saw the word verde written there. She tucked her hand inside her coat to protect it.

  On the ferry, a light rain must’ve washed the word off her hand. It disappeared.

  **

  With no idea what the odd woman’s words meant, she stopped at Murano Island on her way back to Venice. She decided to pay a return visit to the ghost expert and ask Roberto what verde could mean to the Buranese. She would not to tell him how they had mistreated her.

  “Why do you ask about Verde?”

  Not wanting to give anything away, she said nothing and simply shrugged. She couldn’t risk another dismissal, this time by Roberto. Worse, she might evoke interest in him, for this new ghost story, and he might try to follow her.

  “Where did you hear this word? It means green, that’s all,” he continued.

  “I know it means green. What could green mean, specifically, to the Buranese?”

  “Green,” he repeated trying to read her face for clues to a secret he knew she held.

  “Well,” she paused. She’d planned this conversation on the ferry to Murano but in the presence of Roberto, the ghost expert, he became like the ghosts themselves. He seemed to take over all her plans and she found herself talking when she had promised herself to stay silent.“I, I,” she stammered. Hurry, she told herself, he knows you’re stalling.

  “Ah, you must mean the island,” he offered.
r />   Damn. An island named Verde. He knew about it too.

  “Don’t worry, Louisa, I have no intention of going all the way out to Verde. I won’t ask the little couple with the cantina any question about this note, this poem from your ghosts.”

  Apparently he knew everything about it. And had just told her everything she needed to know in one sentence. With emphasis on the phrases all the way out and then on the clue, the little couple with the cantina.

  She laughed at her foolishness.“Roberto, if you knew the answers were on Verde Island, why did you send me to Burano?”

  “I didn’t know it,” he said.“Not until I saw your face when you walked through the door. The Buranesescolded you. They’re hiding something. Who told you about Verde?”

  Louisa said nothing, which said everything to Roberto.

  “Another ghost,” he said,“or perhaps another interested party.” Then he finished his coffee, walked to a cabinet and retrieved a bottle.“Grappa. The strongest I have. You’re going to need it.” This time the emphasis was on the word,“need.”

  After they each drank a small shot of grappa he’d poured for them, he said,“On second thought, take it with you. For the next time you visit Bruno, the Buranese.”

  “Grappa?”

  “Grappa. If you get him a little drunk -- and only this strong stuff will work because he drinks every day, all day -- then he may soften to you.”

  Louisa knew it wasn’t a second thought at all. It was the sole reason he retrieved the grappa. He didn’t intend for her to get him a little drunk either. Nor did he want her to soften him. The grappa would get that Buranese drunk and passed out, plain and simple. She supposed he thought her plan for Bruno and the other Buranese could evolve from there.

  He nodded as he saw her mind interpreting the grappa gesture. Then he nodded again as he held it up and looked her in the eyes.