by Ann Hood
In January, a college student named Samantha had come to Elm Medona selling knives. To help me pay for my college tuition! she’d explained brightly.
Then Samantha had proceeded to cut all sorts of things in half with these supersharp knives: a tomato, a slab of raw steak, a piece of wood, and finally a shiny penny. Even though their mother had no need for knives at all since a very fancy set of French knives hung in the Kitchen, she was a sucker for someone with, as she called it, gumption. I’ll take the deluxe set, she’d told Samantha, who in a flash as quick as she’d sliced that penny produced a credit-card machine and had taken their mother’s American Express card. Samantha handed their mother a Y-shaped vegetable peeler and a complicated manual can opener as bonuses for buying the deluxe set. Then she was gone, and the knives had never left their polished wooden box lined with fake red velvet.
Until now.
One table in the Kitchen was lined with perfect circles of dough left by Cook to rise overnight. The air smelled yeasty but also of the strong cleaning solution that Great-Uncle Thorne insisted they use here. While Felix unearthed the knives, Maisie took the shard from her neck and wiped flour from the marble-topped counter before setting it down there.
Felix stared into the box, the knives inside all lined up against the fake red velvet, glistening. He remembered Samantha, with her blond hair held back by a hot-pink headband and her crookedly lined eyes, like she’d just learned how to put on makeup. She’d worn funny shoes, too, ugly brown ones with what his mother called a practical heel. And clear panty hose a shade too dark for her skin tone. Darling, his mother had announced as she clutched her deluxe set of knives and watched Samantha teeter off across the snowy driveway to her used green Toyota.
But which knife would do the trick now? Felix wondered. The one that so easily cut that penny? Or this bigger one that had sliced that block of wood in half? His fingers tentatively touched the skinnier one. Samantha had seemed especially proud of the way it had sliced a tomato. But how hard was it to do that? Felix had thought then, and thought again now. Still, his mother had gushed over that, too.
“What on earth are you doing over there?” Maisie demanded.
“Choosing the right knife for the job,” Felix said, quoting Samantha.
“Just grab any one and let’s go!”
Not only was Maisie tired and grumpy, but now that Felix had figured out what to do, all she could think of was Great-Uncle Thorne in that ICU. He could die at any minute!
“Hurry!” she yelled at Felix.
He appeared wielding a big shiny knife.
“It’s the one that cut that penny in half,” he explained.
“Whatever,” Maisie said, and took the knife from him before he started to worry over exactly how to do this.
She held the knife on the shard, then paused.
“Which way?” Maisie asked.
“What?”
“Well, I could cut it longways,” she said, slicing the air above the shard. “Or crossways.” She sliced the air the other way to demonstrate.
“Gee,” Felix said, “I don’t know. I mean, the shards are so tiny in the picture. They just look equal in size.”
Maisie and Felix both stared at the shard on the marble counter.
“Crossways,” Maisie said.
“Longways,” Felix said at the exact same time.
They looked at each other, then back at the shard.
“Crossways,” Felix demurred.
Just as Maisie agreed, “Longways.”
They looked at each other again.
Then Maisie took a deep breath, lifted the knife, and cut right through the porcelain shard crossways. Maybe it was a good thing that Felix had taken so long to choose the proper knife, because it slid through the shard easily, as if it were made of butter.
Really, there was no need for them to go up to The Treasure Chest. Felix had the seal in his pocket, and they both had half of the shard on yarn around their necks. But Maisie thought it would be better luck for them to leave from The Treasure Chest. For one thing, who knew if the shards would actually work the way they thought? For another, they needed luck to save Great-Uncle Thorne.
Together, Maisie and Felix pressed the spot on the wall that caused it to open. They walked, single file, up the stairs to the Treasure Chest and stepped over the velvet rope that hung across the doorway. The Treasure Chest felt oddly cold, and Maisie and Felix both shivered when they entered. Felix noticed that the stained-glass window that sent beautiful rays of light and color across the room in sunlight appeared flat and blank in the darkness.
“Ready?” Maisie asked, holding out her hand.
Felix took the gold seal from his pocket, pausing ever so slightly before he offered it to Maisie to touch. If the shard didn’t work, and he got separated from Maisie, he would be in a foreign country, in a foreign time, unable to communicate or understand. If—
“Felix!” Maisie said.
Felix nodded and held the seal out for his sister to touch.
As soon as she did, he felt himself being lifted off the floor. He glimpsed Maisie, grinning as she tumbled. He smelled Christmas trees and all the wonderful smells that the wind carried on it.
Then, for an instant, nothing.
And then Felix and Maisie landed and a fair-haired, curly-headed boy was standing over them, staring wide-eyed.
“Well,” he said with a smirk. “Where did you come from?”
Maisie looked at Felix and smiled.
Felix smiled back.
They had both understood the boy perfectly.
CHAPTER 6
SANDRO
The boy pointed at them and smiled, too.
“I have never seen such costumes,” he said, nodding approvingly. “The Cat. The Owl. The Fool. All so common. But this—”
Here he swept his hands in a grand gesture.
“This is unique,” he finished.
Felix glanced around the room. It seemed to be a laboratory or studio of some kind, with long tables covered with wood and bottles and what appeared to be a pile of hair. The smell was vaguely familiar, and although Felix couldn’t quite place it, it reminded him of his father.
The boy wore what looked like tights peeking out from beneath an ankle-length robe with long flowing sleeves. Over this he wore a green jacket, and over that a stiff white apron.
Seeing Felix studying his clothing, the boy shrugged.
“I was making paintbrushes,” he said.
He scooped up a handful of the coarse hair piled on the table as if in explanation.
“You’re a painter?” Maisie said, her voice hopeful.
The boy puffed up his chest.
“I am indeed,” he said.
He gave them a quick half bow, bending slightly at the waist.
“Sandro Botticelli,” he said by way of introduction.
Maisie frowned in disappointment. Here she was all the way back in Renaissance Florence, and she meets a painter no one’s ever heard of.
“Your hair,” Sandro said to Maisie with a sigh, “it’s beautiful.”
“It is?” she said, her hands instinctively smoothing her mess of tangles.
Unruly. Out of control. A wasp’s nest. She’d heard it all when it came to her hair. But beautiful? Never.
“The color,” he said, peering at the top of Maisie’s head, “it’s natural?”
“Well, of course it’s natural,” Maisie said, insulted.
He nodded, unaware that she’d been insulted. Or maybe he didn’t care.
“Clearly you are from the north,” he said as if he were thinking out loud. “Venice, perhaps? Or Milan?”
These were obviously rhetorical questions because Sandro kept on talking without waiting for an answer, circling Maisie as he spoke.
“Here,” h
e continued, “some women have to put dye in their hair three times a week to achieve this color. And for the face!”
He stopped circling Maisie and instead stood way too close to her, studying her face.
“For nine days they soak white beans in white wine. Then they pound the beans”—Sandro made a fist and pounded the air between him and Maisie—“and return them to the wine with goat’s milk, barley, and egg whites, and they let that sit for two weeks.”
He slumped his shoulders in fake exhaustion.
“Finally, they have the face water to wash their skin every day and make it pale and lovely.”
Sandro gave Maisie a small smile.
“Like yours,” he said softly.
Maisie felt herself blushing.
“Tell me,” Sandro said, still standing close to Maisie, “does everyone where you live have this yellow hair, this pale skin?”
“Not everyone,” Maisie managed to answer. She was trying to think of a boy cuter than this Sandro Botticelli, but couldn’t.
Sandro slapped his hands together, breaking the spell.
“I know!” he said. “I, Sandro Botticelli, will create a mask for you!”
“A mask?” Felix asked, happy to intrude. Sandro seemed to have forgotten Felix was even in the room.
At the sound of Felix’s voice, Sandro spun around to face him.
“Who are you again?” he demanded.
“Felix Robbins,” Felix said. “Her brother.”
At that, Sandro’s face softened.
“Ah! The baby brother!” he said.
Maisie giggled. “Yup,” she said. “He’s my baby brother.”
Felix glared at her, but she ignored him.
“Okay, baby,” Sandro said, “I will make you a mask, too.”
“A mask for what?” Felix said, frustrated.
“For Carnival!” Sandro exclaimed, as if Felix was the dumbest person he’d ever encountered. “That’s why you came to Florence, isn’t it? For Carnival!”
“That’s why!” Maisie agreed readily.
She put herself back in Sandro’s line of vision. “You’ll make us both masks?” she asked.
“Absolutely!” he said.
Cool, Maisie thought. We’ll have the best masks at the fair at school. She imagined the look on Bitsy Beal’s face when she caught sight of Maisie’s authentic mask, made by a real Renaissance artist.
“For now,” Sandro said, “I must finish the task of completing these brushes. But perhaps after dinner we could walk?” he said, again speaking only to Maisie.
“Walk? Where?”
Sandro laughed with great enjoyment.
“That’s what we do here in the evening!” he said. “We stroll. Arm in arm.”
He linked his arm through Maisie’s.
“Like this,” he said.
Maisie swallowed hard.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll walk with you.”
As quickly as he’d taken her arm, he dropped it.
“I’ll meet you on the San Giovanni Bridge, then?”
His eyes flickered over Felix.
“Baby brother will already be asleep, yes?” he said, his eyes twinkling.
“No,” Felix grumbled.
“So,” Maisie said as she watched Sandro return to his work, “what time on the San Giovanni Bridge?”
“When you hear the bell that sounds like a cow,” he said. “Moo-oo!”
“The bell that sounds like a cow,” Maisie repeated to herself. “Got it.”
She only hoped she could wait that long. Suddenly, the idea of strolling with Sandro Botticelli sounded like the best idea she’d ever heard.
“What a pompous jerk,” Felix said as soon as they stepped outside into the damp early-morning air.
“Mmmm,” Maisie said, not listening. She thought he was pretty cute.
“I don’t want his dumb mask,” Felix said, even though he did want it. Surely it would be the best mask of the entire class.
He paused to glance around.
They were standing on a cobblestone street surrounded by stone buildings, many with balconies hanging over the street. Alleys and other streets twisted and turned everywhere Felix looked. Ahead, he could see a large plaza. Behind, an arched bridge stretched across a river that appeared green in the misty morning light.
“What shall we do with an entire day in Florence?” Felix asked, his wound from Sandro’s teasing beginning to dull, and the excitement of being where they were taking hold.
Maisie didn’t answer. She just stood there all dreamy-eyed.
Felix elbowed her in the ribs.
“Hey!” he said. “What do you want to do?”
She took another peek back at the building where, inside, Sandro made his paintbrushes, then sighed and shrugged.
“I don’t care,” she said.
“Fine,” Felix said.
He pointed toward the bridge.
“Let’s go that way, then.”
Men had begun to fill the streets, walking in groups of three or more, heads bent together as if in very important discussion. Some of them stared at Felix and Maisie as they passed, whether because of their unusual clothing or the fact that there seemed to be no children out and about, Felix couldn’t tell. But remembering his horrible time in the workhouse, and then in that terrible chimney, he worried that maybe they shouldn’t be out on the street at all. But where could they take shelter?
Oblivious, Maisie stopped to watch as some men set up tables right on the street. They placed impressive boxes on top, and when they unlocked the boxes Maisie saw that they were full of money.
“Are they selling something?” she wondered out loud. But they had no goods to sell. “Or maybe giving money away?”
Felix touched her arm.
“Look,” he said as a man began to count his money.
There, stamped right on the money, was the giglio.
“What are you children doing here?” the man asked gruffly.
He was a portly man with a big black mustache and the kind of eyebrows that look like one long caterpillar stretching over his heavy lidded eyes.
“Uh . . . um . . . ,” Felix stammered, suddenly afraid they weren’t supposed to be there.
“Go back home where you belong,” the man barked. “Or I’ll feed you both to the lions.”
With a sinister laugh, he gestured behind Maisie and Felix and then returned to arranging his money on the table.
Slowly, Maisie and Felix turned around.
There, across the small piazza, two lions paced in an ornate cage.
“Lions?” Felix managed to gasp. “Again?”
“At least these lions are locked up,” Maisie pointed out.
“Still . . . ,” Felix muttered.
“I don’t think they really feed children to them,” Maisie said.
Felix glanced at the man as he peered from beneath his unibrow.
“I’m not so sure,” Felix said.
Maisie slapped his arm playfully.
“Come on,” she said, not waiting for him but instead forging ahead. “Let’s see what’s down by the river.”
Felix glanced at the lions again, a slow shiver spreading up his arms.
No problem, he said to himself.
Maisie and Felix happily wandered along the Arno River for the rest of the day. They stopped to study the goldsmiths and furniture-makers working in their shop windows, unaware of the children staring in at them. Each craftsman worked in an area filled with others doing the same work: all the goldsmiths were grouped together, all the furniture-makers. And then the feather merchants and candle-makers.
The day passed pleasantly, Maisie and Felix transfixed by the way the men shaped table legs from wood, or put fire to soft g
old, or dipped the wicks into enormous pots of melted white wax to make pillar candles. A candle-maker leaving his shop offered them some bread and a chunk of smelly cheese, which they accepted readily, although Felix skipped the cheese.
As they approached the Ponte Vecchio, the harsh metallic smell of blood filled their noses. That bridge, they soon saw, was where the butchers set up shop. All kinds of raw meat hung from hooks and dripped blood in puddles along the bridge. Innards hung there, too, disgusting trails of intestines and organs that made Felix have to look away. Maisie poked him in the ribs and he glanced up just in time to see a pig’s head grinning at them.
“Gross!” he said, focusing on his feet again and trying to avoid the oozing blood.
It seemed to take forever, but finally they were across the Ponte Vecchio and away from the meat and the butchers in their blood-splattered smocks.
A bell rang, low and mournful, marking the time.
“Does that sound like a cow to you?” Maisie said hopefully.
“Maybe,” Felix said, remembering that they were getting to meet with that pompous Sandro Botticelli.
The bell rang again, Maisie carefully counting to check the time.
“That’s definitely the one,” she said. “Let’s hurry!”
They moved through the thick crowd of Florentines out for an evening stroll, making their way to the Piazza della Signoria.
There, Maisie stood right in the center, scanning the people’s faces for Sandro’s, while Felix sulked beside her. “Let’s hurry to the bridge!” Maisie shouted.
“He’s probably not even coming,” he finally said, relieved. “What a jerk.”
“Who exactly is a jerk?” someone asked, his voice mocking.
Felix looked up, straight at Sandro standing before them. “No one,” Felix said, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
“Ah!” Sandro said. “All right, then.”
He linked his arm through Maisie’s.
“Shall we stroll?” he asked.
Maisie could only nod.
When Felix began to walk on the other side of Sandro, Sandro halted.
“I will return her safely to this very spot at ten o’clock,” he said.