Trevor scooted to the side, making room for Edo. He tucked his chin at the empty seat. “Please, join us.”
“Oh, that’s okay, I was just getting another plate.” He considered, then asked in halting English, “I bring a person something? Some . . . wine maybe?”
The table sighed appreciatively, “Oh, he’s so nice! Italians are so nice!”
It’s true, Edo was quite welcoming, but you must know that to English speakers, anything said in an Italian accent receives bonus points.
Someone piped up, “Can you imagine a Londoner asking a tourist if he could get him anything?” The table roared with laughter.
Edo, who hadn’t quite caught the words smiled awkwardly. Trevor touched Edo’s hand lightly before saying in Italian. “It’s okay. They’re just surprised that you would be so welcoming. We live in London, and being welcoming isn’t part of our DNA.”
Edo nodded, trying to ignore the way his heart flickered as a line of electricity snaked from his hand at the stranger’s touch. He started to mutter good evening before moving away, but Trevor reached out again, “Please, we’d love for you to join us.”
Edo scanned the faces looking up at him expectantly with a mixture of curiosity and welcome. Definitely no hostility. He smiled at Trevor and nodded. “Sì, I’ll be right back.”
“Luciano! Luciano!”
Luciano sighed deeply before turning around to face Massimo.
“Sì, Massimo?”
“Where is my wife?”
“Excuse me?”
“My wife! My wife!”
When Luciano didn’t answer quickly enough, Massimo moved closer to him, forcing the old man to take a step backward. “She’s gone, and I’ve talked to two different people who said they saw her on your doorstep.”
Luciano sighed. The busybodies of Santa Lucia. Even when the alleyways seemed clear, there was always an old woman who may pretend blindness but could spot a hair out of place from across the street and through gauze curtains. Leave it to them to find a way to tell Massimo that his wife had sought refuge at the home of the town drunk.
Only Luciano was not drunk.
And for that he was grateful, because this situation required great facility of mind.
“If you want to speak to Isotta, why not call her?”
Massimo made a low, growling sound. “I tried, she’s not answering her phone.”
“How odd.” Luciano smiled and moved away.
Massimo grabbed his arm. “Look, there may have been a little . . . quarrel . . . that perhaps she took more personally than she should have. You know women, always going off half-cocked at the tiniest problem.”
“Actually that’s not at all how I would describe my wife. Or my daughter.”
Massimo took a half-step back at the mention of his dead wife. “Well, no, Giulia wasn’t like that.”
“Hmm . . . no. One wonders from what well you draw your ideas about women.”
“Oh, come on. Everyone knows how moody and unpredictable women are. I’m hardly making that up.”
“As is your privilege,” Luciano started to turn away again, but Massimo’s hand stayed him.
“Not so fast old man. I want to know where Isotta is now.”
“I thought you said you knew?”
“Yes! But I went by your house. No one answered the door!”
“Well, then. That must have been some ‘quarrel’.”
Massimo’s grabbed Luciano’s arm. “Stop being coy. I must speak with her.”
Luciano’s gaze darted around, but the pocket of darkness shielded them from notice. No one even glanced in their direction. “Due respect, Massimo. But if she’s not answering your calls or your knock, it sounds like she doesn’t want to speak to you.”
“Well, like it or not, she’s going to have to.”
“The thing is, Massimo, she doesn’t have to do anything. I think that’s the place where you’ve been confused. She’s not your puppet, and she’s not your toy.”
Through clenched teeth, Massimo sneered, “Just what are you implying?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” Luciano lifted his arm in an attempt to disentangle it from Massimo’s grip. Then he stopped. “Actually, you know what, Massimo? I am going to tell you the thing nobody seems to have the courage to tell you. You are sick. A sick, sick man.”
Massimo jeered, “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take the words of a drunk loser too much to heart. You are hardly the man to judge me, you chose wine over your own granddaughter. What kind of deadbeat does that?”
Luciano’s eyes shuttered. “Yes. I did wrong by her, and in that way, I did wrong by my daughter. But here’s what I know: At least I am honest with myself about my mistakes, and I evolve and want to make amends to Margherita. Whereas you seem to think that replacing a dead wife with her physical twin is a perfectly reasonable way to cope. You don’t know Isotta. You don’t know her at all. Which is too bad, because somehow you happened to convince another wonderful woman to marry you, and now you’ve destroyed any chance you had to be happy together.”
Massimo moved closer to Luciano, his towering physical presence shadowing the smaller man. “First of all, you will never, ever get within ten meters of my daughter. And second of all, how dare you speak to me that way?”
Luciano sighed. “You are stuck, Massimo. You are so stuck you can’t even see how stuck you are. How stuck we all know that you are.”
Massimo pulled back his right arm, clenching it into a fist just as a spark from the fire landed on a particularly dry patch of hanging wisteria. Fanned by a passing breeze, the vine caught.
Luciano tried to duck, but his reflexes lagged. Massimo’s punch landed squarely on his temple. At the impact, Luciano spun wildly, arms flailing, and flew to the ground. His face skidded against the gravel walkway with a sound like tearing cardboard. Luciano struggled to roll over, to protect his face from another blow. An explosion of pain as Massimo kicked the fallen man’s thigh. Luciano grunted and tensed for another blow, but none came. He heard Massimo’s footsteps moving away, a crunching that faded into the crowd.
Gingerly, Luciano lifted his hand to his head. His fingers came away wet, and he realized the ground beside him was damp with his blood. He staggered into a standing position, wishing for his cane. Meanwhile, a small flame popped and spread, hungrily consuming the deadened vines that laced the castle.
The fire flickered momentarily. Perhaps it would have died out without ever being noticed, as fires so often do, if there’d been even a slight bit of grace. But grace was in short supply in Santa Lucia just then.
A bracing breeze freed yet more sparks from the flames prattling around the roasting cinghiale, and they provided reinforcements for the lagging tendrils of fire.
Up above the heads of the chattering crowd, nobody noticed the gathering glow, the heat that was now cackling, gaining momentum, racing up the curlicues of vine and catching on the weathered wood of the arbor. From here it was a simple matter to leap to the straw wine holders arrayed on the table of local wares. It was at this point that the greedy flames were finally noticed.
It was Fabrizio who first spied the flames licking the dry plywood. He had come to the sagra impatient to find Chiara, but instead discovered a conflagration that could bring Santa Lucia to her knees.
His gaze held, spellbound, as he choked out the words, “Fire . . . fire . . .”
With herculean effort, he broke the magnetic thrall of the flames consuming the pamphlets. A spray of embers shot into the intensifying breeze. He ripped his vision away and faced the crowd, “Fire! There’s a fire! Where is the fire department? Someone call them! Everyone down the steps! Orderly, people, orderly!” He shouted as various screams sounded through the clotted gathering.
The irrelevant part of Fabrizio’s brain mulled that this hysteria was probably akin to the pandem
onium that chased the people of Pompeii to their deaths. And that one exit would create a bottleneck of people pushing forward to escape. He offered a prayer to the God he had thought he no longer believed in, begging please, please, get everyone out safely. Where was Chiara?
Even as he had the thought, the wind whipped the fire into a demonic rainbow above the crowd. It leapt across the castle, into the vines that tethered the rock wall, and fell like a shower onto the dry grass that stretched along the olive groves.
“The trees!” Someone in the crowd shrieked, “The trees!” Whipping off coats, several of the townspeople rushed forward to try to smother the flames even now racing along the hidden roots to the beloved olive groves.
“Ai! It burns! Help! My hand!”
“I can’t get closer, the fire—”
“There’s—oh my God! More, help!”
“Oh, Madonna! Another tree! I can’t stop it!”
“Help me! HELP!”
“The arbor, watch out! MOVE, everyone, the arbor!”
With a snap and a creak the arbor—engulfed now in flames—plunged forward, cleaving the darkness with a trail of fire. It crashed to the ground, the blaze exploding upward. Fabrizio felt a burst of heat on his face. A shriek beside him. Sauro was on fire, tongues of flame spreading up his arm. The baker flung himself to the ground, rolling madly.
All around, people fell like trees or crumpled like paper. Rolling and yelling for water.
Beneath the high-pitched wailing, a bass of footfalls as people scrambled to the stairs.
The townspeople ran erratically around the walls of flames that now created dead ends along the festival grounds.
Fabrizio took off his own coat and rushed toward the rosemary hedge nearest him, already smoldering. “Ah!” He shouted as the fire catapulted to burn his leg. The olive tree burst into flame. No coat could put out this inferno. The groves were in danger of complete annihilation. Was Chiara out there?
“Chiara!” he bellowed, “Chiara!”
Magda had left the sagra early. Seeing the stupid tourists gabbing with the residents of Santa Lucia when nobody would give her the time of day was too galling. She had stayed long enough to make sure the setup matched her expectations, and to get a heaping plate of cinghiale. When she had turned with her plate to face the humming crowds, she suddenly felt ridiculous. Alone, with a plate garishly piled with too much food for one person. Vale, the town handyman, stood and shouted, gesturing for her to join him, a grin lighting his face. Immediately Magda’s heartbeat concentrated. She was wanted, valued finally for her tireless work for this wreck of a town. Her smile wavered, but she stood straight and began walking to join him, when she felt Stella brush by her. Stella’s plate held mostly pasta with shreds of porcini mushrooms, and just a suggestion of cinghiale. She practically shimmied as she approached Vale, his smile gaining in warmth as Stella moved close enough for him to casually pull her in by her elbow. Magda stood another moment, unsure. Willing Vale to see her and realize he’d meant for her to join them. But no, his head was lowered with Stella’s in conference.
It was indecent.
If she were Dante, she would not put up with it.
Her head whipped around to find the mayor. There he was, standing with Giuseppe slicing one of the cinghiale. Dante should be warned. His wife’s shameful behavior should be exposed! The mayor was a cuckold! But a soft voice, more of a footfall, really, whispered that being the author of someone’s misery would hardly make her feel better. The thought smarted, like a slap. She turned on her heel, and marched down the stairs, tossing her full plate into the trash can.
Back at home, she’d thrown together a can of tuna with a handful of rice salad and parked herself on her garden bench with her plate and a half-glass of wine.
She listened to the sounds of a giddy crowd. Someone had brought an accordion. Cheers greeted the first full notes of music. No one noticed that the person who had been the savior of this whole festival was absent. Nobody. She may as well be invisible.
“Magda?”
A voice called from her garden gate. Magda wiped the stupid tear that was threatening to spill over her lower eyelid.
“Chiara? What is it?”
“There you are! I was looking around the festival for you, but didn’t see you, and wondered if you were okay.”
“Oh. That was nice of you. But I don’t want to take you away from all your millions of fans.”
Chiara laughed bitterly. “Can I join you?”
“Sure. No, wait, let me get the wine and bring it out.”
“No, no . . . you look so settled and comfortable. I’ll grab it. In the kitchen?”
“Yes. Glasses to the left of the sink.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
Magda looked out over the valley, the lights of Girona winking in the distance, not unlike the flickering of firelight. A soft breeze moved the hair curling against the nape of her neck. The gate creaked, announcing Chiara’s presence.
“I brought the bottle. In case you needed another glass.”
“I’m still on this one, but thank you.”
“Of course.” Chiara sat down next to Magda with a sigh. Even in the half-light of the garden lamp, Magda thought Chiara looked beautiful. She wished it didn’t make her irritable. It was considerate of Chiara to come visit.
“So Magda, you didn’t feel up for the sagra?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Well, that’s a lie. Something . . . happened today. And it brought back a lot of memories. Of my husband.”
“You never talk about that.”
“What is there to say?”
“I don’t know. I’d be furious.”
“Are you furious at your husband?”
“Of course I am. When I’m not feeling relieved that I don’t have to pretend I care what he thinks anymore. In any case, for all I know he’s dead.”
Chiara snorted. “Well, I guess our circumstances are different. After all, Francesco didn’t disappear in a foreign country. He went to jail for having sex with a prostitute.”
“A 13-year-old prostitute.”
“Thank you, Magda. I was on the verge of forgetting. How helpful to have that reminder.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it as a barb, just that the man was clearly trash. What kind of man lusts after little girls? Who pays those mothers for the privilege of rutting on whores-in-training who want to buy the latest cell phone? Really, I see it as a blessing that that man is out of your life.”
“Do you?” Chiara took a breath, and continued, “Because I see it as there must be something deeply wrong with me that my husband would do that.”
Magda turned toward Chiara. “Chiara. You can’t be serious. You can’t possibly see this as your fault?”
“Sometimes I do. I guess when I’m lonely.”
“That’s just crazy,” Magda huffed, conveniently forgetting that in weaker moments, she herself had implicated Chiara. “So all the wives of the other men who got caught as part of that sting, they are all complicit, too?”
“Well, I never thought of that.”
“Think about it then.”
Chiara mulled quietly, swirling her wine before taking a sip. “No, I would never blame those wives.”
“Esatto!” Magda said, triumphantly.
A scream cut through the thickening night air.
Magda and Chiara looked at each other, their expressions suddenly twin-like with furrowed eyebrows and gaping mouths.
Chiara stood, “What was that? Somebody excited?”
Magda stood beside her, “No, it can’t be. I know what that scream means.”
Chiara’s head tipped to the side, but before she could ask, Magda answered, steel in her voice, “I grew up in a h
ousehold that cherished that sound. Someone is terrified.”
Magda’s heart leapt into her throat and she began bolting toward the sound, repeated now, over and over by more voices, in heightening volumes. Chiara took a moment to grasp what Magda had just revealed and put it together with what she knew of Magda’s background and the episode with the amulet. Then she ran, hard on Magda’s heels.
As small shouts of surprise gurgled like soap bubbles, popping in the increasing heat, Edo leapt up and addressed the table of tourists. “Don’t panic! Everyone form a line. Let’s go, now!”
Edo assisted an older woman, disentangling her from the bench and table that were suddenly a knotted maze. He felt momentarily grateful that they were at the edge of the sagra, adjacent to the stairs. Fear was nipping at his ankles, and he was desperate to get the tourists out so he could join the townspeople fighting the fire. He held out his arms wide, as if herding spooked livestock, and ushered the group down the steps.
He shouted to be heard above the chaos, “Everyone, go to the piazza. Do not leave Santa Lucia! The fire department will need a clear road.” Edo nodded at Giuseppe who was running into his butcher shop to grab his fire extinguisher. “You’ll be safe in the piazza. Please, wait there.” Seeing the mix of slow or no understanding on the faces of those looking at him, his ribcage clenched, “Trevor, translate? I need to go. Those groves, they’ve been there for a thousand years. The soul of Santa Lucia is in those trees . . .”
Trevor nodded quickly. With his booming baritone, he relayed the information both in English and Italian to the assembled tourists, adding that they needed to clear the streets quickly so the townspeople could do their work. He aimed them to the piazza, and then snagged Edo’s elbow as he fled Bar Birbo and raced up the castle steps, fire extinguisher in hand,.
“Let me help!”
“What? Oh, no, there is nothing, without an extinguisher there is nothing . . .”
“You don’t have another one?”
Edo stopped, thinking. He nodded and ran back into the bar, snatching up the fire extinguisher at the door leading to the terrace. His gut tugged, as he thought of Chiara. Where was she? What if she’d gone into one of the open rooms of the castle and was trapped, a wall of flames preventing her escape? His breath grew shallow, and he launched the extinguisher to Trevor. “Let’s go!”
Book One of the Santa Lucia Series Page 30