Whispering Bones

by Rita Vetere

  * * * *

  ...riding her bike along the path next to the river, where it would be cooler, even though the fading sun tells her she should be getting home. Sudden shock, as rough hands grab her from behind, jerking her from the bik e— shock that turns quickly to terror . L ying on her back on the ground, she looks up at the massive silhouette of a man, his facial features distorted by the nylon stocking over his head. Tape over her mouth, stifling her scream as she struggles to get away. A glimpse of her overturned bike, one wheel spinning lazily in the fading light. Rough ground scraping across her back as he drags her into the nearby trees. Then, the glint of steel and the feel of cold metal against her throat as he...

  Stop.

  * * * *

  Anna willed herself to disconnect from the past, refusing to allow the black memory to have its way with her. She grabbed her purse from the ground and walked away from the grave, back to her waiting car. She hated coming here. Her visits to her mother’s gravesite always churned up emotions better left undisturbed.

  Chapter 2

  Venice, Italy

  1576

  Nine-year-old Isabella Moretti raced along the deserted streets toward home and safety. She kept to the main arteries, avoiding the maze of narrow back alleys that would shorten her route but where she would likely encounter the bloated, festering body of some poor unfortunate who had been left to die in the street.

  As she turned a corner and veered north along the canal, Isabella skidded to a stop, her heart clenching in terror. On the cobblestone pavement directly in front of her, a stray dog, its dirty fur matted and spiked, looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes. Then it growled deep in its throat before tearing savagely into a foul-smelling corpse, the body of a man which had been tossed like rubbish on the steps of a nearby dwelling. With eyes as round as saucers, Isabella watched the starving animal yank a strip of purple, bruised flesh from the stinking cadaver before hungrily devouring it.

  She quickly checked the front door of the residence and saw the clearly marked “X” indicating the presence of pestilence. One hand reached for the crucifix hanging from her neck. The other desperately clutched the satchel of food she’d been dispatched to obtain from her aunt. Isabella uttered a silent prayer, surrounded by the nightmare that had descended over the city in the form of the great mortality, the Black Death.

  Her heart suspended in the back of her throat, she slowly backed away from the animal and the infected body, hoping she had not come into contact with contaminated air. No one knew what caused the plague to spread from person to person. The Doge had issued a proclamation that drinking or bathing in the water was forbidden. The priests declared there was no hope. For their sins, the people of Venice were to die. Uncle Francesco, who had travelled to Lutece in France, said the sickness was rampant there too, and it had been determined that touching an infected person was the way the evil spread.

  Fear sat like a ball of lead in her stomach as she moved away from the dog and the foul-smelling corpse. When she felt it safe to do so, she turned and ran, and did not stop until she reached the main canal. The only other people she might encounter crossing the bridge were the three physicians who still traveled about the city. And the pizzicamorti, she reminded herself.

  Isabella was deathly afraid of the pizzicamorti, the masked men who moved about the city in their long, tarred black cloaks with gloved hands and bells at their ankles to herald their approach, the men who collected the plague-ridden bodies to be buried or burned. Papa had explained to her that the strange white hooked-nose masks worn by the pizzicamorti contained aromatic herbs to counteract the sickness, and were necessary to keep the disease away. But to Isabella, the pizzicamorti appeared nothing short of monsters.

  Arriving at the main canal, she slowed to a trot to allow the burning stitch in her side to ease. As she crossed the viaduct, Isabella looked out over the water. A large boat, heaped with the corpses of the day’s dead, emerged from beneath the bridge. The barge and its gruesome cargo, she knew, was headed to the Lazaretto on Santa Maria Island or to one of the other outlying islands, where the disease-ridden bodies would be burned or buried in mass graves.

  On the distant horizon, plumes of charcoal smoke had already begun to blacken the sky. The ghastly stench of rotting and burnt flesh hung heavily in the air, an odor that permeated the city daily.

  The sickness raged out of control in this, the second summer of the recurrence of the plague. Last week, she had heard Papa say more than five hundred were dying each day in Venice. The wealthy had fled to the countryside last summer, when the first victims had fallen prey to the dreaded disease. The remainder of the port city’s population, including Isabella and her family, did their best to remain indoors as much as possible. Even the churches had closed their doors, the priests refusing to attend at the homes of any who had taken ill. Instead, the dwellings of those who had been infected were marked with an “X”, and no one was permitted to enter or leave, the doors sealed and windows bricked up, imprisoning the sick inhabitants. Every few days, bodies were pulled from the marked houses by the pizzicamorti and taken to one of the islands for disposal. Those who were found alive in the pest houses were brought to the Lazaretto, the quarantine hospital on Santa Maria Island, although it was said few, if any, survived.

  Papa had turned to his sister, hat in hand, in the spring, when procuring food for the family had become a problem. Isabella’s aunt had a connection to one of the men who operated the delivery barges, and the man had been conscripted to obtain supplies for them. Still, no one in her aunt’s household dared venture out to deliver the supplies to Isabella’s family. Usually Papa, but sometimes her older brother, Roberto, made the weekly trip to pick up the food. By remaining indoors and rationing their food, the Moretti family had managed to keep from contracting the sickness for the past year.

  Then, yesterday morning, disaster struck. Death had pried its way into their home, placing its hand upon Roberto. Isabella had awoken to the sound of her mother’s bitter weeping, and Papa had taken her aside to explain Roberto had taken ill during the night.

  Standing in the doorway of her brother’s room, Isabella had seen her mother placing a wet rag on his fevered brow, while Roberto shivered uncontrollably on his bed. Mamma immediately ordered her out of the room, but not before Isabella glimpsed the walnut-sized lump on her brother’s neck, and the purplish splotches already covering his exposed skin. The stench of his sickness soon filled the house. All that day, her mother burned incense and kept a roaring fire going, said to be beneficial. But Roberto only worsened by the hour, the pus-filled lumps on his neck and under his arm growing larger, his delirium increasing. Toward evening, he began to vomit blood, and Isabella knew what that meant. The widow next door had begun to vomit blood on the day before she died. It was the tell-tale sign death was imminent.

  Before the sun had risen this morning, not knowing what else to do, her frantic parents bundled Roberto up, and Papa himself had taken her brother by boat to the plague hospital, the Lazaretto on Santa Maria Island, in the hope he might recover there. If Roberto remained with them, Papa argued with her mother, the house would surely be placed under quarantine and they would all be dead within the week. Isabella had not been allowed near her brother, not even to say goodbye, and she had cried broken-hearted tears long after the boat bearing Roberto disappeared on the horizon at sunup. With her father and brother gone, and her mother too grief-stricken over Roberto’s fate, it had fallen to Isabella to make the trip to her aunt’s house to pick up the week’s supply of food.

  Despair washed over her as she picked up her pace again. The thought of dear Roberto, alone and dying among strangers at the Lazaretto, was just too much to bear. Tears stung her eyes, momentarily blinding her as she reached the other side of the bridge, and she did not see the staggering man who stumbled toward her. Sometimes the sick, in their delirium, left their homes before they were targeted as plague houses to wander the streets. Only the man’s mad ranting
alerted her to danger in time. Fresh fear bit into her as she took in the man’s watery eyes and dirty clothes, encrusted with blood and vomit. He teetered back and forth along the edge of the canal, shouting loud curses at no one and waving his arms. From where she stood, Isabella could see pus oozing from the sores on his face. She watched as he bent and vomited viscous blood onto the pavement. When he began to cough, expelling phlegm and spittle into the air around him, she ducked away and ran for her life. She had not much farther to go, but her breath seared her lungs as she ran and the stitch at her side grew worse.

  When she could no longer continue, Isabella stopped and leaned against the wall of a nearby building to catch her breath. The stench of carrion had firmly entrenched itself in her nostrils, making her stomach roil. A wave of bitter anger suddenly swept through her at her predicament. She was only a child and should not be traveling the dangerous streets alone. Why had God permitted this sickness to ravage them?

  When her pounding heart slowed and her breathing returned to normal, she continued on the last leg of her journey, her anger spent. As she ran, she prayed again, asking God to deliver them from the evil pestilence which he had seen fit to rain down on the city.

  Chapter 3

  Toronto, Canada

  Present Day

  Anna woke up with a start and sat up in bed. She’d had the dream again. It always reared its head when she became stressed or anxious. Her pillow was wet, and she knew she’d been crying in her sleep. Anna waited until the nightmare and the unsettled feeling it always left behind dissipated.

  The last time she’d been plagued by the dream was about a year ago, and she felt sure her visit to the cemetery earlier that day had triggered it. The dream was always the same. In it, she stood alone in a forest late at night. In the sky above her, a pale full moon shone blue-white light. The sound of a crying infant reached her and she turned to see a wooden cradle sitting on the forest floor, inside it a wailing baby. She moved toward the infant to comfort it, but her movements were sluggish, like walking under water. Before she reached it, something winged and sinister swooped down from out of the darkness, snatching the crying infant from its cradle and carrying it away into the black night.

  In her apartment high atop the glass tower she called home, Anna turned and gazed out the wall of windows at the glowing orb of a moon in the velvety sky, unformed worry nagging at her. Just a case of nerves, she told herself. That’s why the dream had returned. Tomorrow evening she’d be on a plane bound for Venice, ready to start the most important project of her career.

  She threw back the covers and padded to the adjoining bathroom, retrieved a sleeping pill from the medicine cabinet and downed it. Anna studied her reflection in the mirror over the sink, relieved to see the dark blue eyes staring back at her did not reflect the tiredness she felt. Her skin, although a bit pale, remained unlined and the chestnut-colored curls falling past her shoulders showed no hint of grey. High cheekbones, an aquiline nose and generous lips lent her a decidedly Renaissance appearance. She could easily be mistaken for someone ten years younger. Thankfully, she had inherited her grandmother’s good genes. She would look presentable enough tomorrow, she decided.

  Back in her bedroom, Anna paused at the window before returning to bed. In the distance, the water of Lake Ontario sparkled in the moonlight. Directly below her, a well-preserved collection of Victorian industrial architecture sprawled along cobblestone streets. She never tired of the view, even after five years of living here. The contemporary tower housing Anna’s condominium overlooked the carefully restored buildings of the old distillery, which had once produced some of the finest whiskey in the country. It was this blending of past and present which had attracted Anna to the prestigious address, and she’d never regretted it, even though the place had come with a price tag of close to a million dollars. She could afford it. She’d done well for herself over the past fifteen years at Linley.

  A huge international architectural firm, Linley boasted design studios in London, Paris, Dubai, Rome, New York, Los Angeles and Toronto. Anna had jumped at the chance when she’d been offered a job at the Toronto location when it first opened. Since then, she’d worked her way up to becoming a Canadian leader in the architectural design field. Even so, it had come as a complete surprise to her when, after the company had been awarded the Venetian hotel contract, Anna had been requested by the CEO in London, England, to travel there for a meeting. Then, earlier this week, he’d informed her of his decision. She’d been chosen to head the design team for the project and was to fly to Venice to meet with Paolo Falcone, the head of the Italian firm financing the construction of the hotel.

  Anna talked herself into returning to bed. If she didn’t get some sleep, she’d be a jet-lagged mess tomorrow, and she wanted to put her best foot forward when she met with Falcone. She closed her eyes and allowed the little white pill to do its job.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Anna woke to a dull throbbing at her temples, an after-effect of the sleeping pill, and the shadowy remnants of the dream. She got up to make coffee, determined to throw off the oppressive feeling hanging like a cloud over her head. No dark thoughts would be allowed to enter her mind on this day, she decided. Nor would she allow her grandmother’s anger the previous day, or the damned dream, to interfere with her enthusiasm for the new project.

  After a quick shower, Anna dressed, then spent the next two hours packing for her overseas trip, making sure to include the Italian designer dresses she had acquired, as well as jeans and casual wear for site inspection. As an afterthought, she threw in a pair of sturdy boots, in case the ground conditions at the proposed site called for them.

  At one o’clock, she locked up the condo and dragged her luggage to the elevator. Once downstairs, she informed the concierge she’d be gone for a couple of weeks, then continued on to the underground garage, placed her bags in the trunk of her car and headed to the office to put in some work before leaving for the airport.

  Several hours later, finishing the last of the paperwork on her desk, she glanced up to see Ed Gromley standing in the doorway of her office.

  “All set?”

  “Pretty much. Just getting ready to leave.”

  He smiled at her. “I’m very proud of you. I know you’re going to do a fantastic job.”

  Ed was a kind man, probably the reason she had indulged in a brief affair with him last year—one which had proven disastrous. He’d wanted more from her and she’d not been able to give it. A year later, she still felt awkward around him.

  “Thanks, Ed,” she said without meeting his eyes.

  When she returned her attention to him, he was staring at her with a look of regret that had become all too familiar. But all he said was, “Knock ’em dead,” before he disappeared down the hall.

  At six o’clock that evening, seated in an uncomfortable plastic chair at the boarding gate at Pearson International Airport waiting for her flight to be called, she took out her cellphone to call her grandmother to say goodbye. A nurse answered, telling Anna her grandmother had already been taken to the dining room for the evening meal.

  “No. No message,” she said when the woman asked. “Just remind her that I’ll see her as soon as I’m back in town.”

  Twenty minutes later, Anna took her window seat on the Air Canada flight to Rome. From there, she was booked on a connecting Alitalia flight to Marco Polo airport in Venice. As the plane taxied down the runway, she replayed her grandmother’s conversation of the previous day. Why hadn’t she wanted her to make the trip? If something happened to Nonna while she was gone, she would feel terrible. The idea made her uneasy all over again.

  Chapter 4

  Venice, Italy

  1927

  Dr. Alberto Rossi adjusted his round spectacles and looked again at the slender, dark-haired woman sitting opposite his desk. Young and attractive, to be sure, but like all women, she required firm direction. When he spoke to her, his voice assumed the condescendin
g tone he reserved for all of his female patients.

  “Signora Marino, you are with child once again. Congratulations to you. However, you must keep in mind that, on the past two occasions, it is my opinion that your mental anxiety is what prevented you from carrying the child to full term. You must make a conscious effort to avoid negativity. Keep only pleasant thoughts in your mind—and I will prescribe a tonic, to be taken daily. Return to see me in a month.”

  Rosaria Marino, twenty years old and married for the past two to Massimo Marino, a gondola-maker, addressed the doctor. “Dottore, it is true that I am anxious. I want nothing more than to bear my husband a child. But my mother recounted to me how she lost three children before giving birth to me. Perhaps I inherited some physical problem from her?”

  Dr. Rossi looked over his spectacles and frowned at the young woman. “Are you questioning me? If so, you may leave this office and not return...signora.” He continued to stare disapprovingly at Rosaria until she lowered her eyes.

  “Of, of course not, Dottore, I just thought...”

  “Don’t think. Concentrate on the husband you claim to love and the child you will give birth to... If you follow my instructions.”

  Rosaria nodded, her eyes still lowered. Dr. Rossi softened his tone as he sent her on her way. “Very well. I will see you next month.”