‘Really? Why don’t you go?’
‘I don’t know, I always mean to but then I get busy with life, I guess. Our friend Dario is partly to blame for that.’
‘Oh, what did he do?’
‘Cosa non ha fatto lui… Ahi. Well we were engaged for a long time. He used to work on the boat with me but he never liked being at sea so he moved to Seville to start his tour company. We kind of drifted apart after that.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Ilaria said sympathetically. ‘Does it ever get any easier?’
‘Does what get easier?’
‘Life?’ Ilaria asked, pleadingly.
Silvia shook her head before finding the words to respond. ‘No, it’s always this way.’
Silvia stood and went to adjust the course of the sailboat. She licked her forefinger and held it up in the air.
‘The wind is still blowing in our favour. We should make the most of this before it changes direction.’
‘How can you tell just with your finger?’ Ilaria asked, fascinated.
‘Well, if you lick your finger, the wind will cause you to feel a cold sensation, so by holding it in the air you know which direction the wind is coming from depending on which part of your finger feels the coldest.’
‘You know a lot of interesting things.’
‘I never was one for an office job.’ Silvia winked at Ilaria and set them at a direct trajectory towards Sicily.
Hours passed by peacefully and the sun began to set, casting rich purple hues across the stern of the sailboat where Ilaria had curled up in a ball, wrapped in a blanket. It was a beautiful Moroccan woollen cover that Dario had bought for Silvia on a trip he made to Tangier. It was incredibly comfortable and warm and it made her feel safe.
A couple of days passed with the same routine. The winds had changed direction and they were now sailing against them. It had slowed them down but they were still making reasonable progress.
Sailing, Ilaria realised, gave you plenty of time to reflect. Something about the simplicity of it. The endless surrounding ocean somehow simplified the task at hand. Her worries seemed to lessen as she could do nothing about any of them; for now, she was heading for Palermo and that was all she needed to consider.
As another evening sun rested on the horizon, Ilaria spotted splashes in the water. It was a family of dolphins jumping in and out of the sea, causing ripples to reflect the light of the increasingly reddening sky.
‘Dolphins,’ Ilaria cried out, ‘They’re wonderful, Silvia!’
‘Yes, you often see them around this area. We’re near the border of Algeria and Tunisia. They enjoy the beauty of the sun setting as much as we do. Dolphins are one of the most beautiful, kind and intelligent creatures in the world.’
‘Is that why we have theme parks where you can go to see them?’
‘Yes, I am afraid so, it is one of the horrible things us humans do. We see something beautiful and then we take control of it and turn it into a business. No matter what suffering is caused. If it were up to me I would free all the animals in the world.’
Ilaria went quiet suddenly, thinking about her family and the dragons. They too were magnificent animals, surely they belonged in the sky and not underground. Ilaria imagined how painful and restrictive it must be to live in those tunnels. She thought about the dream when she had seen the dragon, and wondered if it were a truthful depiction.
‘Are you okay, Ilaria? You seem worried about something.’
‘Oh, it’s nothing. I was just daydreaming.’
‘Are you sure? You could capsize the boat with the weight on your shoulders.’ Silvia looked past Ilaria then and her expression changed. She ran quickly to the side of the boat, panicking. ‘Oh no!’
Ilaria ran to her side to see what had happened. It was there they saw a baby dolphin flapping about uncontrollably, a plastic bag wrapped around its snout. The dolphin’s family circled it, helpless.
‘We have to help it,’ Silvia said, as she began to tie a safety cord to her floatation device. ‘Ilaria, I need you to keep control of this line. You’ll have to help me back to the boat when I’m finished.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Ilaria asked, as she held onto the safety cord.
Silvia climbed up onto the side of the boat closest to the dolphin and readied herself to jump into the ocean. ‘Don’t worry, just keep hold of the line.’
Silvia dived in, floating instantly to the surface. She swam towards the dolphin and tried to calm it down so she could unwrap the plastic bag. The dolphin continued to flail about but Silvia managed to peel away the bag and she tucked it underneath a strap on her outfit.
The dolphin swam back to its family and after a moment of relief, made a beautiful sound, calling out towards Silvia. Ilaria liked to think that it was saying thank you. Silvia plunged her hands deep into the water around her and looked furious.
‘Ilaria, pull me back to the boat.’
Ilaria obeyed and tugged the cord so that Silvia could grab hold of the side of the boat where there was a rope ladder. She climbed up whilst hoisting a cluster of rubbish with her.
Silvia, back on deck, threw the plastic bag and other rubbish she had collected onto the floor.
‘Unbelievable! Every season it gets worse.’
‘Where did it come from?’ Ilaria asked.
‘Who knows, there are so many ships using these waters that any one of them could be responsible. They create so much waste and then just dump it into the ocean.’
Ilaria screwed up her face. ‘That’s horrible.’
Silvia opened a large storage container at the back of the boat it was full of other rubbish she had collected and she added these new items to it.
‘It barely makes a difference but I can’t stand to leave these things floating in the sea.’
Ilaria felt sick, she had never witnessed the effect of human wastage before. We do a good job of hiding the terrible things we do, she thought.
‘We should get people together, to go sailing and collect all the rubbish in the all the oceans,’ Ilaria stated with vigour.
Silvia smiled at her. ‘If only it were that simple, we would need a thousand ships and twice as many international laws to make any difference. I’m afraid, Ilaria, we are fighting a losing battle between the planet and mankind. The problem in the end is, everyone loses.’
Ilaria wasn’t prepared for the tight feeling she suddenly felt in her stomach. It was like someone had taken hold of her insides and tugged on them. It reminded her of being winded as a younger child, when she had jumped off a high climbing frame and kneed herself in the tummy. She hadn’t been able to breathe for almost a minute.
Silvia removed her safety rope, getting on with the practical task at hand.
‘Right, well let’s set our course for the night.’
Ilaria nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Silvia chuckled. They fixed their course and readied the ship to continue sailing along the north coast of Africa. Anticipating a clear, starry night, Ilaria couldn’t wait to lay her head back and watch the poems of light, written by the night sky.
‘Right, you can take first watch this time. Wake me up in a few hours unless anything out of the ordinary happens,’ Silvia said.
‘Aye, aye, captain,’ Ilaria replied, saluting in a mock military fashion. Silvia laughed at that. She began making her way down beneath the decks as Ilaria kept watch under the speckles of distant worlds that began to sparkle as the last remnants of the sun’s gaze fell beneath the horizon.
Several hours passed before a ferocious rain began to pound down on the ship’s sails. The material became sodden and heavy and when the forceful wind blew, it sent the sailboat rocking from side to side. Ilaria was soaked from head to toe and had bruised her elbow by falling across the deck, crashing into a storage crate.
Silvia came running from below decks having woken abruptly.
‘Ilaria! Are you alright? Ilaria?’ Silvia screamed into the storm but by the time he
r words reached Ilaria they were nothing more than whispers, drowned by the operatic wails of the squall.
‘Silvia! I’m sorry, it just came out of nowhere.’ Ilaria tried her best to make her way to Silvia but staggered across the decks as she went. Silvia wrapped her arm around a loose rope, steadying herself and grabbed Ilaria tight by her shoulder.
‘Are you alright?’ Silvia demanded, and Ilaria nodded in return. ‘We have to drop the sails or we’ll roll right over.’
‘Okay, tell me what to do.’
Silvia gave her instructions and the two shipmates ran to the rigging to bring down the sails. It was hard work, as every time they tried to loosen the ropes the wind blew them to the side. After several trying minutes, battling crashing waves and resisting the power of the wind that blew them, Ilaria and Silvia managed to lower the sails and the boat suddenly became more stable.
‘We did it!’ Ilaria shouted, waving to Silvia across the deck.
Silvia put her thumb and forefinger together, making an OK signal and held up her hand to Ilaria and smiled. ‘I can’t imagine sailing without you watching my back ever again, Ilaria. How do you fancy joining my crew?’ Silvia said half joking and half meaningfully.
Ilaria was slightly stunned at the offer, not knowing truly if it was one or not. She imagined a life on the open waters as Silvia’s right-hand woman. Sailing the Mediterranean and admiring the forces of nature. She felt herself abandon all intention of heading to Tuscany to find the dragon and as if her ancestors rode the storm, angered by her thoughts, a large wave came swooping across the deck and toppled her over. Once the surge had cleared, Silvia was left standing alone. Ilaria was nowhere to be seen.
11
The eye of a storm is oddly quiet and calm. Surrounded by fierce winds and rain and though, in itself, it is relatively safe and peaceful, it remains trapped and encircled by a raging tempest. Such was the nature of Speranza’s soul.
His ferocious outbursts had been contained for hundreds of years as he was always bonded to a human, but now the feelings that had lain dormant bubbled to the surface, replacing the kindness and gentleness that had been forged for him.
Traditionally when a dragon’s human counterpart was near the end of their life, they prepared their child and the bonding was a seamless transition from mother to daughter, or father to son.
Speranza had been alone now for over a week, his dragon instincts returning to him like a wrecking ball. He had almost forgotten his true nature. A wild creature, the size of a large ship, whose fiery breath needed to be released. He had remained underground these past weeks, breathing his fire ever more fiercely towards the earth’s core. He had gone too far and now the dozen or so volcanoes that had been dormant had erupted for the first time in generations. The ash cloud had now grown so thick across most of Italy that the heat from the sun was struggling to warm the earth. Ash had drifted down to the surface and people were finding a thin layer across the tops of their cars. Some had even begun coughing where the ash was at its thickest.
Despite the pleading of the rest of the sect that bonded with the dragons, Speranza remained oblivious to their concerns.
One morning, feeling violently claustrophobic and agitated, Speranza flew through a large underground tunnel at such a speed that he crashed through a seawall, flooding the chamber behind him. He swam joyously through the ocean, rising through the waves and soaring upwards into the sky. He abandoned all caution in being seen above the earth’s surface, a pledge he had once made to remain hidden, now broken.
Speranza flew so high that he could see the world for hundreds of miles. A small island to the north caught his attention. It looked so familiar, like an old home now forgotten. But before he could remember why it meant something to him, he spotted a small sailboat, broken in two and shipwrecked on the rocks just off the coast of Palermo. He suddenly felt a surge of breathing that was not his own. A heartbeat in his soul that made no sense to him. He suddenly realised that Ilaria was close by and she was in danger.
Speranza remembered the girl from the dream they had shared. He did not know why but he knew she was important. She reminded him of an old friend, recently lost. Speranza needed to know what was so special about this child that she prayed on his mind and he began his search.
The dragon roared across the ocean, screaming desperately for some sign of life. As he flew, the heartbeat in his mind grew stronger and he began to hear the faintest of cries. Someone was calling out to him to save them. Pleading calls for help.
Speranza swept down across the surface of the ocean. Like a speck of dust lost in a desert, Ilaria remained still and helpless, bobbing up and down in the waves. It was doubtful she could remain conscious for much longer as the freezing cold sea drained the warmth from her body. She looked up into the sky and saw the dragon soaring down towards her.
The next moment was unfathomable. Speranza clutched Ilaria’s lifejacket with his claws and pulled her up into the clouds. He saw her pale face as she shivered and so Speranza breathed the softest of warm air onto her. It was like a beautiful summer breeze, except for the stale smell that accompanied it. Ilaria suddenly felt a rush through her entire body and when she opened her eyes, it was not her own vision she saw, but sight through the eyes of Speranza. She shivered as all the energy was whipped right out of her and before she passed out she clutched on tight to the dragon’s back, riding not as a passenger, but as one with the dragon.
There were loud banging sounds coming from another room, pots and pans being stacked against one another and thrown into a sink. The room was dark, the only light a slither of sunlight breaking through the wooden shutters that encased the window.
Ilaria’s head was pounding and the noise from the kitchen that awoke her was as offensive a way to be roused as she had known. She tried her best to sit up but her entire body was aching. She had never felt this way before. Her senses seemed heightened somehow and yet her body refused to do anything that she asked of it.
Birds were singing outside and not the faintest drone of a car could be heard. The walls reminded Ilaria of the old Tuscan country houses she had seen in pictures of her grandmother.
Voices were carrying through the house and though she could understand barely a word, she could tell that they were those of a middle-aged couple arguing.
After a short while the pair stopped shouting at each other and the sound of the front door slamming shut downstairs rang through the house. It was not long after that, that a slender middle-aged woman crept into the room where Ilaria lay still and placed a bowl of soup and a piece of bread down quietly before leaving. Ilaria, famished, immediately reached for the bread, which smelt like it had been baked only moments ago. The aroma alone enlivened her.
Once she was done eating, Ilaria lay her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes, drifting off again into a quiet slumber. Wondering if she had dreamed, or if she was still dreaming.
‘Buongiorno,’ said the calm voice of the woman. Ilaria sat up immediately, her headache still causing her discomfort but her aches lessened now. How long have I slept?
‘Hello,’ Ilaria said. ‘Where am I?’
‘You are in my home, you are safe now. This place, it’s called Chiesanuova. It’s a small village in Italy.’ The woman had a very strong accent but her English was near perfect. Something Ilaria had learnt about the rest of Europe these past two weeks was that almost everyone spoke very good English.
‘How did I get here?’ Ilaria asked.
‘Don’t worry about that, we’ve got plenty of time to talk. First let’s get you strong again. You’ve been asleep for nearly three days now.’
‘What? How is that possible?’
‘It takes it out of you, what you did. The first time is the worst, so they tell me. My name is Alice. A long time ago, I was your mother’s best friend.’
Ilaria felt nauseous, so overrun by emotions that she didn’t even try to stop the river of tears that cascaded down her face. In that moment, she fel
t closer to her mother than she had ever done. It was as though her presence was in the room and Alice was like an angel, sent to deliver a message.
‘Speranza, the dragon, he brought me here didn’t he?’ Ilaria queried.
‘Yes.’
‘Where is he now? Why didn’t he wait with me for when I awoke?’
‘He took a risk coming out into the open, but grazie a dio that he did, or you might have perished in that storm. But something seemed wrong with him, I think he has become too wild again. Do you have the heart fragment pendant?’
‘No, I think someone stole it from me back in England.’
Alice hung her head, speechless. Ilaria spoke again. ‘This is all my fault, isn’t it?’
Alice shook her head. ‘No, not at all, none of this is your fault. But we must find that pendant or you will never bond with Speranza and I dread to think what comes next. We better get you up for now, I’ll show you around.’
Ilaria was daunted by the prospect that others also wanted her to be bonded with Speranza. It made her feel even more like she had failed. She rolled herself out of the bed and threw on the shawl that Alice gave her. She stretched and let out a very loud yawn that made Alice laugh and Ilaria laughed with her. But that laugh turned to worry as she thought about the ship in the storm and her captain.
‘The woman I was with, Silvia. Do you know if she’s okay? She was sailing to Sicily with me before the storm hit us.’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything. Your boat crashed into the rocks just shy of the port at Palermo but that’s all we know. Let us pray Silvia made it out okay.’
Ilaria swallowed a frog. She couldn’t bear to think that something may have happened to Silvia and vowed to find her. Somehow.
Timidly, Ilaria asked, ‘I heard arguing when I first woke up. Was that your husband downstairs with you?’
‘Yes, I am afraid Diego has been a bit upset these last few days. But don’t worry, he’ll come around eventually.’
The Heart Thief Page 6