Dark Shimmer (27 page)

G
iallino walks swiftly with the new pup at his heels. Pietro took his favorite one away—the little prize. He misses her. This new one isn't as promising. It takes many more repetitions to get anything through this one's skull. Giallino's annoyed. He rushes; he should have gone back to the cabin a while ago to check on Neve.

And there's the cabin. One set of shutters is open. Giallino half understands. With the hearth fire and the candles, the cabin can get smoky and smelly and stuffy. But facts are facts; The Wicked One wants Neve dead. Neve should wait till they're all home to air the cabin out. He breaks into a run and calls, “Are you crazy? Close those shutters!”

He reaches the window and looks in. No Neve. Then he sees her, on the floor, just under the window. The windowsill is too high for him to vault. For the first time in his life, Giallino curses his short arms. He runs to the door. It's bolted from the inside. Of course. He runs back to the window, nearly tripping over the pup, who has caught his panic. The pup barks. “Neve!” he shouts. She doesn't move.

He rolls the chopping stump to the window, climbs onto the window ledge, and jumps inside. He puts his face to hers. “Neve, Neve, wake up.” Her bodice lace is that same old thing. He slips a finger under it easily. Some new trick, new disaster. “Neve,” he says in her ear. “Don't do this! Don't leave us!” And then he sees it, a silver comb in her hair. Neve doesn't have a comb. She's been using her fingers. He pulls it free.

Neve moans.

The sound nearly brings Giallino to tears. “Neve. It's all right, Neve. I'm here now. You'll be fine.”

Her eyes open. They look glassy.

Giallino runs for a cup of broth.

The pup yips from outside the window. “Wait,” he calls to it. “I'll be right there for you.”

He kneels beside Neve and drips just the smallest bit of broth into her open mouth. Her eyes are closed again, but she moans louder than before. Slowly, slowly, Giallino drips the whole cup into Neve's mouth. Slowly, slowly, she swallows it all. That's what she needed, yep.

She rolls her head from side to side. “My head is numb. My chest tingles.” She struggles to roll onto one side and curls into a ball.

Giallino pats her back tenderly. “You'll get better fast, Neve. You'll be fine.”

The pup whines.

Giallino goes to the window and reaches out. He manages to catch the pup. She licks his face frantically. He puts her down inside the cabin and kneels beside Neve. “Neve?”

The pup comes running over. Giallino blocks her. The last thing Neve needs is a lick.

Neve's eyes open. She tries to push herself up, but she collapses with another groan. “I think…I'm going to be sick.”

Giallino rushes for a bucket and races back. She retches into the bucket over and over. Then she falls onto her back again.

He should splash out her mouth, give it a good cleaning. He looks around.

The pup sniffs at the comb, licks the teeth. In an instant, she contorts. Giallino grabs her.

Poison.

How can they win against The Wicked One? There are hundreds of ways to kill a person. How can they stay ahead of her?

Giallino hugs the stupid little pup to his chest and rocks on his heels.

“
I
hate this.” Dolce looks at Agnola. “You shouldn't have dragged me here. These women are sick.”

The water is the temperature of a warm day in midsummer; it doesn't let off steam or make one uncomfortable. It's beautifully comforting. If only Dolce let herself, she'd enjoy it. Agnola enjoys it.

Today makes a full week they have been at the Abano hot springs. The first morning they drank a rust-colored liquid that made them spend the rest of the day and night racing to the toilets, then back to bed for an absurdly deep sleep, then off to the toilets again. Then five days of drinking nothing but springwater. Yesterday the bathing therapy started, so life turned enormously better. But Lucia La Rotonda doesn't get to benefit, for Dolce keeps sending her away for special ingredients for dinner.

“Do you think we should send Lucia La Rotonda home?” asks Agnola. “She's not having a good time. She never gets to sit in the baths.”

Dolce splashes Agnola. “I just said I hate it here. Lucia La Rotonda's cooking is my salvation.” She points at a woman across from them. “You know what she said?”

Agnola swats Dolce's hand down. “Don't point. It's rude.”

Dolce slides under the water and comes up sputtering and wiping the water from her eyes. “She told me that there's a much nicer bath in Caldiero, near Verona. It's large and airy. You don't have to bring your own cook because the patrons are excellent cooks.”

Agnola sighs. This small bathhouse is gloomy. “So why did she come here?”

“The Caldiero bath is outdoors. They allow patients only June through August.”

“Well,” says Agnola, “I hope you're cured long before summer.” Then she remembers. “Oh, Marin will be back by then. You can go with him.”

“What's the point of going with your husband when they separate the men's baths from the women's? Unless, of course, all your matrimonial pleasures lie in bed.”

Agnola looks quickly at Dolce, then away. Did she hear Pietro with her?

“I know you had a visitor last night. I'm happy for you. I just like to tease you.”

“I don't like teasing. And I won't talk with you about…certain things.”

“All I want to know is whether Pietro is in good health.”

Agnola's heart warms at this surprise. “He came only to visit me.”

“But how is he, in body and in spirit?”

“Good. Those apples on our table this morning, he brought them from up north. They store them year-round because they're therapeutic. They clean poisons out of your system.”

“Poisons?” Dolce strains toward her. “He used that word?”

“Someone he knows got sick and apples are making her better.”

“Apples,” says Dolce, as though to herself. “Apples thwart me?” She sinks back. “Can't I do anything right?”

Agnola is at a loss when Dolce says nonsensical things like this. And as often as not her outbursts lead to crying. Already, Dolce's bottom lip quivers. “This water is the best therapy, though,” Agnola says quickly. “It's good for joint pain and runny noses and swelling and weeping eyes and infertility—”

“Nothing will cure my infertility.”

Agnola could bite her tongue. Why on earth did she say such a thing? “I'm so sorry.”

“I know. You don't have a mean bone in your body.”

Agnola isn't so sure. She gets annoyed with Dolce. “Anyway, these waters have special curative minerals, good for all skin ailments.”

“I can taste the iron and salt,” says Dolce. “Let's see if it's helping.” She holds up her hands and peels a nail off, just like that.

A spasm shoots up Agnola's back. “You're very ill, Dolce. We're here to make you better. Please, Dolce. You have to help yourself.”

“I want to go home.”

“These baths—”

“Please. I'm exhausted. Defeated. You can see the baths do nothing for me.”

“We haven't completed the full regimen.”

“It won't change anything. All I wanted to do was make everything right by the time Marin returned. But I can't, it's too hard. My heart isn't in it anyway. Sometimes I know what I must do. Other times I know I must do the opposite. I hate it. I give up.”

Agnola leans forward to argue. But Dolce shakes her head. “Let's go home today. At home, I will follow whatever regimen you set for me. You'll help me, won't you, Agnola?”

“You know I will.” Agnola looks around and sighs. “You're right. It's squalid here. The sides of this pool are filthy. The water, scummy. They say it's therapeutic, but it's plain old algae.”

“Algae?” Dolce's eyes widen, her mouth opens in a circle. She stands. “Algae in hot water. Is this water red?”

“Slightly.”

“I thought it was green. How blind I've been. Of course.” She walks along the edge of the pool as though in a trance, feeling under the water with one hand.

“What are you searching for?”

“Mussels.”

“You can't eat shellfish that grow in dirty water. They're toxic.”

Dolce holds up a small mussel with a look of triumph and whispers, “It's fitting…like a circle closing. From my mamma to my daughter.” She looks at Agnola thoughtfully. “You're right about Lucia La Rotonda. She needs to enjoy herself before we leave. She will bathe with you this morning and go into the mud bath, too, while I will fetch ingredients for the evening meal.”

Agnola has been biting her tongue at Dolce's crazy words, but these last ones…“What? You can't go about the countryside unescorted.”

“I'll hire an escort. All the women hire escorts. Who knows what services they supply? I could be as satisfied as you.” Dolce laughs. “Then we can travel home tonight with the future stretched out ahead of us, all ours.”

Agnola's head hurts hideously now. She's sick and tired of dealing with Dolce.

Suddenly, Dolce wraps her arms around Agnola. It's like being held by a chain of bones, she's grown so thin. “I'm sorry, Agnola.”

“Really?”

“Really. Escorts. I don't know what comes over me, what makes me say things like that. I'm so sorry. I get…lewd…and vicious. I don't even know who I am. I wish everything were different, everything were how it used to be. Sometimes the only feeling I have is regret.”

Agnola is sure that's true. Contrition softens Dolce's face. This is how it always is. Dolce will be hateful—there's no other word for it—then she'll suddenly realize and she'll be mortified at her own behavior. “It's all right.”

“It will never be all right. But I wish it could be. I wish I could be someone else. Tonight let's cook the meal and serve Lucia La Rotonda. Let's make her favorite dishes. You and I can be partners, like we were with Bianca.”

“I'd like that. It's a sweet idea.”

“Do you think I was ever truly sweet, Agnola?”

“I've known you sweet. Right now you're sweet.”

“No, I'm not. For I'm aware of what I've done and what I must do.”

“What does that mean, Dolce?”

“Do you think my mamma loved me?”

“Of course she did! What a question.”

“Thank you for saying that. You have no idea how much I wish it were true. Without that, I'm broken forever.”