Under A Dancing Star

by Laura Wood

  “Car troubles?” I ask sympathetically, dropping back into the seat. “If it helps, I think you might be trying to change up too quickly.”

  “The only problem I have is you flailing around while I’m trying to concentrate,” he snaps.

  “I’m cold,” I say. “I needed the blanket.” I drag it around my shoulders, welcoming the warmth it brings.

  We travel on in silence, which is fine by me – I am happy just to sit and strain my eyes against the darkness for any clues about our whereabouts. I am in Italy, I think, as Ben hums beneath his breath and the car heaves itself along. I am really here; it is really happening.

  Suddenly, Ben turns the steering wheel sharply to the left and, as we judder along over the dirt road, a row of cypress trees appears, their knife-like silhouettes cutting dense shadows against the inky sky. Moments later, lights blaze into view: burning torches dug into the ground that reveal a rough driveway and a long, imposing wall with an arch carved in the middle. It looks like a fortress, the shadows of the trees playing eerily across the stone in the firelight. It’s as though we’ve been dropped unceremoniously into the past.

  “No electricity outside the house,” Ben explains, gesturing to the torches. It must be the early hours of the morning now and everything is silent as we trundle through the archway into a sort of courtyard. The car comes to a stop and the weak glow from its headlamps is extinguished.

  I take a deep breath; there’s a clinging, heavy scent in the air that’s sweet, like jasmine. Ben steps out of the car and I do the same, slipping out from under the blanket and stretching my cramped limbs.

  “We’re here,” I say into the night. I can’t believe it.

  Ben picks up my bag and deposits it with a thud at my feet. “What gave it away?” he asks.

  I ignore him. My eyes adjust to the velvet darkness, and I make out rough walls and a tall crenellated tower that looms over us like something from a fairy tale.

  Ben reaches into the car and leans on the horn for a moment. The short, sharp blast shatters the silence as definitively as a gunshot.

  “They’re expecting you,” he says, and then he leaps back in and starts the car, driving away through another archway at the other end of the courtyard, and leaving me standing alone in the dark.

  For a second, I let the sensation of finally being here wash over me. I close my eyes and listen to the crickets chirrup into the night and I breathe in that heady, perfumed air, relishing the unfamiliarity of it all. Then I reach down and pick up my bag, deciding that I’ve done quite enough waiting. It’s time to take my destiny into my own hands, and that means finding a way into this building.

  Then, as though I have summoned it myself, a light appears, a fine silver crescent carved into the impenetrable wall, widening like a waxing moon.

  It is a doorway, I realize, and it is opening to let me in.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Bea!” A figure tumbles through the door and throws herself into my arms. I stiffen for just a moment, unused to such a spontaneous display of affection, and then close my arms around her in a tight hug.

  “Hero!” My fourteen-year-old cousin pulls away, and the light from the open door spills across her sweet, pretty face, turned to look up at me.

  “I can’t believe you’re here! I’m so happy!” She dances from foot to foot and I suddenly feel … wanted. The feeling is so unfamiliar that it swamps me, too big for me to quite understand. I suppose I’m more used to feeling like I am in the way. I swallow and give myself a mental shake. I must be overwrought from the journey.

  “I’m so happy too,” I say, pulling her towards me for another hug, resting my cheek against her blonde curls. “And you’ve grown!”

  Hero laughs. “I should hope so. It has been three years, you know.” I remember the last time I saw her at her mother’s funeral, pale and pinched and small under all the black clothing that hung heavy on her slender frame.

  “And it’s a good job too,” my cousin continues now. “Fancy being stuck with a name like Hero and being so short. What an embarrassment.”

  Ah yes, Aunt Thea had been quite a fan of the tale of Hero and Leander – especially the part where the two lovers are punished for their “promiscuity” by being killed off. That woman never missed an opportunity to revel in the misfortune of others. I glance at my cousin – her easy good nature could not be more different from her mother’s.

  “Don’t keep her out there all night, Hero!” a bluff, cheerful voice calls and we look back to face the doorway.

  I turn and move forward to greet my uncle, heading through the open door and into a well-lit hallway that leaves me blinking as my eyes adjust. The room is chamber-like, with high stone walls and a brightly woven rug on a flagstone floor. A large wooden chandelier hangs above us like an enormous old carriage wheel: a touch of the old, though the lights attached to it buzz with electricity. Several doors lead off this room and I’m already itching to open them and explore what lies behind. The huge stone staircase that dominates the hall climbs one flight and then forks into two different directions, smooth, broad steps snaking away into the darkness.

  It is chilly in here, almost the same temperature as it is outside. I turn to face my uncle and see that he is smiling. He also looks younger than the last time I saw him, stouter and happier with a rough red beard. I do remember him being fractionally warmer than his frosty wife, which is certainly not saying much – I think a block of ice would be warmer than Aunt Thea was – but I certainly don’t remember him being as relaxed and rumpled as he is now. In my mind’s eye I picture him, neat and particular. I hesitate, not quite sure how to greet him, but before I can decide on the appropriate words he folds me into a hug.

  When he releases me I catch my breath. His welcome is surprising, to say the least. We have never been particularly close, but his happiness seems genuine. His gaze moves between Hero and me with the sort of indulgent fondness I have never seen on my own father’s face. I frown, trying to match up the man in front of me with the reserved and formal figure of my memory.

  “It’s about time your parents sent you out here,” he says. “This little sprite has been longing to see you.” He gestures towards Hero, who is beaming and barefoot, her warm fingers clamped around my wrist, tethering us together.

  “It’s going to be so much fun!” she says. “The others are so excited to meet you.”

  “The others?”

  “Bea, we have so much to talk about. Do you remember the puppies in the barn?” Hero tugs at my arm, ignoring my question, her words coming out so quickly that they fall over each other. “Mother was so mean not to let me keep one, and that scolding she gave us… Oh, but you got revenge, didn’t you? Remember the toad?”

  I flush a little at that, my eyes darting towards my uncle. On a long-ago visit to Langton Hall I had taken ten-year-old Hero to see a litter of puppies being born – an educational activity of which Aunt Thea had decidedly not approved. Following a lengthy telling-off and a sermon on propriety, I had retaliated by slipping a toad into her bed. I don’t regret it, but I also don’t want Uncle Leo to think I’m a troublemaker. My parents have probably already hinted at that fact.

  But Uncle Leo just laughs and reaches out a hand to ruffle my hair. “A pair of tearaways when you were together,” he says with a sigh. “Heaven help us now that you’re reunited.”

  “Oh, we’re much older now.” Hero dimples.

  “And much, much worse,” I finish, daringly. All three of us laugh then, the sound bouncing off the walls, warming the air around us.

  “I see our guest has arrived.” A voice comes from the stairs behind me. “And already she is filling this old house with laughter.”

  I turn around and feel my mouth drop open in surprise. The woman standing there is tall, almost as tall as me, and generously curvy, with long, straight black hair that hangs down to her waist. She is wearing a decadent black silk kimono printed with red flowers, tied loosely over a red silk nightgown. He
r features are large and expressive, and only the tiny spidery lines around her eyes and mouth give any indication that she’s older than me. She moves with the kind of sultry grace that I have typically heard attributed to large cats.

  “Ah, Fil, my love!” Uncle Leo booms.

  “Filomena, this is Bea.” Hero drags me forward a couple of steps. “Filomena and Daddy are getting married.”

  This, then, is the “respectable widow” who will curb my headstrong behaviour. I hear Father’s voice in my head, and just like that I am laughing again. But really, if ever there was the polar opposite of the “widow of good standing” of my parents’ imagination, then she is surely embodied in the woman in front of me.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I splutter, moving towards the vision before me on the stairs, trying to recover my manners. “I always seem to laugh at just the wrong moment.”

  Filomena tips her head. “I think there is no wrong moment for laughter,” she says, a smile curving her generous lips.

  “Well, I’m very pleased to meet you,” I manage, pulling myself together and holding out my hand to her.

  But Filomena shakes her head.

  “None of that.” She steps forward, pressing warm kisses on to each of my cheeks, and I catch the heady scent of amber and cinnamon that clings to her skin. “It has taken me a great effort to rid your uncle and cousin of that terrible English formality. I preferred the laughing.” Her voice is low and musical, a slight Italian accent altering the cadence of her perfect English.

  “Don’t horrify the girl,” Leo says, stepping up beside her and taking her hand before pressing it to his lips. “She’ll run home telling her parents that we have devolved into chaos without the influence of good British manners.”

  “Bah!” Filomena wrinkles her nose.

  “Oh no I won’t,” I say quickly. “Honestly, a break from good British manners sounds quite … wonderful.”

  “You see, Leo.” Filomena smiles up at him. “Bea will fit in just right here.”

  I like that she calls me Bea, not Beatrice, using the same affectionate contraction as Hero. Somehow it sounds different in her voice, a lazy, drawn-out “ee” that tilts up at the end. At home no one calls me Bea; I am only ever Beatrice. Bea feels like a different person: a new name for this new place.

  “Now.” Filomena runs an eye over me. “This poor girl has been travelling for days on end and it is the middle of the night. Hero, I know you will want to be the one to show Bea to her room.”

  “Of course!” Hero retrieves my bag and begins to stagger up the stairs.

  And just like that I feel exhaustion rush through my body, leaving me swaying on my feet. In spite of all the excitement, the thought of bed is overwhelmingly welcome. I follow my cousin, turning when we reach the top of the stairs to look back down to the hallway. As I do so, I am shocked to see Uncle Leo and Filomena locked in a rather ferocious embrace.

  I turn the corner down the winding corridor, following the trail of lights as Hero flicks them on along the way. This is certainly not the Uncle Leo that I remember. Nor, I am sure, is it the Uncle Leo my parents imagined they were sending me to.

  I smile to myself. It seems that things at Villa di Stelle might not be so respectable after all. What a pleasant thought.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  When I wake the next morning, I am not sure where I am. I stare up at the ceiling for a second, the events of the last few days racing around my head in a jumble of images and sensations, before arranging themselves into something more orderly.

  I’m here. I’m really here, in Italy, and the proof is all around me, written into the walls and furniture of this unfamiliar room. I take a moment to absorb it – the heavy, embroidered cotton of the white sheets, the wooden bed frame and the pale green shutters which are throwing stripes of golden light across my legs.

  I stand up, swinging my feet down to the ground, the cool touch of the terracotta tiles a shock to my warm, sleepy body. I stretch and move around the sparsely furnished room, running my hand over the rough plaster of the walls. Apart from the huge four-poster bed there is little else in here – a small dressing table in one corner with a pretty, bevel-edged mirror above it and a rickety chair. There’s also a large wardrobe in which my meagre collection of clothes is hanging a little forlornly, and a thin woven rug that was once probably a deep red but has now faded to rosy pink. Through a door to one side is a small, basic bathroom. I turn one of the taps, which splutters to life with – joy of joys – hot water. The villa may be old, but the plumbing is blissfully modern.

  When I return to my room I make straight for the window, wrestling with the shutters for a moment before locating the catch and flinging them wide open.

  All the air leaves my lungs in one dramatic rush.

  The view before me is truly a fantasy made real: something that belongs in the pages of a fairy tale. It’s a place of such light and lushness, beyond anything I could ever have dreamed.

  I am high up, very high up. We climbed an awful lot of stairs last night and I realize now that I am in the top of the crenellated tower, at the top of the house, on the top of the hill, and that the scenery has been rolled out in front of me like an offering. Directly below me is the red-tiled roof of another part of the house, and in front of that are the most spectacularly kept formal gardens; hedges divide the space into neat squares and circles, and in the centre a huge stone fountain, with water splashing merrily from various urns held by beautiful women and babies. Beyond the gardens the cypress and ilex trees huddle like a protective wall, sheltering the house from the undulating green and gold carpet of the hills that spread out into the distance.

  The rain of yesterday is a distant memory, and an endless blue sky stretches overhead. The mingled summer song of birds and crickets and lazy bees drifts through the window, along with the smell of warm, baked earth and pine needles. It seems impossible that I arrived through those hills last night, with the darkness wrapped close around me, keeping the secret of all this beauty like an elaborate practical joke.

  I don’t know how long I stand there, taking it in. The moment feels precious and endless. As I contemplate the view, its breadth and wildness seem to match the dizzying feeling of freedom that pounds through me. I am so far away from Langton Hall – in every way imaginable.

  I’m already itching to get out there and explore when I hear the unmistakable “oop oop oop” of the hoopoe, a bird that I have never seen before, one that does not live in England, one whose call I have only read about. I rush to my bag, rummaging around for my binoculars, but they’re not there. Perhaps they fell out in the car last night. I tut in exasperation and return to the window, leaning out as far as I can, and straining my eyes, but I can’t pinpoint where the sound is coming from.

  Instead, I hear a shout, and over to my right I notice a swimming pool where a man is swimming lengths. I can see the top of a golden head and a second figure, a woman, dressed in white and wearing a broad white hat, standing at the side of the pool, shouting to the swimmer and gesticulating wildly. The man’s laughter cracks through the air and for some reason I take a step back. Somehow, I know that the laugh belongs to Ben.

  I retreat into my room and wash and dress as hastily as I can. Pulling on a crumpled pale pink day dress, I lean over the mirror and tackle my long, unruly hair, stabbing at it almost at random with the pins scattered across the dressing table. My face in the mirror is a little flushed, and I take several deep breaths. My life has been so small, so monotonous, so endlessly unvarying for so long, that the utter newness of the day stretching ahead of me is almost overwhelming. Almost. I grin, and the girl in the mirror grins back at me, her nose scrunching up a little under a peppering of freckles, her eyes gleaming with naked excitement.

  I have no idea what time it is, but I assume it must be late. I make my way swiftly, giddily along the long hallway and down the stairs, pushing one of the doors in the entrance way open at random.

  Beyond it is a huge room with a
high, dark-beamed ceiling. There is a grey stone fireplace stretching across one wall that is big enough to stand in, and several hard, blue sofas and a well-stocked drinks trolley as well as a gramophone. As in my room the walls are white, and the floors tiled, spread with more rugs. This must be the living room, though it doesn’t seem particularly well lived in. I listen carefully but all I can hear is the sullen ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner and a look at its face informs me that it is past midday.

  Undeterred I push through another door and find myself in the kitchen, where a shrunken woman in a headscarf is bent over some dough.

  “Oh, hello!” I exclaim. “Sorry, I’m a bit lost.” The woman smiles at me and bustles over to the side where she picks up a cup and saucer, pouring thick, black coffee into the cup from a silver pot on the stove.

  She shuffles over to me, her footsteps tiny but brisk, like a little bird, and she holds out the saucer, which I take. “Thank you,” I say, as she regards me through eyes set deep like dark currants in her wrinkled face.

  “Il giardino,” she says, gesturing to a door set into a high stone arch at the front of the room. “Filomena and Leo there,” she adds in careful, heavily accented English.

  “Oh, thank you,” I say again. “I mean, grazie.”

  The woman reaches up and, to my surprise, pats me softly on the cheek. “Prego,” she says and then, as I turn to leave through the door, she makes a clucking noise to stop me and pulls a cloth back from on top of a basket full of warm, golden rolls. The smell of them is enough to set my stomach growling viciously.

  “You take, you take,” she insists, and I accept happily, tearing immediately into one with my teeth, chewing gratefully, the sweet dough a melting taste of sugar and vanilla. The woman nods approvingly as my greedy fingers close around another to take with me. “Bella regazza grande,” she beams, and my rudimentary Italian allows me to translate this as “beautiful big girl”.

  When I open the door, I find myself standing in front of the formal gardens, underneath a pergola covered in a riotous cloud of red bougainvillea and yellow jasmine; the tiny star-like flowers nodding below the sun, the scent heavy and intoxicating.