“But Ferdinand doesn’t want Father.” Mephisto had come up behind us, lute in hand. “He wants Miranda!”
“You know, the harebrain may be right.” Mab squinted thoughtfully. “Maybe he showed up now because he knows Prospero’s not around to protect you.” Mab glanced around, eyeing the columns and the expanse of lawn and monuments beyond. “Perhaps we’d better fortify our position.”
I held up my flute. Its polished wood gleamed in the subdued light of the overcast sky. “On a windy day like this? Outside, in the open? This is all the fortification we’ll need.”
We reached the top step and stood before the temple to the youngest of the four American Gods of Liberty. Their goddess, a giantess, guards the New York City harbor. Passing between the enormous columns, the massive statue of the god himself gazed at us with sunken, piercing eyes. He sat enthroned, surrounded by marble walls bearing his immortal words and murals portraying his freeing of the slaves. Mab took off his hat and reverently recited the Gettysburg Address. The elderly tourists stared at him. Then, a few of the men took off their own hats.
As I waited for him, I wondered why I had agreed to subject myself to the humiliation of this impending meeting. Why was I not doing something productive, such as warning my sister or researching the question of whether my brother Mephisto was possessed by a demon.
Last night, once we had settled at the hotel, Mab and I questioned Mephisto at length about his disturbing transformation, but he claimed to remember nothing. When we pressured him, insisting he tell us something, he became frantic and frightened and began crying. Either he was a better liar than I remembered, or he did not know why he had turned into a demon.
Returning to my side, Mab scowled at my flute. “You should have left that thing in the car. You’ll desecrate the temple.” He glanced back up at the statue. “Wish I’d known about him back when he was alive. Could have asked him to free us Aerie Spirits while he was at it. Those blue Yanks of his would have put a quick end to that accursed instrument.”
BACK outside, we waited at the top of the marble staircase. After gazing out along the mall for a time, Mab glanced sidelong at the Italian masonry workers near the far column and whispered under his breath, “Psst, Ma’am. Those guys look a bit like you and Mr. Mephisto.”
I examined them more thoroughly. “They’re probably Milanese, Mab. That one in the black T-shirt looks cold, poor fellow.” I paused. “Must be a Jewish Italian.”
The man in question, a dark-haired and wiry fellow with a black mustache and wearing a black T-shirt despite the cold, had a tattoo of the Star of David on his left arm. The other two, a youth and an older man, also wore the Star of David as a pin or on a chain.
“Odder than that! Notice his ring, and the patch on the jacket of the guy next to him. If I’m not mistaken, that is the compass and ‘G’ of the Freemasons.” Mab noted.
“Well, they are masons,” I said. “Or, at least, they are repairing the masonry, and this is D.C. Do you know that the Freemasons have a huge temple near here, in Alexandria? Dramatic-looking building too!” I laughed, “And to think that the Freemasons used to be a secret society. How times changed.”
“All the same, it’s mighty odd,” Mab said.
“How so?” I asked.
Mab shrugged. “From all I’ve heard, the Freemasons are a Christian organization. Whoever heard of an Italian, Jewish Freemason?”
“Only in America!” I replied gaily.
HOW much the world had changed in a few short years, since America had risen to prominence. The young woman in the plum coat wore blue denim jeans instead of a skirt. The appearance of these modern women struck me as boyish and unnatural. But, oh, the things they did achieve!
As I looked at the young woman, her pretty face framed by her plum parka as she smiled up at her balding beau, I felt a moment of such sympathy that, for an instant, I felt as if I were her, a young wife gazing admiringly at my protective husband. I drew back, alarmed.
What was happening to me? First the elderly lady on the overpass, then Mephisto in Vermont, and now this. I could not recall ever before having seen myself as someone else. Could I be under some kind of attack?
I glanced rapidly about, but saw no sign of an enemy. Beside me, Mab snapped open his notebook. “What’s this guy going to be like?”
“Arrogant and proud,” I replied. “Didn’t you see how cocky he looked leaning against the hotel counter? I’m sure he will breeze off his minuscule five-hundred-year absence with a few smooth words. After that? Who knows? Probably hit us up for money or something.”
Mab closed his notebook and returned it to his pocket. I saw his arm tighten as his fingers curled about his lead pipe.
“I’d like to put a few obstacles in the path of his smooth words!”
“We should go.” I glanced at my watch. “Father is in trouble and we have siblings to find! We’ve lost enough time as it is, trying to chase down Mephisto’s staff.”
Below us, footsteps rang out on the steps. The young woman in the plum coat turned to see who was approaching. Immediately, her expression became soft and dreamy, and her hand came up to smooth her hair.
“Ah,” I said, “he’s here.”
I TURNED, and the shock of recognition hit me. Any doubt as to his identity dropped away, along with the pit of my stomach. My mouth opened, but my voice would not speak.
A tall youth came running up the steps. He wore a London Fog overcoat and a pair of fashionable black gloves. His head was bare, save for his thick wavy black hair. As he topped the steps and came before us, Mab held on to his pipe. Mephisto hefted his lute experimentally. Ferdinand did not even notice them. Falling to his knees, he took my hands in his and began kissing my fingers.
A strange dizzying sensation buzzed where the pit of my stomach had once been. I wanted to pull my hands away and slap him.
I did nothing.
“Miranda! La mia ’nnamorata bella!” He spoke with a charming Italian accent. “You did not have to wait!”
Mab looked at his watch. “No trouble, you’re only ten minutes late.”
“No, no!” Ferdinand’s smile was brilliantly white. “Not wait today. Wait for me.” He gazed up at me with liquid brown eyes. “Cara, no one would have thought less of you had you broken your vow.”
I tried to answer, but still no voice came.
“Vow?” Mab asked. “What vow was that?”
Ferdinand stood. My hands were still in his. He met Mab’s gaze.
“The vow she made when first we met.” He squeezed my fingers and gazed into my eyes again. “That we would wed, or she would die a maid.”
Had I actually made such a vow? I could have sworn that had been Shakespeare’s invention. Yet, as my cheeks grew warm under his lingering gaze, I had to admit I could well imagine my naïve and youthful self uttering some such foolishness.
“Miranda, bella. Every day, while I dwelt in Limbo, I dreamed of your fair form. Yet, never did I dream that you, at liberty in the world of men, dreamed of me as well. How lonely you must have been throughout the ages! Had you forgotten me and wed another, I would have thought no less of you.”
Nothing was happening as I had expected. This youth who gazed at me so adoringly was nothing like the cad I had painted him to be after he jilted me. Instead, he acted like the very same princely young man I first fallen in love with back on Prospero’s Isle. Did he really believe I had never married because I had been waiting for him?
“Ferdinand,” I said, forcing words through my numbed lips. “Where have you been?”
“As I just said, bella mia, I have been in Limbo.” When I did not respond, he offered, “Limbo, by the gates of Hell?”
“You mean you were dead?” My heart ached, as if an old wound, long scarred over, had suddenly ripped open.
“No, my darling. As Odysseus, Aeneas, and Dante before me, I walked as a living man in the land of the dead. Only, it took me a little longer than they to return.”
�
�How did you get out?” Mab asked.
“Who is this man?” Ferdinand looked from Mab to me.
“This is Mab. He works for me,” I said. “And this is my brother Mephisto.”
Ferdinand acknowledged each man politely, then answered Mab’s question.
“About three months ago, the Gates of Hell were suddenly wrenched from their hinges,” he said. “While the demons rushed to repair the damage, I escaped. It was . . . as if all my dreams had suddenly come true. I had never thought to see the sun again. . . .”
Mab and I exchanged glances. Three months ago would have been mid-September, the very time when Father disappeared.
I have unwittingly unleashed powers best kept bound, Father had written, before warning me of the Three Shadowed Ones. And then he had vanished, a prisoner in Hell, if the dark angel were to be believed. Could this wrenching of the Gates of Hell that freed Ferdinand be the same event to which Father referred? How could one unwittingly wrench open the Gates of Hell?
“The world is much changed.” Ferdinand glanced down the steps toward where a car rumbled along the nearby road. “But it is still beautiful. Though not as lovely as you, my darling.” Then, he frowned. Letting go of me with one hand, he reached up to touch my hair. “What happened to your tresses, Miranda? I had recalled them black as obsidian.”
Ignoring his question, I said, “Ferdinand, how did you come to be a living man in Hell?”
“You did not know?” Ferdinand asked, shaken. “Oh, darling, how you must have railed at me for deserting you! I thought . . . I was certain he would tell you once time had passed.”
“Who would tell me? Tell me what?”
Ferdinand frowned, looking down. “I am not certain now, after all this time, that I should speak of it. It will only bring you pain.”
“Ferdinand. I am not the naïve girl you once knew. I’ve seen many painful things. Please tell me!”
Despite my calm words, my heart was pounding in my ears. I felt stifled and frightened.
“You bet he’s going to tell us,” Mab growled fiercely, slapping his lead pipe against his palm, “or we’ll send him back where he came from, in the usual fashion.”
“Do you recall the day before we were to marry, I changed our plans? Instead of spending the night in your father’s castello, we would go directly to Naples?”
I nodded, vaguely recalling something about how Father had wanted to delay the wedding a few weeks, and Ferdinand had refused.
Ferdinand continued, “He came to me to tell me we must spend our wedding night in Milan. When I would not agree, he told me you were the priestess of an ancient goddess, who, like chaste Diana, would desert you if you wed.”
“Eurynome is not a goddess,” I interjected. “She is a divine emanation, similar to angels, but of a higher order.”
Ferdinand nodded politely. “He said he needed her continued blessing. As we spoke, I realized he had meant for us to wed, so you would be confirmed as heir apparent to the throne of Naples, and then to slay me before we consummated our love. That was why he made such a fuss about our waiting for our marriage bed, back on the isle. I tried to escape, but he called upon unseen powers. The earth gaped below me, and I fell living into Hell.”
“He?” I asked in a small voice.
“Your father, dolce mia. The dread and dire magician, Prospero.”
“You lie!” I slapped him across the face.
The noise resounded down the staircase. The workmen and the couple in plum turned toward us. I pulled the hood of my cape up over my knitted hat and turned my back toward them, heat burning in my cheeks. Ferdinand came around in front of me.
“I wish my words were false, bella mia,” he said sorrowfully. “For I recall how well you loved your father. But, alas, I cannot change what is.”
“Let me get this straight,” Mab interrupted. “You are claiming Prospero sent you living into Hell and left you there, never breathing a word to Miss Miranda? That doesn’t sound like the Mr. Prospero I know.”
“I do not believe you! Why would Father play such a cruel trick on me? It makes no sense. If he did not want me to wed you, why did he not just forbid me? Or, if he knew what you say he knew, why not tell me you had died? Why continue to let me believe you had wronged me?”
“He wished to rule Naples though our marriage, but not to let you lose your maidenhead. By allowing you to believe I had wronged you, did he not close your heart against other men?” Ferdinand asked.
Now, I felt as if I had been slapped. I drew back but said nothing.
Ferdinand frowned sorrowfully. “Miranda, my darling, had I known my words would bring you such pain, I would have torn out my own tongue before I allowed it to speak them.”
“Yeah, yeah, all very melodramatic,” Mab grunted. “Ma’am, there’s a lot about this jilted-at-the-altar stuff I still don’t get. How come you didn’t just think he was dead?”
“I did at first and wept for days,” I spoke flatly, recalling. “Then, a few months later, I met a Milanese sailor— one from that original ship that had foundered on Father’s isle. He told a tale of having seen Ferdinand in a port in Spain. That was when I knew he had followed the longing for adventure he so often spoke of . . . or thought I knew.”
“That man lied. Never would I have willingly deserted you so. Surely you know that in your heart.”
I said nothing.
“Dolce mia, you are shaken,” said Ferdinand. “Do not lose heart. Maybe there is an explanation. A demon in your father’s form, perhaps? I have beheld demons in fiery Hell who know the subtle art of stealing another’s shape. When I broke free, dread Prospero had not appeared among the souls in Hell. Does he still live? Let us confront him and ask him.”
“Mr. Prospero is conveniently missing,” Mab said sourly. “We were hoping you could tell us something about it.”
Ferdinand shook his head. “I regret that I know nothing that could help you.”
The wind whistled sharply. Its gusts were icy cold. The Italian workers had ceased their labor. Their eyes focused on us.
“Perhaps, we should go somewhere else,” I said.
“Let us find a café and dine while we speak,” Ferdinand suggested.
As the four of us walked down the steps, I murmured to Mab that Ferdinand had found a nice excuse to hit us up for a free meal.
“YOU say you escaped from Hell three months ago, Mr. Di Napoli.” Mab pulled out his notebook and stubby pencil. “What have you been doing since?”
We were sitting in a pretty Italian café a few blocks from the Mall. I sat next to Mab, across the table from Ferdinand, who was next to Mephisto. I had thought this choice of seating wise but was beginning to regret it. It allowed Ferdinand to gaze directly into my eyes, which I found disconcerting. I could not tear my gaze away.
“When first I regained Earth’s face, I found the sunlit world so bright I could not see,” Ferdinand replied. “I stumbled blindly, my hands before my eyes. Kind women came— social workers— and led me to food and shelter. They insisted I speak to doctors dressed in robes of purest white, who told me my wits had fled. In my youth, I would have slain a man for such slander. But years of taunts from demons and the damned had caused calluses to grow against such abuse. The utterances of these doctors disturbed me not.
“Instead, I treated them with greatest politeness. They announced my madness— which they called amnesia— was not harmful to my fellow men and let me be. The kind women found a place for me at a hall of learning, where I could study the things the doctors claimed I had forgotten. So, now, I attend the University of Chicago, and, to repay the kindnesses shown me, I make use of my meager skills to impart to my fellow students knowledge of swordplay, history, and the languages of the classics.”
“How did you learn English?” Mab asked. “You speak it awfully well for one who has been in America only three months.”
“In Hell, there is naught for a living man to do but talk with the dead. And so, I have talked. At f
irst, my Latin sufficed to allow me to converse with many learned men. To speak with men of slanted eye or dark skin, however, I needed to learn new tongues. After a time, the tongue of scholars turned to Spanish, then French. Later again, English became the language the learned spoke. Of late, even the learned among the Orientals and the Africans have spoken at least a smattering of this tongue.”
“And how did you just happen to come by Miss Miranda’s hotel in Chicago?” Mab glared at him accusingly.
Ferdinand threw up his hands as if to demonstrate his innocence. “I inquired at the dread wizard’s office. I explained I was an old friend of the owner. The young person with whom I spoke had overheard the name of the hotel where Miranda planned to stay, and she passed it on to me.”
My gaze remained fixed upon Ferdinand as he spoke. His face reminded me of the statues of the gods of old and left me with the same dreaded longing to possess such beauty. I could well imagine my well-trained receptionist forgetting her security protocol and blurting out secrets to this man. He answered Mab’s question with calm assurance and measured words. Yet, all the while he spoke, his gaze drank in my face as a man newly emerged from the desert might sip from a cool mountain stream. I could not recall, within my long memory, anyone ever having looked at me that way, not even back when he and I were to be wed.
“What’s Hell like?” Mephisto rested his elbows on the table and laid his cheek upon his hand, smiling at Ferdinand.
Ferdinand frowned. “I am not certain cara mia would care to hear the horrors. . . .”
“Just leave out the torture and dismemberment parts and tell us about how the place is set up,” Mab suggested.
Ferdinand frowned, then shrugged. “Much is as Dante described it. Only the virtuous pagans of whom he spoke were nowhere to be found. Apparently, Christ took them with him when he broke out, much to my sorrow. I would have given all that was mine for a chance to converse with them.”
Prospero Lost: Prospero's Daughter, Book I Page 20
