Dark Shimmer

by Donna Jo Napoli

  Pietro leaves.

  “So you really don’t know who she is?” Ricci shakes his head. “I don’t even care who she is. What I care about is why is she in my bed?”

  They are sitting around the table, all seven of them, each holding a candle that illuminates his face. Behind Alvise’s back comes the crack of burning fat that drips from the quarter of boar roasting in the hearth. The wheel cage to the side of the hearth squeaks as the dog inside it runs, causing the spit to turn. Alvise set up the system and trained the dog. He’s proud of his invention, but no one has praised him. They got worried when they saw the meat…and they should have. Pietro made a big mistake. Still, they’re going to eat boar tonight and for weeks to come, so they should at least say something good about it. Instead, Ricci won’t shut up about the girl. The others are looking at Alvise for the answer. And the girl keeps sleeping. Why does she keep sleeping?

  Alvise sets his candle upright in one of the little bowls of sand in the middle of the table. “Let’s be quiet till the girl wakes up.”

  “She can go in your bed, Alvise,” says Ricci.

  Alvise jumps to his feet, knocking his stool over.

  “Whoa,” says Bini. “No need to get in a tussle. She can sleep in my bed.” He grins. “With me. She owes it to me after eating from my bowl.”

  They all laugh, except Tommaso. “She’s closer to my age. She should sleep with me.”

  “No one’s ever going to sleep with you, Tommaso,” says Giordano.

  They laugh.

  Giordano and Bini like to tease Tommaso, and Tommaso cares about them too much to take offense. The three of them used to live on Torcello before the big people moved back there. They spent an entire year in hiding, moving from one deserted lagoon island to another until they met Alvise.

  Alvise can see how the three from Torcello are different from the rest. The others were slaves before; they didn’t know other people like them—they didn’t have real friendships.

  It’s Alvise’s job to hold them together. He’s taught all the others how to train dogs. Giordano is the oldest, but he would be a recluse if you let him, like a bear in a cave. Under his gruffness, though, he’s softhearted.

  “Listen!” says Alvise. “We treat the girl with respect. Gently. Tommaso”—Alvise points at him, though he’s only across the table—“you can show her around.”

  “Teach her not to drink out of my mug,” says Baffi.

  “Show her how to cook,” says Giallino.

  Alvise points at Giallino. “Good thinking. She can cook, and you and Baffi won’t have to anymore. She can sweep the floor and fetch water and gather firewood. None of us has to do that anymore. We’ve got a servant!”

  “A lazy servant,” says Ricci. “She’s not waking up.”

  The girl rolls over. “Someone’s going to have to give up a bed for me.” She sits up and swings her legs over the side. Seated like that, her knees come up to her chest. “My papà will reward you handsomely for your kindness.”

  They all stare.

  Alvise gets a good look at her face. She’s fetching. He wishes it weren’t so. She’ll make trouble, for sure.

  “You’ve been pretending to sleep,” says Giallino. “Eavesdropping. You’re deceitful.”

  “No,” says Tommaso. “She’s nice.”

  “She is not.”

  “I am nice. I’m very nice. I thank you for taking me in.” The girl’s voice wavers. “You’d do the same if you were in my spot.” She looks at them defiantly. “So who will be a gentleman and give up his bed?”

  “I will.” Tommaso plants his candle in a bowl of sand and stands. He walks to a bed and pats it invitingly. “This is your new bed. And you can have my candle.”

  The girl takes the bowl with the candle. “Thank you.”

  Tommaso bows. “Tommaso at your service.” He stands very straight. “I’m a gentleman.”

  “Yes,” says the girl, “you are, Tommaso. You’re the one who’s supposed to show me around?”

  “Wrong,” says Alvise. “Giordano can show you around. We don’t need any chumminess here.”

  “Or chumps,” says Ricci. “It doesn’t matter how straight you stand, Tommaso, or how nice you act, or how sweet you talk. The girl will always think you’re ugly, stupid, and inferior.”

  “True,” says Giallino. “You don’t know how big people are. You never had to play the jester to nobles in Firenze and Venezia, trying to make them laugh even when you were sick.”

  “Or a slave to some rich rogue who kicked you for no reason,” says Baffi.

  “Or a pet,” says Alvise. “In Pietro’s last job, before his owner set him free and he found a paid job, he was a little girl’s pet. Instead of a dog, she had a dwarf.”

  “Pietro?” says the girl quickly. “The Pietro I know?”

  “The one who saved your life,” says Alvise.

  “Pietro was someone’s pet?” The girl’s lower lip quivers.

  “Don’t act so shocked,” says Ricci. “I bet you’ve ordered dwarfs around. I bet you’ve laughed at them. And get the hell off my bed.”

  The girl moves quickly to the next bed. “I have never ordered a dwarf around. You don’t know me, so don’t make assumptions about me. And Pietro is a well-respected person in Venezia.”

  “He’s a servant,” says Alvise.

  “He trains dogs,” says the girl.

  “We train the dogs,” says Ricci. “He finds us the buyers.”

  “Whatever his part is,” says the girl, “I do not consider him ugly or stupid or inferior.”

  “Well, aren’t you an angel,” says Ricci. “Maybe you belong in heaven. Maybe Pietro shouldn’t have saved your life. How did he do it anyway?”

  The girl looks down at the candle in her lap.

  “How?” says Baffi.

  The girl presses the back of a hand to her mouth.

  “Tell us,” says Bini.

  The girl just looks at them.

  “Someone wanted her killed,” says Alvise. “Pietro whisked her away. Now that’s a real gentleman.”

  “Who wants you dead?” asks Giallino in a quiet voice.

  She doesn’t answer. They all look at Alvise. But Alvise doesn’t know. Pietro only called her The Wicked One. He looks at the girl.

  “My mother,” the girl says at last. She stands. “It’s not my fault.” Tears stream down her face. “I know how it sounds. You can believe I’m awful—what kind of daughter makes her mother want to kill her, after all—but I’m not awful. I’m nice. It’s not my fault.” She stamps a foot. “It’s not, I swear it. And my papà wants me alive. He’s the one who will pay you. But if you want me to, I’ll leave.”

  “You’ll just walk out into the forest at night?” says Bini. “Sure you will.”

  “It’s night already?” asks the girl weakly.

  “Your cloak is right over there on the hook,” says Ricci. “Alvise fetched it for you when you were stupid enough to run off without it.”

  “Wait a minute,” says Giordano. “Let’s find out a little about her first.”

  “Are you a good cook?” asks Giallino.

  The girl shakes her head. “I can make oyster cakes.”

  “Can you wash clothes, sweep the floor, keep house, and make candles?” asks Baffi.

  The girl sits on the foot of the bed. She puts the bowl with the candle on the floor. She pushes her hair back behind her ears with both hands. “I know how to do things—I can play the harp.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, you don’t have a harp, but if you could get one, I’d play it for you. It’s not easy, and I’m good at it. You have no idea how calming it is for my papà to listen to the harp when he’s got worries.” She fingers the bedsheet. “If you have a needle, if you can get one, I can make point lace along the edges of your sheets. That’s not easy, either. I’ll trim them beautifully. And if you have books, I can clean them with a soft goatskin and turn the pages gently and often so they don’t stick or grow b
rittle and fall out.” She blinks.

  “We’re not going to trade our dogs for some fancy harp or a useless book,” says Ricci. “Who reads, anyway?”

  “And we like our sheets just as they are,” says Baffi.

  The girl knocks her fists on her head. “Of course not, no. But I’m smart. I know trees. Like someone said before, I can gather firewood. And I’ll learn to cook. I’ll learn to clean. How hard can it be?”

  “Said like a rich girl with no respect for the work of servants,” says Ricci.

  “You’re not being fair.” She looks at them hard. “I bet that each one of you knows what it’s like to be treated badly through no fault of your own. Don’t do that to me. Give me a chance.”

  They’re silent for a moment.

  “So she’s clever at making us feel guilty,” says Ricci at last. “Is that what we want to live with?”

  “She stays,” says Alvise in a booming voice. “We are doing this for Pietro. And he’s placing our dogs without taking a cut for as long as she lives here.”

  “You made a deal with him?” says Ricci. “You didn’t talk it over with us.”

  “If she’s done something disgraceful, the authorities will come looking for her,” says Baffi. “You’re putting us all in danger.”

  “She hasn’t done anything disgraceful,” says Alvise.

  “If her mother’s really determined, she’ll be the one to come looking for her,” says Giallino.

  “Her mother believes she’s dead,” says Alvise.

  “She’ll come,” says Giallino. “Mark my words.”

  “Pietro told her mother nothing,” says Alvise. “She has no idea where we are. She has no idea we even exist. Besides, who could find a cabin in the woods that has no path leading to it?”

  “I don’t want to find out,” says Ricci. “Let’s get rid of the girl.”

  Giordano shakes his head. “We can’t cast her out. It would be the same as if we’d killed her ourselves.”

  “And her father,” says Tommaso. “She said he’ll be grateful.”

  “Right,” says Alvise. “The girl stays.”

  “But—” begins Giallino.

  “She stays!” Alvise glares at all of them.

  Giordano turns to the girl. “What’s your name?”

  The girl opens her mouth to speak.

  “No!” says Alvise. “Not your real name. We’re better off if we don’t know your real name. What do you want us to call you?”

  The girl closes her eyes for a moment. “Neve.”

  “Neve?” says Tommaso. “Snow? Who goes by such a name?”

  “My mamma loved snow.”

  “Your murderous mother—you want to remember her?”

  “The mamma I had until I was three. She died.” The girl folds one hand over the other on her chest. “Thank you for letting me stay, no matter your reasons. You are Tommaso,” she says to Tommaso, “but what do I call the rest of you?”

  They go around the table. “Alvise.” “Bini.” “Baffi.” “Giallino.” “Ricci.” “Giordano.”

  She nods as each says his name. “Alvise and Giordano and Tommaso, they’re real names. But Bini…How did you come by that name, Bini?”

  Bini shrugs.

  “His mother used to belong to a family in Treviso that went by that name,” says Giordano. “They bought her at a slave fair in Venezia. The eldest son in the family fathered Bini, which caused a crisis. Lots of noblemen father sons with a slave mother. And Venetian law is moving toward recognizing their freedom and their rights of inheritance. There was no way that family would allow its fortune to eventually fall into the hands of a dwarf. So they granted Bini’s mother her freedom if she’d leave and never return, and she came to live with us.”

  “Here?” Neve perks up. “There’s another woman here?”

  “Not here. On Torcello, where we used to live—Bini and Tommaso and me. But she died immediately, of marsh fever.”

  “I’m the son of nobility?” says Bini. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?”

  “What? You want to claim your inheritance now?” says Alvise. “If you’re stupid enough to try, they’ll probably find a way to kill you.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe the old head of the family is dead by now. Maybe the son who’s my father is in charge. Maybe he’d welcome me.”

  “And maybe our latrine has a seat made of gold,” says Baffi.

  “All those years of living on Torcello with only other dwarfs, they made you ignorant of how the world works,” says Ricci. “No noble is going to recognize you as his son. You’re an idiot to think otherwise.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “Good. Then you know our latrine doesn’t even have a seat.”

  “You three,” says Neve, “Baffi and Ricci and Giallino—you have nicknames. Baffi for your mustache, Ricci for your curly hair, Giallino for your blond hair. What are your real names?”

  “Those are our real names,” says Ricci. “We were named by the big people we lived with. And we hold on to those names, to remind us that we can’t get lazy, we can’t forget who we are and what we went through. Not like Alvise.” He shoots a look of disgust at Alvise. “We don’t pretend it never happened.”

  “That’s one way of doing things,” says Alvise. “Another way is to put it behind you. To recognize who you are and stand firm in your own name. I’m not pretending anything. My mother called me Alvise. I have a right to that name, no matter what big people called me.”

  “You and Pietro,” says Ricci. “Fools.”

  “I’ll tell you what I want,” says Giallino. He points at the hearth. “Let’s eat that pig.”

  “Finally,” says Alvise. “Finally someone’s showing some appreciation. Let’s eat.”

  “You can have my stool,” Tommaso says to Neve. “I’ll sit on the floor.”

  “Oooo. Suffer, suffer, suffer,” says Ricci.

  “You can build yourself a new stool,” says Alvise. “I’ll help you.”

  Agnola looks at the wall. With a groan, she rolls over. Waking up is the hardest part of the day. She has to face it—Bianca.

  She stands and reaches high to touch the tip of the green damask that stretches over the top of the canopy bed. The coverlet matches it. Agnola and Bianca have identical bedcovers in deep green, Bianca’s favorite color.

  Agnola dresses. Lucia La Rotonda has left a tray outside the door. Bread and raisins and chamomile brew. Agnola eats alone, sitting on the rush-bottom stool at the table. The food is without taste. She gives half of her bread to Pizzico.

  The house is so quiet. Not even Pizzico makes a noise above the little sht, sht of his chewing. Agnola walks the dog down the rear stairs and waits while he does his business in the courtyard. Carlo comes out instantly and cleans it up. Antonin is nowhere to be seen, but Agnola is sure he’s in the wings somewhere, waiting. Everyone is solicitous. Everyone misses Bianca. Christmas without Bianca was bleak. Every day without Bianca is bleak.

  When Agnola goes back up the stairs, she sees Dolce standing in front of the long mirror at the front of the big hall. Agnola walks up behind her slowly. She looks at Dolce’s face in the mirror, but their eyes don’t meet. Dolce stares at herself. Her lips move.

  “What does the mirror tell you today?” says Agnola gently.

  “The same,” says Dolce. She turns and faces Agnola. “Always the same.”

  Dolce hardly speaks these days except to that mirror. Agnola thinks sometimes of covering the mirror like in the past—and forcing Dolce to be part of the household again. “We need a change.”

  Dolce looks slightly alarmed. “Who needs a change?”

  “The feast of Santo Stefano was a week ago today,” says Agnola.

  “Time passes.” Dolce traces the edges of her lips with her fingertips, those pink, pink fingertips.

  “We’re already a week into Carnevale,” Agnola says with forced enthusiasm. Carnevale is the last thing Agnola wants to participate in. But Dolce’s hold on this wo
rld is weakening day by day. “Let’s be part of it. I’ll tell Franca we’ll go to her party, after all.”

  “Franca? I don’t care about Franca.”

  “Friends are important, Dolce.”

  “Anyway, we didn’t have gowns made this year.”

  “We can use last year’s. And I can buy us new masks. That’s all we need, really.”

  “You don’t care if others remember the gowns?” asks Dolce.

  “Let’s talk.” Agnola touches Dolce on the arm as softly as she can. “Come. Let’s sit in the music room.”

  “Not the music room. The library. The music room was Bianca’s.”

  Agnola sucks in air sharply. The words hurt. But at the same time she’s glad of them. This is a rare admission of the fact that Bianca is gone; perhaps it’s a healthy sign. “It’s true, sweet Dolce. The sight of the harp always brings tears to my eyes.” She follows Dolce into the library. They sit near the table where Marin liked to stand hunched over his large, heavy books. He would spread open two or three on the table at once and move from one to the other like a bird hunting through bushes for berries. He was always eager, delighted. He used to smile so much. “Is there any word from Marin yet?”

  “Nothing.”

  Agnola’s head feels heavy. Her poor brother. He will come home with gifts for everyone, for a wife who’s gone mad and a daughter who isn’t here. He’ll learn the news and…simply break. The whole household will begin the process of grieving all over again. She looks around. So many books. And still Marin wants more. What makes people like this, focused on only one thing? In some ways Marin is as bad as Dolce. But he has some perspective. When he finds out, none of these books will matter to him anymore. None of them holds the answers he’ll need. He’ll cry. He won’t pretend that nothing has happened.

  “You wanted to talk?” says Dolce.

  The physician has urged Agnola to try to get Dolce to engage in conversation. “Do you know you hardly talk these days, except to that mirror. It’s sad, Dolce.”

  “Most things are sad.”

  “It’s odd, Dolce.”

  Dolce raises an eyebrow.

  “An obsession, really. The physician says talking to the mirror allows you to block everything else out.”