Plague in the Mirror

by Deborah Noyes

  There’s a certain kind of silence when you wake in the deep of night, in a strange bed, knowing that someone has entered the room.

  You don’t know how you know. Your eyes are closed, and whoever it is hasn’t made a sound.

  But the silence is thicker than usual; it weighs more, in the way that a withholding friend is worse than one who’s just neglecting you.

  With that weight, that knowing, on her chest, May opens her eyes to find a figure at the foot of the canopy bed.

  At first, she can’t make out more than a luminous outline, but as her eyes adjust in the dark, she sees it’s a girl, looking as surprised as May feels.

  The intruder’s hands hang at her sides, and the folds of an old-fashioned gown puddle on the Tuscan tile at her feet. May has the urge to clap her hands over her eyes the way you do when you’re a kid and think blindness and invisibility are the same thing.

  You can’t see me.

  Me.

  Because as the other girl walks forward in the moonlight, it’s like looking in a mirror. The ghostly stranger might be her identical twin or a fainter version of May, who can’t look away or cry out or move.

  The girl extends both arms and tilts her head. Her fingers open and close like anemones, and May helplessly watches her run a palm over the satin bedspread, fingertips disappearing into the fabric. Lifting the cloth of her gown to kneel, she works her way up the length of the bed with hands on either side of May’s rigid body, a mean, knowing smile blooming on her face. She sits down, weightless, right on May’s midsection. “Ciao, bella.”

  May tries to squirm free —“Get off!”— but there’s nothing to repel. The girl is both there and not there, and it’s paralyzing.

  “So, you will speak to me in inglese? Come mia madre?” As if to answer her own question, she slides a short, savage-looking knife from the folds of her dress and holds it by May’s clenched jaw, the milky-pale blade never touching skin. “No? I would show you what Cristofana thinks of no”— the knife disappears again —“but I cannot.” Her voice dips as with a secret, an expansive gesture taking in what might be the room or the whole world. “I knew I would find you. But not where or when.”

  May lets out her breath to object, but her voice is useless, gone.

  “Oh, stop trembling, sciocca. I won’t harm you.” The ghost girl sighs theatrically. “Not today.” She rolls away, an acrobat springing to her feet.

  May watches her — it — pass effortlessly through the closed door, dissolving into the wood. She curls toward the wall, feeling her limbs unlock, her breathing slow to normal. She waits for her voice, a sob or a gasp, an earsplitting scream, anything, but the middle-of-night silence wins out, and some sane part of May knows that’s best. She instead conjures her mother’s voice from childhood, that firm, low, loved voice, soothing Shhh . . . it’s just a dream. The room is hushed, gentled, but only for a second, because this dream won’t behave like one; it won’t wear like dreams do.

  Just breathe.

  Fixing her gaze on the digital clock face, May watches an hour pass, and another. She tracks shadows on the ceiling, naming the shapes they make — tree, wolf, teeth — and every time she shuts her eyes, the scene loops through her brain again: a bleached, weightless figure crawling beastlike up the bed and over her; the transparent glow of the knife; but most remarkable of all, the face, her own exactly, and as alien as the moon.

  So May keeps her eyes open.

  Stifling her yawns over continental breakfast, May comes to as Gwen folds her newspaper closed. Their summer rental in City Center East opens today, and May knows that Gwen will hustle them out of the temporary B&B to beat the heat and the lunch crowds.

  “Dude,” May says, leaning too conspicuously toward Liam, “walk me to my room so I can pack.”

  He moves to stand, no questions asked, but his mother halts him with a hand on his arm.

  Gwen’s used to them, but it’s been almost a year since Liam and May have really hung out — that is, before he shuttled over on the Volainbus Monday to fetch her at the airport — and now May isn’t a part of anything bigger anymore. She’s just May, alone in Florence with friends of what-used-to-be the family, and her summer guardian is overcompensating. “You’re not packed yet?” Gwen asks.

  May decides to just come out with it. “My room’s haunted.” Her voice is kidding — the morning light has calmed her, settled over the terror of night like a layer of snow — but she still feels it, the heat of fear. “I think.”

  Li gives her that measured, bemused look May somehow forgot until this moment, the brotherly I’m-waiting-for-you-to-start-making-sense look. Li isn’t her brother. Technically, he isn’t family at all. Neither is Gwen, who went out of her way to help Mom and the teachers structure this as an independent study to sub in for May’s final exams. But May’s known these two all her life, and in a way, they’re better than family. Especially now.

  “I guess I had a nightmare,” she admits, half believing it. “And I didn’t want to hang around in there and pack alone.”

  Gwen’s smile is tight with concern. “It’s normal, you know, with stress. Bad dreams . . . insomnia . . .”

  Oh, please. Don’t start. May covers her ears, humming like an angry hive, and Gwen regards her watch with a shrug. “All right. I’m here if you need me. I’ll line up a cab. You two need to get cracking.”

  There’s no trace in the room to suggest that the girl was there.

  “Sleepwalking?” Li theorizes from the rumpled bed while May sits on her backpack to crush down its contents.

  He looks like a deposed prince in jeans and Converse lying with crossed ankles under the antique canopy, at home as can be on a sea of silk covers. May hides her smile. She must have looked wrong in that bed all week, too, an imposter. The B&B villa is in the hills that circle the city, on the site of what used to be a vineyard, according to its brochure, and before that a medieval nunnery. Li and Gwen arrived exactly a week earlier than May did and hadn’t yet exerted themselves in her absence. They mostly enjoyed the villa’s blue, blue pool, the grassy hedges and banks of red flowers, or walked north in search of wine and olive-oil tastings in country farmhouse shops. The first thing Li did when May arrived was plunk down her bags poolside, and show off the pink tan line under his collar.

  “Maybe you woke up,” he adds now, “or half did, and saw yourself in the mirror.” They both look over at the tarnished glass above the dresser, its dark frame carved with sinuous lilies. Their reflections stare back, expectant. “That would’ve scared the crap out of me.”

  May struggles with the zipper on her pack and nods; as a kid, she was known to sleepwalk. “Yeah. That makes sense.” She feels stupid, pitiful — the way he’s looking at her — because if it was a dream she can’t seem to wake up from it.

  On the other hand, May thinks, with a glance at her childhood best friend, she doesn’t feel invisible anymore, the way she did watching her mother deflate at the airport checkpoint when she thought May was out of range . . . or at the gate, locked in a half lotus on the hard airport chair, flip-flops askew on the carpet, iPod cranked to vibrate, trying not to meet anyone’s eyes because her own were wet. No matter how loud May had thumbed the volume, she still felt mute and vanished, locked in a struggle not to let her mother’s tired face, the obvious relief to be sending May away, be her last memory of her family. That invisible feeling was hard to shake even once she touched down in big, busy Florence. But Gwen’s kept them so occupied this week with walking tours that May’s had little time to feel sorry for herself, and they haven’t seen City Center yet, so today will be even busier.

  On her knees, May works the zipper closed and rests her head on the overstuffed pack, yawning. She swivels and
rolls flat on the floor, the intricate mosaic tiles cooling her back.

  “You didn’t sleep,” Li acknowledges, “did you?”

  May covers her eyes with a forearm. “Guilty.”

  He heaves himself off the bed and lifts her backpack, gently prodding her with his foot. As he slings the pack onto his shoulder, May props herself up on an elbow. In the silence, she’s tempted to tell Li what really happened last night, or what she thinks happened, because unlike her parents or Gwen, he would at least entertain that something weird occurred (and May still can’t convince herself it didn’t). He’d joke it to death, sure, and rob it of every hint of strangeness and mystery; he’d make her feel silly, but he’d make her feel safe.

  All her life she’s felt safe — more or less sure of herself and her place in the world — and now the people who gave her that are back in Vermont, dismantling home, stripping certainty away.

  The idea that May’s freak twin might be more than a dream is a lot like the fact that her parents are splitting up and forcing her to choose between them. It fits no known pattern of security.

  Li’s still waiting with her heavy pack on and a hand gripping the handle of her suitcase, so she offers one of her own hands like a hook, and he hauls her up.

  Gwen’s rented a small, airy third-floor apartment in City Center East. They cab over and settle in, opening doors and drawers, calling dibs on rooms, napping awhile. Later they devour the biscotti and mandarin soda from their landlord’s care basket, enjoying the river view from the terrace. The sunlight has turned everything gold, and the temperature has dipped to bearable, so Gwen leads them outdoors and north toward the historic heart of the city a half dozen crowded blocks away.

  Crossing to Piazza della Signoria is like parting the Red Sea. There are people everywhere, streaming in the same direction or trying to chisel a path in the opposite one. The narrow, shaded streets echo with the bleating toy horns of Fiats and the wasping drone of mopeds.

  As they enter the piazza, May sees dozens, possibly hundreds, of people milling around in bright summer outfits. They chatter and squint up at carvings tucked in niches, pursue restless children pursuing pigeons, back into one another while framing photographs, and line up at carts to buy trinkets and limonata. High above them all, the sun-gilded tower of Palazzo Vecchio casts its long, welcome shadow over parched piazza stones.

  As soon as she spots it, Gwen makes a beeline for Michelangelo’s David, lingering until Liam and May jar themselves out of whatever sensory stupor they’re in and sidle up beside her. She explains at length that it’s only a copy; the real statue was moved indoors to the Accademia long ago, and May dutifully takes in David’s furrowed brow and blank eyes. But she can’t help it; her gaze slips down the famous torso to the statue’s nether regions. She clears her throat and turns to Li, who’s pursing his lips with a considering nod. They shrug at exactly the same moment and steer Gwen away, marching her past the surging horses in the Fountain of Neptune in search of gelato.

  The fountain’s spray cools May’s cheek as they pass, and she tries not to let the flags swaying high in a still-hot breeze or the writhing bodies and muscled lions and screaming women on tall marble pedestals in the loggia unnerve her. Instead, she focuses on the crop of art students sketching side by side on the stone base of a nearby building: heavy-lidded boys; fashionable girls; a middle-aged woman in a plaid beret. They seem so content there, alone but together.

  May follows a few more blocks north, lingering on the street while Gwen and Liam duck into a narrow gelato shop. They find her sitting on unoccupied steps within view of the cathedral and hand hers over — chocolate, always — and after they all dig in, Gwen points out Giotto’s campanile and Brunelleschi’s dome, il Duomo, in the distance.

  “The last time I was in Florence,” she tells them, “a friend brought me to a department store somewhere near here. Rinascente, I think. There’s a rooftop café there I’ll take you to. Seeing all this from on high is amazing, but you know that already. I think we’ll be right at home in the apartment, don’t you? We lucked out with our views.”

  May and Liam nod vigorously but go right on excavating with their little shovel-shaped plastic spoons, eyes downcast, devoted. They’ll develop a pretty successful work pattern in the days to come. The two of them will take in another mosaic or waxwork or painting of the Virgin and Child; Gwen will buy them ice cream.

  “You learn so much about a place through its art,” she’s rhapsodizing between dainty bites of lavender-fig gelato as they stand as one and start to walk north again. Looking at May, she asks, “Did you know your mother was studying art history when we met at school?”

  Mom likes to paint — every few years she drags out her easel and invests in fresh tubes of acrylic — but May had no idea she studied art formally. Her urbane mother would appreciate it here — all these frescoes and gap-eyed statues, all these people bustling around in nice shoes — way more than May does.

  And suddenly she feels overwhelmed by it all, not least the exquisite bulk of the domed cathedral they’re now approaching. With its dizzying stripes and bold arches, its geometric intricacy of white-and-pink-and-green marble, the structure Gwen identifies as the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore seems to take up several city blocks. They sit down on another set of stone steps to take in the view.

  May has never seen anything like it.

  The only stillness on these swarming streets, it seems, is the architecture: stone and stucco and salmon tiles, shuttered windows and ancient, crowding towers. Even the sun is moving, May knows, casting longer and longer shadows, marking time. She feels ashamed of her own indifference, of how little she deserves this.

  When May doesn’t comment, Gwen stands up with a glance at Liam. “I’m off in search of a cup of coffee. Meet you back here in twenty?”

  May nods up at her, heartsick somehow. The strangeness of her surroundings has taken hold, and with it a sadness she wasn’t ready for. Because it’s over now: the mindless quiet of a Vermont morning; waking to the smell of Dad’s coffee and a fuzz of green in the window, to Mom’s old radio playing softly in her home office, barely audible under the mounting chorus of the birds; all that ease and sweetness. “What are we doing here?” she asks aloud.

  “Here on these steps?” asks Liam. “In Florence? On Earth? Can you be more specific?”

  “Gwen never should have let you take that philosophy class,” May complains, with a knuckle-punch to his forearm. She doesn’t want to be lousy company. Not here. But before she can explain herself, the ghost girl from the B&B intrudes into her thoughts again.

  “You know why we’re here,” Li says lazily. “To help Mom with her book.”

  May’s gaze lights on a glowing figure in the shade at the edge of the cathedral, which turns out to be a little girl in a gauzy sundress, blowing bubbles with a wand. “Remind me?”

  “Historical travel guide for eggheads . . . like the one she did about London? You know, what composer’s buried in what tomb in what cemetery, and where do all the bohemians drink their coffee, and where were all the queens beheaded. You get the idea.”

  Gwen teaches medieval literature to grad students and publishes seriously wonky papers in her area of expertise, May knows, but also moonlights as a popular travel writer.

  “My tuition’s coming due, so she signed on for two more guidebooks in that series. You heard it here: it’s all tombs and dungeons from now on. . . . Evidently everyone thought this would really cheer you up.” When she doesn’t respond, he adds, “Did you think you were here to soak up the Tuscan sun and eat ice cream?”

  May tries to play along, but it’s more of an effort than usual. “And we’re really too old for camp?”

  “I’ve been thus informed.”

  “Why didn’t you stay home and work?” she asks seriously. “You’re moving out in the fall anyway.”

  “Mom’s on sabbatical. You know what that means. She sublet the house. Home’s on wheels with her, always has
been.” He meets her eyes intently for the first time all day. “Are you OK?”

  She’s never thought much about Liam’s eyes, which would be like thinking about a zebra’s stripes. It’s inconvenient, in a way, to notice them now, but they’re a shocking blue. She glares at him.

  “OK. It’s lame and sentimental,” he says — circling back now, aware that he’s pushed too hard — that May isn’t ready to talk about her family or the lack. “I guess I came because this might be the last time I get to really hang with my mom . . . and now you . . . before college. Even if it means I have to spend all summer in cathedrals.” They both look up at the vast structure in front of them. “You’re getting a stipend, at least. I’m doing this for free.”

  “Sucker,” she jokes, because that’s what they do — joke, soothe, smooth it over, whatever it happens to be — but May is relieved when Gwen returns, jittery with excitement.

  “I’ve found something.” She waves them off the steps, her voice soft, urgent. “Come, come. Quickly.”

  Liam groans, heaving himself up and startling a pigeon pecking on the curb nearby.

  Gwen’s long gray-white hair swings with her purposeful stride, and they follow past the office of the Misericordia to a narrow alley leading away from Piazza del Duomo toward Via dei Calzaioli. The fleeting daylight barely touches it. “It’s called Via della Morte.” She stops short. “Way of Death.” Gwen runs her finger over a plaque, paraphrasing in that clipped, breathless way that pays homage to their joint minuscule attention span. “Around 1343, Ginevra, a daughter of the noble house of Amieri, fell in love with a young man from an unsuitable family in an opposing order. Her father forbade their marriage and made her marry a man named Francesco Agolanti instead, who was of equal birth. During a rash of plague, she took sick and seemed dead, so her husband buried her in the family vault in that cemetery between the cathedral and the campanile. In the middle of the night, Ginevra came to in a panic, terrified. She managed to unwind her bandages, raise the stone slab, flee from the vault, and return to her husband’s home along this alleyway.”