DELUGE

by Lisa T. Bergren

  Gabi sat back slowly, her fingers on the arms of her chair, pinching so hard they were turning white. “Castello Greco. You know it as Castello Greco.”

  “Si,” Galileo said slowly, wondering what she was after.

  “He is right,” Mom whispered to us. “Angels, and even stars appear elsewhere. But the only place that Ben and I ever saw handprints were in Tomb Two.”

  “Tomb Two,” Orazio repeated, frowning. “How did you know that? You disappeared before it was discovered.”

  “Because,” Mom said slowly, “I discovered it.”

  “No, some other guy discovered it. Just a couple miles from your husband’s last known dig site,” Orazio said, nodding toward Dad. “I’ve read tons about him and the dig. It made him super famous.” He tapped his forehead. “What was his name?”

  “Doctor Manero?” Dad asked dully, his brown eyes moving to watch their reaction.

  “Yes, yes. Manero. That’s it!”

  The breath left Mom with a whoosh. Her biggest discovery ever had been commandeered by the jerkiest jerk we’d ever met, Doctor Jerk-Face Manero.

  “Don’t you see?” Gabi asked her. “It makes sense. We changed everything when we went back and nabbed Dad. You were never there, the year you found the tomb field with Lia and me. But since you’ve been here, you’ve done your fair share of excavation—”

  “Which made it easier for Manero to find it,” Mom finished numbly, rubbing her temples. She looked wan, as if the guy had ripped her off again, somehow.

  “Yes,” Orazio said tentatively, aware now that he was in tender territory. “He used a drone over the forest. Found it, and then became famous.”

  “Enough about Manero,” Dad said briskly. “Get back to the handprints.”

  “Right,” Galileo said. “Well, we visited the Forelli site, which is what they call it now, given the castle and all. We saw a pair of handprints there.” His eyes flicked to Marcello. “I have to say, it’s beyond strange to meet you. Who knew that we were somehow family?” He shook his head as we all waited. “Anyway, we noticed that there were only two handprints, and different sizes. So when we got home, we looked for handprints like them, and we found them there in our tomb, too, side by side.”

  “And when we touched them, they were warm,” Orazio said. “Or one was. For me. And the other for him.”

  “Just like for us,” I murmured.

  “Really?” Orazio asked me.

  “Really. And when you touched them together…”

  “Boom. We were here,” Galileo finished, hands splayed outward. “Well, not here-here, but on our land. In a different time.”

  We stared at them for a long moment, all wondering the same thing. Could we trust them? Could they possibly be playing us, having found out our method of time travel somehow?

  “What year are you from?” I whispered.

  Galileo’s brown eyes settled on mine. “2089. And God help me, I’m praying you can help us return.”

  I looked at his clothing, but it was clear that his Back to the Future duds were long gone. 2089? Seriously?

  “Please don’t tell us we’re stuck here like you,” Orazio said, brows curving upward. “Is there a way to get back?”

  “We’re not stuck,” I said quickly, feeling his word as an affront for some reason. As if he was dissing us and all we had here.

  Then I looked at Luca. I meant it. Suddenly, I understood. I didn’t feel trapped. I was exactly where I wanted to be. Couldn’t imagine going back. To our era, or these boys’. The idea of it…

  I rose and paced away, thinking. It was what I had known all along. I loved Luca. I didn’t want to leave him, or even medieval Italy, now. Certainly not my family. But there was something about meeting Galileo and Orazio, the idea of another open time door somewhere, that made it seem more possible to return home. To safety. Security. But was it truly more secure?

  As I thought on it, that option came to lack security, too. There were unknowns, any which way I turned.

  But it was possible. I could make the leap.

  And in that possibility, I realized how impossible it would be to leave Luca. To leave us, and our future together.

  I looked to him and found him staring at me. He really was so dang amazing, in so many ways. More manly than when I’d first met him. With those green eyes that seemed to teem with life itself. And the way he was so aware of me, constantly looking out for me…I didn’t know how to explain it. But in that instant, I was sure of it. That I had to take the risk. Regardless of the cost to me or him or my family.

  Hadn’t every single risk we’d taken paid off so far?

  “Che cos’é? Che cosa é successo?” he mouthed. What is it? What has happened?

  I only smiled. Smiled so broadly that I thought I might start laughing. He gave me a quizzical look, which only made me think him ten-times hotter.

  I’m going to marry this man.

  I was going to marry him and take whatever came at us, hand in hand with him. Mrs. Luca Forelli. Evangelia Forelli. Lia Forelli. Yeah, I could get used to that.

  I focused again on the conversation at hand.

  “So we need to get you fellows back to your tomb and home,” Dad was saying.

  But the guys just shook their heads, miserably. “They destroyed it behind us. When we came out…” Orazio said, and looked to his brother.

  “We were so surprised, so completely shocked, we didn’t have time to come up with an explanation.”

  I looked to Gabi. We knew that feeling well. When we first arrived in medieval Italy, I think I’d just repeated something like, “I’m not from here,” to Cosmo Paratore in the days after my arrival. And gradually, I figured out that to claim I was from the future would land me in some sort of fourteenth-century psych ward.

  “It was our rotten luck to emerge in this time just as a priest and four nuns were passing by on a wagon,” Galileo said. “They took one look at us and you’d think they’d seen aliens or something.”

  “Well, we did walk out of the tomb,” his brother said.

  “Still. That priest hit the reins across the back of that mule so hard the nuns practically tumbled out the back onto the road.” He smiled and shook his head, then ran a hand through his thick, curly hair. “We set off in the opposite direction, deciding that the priest and nuns weren’t likely to make nice as friends, and came across a town that gave us a pretty good idea of what time period we’d landed in.”

  “We got scared then,” Orazio said. “Reality was setting in. But in the dark, we knew we couldn’t make it back to the tomb without getting lost.” His expression became gloomy. “When we returned there, come morning, it was nothing but a burned-out shell.”

  “What?” Mom asked, rising, looking pale.

  “It was that priest and those nuns,” Galileo said. “We crept close enough to hear some villagers talking. They thought we were demons, rising from the grave. Or warlocks. They destroyed it to drive us away.”

  “Little did they know it would keep us here forever,” Orazio said forlornly.

  “We set off walking,” Galileo said. “Our only other thought was that we had to get to the Forelli tomb.”

  “Because of the handprints,” Marcello said.

  Galileo nodded.

  “Indulge me,” Marcello said, rising and going to Gabriella. He took her hand and helped her rise and led her to the center of the room. Then he gestured to Galileo, the taller, but younger, brother.

  “It was your left hand, yes?” he asked Gabi. She nodded and lifted her hand, palm up.

  Eyes wide, Galileo lifted his to lay it against Gabi’s. A perfect match.

  Marcello waved Orazio closer as he came over to me, doing as he did with my sister, leading me to the center of the room. There seemed to be an electric charge in the air, and I felt a measure of fear before I lifted my palm to match against Orazio’s. As if this might change everything…as if somehow, we four might disappear.

  I lifted my trembling hand
to set it against his.

  Again, a perfect match. From the tips of our fingers to the base of our palms.

  Our hands grew warm as we stared at each other for a long moment, and again it was his eyes that made me think I knew him from somewhere, that we’d met, somehow, before. But that had to be the Betarrini blood running through his veins. A common gene, reappearing down the family line. The same that made Gabi and Dad look alike, just as Mom and I did.

  Slowly, we all let our hands drop, but we only moved a few steps away from one another.

  “So…” Dad said, pacing excitedly, chin in hand. “Betarrini blood, both pairs, siblings…Are you two years apart?”

  “Yes, sir,” Orazio said, looking dazed as he stared at me and glanced down at my hand again.

  “When are your birthdays?” Mom asked.

  We all tensed, waiting for some other cosmic freakishness. But they weren’t the same as ours, just a similar span apart.

  Dad looked to Mom. “Maybe that’s all it takes,” he said in English. “The right gene, the right genetic connection with a sibling, and the right sized hand, access to an Etruscan tomb with the prints, and boom, you’re a time traveler.”

  “Benedetto,” Marcello warned with a sigh of frustration. Gabi quickly translated for the rest as Mom and Dad kept on in excited conference. I knew from experience that it was hard to break into their small circle when they got like this, chasing down a hunch together.

  “Gabi and Lia weren’t the first travelers,” Mom said, shaking her head. “That’s what those other symbols in our tomb mean. Why there is a Greek and a Roman beside the angels. I thought they’d been added later, by people from those cultures who somehow wanted to leave their own mark on the tomb. But they appear to have been made at the same time as the rest of the frescoes, by Betarrini ancestors. It never made sense to me, either way. Except in this context.” She looked around at me and Gabi. “You weren’t the first Betarrinis to travel,” she said again.

  “Nor are you likely the last,” Dad said, looking to our new cousins.

  “But we might be,” Orazio said, “if something happens to your tomb and the tunnel is lost to us forever.”

  “There might be others,” Mom said, now pacing the room with Dad. “In our time, many tombs had been bulldozed or otherwise destroyed. But in this time, who knows how many tombs there are?”

  That thought gave me both hope and a little dose of fear. The last thing we needed were more Betarrinis popping up everywhere. Not if we wanted to stay here. At some point, they’d be bound to round us all up and waterboard us until we spilled our secrets. I moved over toward Luca again, and seeing my look of fear, he gave me a gentle, reassuring smile. Tentatively, he took my hand. It felt good, so good, for him to hold it again. I never wanted to let him go.

  “Please,” Marcello said, gesturing toward Galileo. “Resume your story. You were saying your tomb was destroyed?”

  “Yes. We set off in the direction of what we hoped was Radda-in-Chianti, which we remembered was near your castello. We had our second batch of bad luck when we met up with a group of actors moving from town to town. They fed us, gave us wine, allowed us to ride some on their wagon, in exchange for a story each night. After a little too much wine one night…” He paused to give his older brother the evil eye. “Orazio here began telling stories of people flying in airplanes and on rocket ships.”

  Orazio sighed heavily. “And suddenly, we were the favorite storytellers of medieval times. Before we knew it, we were heading north, not south, and we were beaten, gagged and chained when we tried to leave. That is how we ended up in the doge’s court. Once here, after a couple of days, we knew we were just digging our own graves, and we refused to say anything. That was when the doge threw us into prison for our disobedience.”

  “He gets a bit frustrated when his demands go unmet,” Galileo added.

  “How much did you tell them?” Dad asked hopefully. “Of the tombs? Of time travel?”

  “Very little,” Orazio said earnestly. “We knew, by then, that we were begging for our own deaths by doing so. But the actors…they swore to the doge about what we’d said. We just refused to back them up.”

  “What happened to your clothes?” Mom said.

  “The actors took them,” Orazio said, pushing a curl back from his eyes, frustration pulling his lips into a line.

  It struck me, then, that these two would be dang cute after a decent night’s rest and a bath. Not that I was attracted to them. I just noticed. And felt a weird familial pride over these new, hot cousins.

  Mom and Dad shared a long look. I knew they were thinking we’d have to track down and get rid of those clothes, just as we had our own. There was the incriminating future-factor, but also we just couldn’t have jeans or t-shirts or sneakers in the medieval historical record. It’d mess up detail-freaks like archeologists, big-time. We’d burned or buried all of ours. And now, thanks to Rodolfo, we’d even burned Lia’s.

  “So how do we do this?” Gabi asked, in English. “Exit Venezia, stage left, with these guys with us? After what just happened out there tonight, his doge-ness is not going to want his new starlet to leave.”

  “Like, ever,” I returned with a sigh.

  “He’s probably already in the hallway,” she continued in Italian, “counting down the minutes on our allotted hour. We knew it was going to be tough to disentangle ourselves. The dogaressa made a point of telling me they had the finest midwives in all of Italia here—that I’d have access to the same midwife who helped her through four deliveries.” She stared at Marcello. “I want to be home when our baby comes.”

  “You shall be,” he said, taking her hand, looking a bit pained at having to discuss such intimate details in a public setting. “Rodolfo warned us. The doge likes his court to be the most entertaining and interesting in the world. And our presence certainly aids him in that. We knew we’d be here for a couple of weeks. Let’s plan on that, and find a way to convince the doge that when we leave, he should send your Betarrini kin with us. Take up Rodolfo’s suggestion—to claim them as kin, but madmen. Tell him it’s our responsibility to take care of them. If he agrees, he’ll gain continued favor from one of the Nine of Toscana, and get rid of two prisoners who try his patience.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “I only hope that he is as logical as you are.”

  We could hear the crowd outside then, even from this inner chamber. While we couldn’t make out the words, we could tell what they yelled by cadence alone. She-Wolf! She-Wolf!

  Gabi’s eyes met mine. “It’s all you this time, Sis,” she said, gesturing toward me. We’d heard a crowd like that before, in Siena. And it had ended with Cosmo Paratore getting his ears cut off. In that one, decisive move, Gabi had controlled a situation that was rapidly threatening to unravel. Could I do something similar and accomplish the same task this night?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EVANGELIA

  Our hour with the Betarrini boys was up. We hurriedly promised to come and check on them the next morning, bringing them food and new clothing, as well as news on our progress in securing their freedom. A loud knock sounded at the door.

  Luca looked to Marcello, and Marcello nodded.

  “Entra,” Luca called.

  A ducale knight stood in the doorway, with others behind him. With the door open, we could make out the rock-star-like chant, She-Wolf, She-Wolf…

  “It is time, my lord,” he said to Marcello. “Serenissimo wishes you all to return to the piazza for the festivities.” His eyes moved to me. “Serenissimo asks that you be prepared for some further exposition of your archery skills. There are a number of noblemen and gentlewomen who would like their try at competing with such a formidable opponent.”

  I smiled, thinking that this time, at least, we could place some of our own bets. “As long as there are no more apples or people as potential targets, I cannot see why I wouldn’t take part.”

  The knight looked back over his shoulder, whisperi
ng something, and a man took off. I frowned. What exactly had the doge planned for me next? Who knew how warped the man was, in his ongoing quest to have the most unique court in the world? I was still trying to get over the dogaressa, and all the noblewomen who hung out with her. Five or six of them had squirrels wearing beaded collars and leashes. Some were cute and basically like rodent-sized dogs, but others would alternately relax as the women petted them, and then bite their fingers without provocation. I saw one woman get bitten and fling her squirrel to the ground, then send a servant chasing after it. A parrot flew back and forth across the dogaressa’s magnificent room, squawking and leaving a trail of tiny feathers and poop across the ornate marble floor, which again, a servant had to scurry across, cleaning up behind the fowl. There’d also been a ferret in attendance. And the corner housed a huge cage, full of twelve tiny, brightly colored birds.

  Luca came over to me and offered his arm. I accepted it. Together, we moved out, directly behind the ducale guards. “You really do look stunning in that gown,” he whispered as we walked the hall. “If I died, I’d want to see an angel like you.”

  I smiled. It was good to hear him back to his normal teasing. But it felt odd, being clothed in white, a color usually designated for funerals in this era. I definitely stood out…but at least I’d ditched the wings. Those things had been heavy—probably a good thirty pounds—and so thickly layered with white feathers that they’d set me to sneezing. I’d practically fallen off the tower bannister before it was time. It was a wonder I’d hit anything I shot at en route down. What a wreck…

  “What is it?” Luca whispered, pulling me closer.

  “This whole night,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s so far beyond anything I imagined would happen in Venezia…”

  The crowd was so loud as we got closer to the piazza that I doubted Luca could even hear my words. The doors at the end were open, and we could see people dancing, in time with the She-Wolf chant, adding instruments as they held hands and wove in and out of other lines.

  I glanced back at Gabi, and her eyes were big. She mouthed, Here we go…and I took a deep breath.