by Gigi Pandian
Niccolò dropped me off a few minutes before I was due to meet Mahilan and Ava for dinner.
I knew, logically, that legends changed over time. Especially over five centuries. But there was something about the element of the story that had shifted that I couldn’t let go of. The basics had remained the same, that a husband and wife who loved each other had been separated and searched for each other, learning of the other’s death during a rainstorm and dying of grief, so their ghost would wail whenever it rained. But the story the present-day locals knew was about the ghost of a woman, whereas the much earlier version talked of the ghost of a man.
Two ghosts? That was all I needed. Even though I didn’t believe in them.
Mahilan wouldn’t hear of foregoing wine with dinner—we were on vacation, after all—but Ava and I convinced him the three of us should only share one bottle. We had to keep clear heads for what awaited us. I neglected to mention that I’d left the room and already had half a bottle without them.
As we ate braised oxtail and more fried Roman artichokes, they told me about the Etruscan ruins.
“Could I get some of the cocoa sauce I ate yesterday, for these artichokes?” I asked a waiter.
Mahilan laughed after the waiter left. “He recovered well, but he nearly lost it. Glad to see you back to your normal self.”
“What am I missing?” Ava asked.
“You don’t want to know about Jaya’s eating habits,” Mahilan said. “I’m sorry you didn’t join us at the Etruscan ruins, JJ. You’d have loved the history. I hope you at least got up from your laptop to walk through the grounds.”
“Well, about that, Fish…”
His jaw pulsed. “Seriously, JJ? You left the villa?”
“I didn’t go anywhere alone. My friend Niccolò took me to the library.” The waiter returned with a dish of chocolaty sauce. I dipped a bite of artichoke into the sauce, then let the combination melt in my mouth. I was right about how heavenly it was. I hoped it wouldn’t give me a food coma before our nocturnal expedition.
Mahilan’s nostrils flared and his face turned red. “You went out with a strange Italian man? You specifically promised—”
“That I wouldn’t talk to anyone dangerous. I talked to a teenager who works at the Park of Monsters and an octogenarian librarian even shorter than I am. Neither one has anything to do with this.”
“None of us,” Mahilan fumed, “can say for sure who has anything to do with this.”
“That ghost story Francesco told us does originate in the 1500s.”
“A ghost story, JJ, is hardly important—”
“It’s the same story?” Ava asked.
“That’s the interesting thing. I think we might have two ghosts. Both Marguerite and Antonio Allegri. Everyone we’ve met believes it’s her ghost haunting the hillside, but in the 1500s, it was Antonio who supposedly haunted these woods.”
We arrived at the Park of Monsters after eleven o’clock. We could have been there sooner, but Ava and I had insisted we park the car a distance from the entrance and approach on foot.
“I can’t believe I’m going along with this,” Mahilan muttered as he stumbled over a rock on the road. “What two-headed monster have I created by bringing the two of you together?”
Ava laughed and wrapped her arm around Mahilan’s elbow.
We fell silent as we reached the entrance. Instead of trying to break into the main entry gate, we circled the sprawling park until we saw a thick covering of trees that would obscure our hopping the fence. I tossed the rope ladder we’d made up to the top bars, climbed over, and pulled the ladder up and onto the other side of the wall.
Though we’d planned for the clandestine visit with black clothing, gloves, and flashlights, we hadn’t done the type of reconnaissance Lane would have done if he’d been here with me. I hoped we were properly disguised in case there were video cameras.
We’d mapped out a path of stone structures that were likely candidates for a clue to Lazzaro’s studio: the Ogre, Proteus, and Pegasus.
At night, I was especially struck by the fact that none of the sculptures looked quite like Lazzaro’s sketches. I knew creative types had always used artistic license, but it makes the work of a historian much more difficult.
With clouds above, it was effectively a moonless night, so we were forced to use our flashlights. In the darkness, the harsh beams of light bouncing off the stone monoliths created an eerie sensation, as if we were slicing pinpricks of light through Dante’s Inferno.
Since the garden was laid out on multiple levels, we had to watch for stone steps that appeared in unexpected places. In the forest that had overtaken the majority of the sculpture garden, we never would have found the creatures we sought without our maps. Even though the gardens had been restored over fifty years ago after being lost to overgrowth for five centuries, nature still reigned supreme in this Sacred Wood.
“I don’t understand what we’re looking for,” Mahilan whispered. “We already looked during the day.”
“For anything we missed.” I didn’t bother lowering my voice. If anyone was looking for us, our flashlights gave us away much more than our voices. “You pulled me and Ava out of the fountain so quickly we never got a good look at that area, for one. We need to look more carefully for anything in the stones that could lead into a larger section hidden by overgrowth.”
“Which nobody has found in all this time?”
“It’s more common than you’d think,” I said. “Archaeologists and historians wouldn’t have jobs if we remembered our pasts. Remember this whole place was forgotten for over four centuries.”
“Nearly five hundred years,” Ava murmured. “You think we can find it?”
“With a stage magician for a best friend, you learn all about various ways secret passageways can be hidden and revealed.”
“Doesn’t Sanjay use high-tech gadgets for his illusions?” Mahilan asked. “Damn.” His flashlight illuminated the dragon and he stumbled backward. To be fair to my brother, the grinning dragon didn’t look nearly as good humored in the darkness.
I steered Mahilan back onto the path. “Sanjay was trained in the classic methods, and the basic concepts were the same. Hydraulics, basic engineering concepts that architects have known for millennia. Even with robotic technology, lots of people still build things the solid old-fashioned way. Sébastien has replicated many classic automata illusions, and his work is in high demand.”
“Who’s Sébastien?” Ava asked.
“A retired French stage magician to whom we are indebted for saving Jaya’s life,” Mahilan said.
“I take it that’s a story for another day.” Ava shone her light at a fork in the path.
“I’m afraid it is,” I said. “I think we want to go this way. We cut across the path too soon. How did we get so turned around?”
“This place is a maze,” Mahilan grumbled. He continued to do so as we hopped a low fence leading to one of the creatures we wanted to examine: Proteus.
I checked the rocky areas of land near the sea monster raising its head from the earth, and also the mouth of the carving itself, to make sure there weren’t any moving pieces in the stone. Had the park’s creator, Vicino Orsini, kept his fellow outcast Lazzaro in mind when constructing his sculpture garden? Or had the studio grotto been added later?
Vicino had built the park in the 1550s, shortly after Lazzaro returned from India. I didn’t want to destroy anything, so I gingerly went over all of the points in the stone that I thought might give way as part of the original design.
“Nothing here.” I sat down on the grass that served as the sea monster’s ocean in front of its giant mouth.
“What was that?” Mahilan whipped his head around and squinted into the darkness. “A twig snapped. I swear I heard a twig snap. It’s like something is stalking us.”
“You di
dn’t hear—” I began.
“I heard it too,” Ava said. She clicked off her flashlight. “Turn off your flashlights.”
I stood up and found my brother’s hand.
We stood in darkness for several minutes, with no sound except our breathing.
My eyes adjusted to the near-black darkness, and I could make out shadows that I knew must be Mahilan and Ava. But without any detectable features, in this macabre park they looked more like faceless monsters.
“Shouldn’t we—” Mahilan whispered.
“Shh.” Ava and I both cut him off.
“But—”
“Look,” Ava whispered. She raised her arm, pointing toward the hill above us.
I could make out the shadow of her arm well enough to see the spot she indicated. Then I wished my eyes hadn’t yet adjusted. Because there, atop the mound above the sea of monsters, a translucent figure walked across the earth.
“It can’t be,” Mahilan said. “It’s the ghost.”
The apparition was still for a moment—then headed right for us.
Chapter 28
I watched, transfixed, as the shadow moved silently across the rocks. The ghostly figure was the shape of a person rather than an animal, but devoid of features.
“The ghost,” Mahilan exclaimed unnecessarily.
I don’t know how long I would have stood there if Mahilan hadn’t grabbed my hand. He pulled Ava and me with him as he ran.
“We can move better on our own, Fish,” I said.
“Then move,” he hissed.
Though I was a runner, I wasn’t ever a competitive one. I don’t think I’d ever run faster than I did that night. Branches whipped against my face as I kept pace with Mahilan.
“We’re going the wrong way,” Ava whisper-shouted. I’m not sure if Mahilan heard her and ignored her, or if his ears were thudding as loudly with his heartbeat as mine were.
We caught our breath against a boulder that blocked our path. “What the hell was that?” Ava asked. “It didn’t have a face.”
“I don’t want to know,” Mahilan said. “All I want to know is how the hell to get out of this place.”
“I told you we were running away from the entrance,” Ava said.
Mahilan swore.
“I don’t know where we are either now,” I said. “It was all I could do to stay on the path and keep my eyes on you two.”
“Let me get my flashlight,” Mahilan said.
“No,” Ava and I said at the same time. She put her hand on Mahilan’s.
“Ghosts don’t need the light from our flashlight to see us,” he said.
“It wasn’t a ghost,” I said, sounding much more confident than I felt at that moment. I pulled several twigs from my hair.
“Then what the hell was it?”
“I don’t know. But not a ghost.”
“It was rigged by a person, of course,” Ava said. “Am I the only one with my head screwed on straight? You’re the one with the magician friends, Jaya. You of all people know it’s possible to fake things like that.”
“Why would someone go to the trouble?” I stretched as I spoke. We’d run quite a distance.
“For this damn treasure of Lazzaro Allegri’s.”
I shook my head, even though they could barely see me. “Your theory is that someone has been pretending to be a ghost—for centuries—getting each new generation to take their place, as they walk around scaring people who try to find Lazzaro’s art studio? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’re combining two facts that don’t go together,” Ava said. “First, you’ve got the ghost story. There are ghost stories that capture people’s imaginations everywhere. I’m sure you’ve got some good ones in San Francisco. In this case, superstitious locals have a local ghost story that’s been passed down for generations. I’m sure they all believe they’ve heard the ghost when they hear a wild animal cry out, since the story has made its way into their consciousness. This place is pretty rural, and Mahilan and I saw several animals while we were sightseeing today.”
“I had a similar thought. Even the teenager I spoke to believes in the ghost.”
“And second,” Ava said, “you haven’t kept your quest to find Lazzaro’s paintings a secret. Any ambitious local could have heard about it, and be using the ghost story to frighten you off.”
Ava had a point. “That’s not a bad idea. But why? Only someone with specialized knowledge would know what a valuable discovery this could be.”
“Rich Americans are looking for a lost treasure in their backyard,” Ava said. “Someone without pure intentions might think it was an opportunity to get their hands on whatever we’re after, regardless of what it is, then figure out what to do with it later.”
“I hate to interrupt this fascinating discussion between you two treasure-hunting BFFs,” Mahilan said, “but don’t you think we should get out of here? In addition to that thing out there, I just felt a raindrop on my nose.”
“I did too,” I said. “We might as well turn on the flashlights. Otherwise we’ll get drenched and freeze to death out here.”
This time it was Ava who put a hand on our arms to stop us. “I heard someone,” she whispered. “Close.”
Mahilan swore under his breath and felt for my hand. “My eyes have adjusted well enough. Let’s keep moving.”
“Where?” I whispered back. “I haven’t yet figured out where we are. We passed the lions at some point, but they’re in the middle, so that doesn’t tell us anything.”
“Anywhere that’s not here. This twisting path has to lead somewhere.”
Mahilan pulled us along what I’m pretty sure was a path, but I could barely make it out as rain began to fall more steadily. I stumbled. My brother steadied my arm.
“Is that you breathing in my ear, Ava?” Mahilan asked.
“Who else would it be?” she whispered. “If you really think it’s a ghost out there, you wouldn’t feel it breathing.”
“I read somewhere that apparitions are known to make chilled breath occur,” Mahilan said, “as well as scents.”
“Are you joking, Fish?” I asked. “You only read articles like that so you can laugh at them.”
“I follow the evidence, JJ. It’s not my fault if that’s where the evidence is pointing.”
I rolled my eyes in the darkness, for no one’s benefit but my own.
The rain was falling harder now. I heard thunder rumbling in the distance, and nearly slipped off the dirt path.
Next it was Ava who tripped. Mahilan let go of my hand to help her up.
“The ground is too uneven here,” she said. “We should turn back.”
“Let me take a look,” Mahilan said. He had to raise his voice, because the rain had turned torrential. “I think it’s safe enough to turn on this—”
I didn’t hear the next word. All I could hear was the horrific sound of the earth giving way beneath my brother’s feet.
Chapter 29
“No!” Ava screamed.
She lunged forward. I stretched out an arm to stop her. She was at least as fit as I was, and much taller, so I doubted I could have held her back if she wanted to get away. But in the fraction of a second my arm was on hers, it gave her time to reconsider an impulsive action.
With shaking hands, I turned on my flashlight. It took me three tries.
Even with the light I couldn’t see too well through the rain, but what I saw was even worse than I’d imagined. We’d walked to the edge of a precipice.
“Mahilan,” Ava called. “Can you hear me?”
No answer.
I shone my light over the edge. The pressure in my chest eased slightly as I saw it wasn’t a deep cavern. Only about fifteen feet. But still enough to injure someone, or—I swallowed hard. I couldn’t lose my head. I wasn’t going to t
hink about the alternative.
“Fish!” I shouted.
Ava dropped onto her stomach and inched her way toward the edge. “I don’t think any more of this muddy earth is going to give way. I’m going down.”
“What are you talking about?” I grabbed her arm. “We need to go around—”
“I can’t lose him, Jaya. I can’t.” Her brown eyes shone like glowing embers in the beam of my flashlight. We stared at each other as furious raindrops pelted us.
“You think I can?”
A moan came from beneath us.
“I’m coming to get you,” Ava called to him.
“We need to find—”
“Hold this,” Ava said, pushing her small black backpack into my arms. It was heavier than it looked. In her hands she held a length of rope. She shone her flashlight through the rain. “That one. That tree is strong enough.”
Ava tied the rope around the base of the tree, then stood back and examined it. “Know anything about knots?”
“Not really.”
“Say a prayer, then.”
Before I could stop her, Ava slid down the steep and muddy slope where Mahilan had fallen.
I was torn between following Ava’s progress and making sure the knot was secured. I forced myself to stay with the knotted rope. I’m not sure exactly what I would have done if it had started to give way, but luckily I didn’t have to do anything. After an eternity that was probably no more than three minutes, two mud-covered figures emerged.
Mahilan’s chest heaved and he sprawled out on his back.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, rushing over to him.
“The only thing wounded is my pride. And maybe these leather shoes.”
“What are you doing on the ground then?”
“Seemed the best way to let the rain wash all this mud off of me.”
A bolt of lightning filled the sky with a burst of white light. He wasn’t kidding about the mud. Ava leaned over and kissed his muddy nose.
