The Ancestor
Page 30
“Pleasure, madame,” Greta whispered, and hurried from the room.
I had intended to confront Vita after Greta left. My anger about Joseph’s death and the lies she told about the children the Icemen had taken had enraged me. But when we were alone, I found that all my anger and indignation had drained away, leaving nothing but sadness.
“You are upset with me,” Vita said, watching me with narrowed eyes.
“I’m devastated,” I said. “All those children, Vita. They were not strong enough to survive the cold. It was all for nothing.”
“I didn’t know they took Joseph,” she said, lowering her eyes. “They had access to the castle, and they must have taken him. But I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have allowed it.”
“I won’t let anything happen to Isabelle,” I said. “That is for sure.”
“Ah, then you have become a kryschia after all,” she said, smiling weakly. “There is something you must see before you leave.”
Vita opened the wooden box. Inside, there were notes of currency, bundles and bundles of francs and liras held together with string, outdated currency that she would never be able to spend. Digging below a stack of franc notes, she removed an envelope and gave it to me. The letter was addressed to Vittoria Montebianco and had been postmarked from Milton, New York. The name and return address was that of my grandfather, Giovanni Montebianco.
May 14, 1957
Chere Maman,
Marta has urged me to write a letter of reconciliation. She believes that, if nothing else, such a gesture will relieve the pain of our final unhappy encounter. She sees that I suffer from our altercation and, quite honestly, she is correct. I am alone, so very alone, in this foreign place. Losing my fortune, my birthright, my home, my mother and my brother, has left me bereft. And while I hold no illusion that a single missive can heal what has transpired, I do believe that there is the chance you will listen to me and alter the terrible commitment you have made to our ancestors.
When I think of what the creatures have done to the people of Nevenero, what they did to my Marta, I am utterly at sea. Anger seizes me, gripping my heart, and I am unable to forgive. How do you live, Maman, with the knowledge of what you are doing? Assisting these creatures to survive is one thing, but condoning their crimes is unforgivable. You accused me of abandoning my family, but you were wrong. I have not abandoned you, but them, and all they represent. If I am an orphan, it is they who have made me such.
The immigrants from Nevenero are strangers to me, and seem to hate me for my name and history, but it is they who have become my only connection to home. I will never see our mountains again, my children and their children will never know them, and I thank heaven for that. There is nothing but evil in our black mountains. Nothing but ice and snow and secrets.
Dearest Maman, we are not prisoners to our ancestors. We must resist our biology and be happy. There is still hope for you and for Guillaume. Abandon the castle, sell everything, and come to New York. I am here, waiting. There are ships every week. I beg you to break this monstrous chain holding us to the past. We are tainted, but our dark lineage can be left behind.
Yours,
Giovanni
I put the letter down and looked at Vita. She stared at me with an intensity that I had seen just once, just minutes before she had poisoned Dolores.
“When I felt they were old enough to know the truth,” Vita said, “I took the boys to the village of the Icemen. I had hoped that, when they were older, they would work together to help our ancestors. But Giovanni found Marta in the village, and that was the end of everything.”
I stared at her, astonished. “My grandmother was one of them?”
“Not by birth, but by integration. She had been taken as a girl from Nevenero and raised among them. She spoke their language and understood their customs. I believe she would have been a great asset to them, a strong peasant girl like Marta. But Giovanni took her from the Icemen. She, in turn, stole him from the Montebianco family. Together, they took my dreams with them.”
I held Isabelle close, her smell filling me with tenderness, so that I almost felt, as I listened to Vita, capable of forgiving everything. But whatever sadness Vita carried, whatever disappointments and mistakes marred her life, I could not remedy them. I had made a commitment to Isabelle. I was not her mother, I was not even part of her tribe, but I would be her family. Gathering the baby up in my arms, I stood to leave, knowing that I would not see Vita again.
“One more thing before you go,” Vita said. “You see from my son’s letter that he wanted me to come to America. I don’t know if you can imagine what a terrifying proposition it was, to leave these mountains. I considered it, seriously considered it, for years, all the while hoping to find the courage to do what my son did so naturally: defy my lineage and be free. Finally, I wrote to Giovanni at the address on that letter in Milton, New York. He never responded, and thus I was not sure that my letter had ever made it to him. Not, that is, until you arrived.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I never mentioned a letter.”
“You didn’t have to,” Vita said. “You told me that Giovanni killed himself in July nineteen ninety-three. I sent my letter some weeks before, in June, telling him I would leave the castle to come to America. His response was suicide.”
Epilogue
Place des Vosges, Paris, France
In the beginning, it was easy to hide Isabelle. I wrapped her in blankets and pushed her through the streets of Paris, her alien features hidden from view. If someone stopped to stare, I turned and walked away quickly, before I could be questioned. But now that she is older, my work is more difficult. Just the other day, I found Isabelle at the window, waving to an elderly couple below. They must have thought her bizarre features and luminous skin a trick of the light, or perhaps they doubted their eyes, because they stared and stared, gawking at my child as if at a horrible apparition. I came to the window, swept Isabelle aside, and closed the drapes.
My child may be monstrous, but she is mine, and I will protect her as best I can. The Montebianco family has given me the means to do so. The apartment is spacious and elegant, a maison particulière of four narrow floors filled with the treasures of Eleanor’s ancient French family. The forestry business is thriving, and Enzo sees to all of our needs. We have discreet servants, and food delivered when we’re hungry, and every kind of luxury imaginable. But still, we are prisoners of our heritage. Isabelle will never go to school. She will never have friends. Our outings in the city are becoming more and more difficult. I live in constant fear that someone will uncover the truth and take her from me, a Dr. Feist or a journalist, hungry to make a discovery that would change the world.
Sometimes, when I am most afraid, Eleanor’s words come rushing back to me—I have protected Vita and yet, in my weakest moments, I question the goodness of such protection. There are moments when I agree with Eleanor and wonder how I can protect a creature that, if discovered, all the world would destroy. But then she laughs, and her whole being lights up with happiness, and I know that I will do anything to keep her safe.
Before I left Montebianco Castle, I found Aki on the east lawn. He had followed me down the mountain the night of the bonfire, determined to take Isabelle back to the village. We sat together near the pond, like generals negotiating a settlement. In exchange for Isabelle, I would continue to send supplies to the village. If I ever learned they had harmed another child, however, I would stop all aid to the tribe. There would be no medicine, no clothes, no blankets, no food. It would be a death sentence, he knew, and he promised never to bring another child to the village, even though this, as we both understood, made survival equally impossible. He gave me his blessing to raise Isabelle and, to my relief, we parted in peace, not exactly friends, but not enemies either.
That was nearly three years ago. In that time, Isabelle has become the image of her father—a beautiful, smart girl with a strong body and a sharp mind. I have done my best to prot
ect her, and yet, it is becoming impossible to hide her. Soon, we will be forced to leave Paris and take refuge in the immense, geologic silence of the mountains. Sal and Basil are there now, waiting for our return. They tend to the greenhouse and the goats in the mews. I’ve installed a new telephone, and Basil calls every week with updates about the various projects I have started—the helipad on the north lawn, the renovation of the second-floor ballroom, with its hundred mirrors and crystal chandeliers. A flower garden has been planted around the mausoleum in tribute to Vita. She lies next to Eleanor now. Etched into the cartouche above her tomb are the words:
A LONG, long sleep, a famous sleep
That makes no show for dawn
By stretch of limb or stir of lid,—
An independent one.
I imagine her there, among the remains of our ancestors, laid out in that marble vault, waiting for me to come home.
Until then, I walk with Isabelle through Paris at night, when the streets are empty and she is hidden in shadows. I find comfort in memories of my time with the Icemen in the grotto, bathing with the tribe in the hot spring, playing with the children in the garden. I cannot help but believe that it is my destiny to be Isabelle’s mother, a destiny as ancient and powerful as the codes in my blood. When I am in doubt, and feel I might fail, I recall my ancestors dancing at the fire, that rich and noble tribe, and know that I am not alone.
A Note About the Research
Research into the evolution of Homo sapiens forms a significant part of this novel. I consulted many works, notably Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari; The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee; Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes, by Svante Pääbo; many articles by New York Times science writer Carl Zimmer; and the incredible exhibit at the Musée de l’Homme about Neanderthal man. Dr. Hannah Brooks of Hudson Valley Cancer Genetics gave me invaluable guidance in all things relating to family genetic inheritance.
Acknowledgments
Much gratitude to my editor, Katherine Nintzel, for believing in this book.
Thanks Liate Stehlik, Jen Hart, Julie Paulaski, Vedika Khanna.
And everyone at HarperCollins/William Morrow.
Thank you Eric Simonoff and Susan Golomb.
Thank you to Stephanie Koven.
Thank you Sally Willcox.
Thank you Dr. Hannah Brooks.
Thank you Angela and Jeffrey Bluske.
Merci beaucoup Yveline and Nicolas Postel-Vinay.
Love to Hadrien, Alexander, Nico and Sidonie, the home team.
Most of all, thank you to my readers, whose loyal support has sustained me.
About the Author
DANIELLE TRUSSONI is the New York Times, USA Today, and Sunday Times (UK) top ten bestselling author of the supernatural thrillers Angelology and Angelopolis. She is the co-creator with Hadrien Royo of the Crypto-Z audio series podcast, a companion to The Ancestor. She writes the horror column for the New York Times Book Review and has recently served as a jurist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Trussoni holds an MFA in Fiction from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she won the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award. Her books have been translated into thirty-three languages. She lives in the Hudson River Valley with her family and her pug Fly.
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Also by Danielle Trussoni
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Angelopolis
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the ancestor. Copyright © 2020 by Danielle Trussoni. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Photo retouching: Dimi Lazarou
Cover design by Owen Corrigan
Cover photographs © plainpicture/Hannes S. Altmann (chateau); © STILLFX/Shutterstock (clouds); © Viaframe/Getty Images (mountains)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition APRIL 2020 ISBN 978-0-06-291279-4
Print ISBN 978-0-06-291275-6
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