Fanatics (21 page)

“The cross,” she said, tapping the manuscript. “It’s mentioned in here.”

I pulled a chair close to hers and sat down.

“What do you mean?”

“He talks about it.”

An insistent buzz broke into our thoughts. The tabletop vibrated.

I started. “What the—?”

Raphaella suppressed a smile. “My cell,” she said, pushing books and papers aside and picking up the
PIE
.

“It’s Mother,” she said, thumbing a button to activate the speakerphone. “Hello, Mother.”

Mrs. Skye’s voice was curt and hurried. “I’m reasonably certain it’s an atlas. The bone, not the book. But the transverse processes—the projections on each side—are missing. Broken or maybe worn off. Got to go. Mr. Tremblay is waiting for his arthritis prescription.”

“Thanks, Mother,” Raphaella said, but the connection had already been cut.

“Hmm,” Raphaella mused.

“I didn’t really follow what your mom was saying,” I told Raphaella.

“Hang on a second.”

She thumbed more buttons, and after a few moments she handed me the
PIE
.

“Take a look.”

There was a photo on the screen. “It’s like the picture you took,” I said after a quick glance. “The thing I took off the cross. But different.”

Raphaella nodded. “I went online to an encyclopedia site and looked up ‘atlas bone.’ You’re looking a picture of one.”

I paid more attention to the image. This one was lighter in colour and there was no black along the edges. And as Mrs. Skye had said, there was a bump, like an ear, on each side.

“Never heard of an atlas
bone
. A book of maps, yes. A god from Greek mythology, certainly. Atlas holds up the world. But a bone?”

“Scroll down a bit.”

I read the brief description below the illustration. The atlas is the topmost bone in a human spine, the one that cradles the skull. I handed the
PIE
to Raphaella and sat back.

“Why is this bone embedded in the base of that cross?” I wondered.

“It’s a relic.”

“We know it’s old, an artifact, but—”

“Not relic as in ‘artifact.’ A holy relic is something owned or maybe worn by a dead holy person. Or a part of the person’s body. It’s an object of veneration. People pray to it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Pray to a fingertip or a scrap of cloth?”

“Or to an atlas.”

“Wow.”

“And the place where the relic is kept is called a reliquary,” Raphaella continued.

“Which is what the cross is. But what did the prof want with it? He wasn’t religious in the formal sense. We know that.”

“It’s all in his book. And your old pal Savonarola is at the centre of it.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised.”

“Get comfortable. I need to tell you a few things.”

I settled back in my chair. “Okay, shoot.”

“I
N HIS RESEARCH
into the after-affects of Savonarola’s life and death,” Raphaella began, “the prof discovered the existence of a sort of underground cult that started right after the friar’s execution. A few of Savonarola’s supporters continued to meet secretly and to work toward putting his ideas into practice by influencing the government through whatever means they could. This cult kept going for over five hundred years, and still exists. From then until now, one thing bound the cult together and ensured its continuation—a relic.”

“ ‘Let there be no remains to tempt the relic hunters,’ ” I murmured.

“Pardon?”

“In my vision-dream of Savonarola’s execution three men shovelled the burned remains of the gallows and the dead Dominicans into a cart and dumped them into the river. At least, that was what was supposed to happen. But I saw one of the men sift through the ashes and pick something up before they got to work. I didn’t realize until now what I had witnessed. The hangman had specifically ordered the men, ‘Let there be no remains to tempt the relic hunters.’ His bosses in the government and the Church were afraid that Savonarola would become a martyr. That’s why they dumped the ashes in the river—no grave, nothing to dig up and worship. But they missed a piece! The atlas!”

“Of course!” Raphaella exclaimed, energized again. “Everything you’ve said jibes with what the prof wrote.”

“Finish the story,” I said, pointing to the manuscript.

“The cult continued down the years, held together by the belief that the friar was an unacknowledged martyr who
had died for a Christian theocracy—Savonarola-style, of course. They continued the commitment to influence government in that direction whenever and however they could. The prof wrote that he couldn’t pinpoint when the cross was made, but it’s been dated by experts to within a hundred years of Savonarola’s death, which makes it more than four hundred years old. How he got his hands on it, he doesn’t say.”

Raphaella paused and pulled her backpack toward her, rummaged around, and came up with a bottle of apple juice. She offered it to me.

“You first,” I said.

She took a long drink and handed the bottle over. I finished it as Raphaella took up the story.

“Anyway, the prof’s book is a warning that there are always people at work, in democratic countries as well as undemocratic ones, pushing to set up a theocracy of one kind or another. He calls these people fanatics, hence the title of his book, because they only see one side of things and close their eyes to other viewpoints, and that leads to intolerance and persecution of any who disagree. A theocracy is an enemy of democracy.

“He uses the Savonarola cult as one of his strongest arguments. The reliquary is physical proof that the cult exists, which is important because there’s very little documentary evidence of it.”

“This,” I put in, “is beginning to sound like one of those conspiracy novels with secret religious brotherhoods and paintings with hidden messages.”

“The prof wrote that the Savonarola cult is always small—no more than a dozen or so extremely religious Catholic
men. Needless to say, women weren’t allowed—and still aren’t. It’s not like he thinks these guys will take over the world. It’s more like he uses the cult as an example of a trend he sees all through history, in more than one religion—various denominations of Christianity, Islam, and others.”

We fell silent for a while, slumped in our chairs. I looked around the library. The thousands of books resting on their shelves seemed to mock me. The professor’s learning seemed to have been as deep as an ocean.

“It’s the cross—or rather the relic—that brought the spectre,” Raphaella replied. “It’s part of him, part of his body. And until the prof’s death, it was in the hands of an unbeliever.”

“It still is.”

Raphaella looked terrible—pale, her shoulders stiff with stress, her eyes with that otherworldly brightness I had seen before. She was tuned to the spirit world, felt the vibrations rattle through her, shaking her to the core. Until today I hadn’t worried too much about her—not as much as she did about me—but today we were stumbling toward a fierce reckoning, and it was taking a toll on her.

After listening to her, I believed that now I saw things clearly.

“The spirit probably tormented the prof without mercy, glad to get revenge on the descendant of his old enemy, Corbizzi,” I began. “It definitely came after Professor Corbizzi on the night of his death. What you’ve read and told me explains why. He was a descendant of the Arrabbiato Corbizzi who stood against Savonarola all those years ago in Florence. In a way, the professor inherited a mission from his Renaissance ancestor. He lived in Florence for most of his life, taught
university there, wrote books. But he hadn’t yet written the book that would expose the Savonarola cult and what it represents. He wrote that book here, in this library.”

“And at the same time he knew the spectre was after him.”

“Right. The professor acquired the cross somehow and brought it to this house. The ghost comes with the reliquary. Move the cross and the ghost must go with it. Maybe the spirit appeared to the professor and maybe it didn’t—we don’t know. But he was at risk, especially once he began to write the book. That’s what raised the stakes. That’s what the spectre couldn’t accept—the anti-theocracy book. Savonarola’s reaction fits with his life. He was a book-burner. He torched hundreds of books he considered immoral when he was alive. Like all book-burners, he couldn’t tolerate a different point of view.”

Raphaella nodded wearily. “It all fits,” she said. “It all makes sense. Savonarola had two reasons to haunt Professor Corbizzi—to silence him by burning his book, and to wreak revenge on him.”

“I think the fire in this room that night started
before
the prof died—and guess who started it? The official explanation of the events was that the prof had a seizure and the force of his body hitting the floor dislodged a log from the fireplace, starting the blaze. That’s what Mrs. Stoppini believes. But that doesn’t explain the books hurled all over the place, the upturned table, the knocked-over chair. No, what happened was that the spectre appeared, maybe not for the first time. But because the prof had finished the book, it came with furious vengeance. The prof got up from the table where he was editing the manuscript. He knew what was about to happen. Flames broke out near the fireplace—maybe that’s
where Savonarola was standing. The prof’s terror brought on the beginnings of the seizure. He experienced dizziness. Loss of control, loss of strength. He gathered up the manuscript, struggled toward the open secret cupboard, clutching at the walls as he lurched along, displacing books. He got to the fire-proof cupboard—which, remember, is insulated metal—and shoved the manuscript inside and locked the door. When I found it the pages were loose, piled on top of the file folder. With the manuscript safe he staggered toward the spectre and fell to the floor, knocking over the chair. And he died.”

We were silent for a little while, picturing Professor Corbizzi’s last moments of life.

“What an incredibly courageous man,” Raphaella said.

“He sure was.”

“But there’s one thing that isn’t explained,” Raphaella said, her brow wrinkled.

“The keys.”

“Right. How could Professor Corbizzi have had time to lock the cupboard, cross the room, and drop the keys into the desk drawer?”

“He didn’t.”

Raphaella smiled. “Mrs. Stoppini?”

“Indeed.”

A
FTER LOCKING THE CUPBOARD
and windows, Raphaella and I dragged ourselves along the hall and into the kitchen. Mrs. Stoppini stood at the table, her hands and forearms white with flour, kneading a fat roll of bread dough, her narrow body leaning into the task. I saw her in a different light now. She knew a lot more than she pretended, but how much she was aware of was still an open question.

We said our goodbyes and I remembered to leave my laptop in the shop. Then, under a sky that still refused to brighten, we climbed wearily into the van. I started the engine, turned around, and drove down the foggy lane.

“I feel like I’ve been dragged behind a train for an hour,” Raphaella sighed, stifling a yawn.

“Me, too.”

And I meant it. We were both emotionally beaten up, brain-whacked, and mauled by fear.

“But you have to admit, life with me isn’t boring,” I added as the gates closed behind the van.

“Should we have left Mrs. Stoppini there alone?”

“I was thinking the same thing—and not for the first time. But I think that if anything was going to happen to her, it would have by now.”

“I guess.”

“The only way to be sure she’s safe is to get the spectre to leave the mansion permanently. And that means moving the reliquary to another location. If we’re right in thinking that he’s bound to the cross, shifting it should solve the problem temporarily.”

“The bigger problem being to have him move on permanently,” Raphaella added. “But where could we put the cross? The workshop? Maybe the friar could help you repair antiques.”

I laughed.

“But you’d have to keep him away from flammable liquids.”

“Lame joke. Do you know that ‘edible’ and ‘inedible’ are opposites but ‘flammable’ and ‘inflammable’ mean the same thing?”

“You’re being evasive.”

“Okay. There’s too much fire hazard in the shop to take the risk of having a firebug Dominican in there. Unless …”

Raphaella turned toward me in her seat. “What?”

“If we remove the manuscript, maybe we accomplish the same thing. He wants to incinerate it. That’s his goal. No manuscript means he’s stuck in the library with the reliquary.”

“But then we’d have a totally infuriated murderous spirit in the house.”

“Well, there is that.”

“Incandescent with rage,” Raphaella added.

“Inflamed with anger.”

“Hot under the collar.”

“Fuming.”

I turned on to Raphaella’s street.

“How did we get into this mess?” she asked, her exhaustion colouring every word.

“I went to the Half Moon for a coffee one morning—what?—three weeks ago? But the truth is, I fell for a business deal that was too good to be true. I signed a contract with a very strange old lady who is a mystery cloaked in another mystery. And I talked you into helping me.”

“My normally excellent judgment was undermined by your magnetic charm.”

“Hah.”

“Or it could have been the Thai stir-fry that got to me.”

“You know what? I think it’s time Mrs. Stoppini came clean. I think I need to confront her.”

“I should go with you.”

“That would help. Mrs. Stoppini likes you. But I got us into this mess.”

“Will you go back and talk to her now?”

“No hurry,” I said.

F
OR THE FIRST TIME
in a long while I got a good night’s sleep, and the cloudless blue sky that greeted me when I got out of bed gave me a welcome lift.

Dad was at the breakfast table when I entered the kitchen, reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee. A bowl sticky with the streaky remains of porridge sat beside his cup. Dad made it the old-fashioned way, with real rolled oats. No instant stuff for him.