Authors: Pierdomenico Baccalario
Dressed in her nightgown, the woman wheels herself out onto the terrace and shuts the door behind her.
It’s freezing cold outside.
It’s January saying hello to her.
She wheels her chair up to the four stone statues that look over the inner courtyard. The fabric of her nightgown is decorated with all kinds of animals.
She isn’t cold.
She looks up at the sky. It’s cloudless, softened by the white
halo around the moon. The seven stars of Ursa Major sparkle overhead, standing perfectly still.
“We stare at you and you stare at us…,” Irene whispers. “Although our gazes rarely meet.”
She leans all her weight against the wheelchair’s armrests. “What do I do now?” she asks the moonlit night. “Was I wrong to choose my own niece? Alfred was killed. And now there are only three of us left. That shouldn’t have happened. It’s never happened before.”
Her wrists trembling from the strain, Irene slowly pulls herself forward in the wheelchair.
“They kidnapped Mistral. And they’re also prepared to kill. That wasn’t part of the deal. How could it be, after all the effort we put into finding the kids? How could they go to such extremes?”
Irene rests her feet on the ground. Then she starts pushing herself up on her fragile legs.
“Tell me, Nature, can I still hope for the Pact to continue? In the shelter, we said it would begin in Rome. And so it was. The Ring of Fire was unearthed. The Maiden of the Cosmos beheld her own reflection. The summons of light was sent out. And the first step has been accomplished. Did you see it in New York? And in Shanghai? Did you see what a perfectly bright light our star had? It was hidden below and hidden above. Search below and you shall find it above. That’s what was written, and that’s what happened. In small reflections you shall see large reflections. But it was also written that the children wouldn’t be harmed. Who changed the rules?”
Irene trembles, but her will is stronger than her age.
She remains standing firmly on her own two feet.
“Answer me, Nature …,” she asks once again, her teeth clenched from the effort. She raises a trembling hand toward the starry sky and pleads, “Answer me! Answer me! What do I have to do?”
She frowns, lost in thought. Her ears await the imperceptible reply.
When the answer arrives, the elderly woman listens to it with a sigh, letting it embrace her gently, and falls back into her wheelchair, exhausted.
She closes her eyes. And she smiles.
High above her, overhead, the stars of Ursa Major shine in the sky, perfectly still. But shining among them now is a new star, one invisible to telescopes and astronomers’ eyes. It’s a star that darts furiously through space with a long tail of fiery ice.
It’s a comet. It’s been summoned by the Ring of Fire.
And it’s heading toward Earth.
I stole many months of your time to think over and write this first episode. I normally don’t care much for acknowledgments pages, but this time it’s different. And you know why.
As always, Marcella was the first one to know what was going on, and she waited for me patiently. We talked over the plot of Century a few years ago, when we decided we liked the idea of writing a story set in Italy, in Rome, a Rome that was as true to life as possible and, therefore, particular. And I think we succeeded in doing just that.
I need to thank Clare because she’s the most romantic, most stubborn-headed editor you could ever meet. She’s the only person who knows how to track me down on my cell phone even when it’s switched off. Thanks to Iacopo and Francesca for how they managed to see what I was writing before I even wrote it. Among my friends, special thanks go out to the two Beatrices. One will recognize herself in these pages and the other provided me with a fantastic business card. Thank you for your help, Alessandro, Walter, Tommy, Andrea and Franco. And, as always, thanks to Mom and Dad. Your critical (very critical) eye and illuminating (very illuminating) advice are truly irreplaceable.
Some of the characters in this first episode are based on real live people. Dr. Tito suggested the teeth to me, Elena suggested Elettra’s character, and Professor Gianni Collu, with his incalculable number of books, provided inspiration for the character of Alfred. Linda Melodia, actually called Laura, is a wonderful person.
See you in New York!
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published as
L’Anello di Fuoco
by Edizione Piemme S.p.A., Casale Monferrato, Italy, in 2006. Copyright © 2006 by Edizione Piemme S.p.A. This translation is the property of Atlantyca S.p.A.,
www.atlantyca.com
. All rights reserved. All other international rights © Atlantyca
S.p.A.,
[email protected]
.
Color insert: original photos by Walter Menegazzi, with art by Iacopo Bruno, copyright © 2006 Edizioni Piemme.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baccalario, Pierdomenico.
[Anello di fuoco]
Ring of fire / by Pierdomenico Baccalario; translated by Leah D.
Janeczko. — 1st American ed.
p. cm. — (Century; [bk. 1])
Summary: Four seemingly unrelated children are brought together in a Rome hotel where they discover that they are destined to become involved in a deep and ancient mystery involving a briefcase full of artifacts that expose them to great danger.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89226-4
[1. Good and evil—Fiction. 2. Rome (Italy)—Fiction. 3. Italy—Fiction.]
I. Janeczko, Leah. II. Title.
PZ7.B131358Ri 2009 [Fic]—dc22 2009008204
First American Edition
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