The Undrowned Child (41 page)

“Let’s take her to the apothecary shop,” suggested Renzo.

A crowd of gondolier children volunteered to row them to the Ghetto and helped them carry Maria to the Two Tousled Mermaids.

“We need to be alone now,” Teo told them.

“Brava, Teodora. Bravo, Renzo,” cried Sergio. After a short round of applause and some back-slapping, the little group disappeared.

The children laid Maria carefully on the dispensing counter. Renzo climbed up to fetch down a majolica jar of Treacle while Teo gently unbuttoned all Maria’s muddy crested clothing. Then Renzo turned his back while she spread handfuls of Treacle over Maria’s distorted shoulders, face and legs. The sweet smell of the drug filled the room. Maria moaned and cried out in her sleep.

“It’s not helping?” Renzo asked anxiously.

“Yes it is.” It was painful for Teo to watch Maria writhing in agony. “It’s just her bones stretching back to their proper dimensions, poor thing.”

“That will have to hurt,” said Renzo sympathetically.

Fortunately Maria had regrown her human shape before she completely awoke. Teo barely had time to wipe the worst of the lagoon mud off Maria’s clothes and rebutton them.

“Where am …?” She looked up at Teo’s and Renzo’s smiling faces, down which tears of relief were finally falling.

“Why are you crying? Am I dead?” Maria demanded. Automatically, her hand flew to adjust her hair, which had grown back to its former glossy glory.

“No!” Teo hugged her close. This time there was no pain on contact with Maria’s chest. She felt nothing but warmth when her skin touched Maria’s.

Maria raised herself from the dispensing counter and slid weakly to the ground. She looked at her reflection in the plate-glass window of the shop in silence. Then she shook herself, as if casting off an old skin, and turned to Renzo and Teo.

“I have been a complete idiot. I’m so ashamed.”

Her old drawl was gone. Nor was her face painted with the false sweetness of that day in the cavern, when she had pretended to go along with Teo’s plan.

Maria continued to apologize until Renzo and Teo shouted “Stop!”

“Why are you dressed up like that?” Maria asked Teo. “It’s so hot! You’ve got all those clothes on! You don’t need that makeup, Teo. You’re pretty just as you are.”

Silently, Renzo and Teo exchanged looks.

“I just felt cold, everything’s been so frightening,” said Teo quickly.

“I know what you mean. I could really do with a warm bath myself.”

“Why not go back to the hotel? Your parents are so anxious. They’ll be thrilled to see you are safe.”

Maria answered sadly, “We both know that’s not true. But thank you for being sweet enough to say it.” She turned to leave, paused to wave and smile at them, and mouthed “thank you” again.

“Maria …,” Teo started.

“Teo, this time you know I will not say one word. The story is safe with me, truly. I’ll tell my parents that I lied about seeing you. I don’t care how much they punish me. But I hope you will come back to us properly soon, Teo?”

She put her hand on her heart, and smiled.

“I’ll do everything I can to make that happen,” promised Teo. Shyly, she leant over and kissed Maria’s cheek. Maria kissed her back, a quick little kiss like a feather landing on Teo’s face. Both girls flushed scarlet, and Maria walked away quickly. Renzo had a sudden attack of loud, tuneful whistling.

“She is not such a bad sort, really,” he remarked in a choked voice, as Maria disappeared around a corner. “Perhaps her parents will be pleased to see her?”

“I am afraid they won’t even notice the change in her.”

“Will they punish her for going missing?”

“They’ll think of something horrible, no doubt. Now, I’m dying of heat.”

“Considering all the other things you’ve nearly died of this week, Teodora Gasperin, that seems a very boring way to go.”

“Before that happens, we have to find a safe place for the spells.”

The smell of cooking was the first thing that struck Teo and Renzo as they climbed down the stairs to the mermaids’ cavern. Teo sniffed: spices, rich, sticky sauces, squares of chocolate melting …

Next it was the quietness that struck them. The Seldom Seen Press lay motionless on its table. There was no more bad news to spread, no more warnings to deliver in Signor Rioba’s gruff voice. In fact, the only sound was the gurgling of their own empty stomachs. The children looked around eagerly for the butler-mermaids and their customary enthusiastic offers of food and drink.

But Lussa was alone in the cavern, writing on a long scroll draped over a floating lectern in front of her. The sounds of rolling pins, saucepans and bubbling butter were sadly distant.

Lussa looked closely at Teo’s uncomfortable clothes and blotched face-paint. “Forgive Me! We have been indulging in Strenuous Preparations for our Celebrations. Meanwhile, I am writing an Account of the Battle for our Seldom Seen Archives. I had forgotten that our Business is not yet Finished.” Lussa sighed. “Or perhaps I wished to forget the Necessary Final Outcome. We must free You from the Almanac, Teodora.”

Lussa’s face was a study of regret, nobility and fear.

Renzo looked at her anxiously, “What is it, Lussa? Why are you so sad? Will it be hard to do?”

Teo asked bluntly, “Do you know how to do it?”

“The Very Answer shall be written upon You, Teodora.”

Lussa asked Teo to take off the jackets, shirts and stockings that hung from her in rags. To Teo’s embarrassment, Lussa insisted that she undress right down to her last and flimsiest petticoat. Renzo turned his back ostentatiously, but he did not leave the cave. When she took off her pinafore, Teo handed him The Keys to the Secret City over his shoulder. He clutched it lovingly.

Lussa pointed to a trestle table. “Lie there, Teodora,” she commanded, applying a coral wand with a caged firefly at its tip to the wicks of the candles of a vast candelabra. Soon it was blazing like a tree on fire. The light illuminated Lussa’s sad face, showing the groove of a frown and the glitter of a tear in her eyes.

In all the battle preparations, in the worst moment when Chissa had died, the children had never seen such fragility, such sorrow in Lussa.

“What is it, Lussa?” Teo asked. “Why are you so sad?”

“Hush, Child.” Lussa ran her hands over Teo’s wrists, her ankles, her knees. Finally, just above Teo’s left elbow, the mermaid exclaimed, “Aye, here ’Tis.”

“What happens now?” Renzo asked anxiously, his back still turned.

Lussa started to chant words that were foreign, words with an ancient ring to them, and many syllables, all repeated in a sweeping cycle. Teo grew drowsy. Like a child hearing a lullaby, she felt dreams tugging her away. As her eyes fluttered shut, a thought crossed Teo’s mind. “Lussa, can you tell me what happened to me between June first and June third? When I disappeared from the hospital?”

“Do not ask Me that, Child. Please believe Me, Teodora, there will soon be a Time when You will be grateful not to know the Answer to that Question.”

The mermaid resumed her hypnotic chanting. Teo’s eyelids sagged and her body slackened, as if porridge and not blood was running around her veins.

Her eyes shot open. “Lussa, Renzo, I must tell … I did not quite finish cursing Il Traditore. There was one curse that was too dreadful to say. I was a coward.…”

“Your Work is Done, Child,” soothed Lussa. Her voice seemed to come from a long way away, but there was a dim edge of worry to it. The last thing Teo was aware of was Renzo’s voice in the background. It sounded shaky, as if he was biting back tears. “Will she be all right?”

Lussa replied gravely, and with a little sob catching in her throat. “Yes, Teodora shall be Unscathed. I, however …”

Teo’s ears roared and then she heard nothing at all.

dawn, June 16, 1899

Someone was combing her hair, very gently.

She could feel the slats of a comb making sense of the wild tangle of her curls. The comb never snagged on a knot; it rolled softly through her hair, soothingly …

… someone was holding her hand, pressing it softly …

… there was a definite kiss on her lips, a little light thing that did not linger …

When Teo woke up, the first thing she did, even without opening her eyes, was to feel her arms. The Braille-like writing had gone—they were smooth again. She was lying beneath something soft and silky that smelt slightly of fish.

“It’s paper, Teo, from the Seldom Seen Press. They don’t really go in for blankets down here.” It was Renzo’s voice. “Don’t worry! You can open your eyes now. It’s all worked perfectly.”

The candelabra had burnt down to a few short stubs. Renzo was sitting beside the table where she lay, hastily pushing something into his sleeve. He handed her The Key to the Secret City, a trifle reluctantly, as ever. An exquisite comb made of a jeweled codfish skeleton dropped out of his sleeve onto the floor, and he blushed like a fire engine. To spare him, Teo asked, “But where’s the Spell Almanac gone?”

“Lussa took it on herself.”

“But her lovely skin?” This explained Lussa’s sadness before she performed the spell. She had known that her beautiful face would ever after be disfigured with the Spell Almanac of Bajamonte Tiepolo.

Lussa’s own voice came floating through the chamber: “Venice cannot afford a Vain Defender.”

She swam into view, surrounded by her subjects. Her body was now covered in glistening blue scales up to the neck. Teo could make out tiny raised letters on the scales. On Lussa’s face, the spells were picked out in delicate gold.

“Teodora! You are well? Yar?”

“Oh yes, but your face …!”

“You must be Hungry as a Lamprey,” said Lussa. “Lorenzo too. Nothing would induce Him to go adrift from You while You lay sleeping, even though I distinctly heard his Belly growl like a Barracuda. Now join Us for our Celebratory Feast! You must try the Fenugreeked Fiddlehead Ferns & Madras Egg Rosti.”

Butler-mermaids appeared with steaming trays of food.

“But where,” asked Lussa, “are the Potatoes with Two Sauces—Hot & Extra Hot? That was always Chissa’s Favorite.…”

The hubbub stilled for a moment then, as someone called out, “A minute’s silence for Chissa and our fallen sisters.”

A sad stillness fell. Then Lussa lifted a chalice of Seaweed Frappé and a heaped plate of Turmeric Mash, saying, “Chissa would wish Us to remember Her like This.”

A trumpet sounded. Chef-mermaids arrived bearing poles on which gold plates spun round and round. On each plate was a different kind of chocolate cake, each flavor indicated by a marzipan fruit on the top of the ten layers of sponge and cream. Teo counted chocolate-and-orange, chocolate-and-strawberry, chocolate-and-nectarine, chocolate-and-black fig, chocolate-and-watermelon …

The last spinning plate bore a cake of chocolate-and-chili-pepper.

“But first,” called one of the mermaids, “a performin’ of the Hopscotch, if ye please! By the Studious Son and the Undrowned Child!”

Nineteen games of Hopscotch certainly gave them an appetite. After a stupendously greedy meal, Renzo and Teo walked up the stairs very slowly indeed. Their bellies were positively sagging with food. The afterburn of chili-chocolate lingered pleasantly on their tongues. The garden of the House of the Spirits seemed almost lonely without the ghosts, all of whom had redeemed themselves in the battle. The saints had gone back to their reliquaries in the churches, the stallions to the Cavallerizza, the lions to their walls and pedestals, though unmistakable traces of the animals’ presence could be seen all over the once immaculate lawn.

Teo and Renzo stood in the empty garden, not yet ready to leave. Renzo asked, “Now you will go back to your parents? I mean your adoptive parents?”

Teo sighed. “At last. I hope I can make it up to them for the agony I put them through.”

“It wasn’t something you did deliberately. You couldn’t help it. And it was for the sake of Venice, and theirs too.”

“But I can never explain that to them.”

“Would they not believe you?”

“Renzo, I can’t expect them to understand. They’re scientists. Their whole lives are founded on rational facts. Ghosts? Mermaids? Werewolves? No, it’s kinder not to upset them. Remember, you’re the one who told me that it’s not a perfect world and that I have to accept it.”

“You sound as if you are older than them! Why not give them a try? Perhaps they can learn to …”

Teo shook her head. “I love them the way they are. I don’t want to change them.”

“Perhaps The Key to the Secret City could show you a way.…”

“Renzo, I know you adore that book! But I just don’t think my parents would believe in it. They’d want to study it scientifically and pick it apart to see what it’s made of. They’d probably assume it was some curiosity of nature that could be explained away with expert knowledge.”

She’d seen her parents “explain” crabs and sea creatures in their laboratory. All that was left of the animals were their broken shells.

Renzo hinted, “Well, if the book’s not safe with you …”

Teo changed the subject. “Of course I’d invite you to visit me in Naples—if I thought you wouldn’t die of disgust in five minutes there.”

Renzo smiled. “I would love to see Naples, Teo. I’m convinced that it’s a perfectly splendid city. It’s even got some history, I understand.”

“History only tells half the story sometimes, I guess.”

Renzo smiled. “You can only learn so much by reading.”

a splendid morning, June 16, 1899

While the rest of the city had evacuated, the scientists had remained at their meeting place in a palace in Cannaregio. When the battle had raged in the lagoon, and the city had been wrapped in blinding fog, the scientists had continued with their work, desperately trying to come up with possible solutions. Unable to search for Teo in the mist, her parents had been working harder than anyone. After all, anything that would help Venice now might also save their missing daughter.

Teo created quite a storm, arriving in the middle of proceedings and marching straight up to the stage where her parents were giving a paper on marine predators.

“There have been numerous unexplained disappearances of people in Venice since the water temperature has risen. The sharks have demonstrated an ability to …” Teo’s father was saying with a tremor in his voice, while her mother pointed to a diagram of a shark’s teeth. Meanwhile, a fearsomely accurate drawing of a Vampire Eel was placed on the podium by an assistant.