Renfred’s Masquerade
By Hayden Thorne
Published by Queerteen Press at Smashwords
An imprint of JMS Books LLC
Visit queerteen-press.com for more information.
Copyright 2011 Hayden Thorne
ISBN 9781611522129
For more titles by Hayden Thorne at Smashwords visit
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/haydenthorne
* * * *
Cover Credits: Keary Taylor
Used with Permission.
All rights reserved.
WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS Books LLC.
* * * *
“After the first interview, a second was the inevitable course of what we call fate. A third; a fourth; and a meeting with Beatrice in the garden was no longer an incident in Giovanni’s daily life, but the whole space in which he might be said to live; for the anticipation and memory of that ecstatic hour made up the remainder. Nor was it otherwise with the daughter of Rappaccini. She watched for the youth’s appearance, and flew to his side with confidence as unreserved as if they had been playmates from early infancy—as if they were such playmates still. If, by any unwonted chance, he failed to come at the appointed moment, she stood beneath the window, and sent up the rich sweetness of her tones to float around him in his chamber, and echo and reverberate throughout his heart—‘Giovanni! Giovanni! Why tarriest thou? Come down!’ And down he hastened into that Eden of poisonous flowers.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Rappaccini’s Daughter”
* * * *
Renfred’s Masquerade
By Hayden Thorne
Chapter 1
“It’s really not a good idea to disturb your father, Nicola,” Pietra, the housekeeper, said in a hushed tone. She bent over Nicola, frowning, as she fussed with his waistcoat and jacket.
“I won’t be a bother, I swear. I’ll just watch him from the door.” It was Nicola’s turn to frown, and he squirmed. He sat on a thick, uncomfortable loveseat that was moved to his bedroom, and he was freshly bathed and dressed in clean clothes. Not too far away stood the small tin tub into which he’d been tossed for a thorough scrubbing no more than an hour ago. “This is hot. I don’t like it.”
“Ha! Since when have eight-year-old boys become judges of fashion?”
Nicola tried to think of a proper retort, but when he glanced up at Pietra’s face, he found her doing a poor job of suppressing a smile, and he relaxed. Conceding, he allowed her to make him look decent, and his conscience managed to remind him that he’d also made things difficult for the poor woman after coming back indoors in a right state—all dried mud and grass after he’d tripped and fallen into rain-soaked ground not just once or even twice, but three times, maybe even four. Perhaps it was his fault for not waiting for the ground to dry after the previous day’s downpour, but he felt restless and fidgety and managed to slip out of the house for his usual countryside exploration. He didn’t make it too far. In fact, with the ground so soft and muddy, he had stumbled quite a few times and had nearly swallowed mouthfuls of wet earth. Fatigue, a very common result of his wanderings despite the short and easy distances he always covered, had set in, and he was forced to return home and present himself to the horrified housekeeper.
It was one of those painful reminders of how much better off he’d be had he been born with two normal legs. Any boy with functional lower limbs would easily have avoided these catastrophic little accidents, even with the ground in such a state.
He glanced down at his unhealthy, shrunken, and awkwardly bent right leg, the trouser leg covering it not doing anything in easing his embarrassment at being stricken with infantile paralysis when he was only three, one that had led to a withered and barely functional limb. He balled one hand into a fist and pounded the leg.
“I don’t want this! I want it off me!”
“Stop that! Do you hear me? Stop it!”
“It’s ugly! I hate it!”
Pietra managed to grab his hand and hold it still, watching him in grim silence as Nicola did what he normally did when forced to face his physical limitations: rage and weep and hurt himself. When he tried to use his other hand with which to hit his leg, she grabbed hold of that one as well and Nicola fought hard, sobbing and kicking at her with his good leg. It wasn’t the first time, either, when Nicola cursed ladies’ fashion, even among servants, for the layers of petticoats shielded Pietra from his hysterical, wild thrashing.
He stopped eventually. Fatigued both physically and emotionally, though he remained in Pietra’s iron grip even as he sagged, crying, his arms held up and away from his body, tears and mucus dripping on his clothes.
“Do you promise not to hurt yourself again?” she asked after another moment’s heavy silence, and Nicola nodded, bowing his head. With a sigh, she released him and fumbled around for a handkerchief. She tipped his head back and wiped his face, murmuring gentle words as she did, till he wept himself into complete exhaustion, and it was all he could do to slide off the loveseat, hobble close, embrace her, and hiccough against her thick skirts.
“Come now, Nicola,” Pietra said, crouching down and returning his embrace. “You’re not ugly or useless. I know that it isn’t fair, and it’s not your fault, but life’s just—it’s so unpredictable, and all we can do is overcome these things the best way we can. Hitting yourself and crying don’t show the world what you’re really made of. You’re still able to move around. You wander all over the countryside without help. What does it matter if you limp or you’re too slow by everyone else’s standards? You’re not an invalid. You’re better off than a good deal of other people out there—people who’ve got full use of their legs, too.”
“How?” Nicola asked, peering dully over her shoulder, feeling himself relax even more under her gentle, soothing strokes on his back. He held on, refused to let go.
“You’re healthier in all other ways. You’re a bright young man. You know how to read and write. You’re not poor and starving. Shall I go on?”
Nicola shook his head, and Pietra chuckled.
“All right,” she added as she pulled away, smiling at him while wiping his face again. “You’re a bit of a mess now, but I think something sweet will make you feel a little better. What do you think?”
“May I go see Papa afterward?”
She sighed, pressing her thin mouth into a tight line, and regarded him thoughtfully. “We’ll see, child. We’ll see.”
Without waiting for a response, she stood up and offered a hand to Nicola, who took it and walked out of the bedroom with her. They went straight to the kitchen, not the dining room, where a piece of cake awaited Nicola’s pleasure on the small kitchen table. Preparing one of the chairs with an old pillow for proper elevation, Pietra helped Nicola sit down, and he spent the rest of the hour enjoying being spoiled, while Pietra bustled around, preparing dinner and telling him stories about magic from her childhood.
He didn’t broach the subject about his father again, but he still planned to carry out his schemes. Whether or not Pietra approved, he was determined to watch his father at work—or, rather, subtly remind his father that Nicola existed. He stole occasional glances in Pietra’s direction and didn’t catch her watching him, for she was too busy with work that required at least two people. It was fortunate for her that only Nicola and his father lived in that house, which made her work a bit easier, though looking after the needs of a lame child was likely the equivalent of working for a family of four.
* * * *
It was easy spying on his father when the man worked in that old and small carriage house that he had turned into a workshop. Jacopo Gregori was a very intense man when it came to his craft, and it took something loud or drastic to draw his attention away from his work. For better or for worse, he always forgot to fix the old lock on the door, sometimes leaving it slightly ajar as he hurried about his work, and Nicola took advantage of that, hobbling as quietly as he could to the door and peering inside.
His father had his back to him, and scattered around the room were handmade clocks of varying states of completion. Most towered above Nicola’s father, though some of them were wall clocks, albeit large ones. Intricate carvings in the wooden cases or in rare instances, the clock faces themselves, filled Nicola’s immediate world. The rhythmic but unsynchronized clicking and ticking of inner mechanisms from a number of sources gave the strange and remarkable beauty of his father’s designs a more otherworldly quality. It seemed as though a dozen clocks coming from a dozen different worlds converged in one room, each trying to out-tick the others in its unique way.
As though in mimicry of the cacophonous sounds of clicking, whirring, and ticking, the carvings that embellished the clocks boasted a variety of fantastical creatures, some of which seemed to be caught in the writhing canes of thorny and wilting flowers. Nicola recognized satyrs, gargoyles, skeletons, and mask-like faces all set in alarming contorted expressions. There were somber, hooded figures with heads bowed, dancing women with wide, crazed eyes and strange knife-like instruments in their hands, and monstrous lizard-like creatures struggling to free themselves from graves or crypts. Images of the moon and the sun matched the grotesque imagery, with faces carved into them, all staring out with simmering malevolence in their eyes.
Was his father trying to tell wild, imaginative stories through his clocks? Nicola wouldn’t be surprised if he did, and Nicola devoured as many of the details as he could, marveling in stunned silence and feeling his skin prickle from the frightening effects of his father’s incredible imagination.
Nicola gaped. He stood at the door, leaning against the doorframe to ease the weight off his weak leg and chewing on a finger as he watched in wide-eyed fascination. His father muttered to himself as he worked, his clothes soiled even with his smock on. Whenever he turned around to search for tools, Nicola shrank back and pulled the door with him till he was sure it was safe to watch again. If his father noticed the workshop door standing more widely open than usual, he didn’t give any indication. He kept his head bent as he looked for things, sometimes muttering to himself, his movements edged with nervous energy. This fierce concentration often baffled and frightened Nicola, but it served him well when it came to the risk of being discovered.
Eventually Nicola’s excitement and immense pride in his father’s artistry overrode all caution, and he widened the door further and leaned against the doorframe for support. When his father turned around again to dig through his collection of tools, Nicola braced himself but didn’t move away.
His father stopped and looked up sharply, frowning. “What’s this?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”
Nicola’s heart hammered, but he refused to leave. “I’m just watching, Papa,” he said, his voice small and thin. “I won’t go inside, I swear. I won’t touch any of your clocks.”
“No, no. This isn’t a place for you. Where’s Pietra? Why on earth did she let you come here?”
“It’s not her fault. I left her when she wasn’t looking.”
“How many times do I have to tell you that I never want to be bothered while I’m working?” his father asked, his voice low and tight, edged with the threat of physical punishment.
“I really like your clocks, Papa,” Nicola said in a mad rush of words, and he clenched and unclenched his hands as he spoke—a nervous reaction, especially since he’d been told very forcefully never to engage in bad habits like biting his nails when he was anxious. His father had even emphasized his injunction by slapping Nicola’s wet and chewed up hand away from Nicola’s mouth. “I do. I think you’re the best clockmaker in the world, and I want to be like you someday.”
His father shook his head, his frown deepening. He then set his tools aside, walked around his worktable, and strode toward the door.
“If you have your head on right, you’ll be going to a damned school, not turn to apprenticeships like I did. You’re lucky you weren’t born poor, and you’d better remember it. You want to make our family proud? Get yourself into a good school and prove that you’re better than everyone, especially your father!”
Nicola blinked, shrinking into himself. He realized that his head was definitely not on right, for he didn’t care for the idea of going to school. He wished—had always wished more than anything—to be like his father. To have the imagination, the artistic skills in giving life to so many wonderful, unnatural images. Nicola believed that he could be just as good if only his father would show him how. He’d prove himself an eager and hard-working student, the kind who’d make his father proud despite the lack of a formal education. For quite some time, Nicola had dreamt of showing off his skills, even outdoing his father with his clever designs and unique approach to clock making.
“But I want to make clocks, too. With monsters and ghosts like what yours have,” he said. “I want to make clocks with wild things carved into them, and the clocks tell special stories about them while telling time.”
“I’m not raising you to be an idiot. Don’t think like one. Do you hear me? Don’t ever be a miserable clockmaker—not even when I’m dead and rotting in my grave.” His father raised a hand, but to strike or to warn, Nicola didn’t know. He violently shied away once his father reached him.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m not going to hit you, boy,” his father retorted, though he grabbed Nicola’s arm roughly. “Stop your whimpering.” With a firm jerk of his hand, he pulled Nicola away from the door and marched him out into the middle of the garden area. “Pietra!” he called out. “Pietra! Where are you?”
Nicola thought his ears had shattered from the volume of his father’s bellow. When the rear door that led to the kitchen swung open and Pietra hurried outside, Nicola sighed in defeat.
“I told you not to let the boy near the workshop while I’m there,” his father barked.
“I didn’t know, Signore,” Pietra said, coloring, as she ran up to them and gently took Nicola’s hand in hers. “I’m very sorry. I got too busy preparing for dinner that I didn’t realize he’d slipped away. I’ll keep him in his room.”
“Do that. I don’t want to see him unless I call for him. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Signore.”
Nicola’s father barely gave him another glance when he relinquished his hold on Nicola. He turned around and stalked back to his workshop, this time slamming the door shut behind him.
“Now you’ve done it,” Pietra said, giving Nicola’s wrist a quick tug. “I told you not to bother him, didn’t I? Why don’t you ever listen? Now he’s angry with you.”
She turned and half-dragged him back inside the house.
“Papa’s always angry with me, anyway. I don’t see any difference with how he is now.”
“Don’t be silly. He only gets angry when you’re disobedient. Now come along. I’m sure we’ll be able to find something to occupy you till dinner time.”
Nicola hardly listened to her, however. His father was angry at him, always resentful of his existence, blaming him for his mother’s death when Nicola was only an infant. Illness? Yes, an illness took her, probably the same illness that condemned him to a lifetime of embarrassments and perhaps loneliness. Nicola might only be eight years old, but he was no fool, and he’d learned at too early an age to read into other people’s behavior toward him—especially his father’s.
Then again, a vindictive former housekeeper had told him those things when she was sacked, and Nicola couldn’t help but believe her spiteful claims. His father’s impatience and iciness toward him only served to confirm his suspicions.
Pietra had always insisted that his father loved him despite his brusque manner and his distance, but Nicola was never convinced. Too many hours spent alone, his mind preyed upon by those shrill echoes of a sneering old woman’s words, had done their job in shaping Nicola’s perceptions till he barely clung to the hope that someday his father would consider paying him a sliver of undivided and sincere attention. That someday seemed so far away.
Once they reached his bedroom, Pietra opened his toy chest and dug through, beckoning him to come over and find something he liked.
“You can play in the kitchen if you want,” she said as he stared at his toys, feeling nothing but apathy and a dull ache in his chest. He reached in and pulled out a random toy—a handmade wooden soldier that he’d received from one of their neighbors for his birthday the previous year. Nicola had broken the soldier’s right leg and refused to have it fixed.
He spent the rest of his pre-dinner time in the kitchen, playing with the lame wooden soldier, but he recalled nothing of the hours. It didn’t bother him the least, as he’d long grown used to such moments of forgetful, mindless play. It was better than spending the time crying, of which he was on the verge hour after hour since his father booted him out of the workshop.
Later that evening, when he knew that everyone had gone to bed, he crawled out from under the stifling layers of his blankets and tiptoed over to his writing desk. He pulled out his little journal and started sketching what he could remember of his father’s designs, taking care to label them with names and descriptions that were entirely his.
“This will be a wonderful story when I’m done,” he muttered, smiling at his crude handiwork under the bright, silvery glow of the moon, which filtered through the window against which his writing desk was set. “Maybe Pietra will be interested in reading it when I’m done.”
Frowning, biting his nail, and turning things in his mind, Nicola tried to shape a story around the marvelous creatures he’d seen. Every once in a while, he’d gasp in triumph as an idea struck, and he’d scribble down phrases and sentences that he thought would help him piece little scenes together into a coherent fairy tale. Oh, what he’d give to see his story unfold as carved figures on a clock’s wooden case or even the clock face itself, with the intricate workings of the clock’s inner machinery propelling the story forward!
Nicola frowned as he considered how all these wild possibilities could come about without the literal use of magic bringing such a marvelous clock alive. At length he shrugged. “I suppose I can find someone who’ll be willing to teach me magic, too,” he muttered. That sounded like a lovely plan. “Learning how to make clocks and how to do magic sounds much more interesting than going to school, anyway.”
It was exciting, this surge of creativity. Its awesome power crushed the disappointments and the pain of the day, and Nicola was soon lost in his imagination, his thin wrist hurting after several moments of mad writing. When he thought that he was finished, he sat back in his chair, grinning in extreme pleasure as he eyed his sketches and the scattered notes that filled five pages of his journal. It wasn’t bad for an evening’s work.
The following morning, after breakfast, Nicola told Pietra about his new masterpiece. The housekeeper listened with attention as a flood of words poured out of Nicola’s mouth, and she interrupted here and there to tell him to stop bouncing too much in his chair, for he was making her dizzy.
“What do you think?” he asked once he finished. “Do you think it’s a good story?”
She pursed her lips and looked thoughtful for a nerve-wracking moment, and then nodded. “It is, my dear. You know, it also sounds like that wandering demon story that I used to tell you.”
Nicola’s blood froze. “It does? I wasn’t thinking about it when I put together my drawings.”
“No, but it’s already deep in your head. How many times have I told you that story?”
Nicola stared at her, incredulous. “That’s not fair,” he said.
“You sweet, mad thing,” she replied, leaning on her elbows over her coffee and chuckling, her eyes sparkling with amusement and mischief. “That story’s been told a hundred different ways, you know. Anyone with a good imagination can still take an old story and tell it in his own way and make it as wonderful and exciting and unique as the original.”
“You know a lot of stories. Did you read hundreds of books?” Nicola doubted it, but he did find it remarkable that a servant would be so knowledgeable and articulate. Having spent a great deal of time in Pietra’s company lulled him into a sweet kind of passivity regarding her intellect, and now he expected all housekeepers to be very smart.
She laughed at this. “My parents gave me a number of books,” she replied. “I grew up a schoolmaster’s daughter, you know.”
He stared at her, frowning. “You did? Why aren’t you married to a good man and hiring your own housekeeper?”
“Both of my parents died when I was still young, Nicola. I was left on my own, with no relatives to take me in. Besides, I’d sooner soil my hands with honest, hard work than live off someone’s charity.”
Nicola listened, amazed, his story forgotten, which Pietra seemed to notice, for she quickly changed the subject, reaching over to him and tapping his forehead and then his heart with a finger. “This is where magic happens, Nicola. Here and here. You might not have inherited your father’s skill in clock-making, but you’re just as imaginative and passionate as he is. If you work hard on improving yourself, I’m sure you’ll be a great magician in your own right.”
“I don’t know magic. I’d like to learn, though.”
Pietra sighed, but she grinned as she shook her head. “I’ll play along with you and pretend you know what you’re talking about—or I’ll pretend you never heard a single word I said about what I really mean when I say ‘magic’.” Then she stood up to walk around the table and give Nicola a kiss on the head. “Now you’d better not test your father like you did yesterday.”
“Then I’ll draw some more. Maybe my story needs more gargoyles.” He scowled at her. “I still don’t understand what you said about me becoming a great magician. If I don’t learn magic, how can I be one?”
Pietra laughed as she walked off to get her daily work started.
* * * *
One of the odd goings on in Nicola’s young life was the occasional flow of strange people who wished to see his father. All dressed in somber suits and tall silk hats as befitted respectable gentlemen of the day, they also had about them a grim, forbidding air. Nicola wasn’t allowed to be anywhere near them, naturally, but he’d sneak peeks through the kitchen door or the top of the stairs whenever he could, while Pietra welcomed the strangers and led them to the small study where Nicola’s father hid himself whenever he wasn’t working on his clocks.
The general manner and attitude of those strange gentlemen spoke of serious business of some kind, and they always stayed in the study for about an hour straight. When they left, they also left behind a gloomy air that was thick and stifling even to Nicola, who didn’t know who they were and what their business was.
It was also pointless asking Pietra.
“It’s none of your business, child,” she’d always say while pushing over a small plate of cake or any other sweet treats for him. Inducement, it looked like, for him to stop his questions and to be silent about a matter that didn’t concern him. Not that Nicola minded at all, and cake was very effective in doing its job.
His father, unfortunately, appeared to be worn out and depressed afterward, often disappearing from home for hours at a time and not coming back till midnight or beyond, drunk and desperate.
* * * *
When he was ten, Nicola was sent off to school—a small but respectable establishment a few towns away, which made it easy for him to travel back home during holidays and for vacation. There he learned practical matters such as arithmetic and facts, but he held on to all those magnificent creations in his head, even taking his old journal with him, so he could sketch more creatures in it. This time, however, he felt a good deal of pride in knowing that those fantastical things were solely his invention, not awe-struck recollections of his father’s designs.
He couldn’t help but smile whenever Pietra’s words came to mind. Nicola understood her meaning now, and he thought it a wonderfully mad thing to be able to make magic through his own imaginings, his creativity moving from vague pictures in his head to more detailed drawings in his journal to disjointed sentences and finally to half-baked stories.
Accounts from home came in the shape of letters from Pietra, never his father.
We’re all doing well, Nicola, and we miss you. We also enjoy thinking about how school can teach you everything you need to know to make all that magic in your head a reality, and we hope to see you back for the summer, an apprentice magician but not the literal kind, the most recent letter said, drawing a wistful smile from Nicola.
He swore to do them proud, of course, though in some respects, holding on to all those brilliant creations in his mind developed a more practical use when it came to coping with his new environment.
Being the only lame student in school, Nicola was often picked on by schoolyard bullies, and half of his sincere efforts at making friends yielded frightening moments stuck in a farmer’s property, exposed to the potential mauling by dogs or even angry bulls. Older and stronger students would lure him there and then run away, laughing, while he realized too late the danger of his situation. Scrambling over fences or trees was a clumsy process with only one good leg to help him, and he always found himself a mere hair’s breadth from tragedy. From those fences and trees he managed to find some safety, awkwardly clinging to them, sweat dripping, muscles aching, and sobbing while dogs barked and snapped at him or irritated bulls snorted and paced below. That Nicola would be escorted back to school by a red-faced and irate farmer further heightened his humiliation and sent him hiding from the rest of the school for hours and hours.
He heard some of the whispered jokes and the stifled laughter once the prank of the day was talked about among tittering students. Those precious few—Nicola had counted four—who were his friends stuck by him. Bright and enthusiastic in their own ways, they nevertheless impressed upon Nicola that the only way for someone like him to survive was to work hard in being as invisible to everyone else as possible—physically and intellectually. It wasn’t enough to blend in with the rest of the boys in appearance, but one also needed to avoid making himself special in any way in the classroom, for it drew unwanted attention.
“You do have the disadvantage of a bad leg,” one of his friends noted with a thoughtful little frown. “It’ll be a little difficult getting everyone to ignore you. We’re used to being ignored since we don’t do anything out of the ordinary.” He paused and grinned—a bright, proud sort of grin that made Nicola wince. “And none of us looks special enough for some imbecile to notice.”
“Stay with us,” one boy said, giving him a friendly punch in the arm. “Those pigs are idiots who harass anyone weaker than they are.”
“More like cowards, really,” another student sniffed. “That’s their way of making themselves feel good about how pathetic they are.”
“And our headmaster’s interested in money and nothing else. He won’t care what happens unless someone dies. I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Nicola would have to agree with the last claim, appalling it might be. The headmaster did nothing to punish the bullies, and Nicola discovered that those boys came from some of the richest families in the neighboring towns. All the comfort he received was a stern reprimand never to allow his judgment to be overruled by childish desires for friendship.
“Know your limits, and stick to them,” the headmaster said, impatience tingeing his words. “You’d do well not to wander out from your corner and put yourself in everyone’s way.”
Nicola’s tiny circle of friends meant well, but their belief in mediocrity as a way of surviving school didn’t sit well with him. He was grateful for their friendship, of course, and spent as much time as he could with them, but eventually, he found that he’d rather isolate himself from the rest of the student body and immerse himself in his books and his journal. He’d grown so restless and uninspired, and his ongoing fear of being targeted for future humiliation made him yearn for something far, far better and impossible.
Sometimes he’d spend far too much time mulling over his journal contents, his gaze devouring those sketches and feeding his imagination with unreality after unreality. Ghouls, fairies, nymphs, and specters all filling up worlds that would never exist—those were much more preferable than the stifling, painful hours spent in a school that cared little for its disadvantaged students.
I miss you all, he’d write back home. I wish I could stay home with you. He’d pause whenever he was on the verge of recounting his harrowing experiences, and lingering images of his father’s look of exasperation, disappointment, and anger held his pen. Then he’d crumple the first sheet into a ball and toss it aside, leaving him a fresh one for his lies. I’m doing very well in my classes and have made plenty of friends. They’re all very nice here, and they never mock my deformity. Some of them are my heroes, and I enjoy listening to them talk about their dreams, and they encourage me to follow mine. I couldn’t have been luckier.
* * * *
Chapter 2
“How long will Papa be away this time?” Nicola asked, ignoring Pietra’s protests as he finished sweeping the kitchen floor. When she marched up to him, he waved her away with a mock snarl, and she rolled her eyes and went back to the table where she sat down with a relieved sigh. She appeared a little tired from walking up to Nicola and then back, but she tucked some stray hair behind her ear and resumed wiping the newly washed dishes.
“He said he’ll be back in a month’s time.”
“We’ll be missing his birthday, then.”
Nicola looked up in time to find Pietra glancing at him, and they flashed each other rueful little smiles. “Just because he isn’t here doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate,” she replied, a little sparkle lighting up her eyes.
“Let’s have a grand private dinner party,” Nicola offered, drawing bright, bubbly laughter from the housekeeper. “It won’t cost us much, seeing as how there’ll only be two of us attending.”
“I like how you think,” Pietra said once her laughter died down, and she sighed again.
“It’s good to be economical, you know. I mean, one can never be sure of what might happen next to one’s money.”
Nicola saw the housekeeper freeze for a fraction of a second while wiping a platter dry, the sudden stiffness around Pietra’s shoulders betraying a heightened alertness caused by Nicola’s remark. Then she was back to her work with a long, soft exhalation as though in relief, behaving as though nothing had happened.
With some concern, Nicola took in the weathered appearance of the woman who became his closest and only childhood friend. He was now fourteen years old, and Pietra remained with the tiny family, her deep fondness for both Nicola and his father binding her to them. She had turned sixty years old two months before, and already it appeared as though she’d aged another ten years. Her occasional bouts of ill health made her even more fragile than ever. Nicola had appealed to his father a few times already, and he’d also begged Pietra to agree to hire someone for help around the house, but the housekeeper refused to listen. He didn’t suspect financial constraints being the reason behind his father and Pietra’s responses then, but now he did.
Nicola tried not to think about the future, for even though he’d been haunted before by the thought of someday losing Pietra, he found that he wasn’t ready for it, and he was convinced that he never would be. Cursing silently at himself, he turned back to his task and was soon done. Nicola went outside and washed his hands at the pump, cudgeling his brain for absentee father birthday ideas.
It was a common thing nowadays, his father being away. Since Nicola began school, his father had been venturing farther and farther away for commissions, and he’d been very successful in finding new jobs half the time, which didn’t promise the family much, for Nicola’s education cost them a lot of money. Nicola had long been aware of this since he first set foot in school, wide-eyed and terrified. The school might be located in the country and it was small compared to other schools in the more modern urban centers, but uniforms, rooms, and meals required compensation.
Since his father refused to talk to him about his work, Nicola had learned to hold his tongue at the dinner table, and mealtimes were quiet, somber moments that seemed to be endured out of necessity unless they wished to die of hunger.
When Nicola re-entered the kitchen, he sat down at the table and idly watched Pietra put the dry dishes away.
“Is Papa in trouble financially?” he asked, diving straight to the point.
“If he is, child, he doesn’t say.”
“Or won’t admit to it.”
Pietra frowned at him but kept bustling around the kitchen. “It’s always good to go out there and find new customers, you know. There are only so many clocks he can make for people in this area. His clocks last a good long time, and I’ve talked to some of the servants of families who’ve commissioned your father years ago, and they all say the same thing—that their clocks are beautiful and haunting and work just as well as they did since the beginning.”
Nicola beamed with pride. “I suppose that’s the disadvantage of being good at what he does,” he said. “His work lasts a long time, and he’ll also have to wait a long time to create new ones to replace them, right?”
“So now he has to travel to secure new commissions.”
There was something in Pietra’s tone and the way she spoke those few words that struck Nicola as unconvincing, but then again, perhaps it was because he wasn’t keen on believing her explanations. In his gut, Nicola suspected that his family was struggling with money; that perhaps no one wanted to commission a talented clock maker who insisted on fantastical and rather unsettling designs for his creations. There was something irrational, sacrilegious, and darkly mocking about those clocks—an old, old aesthetic that folks nowadays no longer believed in or had long dismissed as nothing more than superstitious silliness. Nicola might consider them brilliant, but most of the world would probably disagree.
“Nicola, you really shouldn’t resort to menial duties around the house,” Pietra said from one corner of the kitchen. She had her back turned to him then, so he couldn’t see the look on her face when she spoke. “There are only two of you I’m looking after, and neither of you requires a great deal of care. I don’t understand why you think that soiling your hands with drudgework would be a good way to pass your time. What about your family’s library?”
Nicola shrugged despite the fact that she still had her back to him. “Something different, I suppose. I want to be helpful around here, not sit around and pretend like I’m important.” He stared at the weathered wood of the table and started running his fingers over the grain. “Doesn’t it help you?”
“That’s not the point, and you know it.” Pietra sighed as she walked to another end of the kitchen, where a large, old sideboard stood, and she bent down to look through the shelves for something. “I’ve also noticed that you’ve grown less willing to talk about things, and you walk around as though you’re trying to avoid being noticed by people.”
“I walk the way I’ve always walked. You never bothered me about that before,” Nicola replied sullenly. The table’s grain held his attention, and he refused to look up even for a second, afraid of what he’d see in Pietra’s fading eyes.
“No. That’s not true. You used to look everyone in the eye, walk with your head held up. Now you—well, you hunch your shoulders and stare at your shoes. It’s almost like you’re trying to shrink yourself. The only time you look at anyone—or me—straight on is when you’re arguing or making a strong point, which, I might add, has been very rare. You’ve grown too passive.”
“Are you saying that you want me to be difficult and challenge you and Papa all the time?” Nicola frowned at the table, his idle exploration of the wood grain turning into an agitated scraping of his fingernails against it.
He didn’t hear Pietra’s footsteps as she marched up to him, and she tipped his face up with a finger under his chin so that he found himself looking at a deeply concerned and rather irritated old woman. The wrinkles on her skin deepened, capturing the shadows and distorting her face into an unsettling mask.
“What’s been happening in school, Nicola Gregori?” she asked, her voice soft but firm. She narrowed her eyes when he remained silent. “You’ve been sending us letters saying that everything’s perfect and wonderful, but every time you come home, I can see a change in you.”
“I’m getting older!”
She shook her head, still frowning. “You look like you’re weighed down with something. What is it? A guilty secret?” She bent a little closer and dropped her voice further into a stern whisper. “Have you been lying to us, Nicola? You’ve been mocked because of your leg, and you refuse to tell us?”
Nicola pulled away, mortified and blushing, barely able to put on a look of weak outrage. “It’s no one else’s business, what happens in school,” he spat. “I can take care of myself well enough.”
Pietra refused to be shaken, and she regarded him with a look of grim amusement, her brows raised. “Take care of yourself? How? By hunching your shoulders and bowing your head, making yourself as small as you can, so no one will notice you? I know how young boys are when they’re locked away in one place together with no one to keep them in line. I know how vicious they can be to those whom they mark as different or weak. And the worst that you can do, Nicola, is to believe their cheap lies about you.”
“We call each other names all the time.”
“Like what, pray? Cripple? Weakling?”
Nicola blurted out, “Ugly, dirt-eating freak.” He clamped a hand against his mouth as his cheeks flamed.
“I thought so,” Pietra whispered. She continued to pin Nicola with a hard gaze, her face a mask of icy fury. “And let me guess. You shrink into the shadows to avoid their taunts and their cruel tricks. All that brilliance in your head’s been dulled to fit their expectations of you, and now you look and behave the way you’re supposed to in their eyes. Is that how things are in school?”
Nicola listened, torn between outrage, denial, and pained sadness, for Pietra had summarized his daily school agonies in a mere handful of words. All those excruciating moments spent being taunted for his physical disability—reduced to a dry, matter-of-fact, succinct account. That fact hurt Nicola more than anything, and cornered and exposed thus, it was all he could do to bitterly say, “You’re not my mother.”
Pietra took a deep, trembling breath, and she straightened up, folding her hands on her skirts and regarding Nicola with a frostiness that made him bow his head, look away, and resume picking away at the table’s wood grain. She wasn’t a cripple, he thought, so she’d never understand what he went through day after day, regardless of where he happened to be. How easy it was for every normal person to lecture him about coping, drown him with platitudes, and expect him to emerge from their badgering a stronger, more confident, and more clear-sighted young man who could crush his opponents when the need arose. Advising him from their places of safety and ordinariness? It was all so stupid.
“No, I’m not. I’m only a servant,” Pietra said before turning away and going back to searching for something among the cluttered collection of pots, pans, and utensils in the sideboard.
Nicola sighed as he felt his anger melt away and to be replaced by guilt, a familiar kind of guilt—the same kind of guilt that gnawed away at him whenever he wrote those letters, all filled with lies. He didn’t expect Pietra to be so sharp about that, but he wasn’t going to admit to anything. He might have been beaten many times in the schoolyard—emotionally, mentally, and sometimes physically—but deep, unwavering fear and pride had always dictated his behavior in a good many things. He’d sooner be battered in school for the rest of his stay there than anger his father even more, given how much disappointment he’d already caused for being a small, grotesque creature limping about on a withered leg.
Reminders of this disappointment were a daily experience whenever his father was at home. The habitual avoidance of Nicola’s company for as long as possible, the brief glances as acknowledgment of his existence, the dull and trite conversations whenever father and son found themselves somehow trapped in one room together. Nicola might as well be invisible at home or busy himself with activities that he felt suited him best: drudge work.
A knock on the door brought his dour thoughts to a sudden halt. “Must be another creditor,” he muttered.
“Nicola!”
He shrugged and stood up, raising both hands in surrender. “All right, all right, I won’t say anything,” he said, ignoring the scowl that Pietra was leveling at him. “I need to wash up and change.”
They walked to the hallway where they parted ways, Pietra shuffling off to greet their unexpected caller and Nicola hobbling upstairs to his bedroom, still lost in thought. It took him some time, but he did wise up to the possible nature of those strange, serious gentlemen who used to visit his father and leave the man shattered. Nicola understood that they were creditors, and that his father was doing worse than everyone led Nicola to believe.
He didn’t know how long he went about things in his room, but he thought that he was there for quite some time, so when he went downstairs, he was startled by the sound of voices coming from the kitchen. He blinked as he froze in the hallway and strained his ears.
Pietra was talking to a man—someone who sounded so relaxed and genial that Nicola wondered if he were an old friend or relative of the housekeeper. Walking cautiously toward the kitchen, his curiosity roused, he paused at the doorway and looked in.
Yes, there was a well-dressed gentleman present, whom Pietra had invited to the kitchen and allowed to enjoy some coffee. It was a breach of common household etiquette, to be sure, as any guest ought to be entertained in more proper surroundings. There was something so unusual about the visitor, that Nicola stopped and reconsidered his disapproval. The man sat across the table from Pietra, and he’d set his silk hat on his lap—again another breach of common etiquette on the part of the housekeeper, but Nicola suspected that the visitor might have argued against being fussed over. It was either that or the remarkable possibility that the gentleman had been there before, perhaps several times in the past without Nicola knowing it, so much so that he’d become a part of the household.
Apart from the surprising welcome he enjoyed and his expensive and fashionable clothes, the visitor didn’t appear to be any stranger than usual. He seemed to be a very average man with graying hair, around the same age as Nicola’s father. He was neither large nor small, with no odd physical attributes or mannerisms or even speech patterns. He was so plain and ordinary, that Nicola was sure that he could have vanished against the shadowy kitchen walls without a problem, and no one would miss him.
Nicola’s breath caught. That right there was the unusual thing about the man—that not only could he appear to vanish against the kitchen walls, but it seemed as though he was literally disappearing in the shadows, a jovial, chattering figure that flickered in and out of sight. Did Pietra notice anything amiss? No, she didn’t! There she sat, talking, smiling, and laughing, punctuating her conversation with quick sips of her beverage, yet Nicola, who stood by the door gaping and rubbing his eyes, was convinced that the visitor was beyond strange.
As though reading Nicola’s thoughts, the visitor turned to smile at him. “Are you seeing anything out of the ordinary, young Gregori?” he asked, further stunning Nicola into silence.
Yes, even with all the eye-rubbing and rapid blinking to ensure his wakefulness, Nicola saw that the man faded in and out of view, an unnatural ability that escaped Pietra altogether. In fact, the housekeeper merely turned to smile at him and beckon him inside the kitchen.
Nicola hesitated at the doorway, his look of amazement shifting to one of suspicion, which he didn’t care to check. He frowned at the stranger and said nothing.
“Are you seeing a ghost, young man?” the visitor prodded, his voice light and cheerful and oddly appropriate to the visual show he appeared to be putting on for Nicola, for there was something curiously playful about the illusions. But why would Nicola be the only one to see it?
“I don’t know, Signore,” he replied, frowning more deeply. He turned to Pietra. “Don’t you see it?”
“See what, Dearest?” she asked. Her question seemed sincere, and the mild confusion on her face proved it. She raised her brows and looked at Nicola and then at their guest.
“Magic, my dear boy!” the gentleman cried, standing up and setting his hat on the table. “What! Don’t tell me you’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing magic before! Why, aren’t you Jacopo’s very own flesh and blood?”
He marched up to Nicola with a hand extended, and he grinned. There was nothing about his general attitude that raised any alarms in Nicola. Indeed, the man came across as very friendly and easygoing, the sort of fellow with whom Nicola would love cultivating a good friendship. When he took Nicola’s hand and shook it heartily, the feeling of warmth and boundless energy in that grasp confirmed the surprising barrage of good impressions on Nicola’s senses, which, ironically, only served to alarm him further about the strange-and-yet-not-strange nature of the meeting.
“I’m Gustav Renfred, young Gregori,” the man said. Nicola couldn’t help but be affected by Renfred’s infectious humor. His initial anxiety melted, and he felt himself relax.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Signore. My name is Nicola, not young Gregori.”
Renfred laughed, his voice loud and forceful and filling the kitchen with its hearty sound. Nicola grinned, unable to help himself again, and he even fancied that the shadows in the kitchen suddenly broke up, the fragments forming grotesque shapes that fled into cracks in the wall till it seemed as though the kitchen itself was transformed into a room filled with light.
“Well—while you might be your father’s son in some ways, I’m rather pleased to see that you didn’t inherit Jacopo’s tendency toward gloom,” Renfred said. Then he leaned closer and mock-whispered, “That man takes life much too seriously, I think.” When Nicola laughed in answer, Renfred added, “Come along, young man, and join us for coffee.”
Nicola hesitated at the door again, watching Renfred’s figure fade in and out like it did before, while the gentleman turned around and marched back to his chair. Nicola glanced at Pietra to see if the housekeeper caught it this time, but she continued to behave as though nothing strange was happening. In fact, she’d stood up and had dragged over another chair to the table for him to claim while he and Renfred were talking.
“Um—shouldn’t we be entertaining you in the drawing room, Signore?” he asked, glancing at Pietra with a faintly disapproving scowl.
“Oh, no, no. Please, I’ve never been one for ceremony. I prefer to spend time in the heart of a household, whether it’s in the kitchen or study or out in the garden.” Renfred grinned as he sat back down.
Nicola walked over to the empty chair, oddly feeling light and free, and took his place with the others. He offered Renfred a tentative little smile when he realized that the man was watching him keenly the whole time.
“Tell me, young man, is your leg giving you too much trouble?”
“What…” Nicola glanced back at the door and then stared in disbelief at his lap when a thought suddenly dawned, that earlier feeling of lightness and freedom coming back to nip at the fringes of his mind. Nothing appeared to be amiss, but he could have sworn that he walked quickly and smoothly as though he’d grown up with two perfectly healthy legs. “I—what happened?”
“You walked, you silly thing,” Pietra replied, amused, tilting her head as she regarded Nicola. “You weren’t aware that you walked? And you held your head up and squared your shoulders—why, just like a proper young gentleman of your breeding. None of those—those—nonsense postures and drooping heads and shy looks cemented to your shoes.” She paused, sniffing, and turned to Renfred. “He’s developed a bad habit of slouching and looking forlorn, and he refuses to listen when I scold him about it.” To Nicola’s relief, there wasn’t a hint of resentment or anger in the way she referred to their earlier spat, almost as though it never happened.
“I was vaguely aware of how I walked,” Nicola stammered, staring at Renfred, saucer-eyed. Ignoring Pietra, he leaned toward their guest and asked, “Was that magic? Did you cast some kind of spell on me to make me believe that I could walk like everyone else, while you and Pietra only saw me walk the way I always do—limp, I mean?”
“Oh, Nicola, really!” Pietra cried, laughing and shaking her head. She took one final sip of her coffee and then stood up. “All these years spent in school, and instead of practical matters, you start talking about magic! Signor Renfred, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and check on my master’s garden. It’s that time.”
“Of course, of course,” Renfred said, standing up as Pietra withdrew cheerfully, giving Nicola’s hair a quick muss as she walked past him. “Since Jacopo isn’t here, I’ll be off very soon. I’ll find my way out, thank you.”
Nicola continued to blush when they were alone, the confusion, pleasure, and excitement now turning into mortification and a familiar self-consciousness mingled with self-loathing. He clamped his mouth shut as he watched Renfred sit down again and lean back with a contented sigh.
“Yes, that was magic,” Renfred said after a moment’s awkward silence. His manner and mood had also quieted down to something sympathetic and paternal. His earlier smiles and laughter had given way to a rueful but earnest look that nearly made Nicola weep in self-pity. “I thought to give you a glimpse of what you could be.”
“You tried to fool me into thinking that I’m not lame and useless, you mean.”
“There’s nothing wicked about magic, young man, unless its wielder perverts its use. Don’t ever fall into that trap,” Renfred cut in. His tone was sharp and a frown marred his features for the space of a few seconds. Then his annoyance vanished. “You’re very young, though, and have much to learn yet, but, yes, this is a taste of something that could very well be yours in time. And, no, you’re absolutely not useless.”
Nicola listened, marveling now. “Are you saying that I could learn about magic someday? That I could be good at it, too? Like Papa?”
“Ah, here you go, being literal now. As for your father, well, his magic is different from mine. His has a more practical and limited bent, but it’s that practicality that ensures a stronger and more enduring connection with the world at large. Me, on the other hand…” Renfred paused, chuckling and raising both hands as though in surrender. “Too antiquated and fanciful, with no other purpose than to encourage people to dream and hope. Not everyone appreciates that, I’m afraid.”
“Papa’s clocks are very fanciful. I know that he hates it when I pry or say anything about clock-making, but I hope he’d make me my own clock someday.”
“Indeed?” Renfred cocked his head, brows wrinkling, as he listened intently.
“Yes,” Nicola stammered, blushing again. He cleared his throat and shrugged. “A small one would be fine—something to honor Papa with, I suppose—something for me to keep forever and remind myself of his talents.” He paused, considering. “Though I suppose one could also look at that as a show of regret and wishful thinking on my part. You know, hold on to something that I can never hope to replicate, whether or not Papa allows me to pursue the craft.”
“No, no. It makes a great deal of sense coming from you. Whatever your father’s opinions on the matter, you’re still honoring his artistry and, perhaps, everything that’s good and unique about him.”
Their conversation was interrupted when the massive clock in the drawing room struck, its muffled chimes piercing the walls all the way to the kitchen. Nicola held his breath as he listened and waited for the sounds to die out, his gaze not once leaving Renfred, who also appeared to listen closely, his head still cocked to the side.
It was an odd thing, indeed, but Nicola couldn’t help but suspect that the clock’s sudden interruption almost felt like an ominous reminder that his father was, in fact, there with them, surrounding them with his presence. The clock felt like a guardian of some kind, interrupting their conversation as though warning Renfred not to venture any further. The knowing look on Renfred’s face seemed to confirm that, and Nicola felt his skin crawl.
“It’s four o’clock, and I must leave,” Renfred said with a grunt as he collected his hat and brushed it absent-mindedly. Nicola nodded and stood up, hopping around the chair as he leaned on it for support while waving a hand in the direction of the hallway.
“You’re welcome to stay for dinner, Signore.”
“Thank you, young man, but my dear Constanza is expecting me.” Renfred paused, then grunted in surprise as he felt around his pockets. “I almost forgot,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head at himself. He pulled out an envelope with a red wax seal and handed it over to Nicola. “I’d be obliged, young man, if you could give this to your father. It’s regarding a special commission of his that requires him to consult with me.”
“Of course.”
“Very well. I’m off, then.”
Nicola followed Renfred down the hallway, insisting that the gentleman go before him and shrinking into himself as he limped, the swaying of his upper body with every step made forward with his withered leg a sharp reminder of his own reality and its cloak of shame. The glorious few seconds he’d enjoyed in the kitchen while caught in Renfred’s magical web, the experience of ease and the grace of unhindered movement, had now become phantom echoes to which Nicola couldn’t cling. No, there was no other way out of his situation but death; he was meant to be lame and shouldn’t ever be teased with possibilities that were cruelly beyond his reach.
He didn’t understand Renfred’s purpose for toying with his mind like that, and that surprise now shriveled and blackened into resentment. Still, Nicola knew better than to lash out at a man whom he didn’t know, and he bit his tongue as he followed Renfred to the door, his eyes downcast and half-blurred with tears.
When they reached the door, Renfred opened it and stepped out, pausing for a moment to tip his head back to breathe in the fresh air and examine the gathering clouds above. “Looks like rain,” he said, turning back to smile at Nicola. “It was a pleasure meeting you, young Gregori,” he added, shaking Nicola’s hand again after setting his hat on his head. “I hope to enjoy more conversations with you in the future.” Then he dropped his voice to a gentle whisper and covered their joined hands with his free hand as though shielding the link between them from the world. “And I sincerely hope to see you much, much happier.”