The Undrowned Child

  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.

  As Teo stood by the curtain, it tore her heart to see her parents dressed in deepest mourning. How pale their cheeks were! How dark the circles under their eyes!

  She stepped out to center-stage, reaching out her hand towards them.

  Before coming to the conference, Teo had tidied herself thoroughly, and herded her curls back into plaits. So now she strongly resembled the LOST GIRL posters.

  At first, intent on their notes, neither Leonardo nor Alberta Stampara saw her approach. They were mystified when the other delegates suddenly rose to their feet, erupting into roars of delight and thunderous applause. They looked back in confusion at the drawing of the Vampire Eel, which seemed to have created such joyous excitement. Cries of horror and fear would have been much more appropriate.

  “No!” shouted the scientists. “Look behind you!”

  First Teo’s father and then her mother turned to see what exactly was causing such a sensation. Their faces drained to white.

  Teo ran into their arms and stayed there a long time, until after the clapping and shouting had stopped, and everyone had dried their eyes, and said that surely the reappearance of Teodora Stampara must be a good omen for the saving of Venice.

  Teodora Gasperin did not correct them.

  A good omen? That was not scientist-talk, was it? In the emotion of the hour, even those scientists were human beings first.

  “Teodora, darling, tell us what happened to you!”

  Finally, Teo understood why Lussa had refused to explain how she got from her hospital bed to that grave in the park and what happened to her between the night of June 1 and the early morning of June 3. Now Teo was sincerely grateful for her loss of memory, and even more so for Lussa’s tactful failure to give an explanation, because it meant that she could look into her parents’ eyes as she declared, “Mamma, Papà, I have no idea what happened to me at the hospital. Or afterwards.”

  Teo was interrupted before she had to grapple with more difficult explanations.

  A young scientist burst into the hall, waving a vial of water in his hand and a broad smile painted all over his face.

  “Tremendously good news!” he shouted, and Teo was thankful to see that all eyes turned from her to him.

  The gathering of scientists was of the collective opinion that the tempest in the lagoon had reversed the dangerous decline of the city. The new measurements were showing quite unbelievably improved results now: Venice’s lagoon was cool and clean, more so than the untouched waters around a Pacific island. Salt levels were returning to normal. And the water was dropping down to its normal height with astonishing rapidity.

  The city was filthy, cruelly damaged by the water, but officially saved.

  The news spread fast to the mainland, where thousands of Venetians were waiting to hear whether their city had survived the storm. Within hours a huge re-migration had taken place. The streets were flooded, not with water, but with grateful Venetians, all looking at their mud-bathed city with loving eyes. On every corner, you could see people holding each other and weeping for joy. An army of Venetians with buckets and mops sloshed through the mud to clean up their streets.

  The printing presses of the Gazzettino and the Nuova were silent, clogged up with a rich soup of machine oil and mud. So everyone seized on Signor Rioba’s bulletin, the only news in town. The Seldom Seen Press obliged one last time.

  As you shovel your stinking silt, Venetians, remember who let this happen to ye. Who told ye there was nothing to worry about? Yes! Your great steaming heap of a mayor. Wrapped that one up tight, didn’t he just? Didn’t know shucks about nuffink, did he? Ye’ll have your chance with him yet, Venetians. Election Day is coming.…

  By the time the Venetians returned to their city, the Hotel degli Assassini was back to its modern-day dimensions, but with a new coat of paint on all the walls. The winged lions all had their benign expressions back. Some were a little chipped from the battle, but their paws rested on open books, for Venice was no longer at war. The stone wells stopped gushing hot water. Everyone was relieved, for once, to see a sparkling High Water flood into San Marco, the lowest point in the city, at the natural phase of the moon. Not so many people were happy to see the rats coming home.

  An impromptu Carnevale broke out all over town. Everyone was celebrating the saving of Venice—both the ordinary human beings and the mythical creatures. In their party clothes and masks, the Nereids and Wild-but-Good Faeries could mix unnoticed with the human beings. There were processions down the Grand Canal and balls in San Marco. The mayor returned to Venice to take credit for the city’s salvation, not that anyone believed him. Standing on a ribboned podium, he announced that the Campanile would be rebuilt exactly where it was and how it was. No one was listening.

  Excited children stripped to their underwear and dived into the Grand Canal. There were no more sharks in the cold, clear water.

  “Oh my, what inelegance!” remarked Teo, watching the excited boys and girls leaping in and out of the water in their cami-knickers and vests. Then she laughed out loud at herself. “How awful. I sound just like Renzo. What a snob!”

  There was only one more magical happening that needed to be accounted for by the mayor and the minister for tourism and decorum.

  A week after the storm, the column of infamy, with its inscription about Bajamonte Tiepolo’s crimes, mysteriously turned up in the Campiello del Remer. The reappearance of the column after six centuries inspired the newly working newspaper presses to print the story of the Tiepolo conspiracy again, reminding the Venetians of their narrow escape from disaster. The minister for tourism and decorum, in an interview, actually compared the defeat of Il Traditore in 1310 with the city’s recent deliverance from a watery peril.

  Reading the slightly muddy Gazzettino at the hotel breakfast table, Teo grinned from ear to ear. If only the pompous old foo
l knew how very accurate his metaphor really was!

  The minister mused on and on about the column of infamy and its inexplicable provenance. “Vandals do the strangest things. However, all our tourists shall love the new attraction. People who’ve been before—why, it’s an excuse to come back!”

  Renzo, reading the Gazzettino at his favorite bar, scoffed to himself, “Just what we need, more foreigners.” Then he stopped himself. “That’s not quite fair. Teo was a sort of foreigner.…”

  When Teo opened The Key to the Secret City in bed that night, just out of habit, a single word wrote itself on the first page: Grazie.

  When she closed the book, Lussa’s smiling face, now lightly gilded with the inscriptions of the Spell Almanac, winked at her one last time, and whispered, “Fair Winds, Teodora. Steady as You go!”

  a beautiful afternoon, June 17, 1899

  There was one more thing that Teo wanted to do. She could not leave Venice without saying thank you to someone whom she had not even met, or at least whom she could not remember at all. Renzo agreed to come with her when she told him, “I don’t know if I can do this on my own.”

  At the House of the Spirits, Teo asked permission to visit the old nuns. She had bought a bouquet of flowers and dressed as carefully as she knew how. The caretaker smiled and waved her in.

  Teo and Renzo wandered through the gardens, so different during the day—so delightfully lush and peaceful. The ghosts, of course, had gone to their reward. The old nuns sat quietly on benches in the sun, knitting and embroidering handkerchiefs. As Teo passed by they gave her such sweet smiles that they could almost have been nutritious.

  It was the oldest nun of all who first recognized Teo. She was almost transparent with age, her face whiter than sugar, her skin creased like old silk. But such beauty shone out of her that Renzo bowed as if she was a great lady.