The Undrowned Child (27 page)

Their first attempt was a humiliating failure.

The ghosts waited until the children had stammered to a standstill, and then booed them roundly. The ghosts complained about their delivery, nitpicked their grammar and jeered at their lack of eloquence.

“Venetians! The pair of you!” scoffed an old miser. “You’d never think it to hear you mumbling and fumbling and rambling off into the raspberry bushes! You must stay with your point! And you must above all impress us!”

“I am new at being a Venetian,” said Teo defensively. “Instead of criticizing, why don’t you teach us how to do it properly?”

The ghosts relented then, and for half an hour Teo and Renzo were drilled in all manner of rhetorical tricks. They were taught how to pause dramatically, how to raise just one eyebrow, how to lower their voices so that the audience would lean forward to catch every last word.

“And you, young Master Windbag.” The miser poked a freezing finger at Renzo. “Learn that less is more!”

Finally the children delivered a rousing speech, and the ghosts awarded them a vigorous round of applause.

“But will you help us?” asked Renzo, carefully economic with his words. “Will you fight Bajamonte Tiepolo?”

“Of course, you stupid boy, we were persuaded the first time. But you’ve more important and far more difficult ghosts than us to convince, and you must be ready for them.”

Teo and Renzo climbed back over the wall and out into the Sacca della Misericordia.

“Renzo!” exclaimed Teo. “Do you notice what’s missing?”

“The striped poles! All the boats are floating away!”

Not one of the striped poles remained standing above the water. The Creature had pulled all its tentacles down under the water, all the better, no doubt, to make its sudden concerted attack.

In three days’ time.

a quarrelsome dawn, June 12, 1899

“I’m off to speak to the gondolier children. Better you don’t come, Teo. I’ll see you tonight. For the ghosts.”

“It’s too complicated to tell them the truth about me, I suppose?” she muttered resentfully. “Who I am? Or maybe you can’t be bothered?”

“It’s supposed to be a secret,” he reminded her baldly.

“And you want to play the hero, saving Venice all on your own.” Teo regretted those tart words before she had even finished uttering them.

Ignoring them, Renzo said quietly, “And I must make an appearance at home. I don’t want my mother to get anxious.”

“Or your father …?”

“He died five years ago. There’s just my mother and me.”

Teo stared. “Why didn’t you mention that before?”

“Well, it’s not something I’d say casually, is it? It’s not as if …” There was a catch in his voice.

Teo swallowed. This explained Renzo’s seriousness, the way he seemed so much older than his years. He’d had to be the man of his family all this time. She remembered that Renzo had told her about his father’s bronchitis—the night the creature’s tentacles nearly took him. He had flinched when the gondolier passed by with that terrible cough. But he had not revealed that his father’s illness had been fatal. Even when Teo had discovered the truth about her own parents, he’d said nothing about being half an orphan himself. Until tonight, Renzo had always been so distant with her. He had shared almost nothing about his life. And she’d just been hideously mean to him again, driving him further away.

She said contritely, “I’m so very sorry for your loss, Renzo.” Seeing his face pinched and closed, she quickly changed the subject. “I need to study The Best Ways with Wayward Ghosts. It’s back at the hotel.”

“Meet you there when it gets dark? So we can start on the ghosts?”

Teo was relieved that he was not going to hold a grudge. She nodded and smiled. After so much time with Renzo, it would feel odd to be on her own again. He leant towards her, as if he was going to kiss her goodbye. But at the last minute he jerked his head away, blushed and muttered gruffly, “For Maria’s sake, hope that I don’t bump into her in the meanwhile!”

It would be too awkward to walk with him down to San Marcuola now. Teo set off in a different direction, forcing herself to pause and look in shop windows so she didn’t accidentally catch Renzo up.

Eventually she found herself at the vaporetto stop, and inserted herself invisibly among the crowds of Venetians who poured onto the steam ferry. She chose a spot by the railings and stood there deep in thought. Had Renzo really meant to kiss her? Why had he decided not to? Was it because, as usual, she was a complete fright to look at after the night’s adventures? Was it because she had accused him of wanting to play the hero? How unfair and malicious she’d been! What would it be like if he did kiss her? Would she like it?

“I suppose that I rather would,” Teo conceded. And even though no one else saw her, let alone heard her, she blushed just as fiercely as Renzo then.

A shrill toot and a jet of steam announced another ferry approaching from the opposite direction. It was almost empty: just a few old ladies and a single child stood on the deck. The lumpy little girl, dressed in sickly pink and bilious green, clutched a crest-covered parasol. From a distance her whole body expressed utter dejection.

“Maria!” screamed Teo as the two ferries drew almost parallel. If she could have leapt over the water Teo would have done it in a moment, and grabbed Maria, and given her the shaking of her life.

As Maria caught sight of Teo, her face crumpled. A swarm of scolopendre was crawling all over her body. Maria seemed too deeply sunk in misery to try to swat the horrible insects away. But she screamed as a scolopendra buried its fangs in her neck. That neck was no longer delicate as it used to be, but thick and gnarled, like a dwarf’s.

Maria hugged herself with pain. Her hunchback was suddenly clearly visible. Her swollen eyes streamed with fat tears. “I’m so sorry,” she called out over the churning water. “Oh, Teo, you’ll never know how sorry I am. I’ve run away. I’ve got to get away from him. I wanted to warn you.… You’ve got to tell the mermaids.…”

At that moment a cold shadow traced its way over the roof of Maria’s ferry.

The skeleton of a man-sized bat swept down to the deck where Maria cowered. Its bones were yellowy-white, bare of flesh. Except for the head, which was that of a human being, with a milky, jellified face, like that of a drowned man deep underwater.

The bat grabbed Maria in its claws and flew away with her.

“Help her! Someone help her!” cried Teo.

But no one could hear or see Teo. And Maria, once in the arms of the bat, became invisible, just like an apple in Teo’s hand.

All day Teo pored over The Best Ways with Wayward Ghosts, staring fixedly at one potentially crucial page after another. She tried to keep memories of Maria’s capture out of her head, filling it up instead with useful information for the night ahead. But her tears fell on the pages, gluing some of them together, blistering others.

At ten, when dusk turned into night, Teo was awoken by a shaft of moonlight. She must have fallen asleep over the thick little volume. She rushed to the window. Renzo was already waiting outside the hotel, looking pointedly at the clock tower. She hurtled down the stairs.

When he saw her tearstained face, Renzo hurried forward. Teo explained what had happened to Maria. Renzo’s eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t really deserve any better.”

“It wasn’t Maria who betrayed the mermaids. It was the scolopendre! Even Lussa said so. She’s just a prisoner. We have to try to find her. It may not be too late.”

Renzo was stern. “We’ve more important things … and remember what happened last time you didn’t do what the mermaids asked.”

As if Teo could forget Chissa’s white corpse and her hair flowing like blood in the cavern! She closed her mouth and led the way back up to her room. She bent over The Best Ways with Wayward Ghosts, soaking up the last few pages.

“What are you doing, Teo?” asked Renzo.

“I’m memorizing. You know my memory works like a camera. If I concentrate, I can take in the whole page at once. This book’s so thick! If only I knew which pages we’re going to need.”

Renzo said more respectfully, “Sorry. Forgot that’s how you do it. That’s not an Undrowned Child skill, is it? Or a Gasperin skill? You’ve taught yourself that one. Like reading upside down. One day, when this is over …”

“I’m ready.” Teo reached for a jacket and handed Renzo a pullover.

“It’s unspeakably hot out there!”

“Page thirty-two, bottom right: ‘Make sure you dress warmly for encounters with ghosts in-the-Cold. Such spirits carry a perishing iciness about their persons and diffuse it to others.’ ”

Rumors of the impending battle had already spread fast among the community of ghosts in-the-Cold. On every corner the children found spirits eager to talk to them. Some positively begged to be allowed to join their enterprise. Others graciously allowed themselves to be persuaded. Few ghosts turned them down.

“Now go to the garden of the House of the Spirits,” the children ordered each converted ghost, “and wait for instructions.”

When they had finished with the human ghosts, they started on the animals. The children recruited ghost cats that had lived duplicitously with two families; parrots that had frightened old ladies to death with their swearing; dogs that had been cat-killers. All these creatures too had a desire to redeem themselves and to save their city in the process.

No, it wasn’t hard to find ghost-defenders of Venice. The children’s problem was the chattering of their teeth. Even on this balmy evening, a freezing miasma surrounded them wherever they parleyed with a ghost. Extra clothes were not enough. Soon they were chilled to the bone, huddling close together—somewhat self-consciously—as each ghost told his or her sad story and enveloped them in freezing air.

Arriving at San Marco, they found that the water had receded. The Baja-Menta ice-cream trolley lay on its side empty and defaced with angry scribbling. Renzo averted his eyes from the pile of rubble that had so recently been the Campanile.

A new map had opened in The Key to the Secret City. It was guiding them towards Marin Falier, a Doge who had once plotted to seize absolute power. Marin Falier had more reason than any ghost in Venice to redeem himself. For he had been decapitated and buried with his head between his knees so that he would never be able to find it again—or threaten the Republic of Venice.

Teo fretted, “If he’s mutilated, then he’s not in-the-Cold, wanting redemption. He’s in-the-Slaughterhouse—he’s not sorry for what he did.”

Renzo grimaced. “At least he’s not a convicted child-eater.”

They found the old Doge’s ghost near Santi Giovanni e Paolo, just as The Key to the Secret City advised them. Lussa’s face on the cover had a warning look.

Teo’s first petrified thought was that the headless figure who blocked their path was the Butcher Biasio. But instead of a stinking, bloodstained apron, this ghost wore glorious damask robes lined with ermine. His head nestled between his velvet-covered knees.

“What do you want?” he shouted at them. “A human child and another one between-the-Linings? Why seek me out now? No one has wanted me, no one has thought of me, except with disgust, for all these centuries. I smell a trap!”

Renzo and Teo took turns with the speech, trying to remember all the tricks of oratory they’d learnt in the garden of the House of the Spirits.

The speech was received in brooding silence. Then the Doge demanded, “And exactly why should I help Venice after what Venice did to me? Anyway, I always was a little bit sorry for poor old Bajamonte. He’s really pulling back strongly now, from what I hear. Why, perhaps I should be on his side.”

Teo fought down a nervous desire to laugh. Here they were, talking to a head tucked between a pair of knees. The children explained it yet again: if Doge Falier helped he would be redeemed, and even get his head back in the right place.

“Of course, you have to be sorry for what you did too,” added Renzo reprovingly.

“If I … admit I was wrong … if I join you … shall you get my portrait put back in the Doges’ Palace too?” the crusty old man almost whimpered.

Renzo whispered to Teo that paintings of all the Doges lined the walls in the Great Council chamber. But where Marin Falier’s portrait should have hung, there was just a frame painted black inside.

“We can’t promise to fix that, Renzo!” Teo hissed back. Fortunately, the old Doge appeared to be rather hard of hearing, perhaps not surprising, given that his head was so far from its original position.

“I am sure the mayor will be extremely grateful,” affirmed Renzo aloud. “He would be absolutely insane if he did not have a famous artist just standing by for the honor of painting your portrait, sir.”

Teo added, “Quite off his head.”

Renzo kicked her shin. Meanwhile Marin Falier puffed himself up and started posing in anticipation. “Very well. You’ve won me over.”

“But are you really sorry?” demanded Teo sternly. The Doge’s conversion had seemed rather glib.

In answer Marin Falier burst into tears like a baby. “Of course I’m sorry. I’ve been ashamed of myself for five hundred and forty-four years. I was just too proud to admit it before.”

Teo knelt and wiped his tears with a corner of her pinafore. The Doge hiccupped and sniffed. “But I was never a warrior. I’m more comfortable behind a desk, pushing a quill. The gentleman you need is Enrico Dandolo, even though he’s blind and a little eccentric, if you ask me.”

“A little eccentric? He’s one to talk!” muttered Teo as the children left Marin Falier practicing noble facial expressions for his portrait.

“That went well. Enrico Dandolo next, then!” said Teo cheerfully, wondering why Renzo looked so frightened. The Key to the Secret City soon showed her why.

The ghost of Enrico Dandolo had burning brands for eyes, and his restless spirit walked the streets cutting its fingers with a sharp blade. This was a reminder of all the innocent blood he had shed during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In Constantinople, Ottoman women, children and slaves had fallen before the callous swords of his men.

The burning brands were the first parts of Enrico Dandolo that showed themselves in the gloom of the Barbaria delle Tole. The children made out a stooped, knotty figure, and then the flash of the sword with which he constantly slashed at his own hands. Two servants trailed behind him, remonstrating in groveling voices. They were both much scarred.