‘Why did you not bring in the police, if it was a hostage situation?’ So the reporter wasn’t such a pushover after all.
Steve treated us all to his brilliant smile. ‘Why wait when we had the helicopter and could do it ourselves? We weren’t going to do any more than knock on the door and ask to take them home.’
Yeah right.
‘It was the contessa who escalated the situation. She shot one of my friends. None of us was armed.’
The piece then cut to a report from outside Will’s hospital where he was described as in recovery. That would generate a nice wave of sympathy for our side.
The final section was the interview Diamond and I had done that afternoon outside our apartment. Di looked pale but resolute; I looked as glamorous as I could manage, trying hard to live up to my reputation as Steve’s model girlfriend. Diamond gave a brief explanation of what had happened, similar to the one she gave to the policeman. I backed it up with a fuller description of being stranded in the lagoon wearing nothing but an evening gown. The press liked that little detail and even got me to describe the cut and colour.
‘Are these the actions of a sane woman?’ I asked.
The reporter chose to end the piece on that question before spinning off into speculation about Steve’s and my non-existent romance.
Celebrity power: don’t you just love it?
Sitting next to me on the settee, Xav kissed my neck. ‘You did really well. Take that, contessa.’
‘I just hope it doesn’t inspire her to do anything worse.’
Victor got up. ‘I’ll go visit with Will. Anyone coming?’
To my surprise, Diamond offered. ‘If he’s to be my brother-in-law, I’d better meet him properly.’
Trace smiled sadly and joined her by the door. So they had decided to travel in hope towards the wedding, had they? ‘I’ll come too.’
After they left, the rest of us decided to make an early night of it. Having survived on far less sleep than normal, I was expecting to go out like a light but instead I tossed and turned on my pillow, my grand prix car of a brain racing around the circuit of our predicament.
Our publicity battle with the contessa reminded me of the history of two Italian Renaissance cities, lobbing insults at each other from behind their fortifications. It was doing nothing to save the devastated valley between them—in our case, the ruins being the minds on which the contessa had exercised her malign gift. I had promised to sort it out but unless I had the map to show me what she had done, I had not the first idea where to start.
Maybe I could bargain for information? I thought of her son: would he tell us how his mother’s power worked in exchange for some leniency in his treatment?
But Xav had told me that his case was still going through the courts. Until he was sentenced, he would not be interested in striking a bargain with us.
What about the contessa herself: what would she want in exchange for information?
A soulfinder? If not for her, maybe for the son she loved and any Savants among her grandchildren? It was the one thing I could offer that any Savant could not refuse. I was sitting on a deal clincher.
I threw off the covers, put on my trackies and jumper and crept out of the bedroom. Xav was really going to kill me if he knew what I planned. It was an enormous risk I was taking but I couldn’t face myself if I kept failing the girls and their soulfinders, not when there was something I could do.
On my way to the front door, I almost tripped over Barozzi and stumbled into the settee.
‘Going somewhere?’ asked Phoenix. She was sitting by the window, watching the moonshadows play on the garden wall.
‘You gave me a scare!’ I patted my throat. ‘Just letting the cat out. I won’t be long. Don’t wait up.’
It was a sign of how unlike her normal self she was that Phoenix was not more suspicious of my explanation.
‘OK.’
I paused at the door. ‘Phee, why are you here and not at the hotel with Yves?’
She gave a lopsided shrug. ‘Just didn’t feel right.’
That decided me. I could not bear to think of how much Yves must be hurting sitting alone in his hotel room without his wife. ‘You’re welcome to stay as long as you need, Phee.’ I eased my feet into my wellingtons. ‘See you in the morning.’
At the moorings by the Accademia Bridge, I found a gondolier about to go off-duty. A stout man with a chubby face like a worn-out cherub, he was packing up for the evening, accepting a hefty tip from his last cargo of lovers. He was transferring his gear from his shiny gondola to a scruffy little motorboat for his commute home.
‘How much to take me to Contessa Nicoletta’s island?’ I asked.
‘A hundred euros,’ he said casually, standing at the back of his bucking boat like a bareback rider on a galloping horse.
I snorted. ‘Yeah, and I was born yesterday. Look, I’m not a tourist and you’re probably going home to the Guidecca so it’s not far out of your way.’
He looked me up and down. I looked nothing like I had that afternoon in front of the cameras, as I was wearing my most comfortable and baggy clothes. ‘Why are you going there so late?’
‘Emergency staff meeting. You must have heard the rumours about the contessa’s difficulties.’
He grinned. ‘Yes. Funny old bird, never liked her. Sounds as if she’s really gone off the deep end this time. What do you do for her?’
‘I work for her chef.’ Fingers crossed behind back.
‘All right, signorina, in you get. I’ll drop you at the water-steps for twenty euros. You’ll make your own way home, OK?’
‘Fine.’ That’s if I got to come home. Just now I couldn’t worry about the details of after.
With a couple of pulls of the starter motor cord, my aging cherub propelled me across the choppy wide water of the Canale della Guidecca.
‘You want me to sing?’ he asked cheekily.
‘Not paying for it.’ I hunched my head against my knees. I was shaking with nerves and did not want to show it or he would suspect I was up to something.
‘I give you one free.’ He began his not so tuneful rendition of Italian opera arias. Gondoliers usually inherited their boat and mooring from their family; it was a shame the genes hadn’t passed down musicality too.
I thought of the last time I had been taken somewhere by a man singing. It had been Xav driving me to the airport. Hey, soul sister—the song had proved to be correct. I prayed that I was not risking our connection by making this trip into the lion’s den. But then, I told myself sternly, I was a lioness too; I was not going in without my own power to protect me. The old alpha female was about to find her dominance challenged by the new girl in the Savant pride.
Left on the steps, I watched my gondolier head off home, probably to a house packed full of cherub-faced sons all practising arias to take over from Dad when they were old enough. I wished my life was so straightforward. I pressed the intercom.
No response.
It was late, at least midnight. Was my big adventure going to end with me sitting on the steps till morning? I eyed the wall. After my failed ninja moment of the previous day, I knew better than to attempt to scale it. I pressed the bell again, this time keeping my finger stuck on the button.
The intercom crackled. ‘Yes?’
‘Hello? Can you tell the contessa that Crystal Brook is here to see her?’
There was a brief silence then the gate hummed open.
‘Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,’ I muttered, that line of an old song drifting unhelpfully into my head. ‘Stick with the lion image, Brook: it makes you feel more powerful.’
The garden was deserted. The dark outlines of box hedges stretched in a grid like a chess board; the pale grey shadows of statues looked like pieces left in the middle of a game played by giants. Without the warmth provided by the flaring torches at Diamond’s party, the secret island was a haunting place. I felt a moment’s pity for the imprisoned count growing
up in this weird atmosphere; no wonder he had turned out so badly.
The butler opened the garden doors for me. If any other staff were in residence, I saw no sign. ‘May I take your coat?’
‘Thanks.’ I stood with my hands in my pockets, feeling absurdly out of place in this elegant room.
‘I will tell the contessa that you are here,’ the butler intoned, shuttling off on his mission.
I drifted over to look at a gold-leaf clock on a marble side table. Black-faced cherubs held up the dial—cheerful relatives of my gondolier.
Crystal? Where are you?
I jumped as Xav’s angry voice rocketed through my head like a missile from a catapult. I’m just getting a bit of fresh air.
Yeah, I got that. Phee told Yves and he woke me up. Where exactly are you?
Oh Xav, you aren’t going to be pleased with me. My impulsive nature had run away with my good sense but I couldn’t lie to my soulfinder. I let him glimpse my surroundings.
Silence.
Xav?
Yeah, I’m still here. Why have you done this, Crystal?
I’ve got to do something to save the girls. I’ve a plan.
Which you didn’t want to share with me?
No, because he would have stopped me. It wasn’t like that.
Don’t fool yourself: it was exactly like that.
He was right. I would have gone ballistic if it had been me left behind while he waltzed off into danger. Oh God, I’m sorry.
Sorry don’t cut no ice with me right now. I thought it was going so well between us—that we were a team.
We are … ! He was so right to be cross but I couldn’t bear to think how I had hurt him.
That’s just bull, Crystal. You decided that you had to play the hero, risking half my soul, without even asking me what I thought. That isn’t team play.
The butler returned, showing no sign that he was surprised to find me with tears running down my face. ‘The contessa will see you now.’
I nodded and swiped at my cheeks with my cuff. Got to go, Xav. I need to concentrate on what I’m going to say to her.
Xav was desperate now. Please, don’t do this. Turn round. Get out of there. I’ll come get you.
It’s too late. I’m here now.
Anger rippled down our connection like an earth tremor. Fine. Go ruin our life together with your idiotic plan! Don’t expect me to be waiting around for you when you get back. Maybe I have plans myself that I don’t want to share with you like, oh I don’t know, throwing myself into a shark pool.
I love you, Xav.
Don’t you dare say that! You don’t love me—not if you can do this to me. He slammed the door shut on our link, leaving me bruised and hurting so much I could barely breathe.
‘Crystal, I must admit I am terribly surprised to see you back here.’ The countess was sitting by the fire, her feet up on a footstool. I felt in no fit state for this confrontation but I had to do it.
‘Will there be anything else, my lady?’ asked the butler.
‘Not for the moment, Alberto. Stay within call.’
He bowed and slid out of the room.
I bit the inside of my cheek, forcing myself to pay attention to the person in the library, not the angry soulfinder on the other side of the canal. ‘Contessa. Thank you for seeing me.’
She waved me to a seat opposite her. I sat down. She studied my face for a few moments. ‘An interesting tactic, coming here. Whatever do you mean by it?’
‘I want to make a bargain with you.’
She folded her hands in her lap. ‘What have you to bargain with? I would have thought it was clear we were going to fight this one to the death, so to speak. Intriguing choice: going public with that actor fellow. I had not expected that. But neither did I expect you to come here with what I think you regard as an olive branch, am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm. Do you want something to drink?’ She raised her hand to a little bell on the side table.
‘No, thank you.’
She let her hand fall. ‘Well then, tell me your bargain.’
I took a breath. ‘I’m a soulseeker. I am offering to find the partners of your son and grandchildren—your own if you care to look for him—if you tell me what you did to my sister and the other girls.’
Apart from a slight flare of surprise behind her dark eyes, she showed little reaction to my announcement. Instead, she arched her fingers together and said nothing.
What else could I say? ‘I understand that you are playing this game to make the damage even on both sides: disgrace for disgrace, loss for loss. What if I offer a prize that makes up for not depriving the Benedicts of their soulfinders—your family gaining theirs?’
I waited.
‘You really are much more interesting than I first thought,’ mused the contessa. ‘In a few years, when experience has mellowed you, you might even be a worthy opponent.’
Not the response I had anticipated. ‘I don’t think I understand you.’
‘No, you would not. There is so much you do not understand, standing on the brink of your gift like a child with its toes in the water, gazing at an ocean.’
‘But surely you want your children and grandchildren to be happy? This whole thing has been about your son—I’m sure you care for them.’ Even though you are an evil old bat, was the subtext.
She stroked one gnarled hand over the back of the other. ‘And you think that finding them their counterparts would make them happy?’
‘Yes?’ I wish that word had come out more as an assertion than a question.
She resettled herself in her seat, turning her body towards a portrait of a handsome man that hung beside the fireplace. He had the slicked-back hair and chiselled looks of a 1950s matinee idol. ‘I had a soulfinder once. My husband. He died.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘No, you are not.’ For the first time she showed real depth of emotion, squeezing the head of her walking stick and tapping it on the floor. ‘You don’t understand what that is like—losing the best part of yourself. Far better never to have known that happiness than to live with its loss for the rest of your life.’
‘If you know how painful it is, why are doing this to my family then?’ I couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to torture others with the same pain.
‘Oh the women aren’t suffering,’ she waved a disdainful hand in the air, ‘I’ve curtailed their connection to their partners, tidied it away so it won’t harm them again. Only the men are in pain—that is my revenge.’
‘But can’t you see that it is only a half life—if that—that the girls are living?’
‘You have no idea,’ she spat the words at me, ‘what a life lived in the presence of full, raw longing for something you can no longer have, what that does to you.’
I could guess: it would produce a bitter soul like the one sitting opposite me.
‘But isn’t it their choice to make, not yours?’
‘Rubbish. When one is a soulseeker, one makes that choice for others all the time. Why do you believe that you will be doing good for them?’
The recognition echoed through me like the siren for acqua alta. ‘What? Are you telling me that you’re a soulseeker too?’ It would explain so much.
‘Of course. We soulseekers are the only ones who have any power to manipulate soulfinder bonds. I thought you would have known that?’
She made me feel horribly ignorant. ‘I’ve only been one for a day. I don’t know much yet.’
‘You are fortunate. You have not had time to do any damage with your gift; it is not too late for you to turn back.’
‘But I want to make people happy—whole.’ I recalled the feeling I experienced when I was with Xav. Even arguing with him was being so much more, well, technicolour than the black-and-white emotions I had felt towards other boys. I couldn’t—wouldn’t give that up.
‘So what will you do when the Savant who comes to you for help has no soulfinder, thanks t
o death in accident, disease, or war? This is not an academic question—it will happen.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Or when the soulfinder has been so damaged by their upbringing, or perhaps suffers from some kind of mental illness that means they are impossible, even dangerous, to live with? Would you shackle a pair like that for life?’
‘I … I’m not sure. Is it my part to decide what a Savant does with the discovery?’
‘If you open the door, you are responsible for what comes through it. Do you have the courage to face that? You think you will be fulfilling dreams; maybe you are only ushering in a nightmare?’
She was chipping away at my certainty that my gift was a blessing; I had never been very confident and she had found my weakness and was exploiting it. Her points were worth considering, but not now, not when there was real suffering already happening, not this hypothetical sort. I realized she was distracting me from the main reason I had come here; I had to find a way of turning the tables.
‘I don’t know what I will do, contessa, but you can’t deny I had the courage to come here and face you. I don’t think I lack bravery.’
She inclined her head in acknowledgement. ‘That’s what gives me hope for you.’
I thought about my mother and father; since his death, I had never once heard my mama lament knowing him. ‘But, please, answer me honestly: do you not remember anything good about your time with your soulfinder? Was it not worth knowing him even for the short period you had together?’
Her eyes hardened. ‘You dare to talk to me of Giuseppe so lightly? You cannot know—cannot understand.’ She clenched her fist against her chest. ‘You have no conception of what I suffered when he was murdered.’
A wave of pity swept through me. She had faced the worst. Death to illness was one thing; but someone else choosing to take a loved one from you another. Little wonder she was so bitter.
‘I think,’ I said carefully, ‘I think you were probably more like me then than you realize. I have listened to you and I am hearing the words of someone who had hopes—illusions as you now think them. You loved him, I’m sure of that. And knowing your nature, I imagine you took your revenge for him.’