Page 4 of Just for a Taste
N o matter how long I stared at them, those changeling shoes weren’t mine.
Last night, I’d left my cheap Mary Janes by the door, two little brown mice standing watch by the closed curtain. But when the alarm on my nightstand rang in the morning, the curtain was slightly ajar, and my tiny guards were missing entirely. In their place was a pair of designer Mary Janes, exactly my size: six wide.
Something about all of this—the strange, cold nature of the butler, the way the abbey had enveloped me overnight, the bizarre nightmares that wracked me last night—struck me as oddly predatory. On the other hand, I had never been to such a beautiful place. Both the Sicilian mountains and the abbey were jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and I had the feeling the Abbazia di Santa Dymphna held something for me. It was probably a good idea to ignore my anxiety for once and throw myself into the opportunity.
But what really got me was those damn shoes.
“Good afternoon, Signorina Bowling,” a deep voice said from behind the curtain. “I’m here to escort you to breakfast.”
I grimaced at the butler’s voice and momentarily considered retreating under the covers.
“Signorina Bowling?” he repeated.
I closed my eyes and let out a small exhale. My bag and its contents were seemingly untouched. I was untouched. If anyone wanted to kill or hurt me, I reminded myself, they would have done so by now.
I quickly changed, slid the shoes on, and stepped out to meet the butler in the hall. The moment I was in sight, he began to depart.
“Please follow me to the refectory,” he said over his shoulder. “We’ll be cutting through the garden to the west wing.”
The afternoon sun made the already dramatic sight of the western courtyard garden seem even more fantastical. Elongated shadows stretched askew from the statues amongst the flowers. As much as I wanted to stop and explore the scenery, I had to focus on the broken stone path weaving through the garden. The butler, whose name I still did not know, walked at a swift, long-legged pace. Maybe he was not used to short-legged guests like me, or maybe he was not used to guests at all.
In a contrastingly considerate gesture, he held the door open for me once we reached the refectory.
As I entered, the ancient, musty smell that permeated throughout the abbey intermingled with the scent of something rich, hearty, and utterly delicious. I was in the largest room I had seen so far, with two long tables spaced generously apart and many chairs stationed around.
Light poured through the stained-glass windows that practically took up the entire wall, casting intricate patterns onto the richly colored rug. To my surprise, dozens of candles were lit on an altar, surrounded by scripts and other religious paraphernalia. On one table was an absurd amount of food: bowls overflowing with fresh grapes and other fruit, steaming bread next to herbed olive oil, a bottle of cider, and a full charcuterie board. Given all of this magnificent food, seeing a solitary set of china and polished silverware seemed bizarre. I turned around for guidance, but my chaperone had already departed.
It was hard to fathom such an exquisite setting was just for me. I was on a stage with no lines to read, and I had never been great at improvising.
Then, as soon as I raised my fork to eat— creek. Creeeeek.
My eyes darted to the door. Still closed. The sound had come from the stained glass beside it.
Bony fingers rattled against the window and dragged their claws across the other.
Panic erupted in me. I wanted to scream and run away, but nothing came out. My legs didn’t move. I stared at the beast before me, frozen in fear as it clawed harder and rattled faster.
But then, just as soon as it came, the illusion dissipated: it was not a pair of skeleton hands clawing at the windows, but branches.
And yet the horror lingered within me.
For most of my life, I hadn’t been particularly superstitious. Sure, I avoided walking under ladders and ate my share of black beans on New Year, but it wasn’t until I entered my mid-twenties that my mother’s folkish nature began to emerge in me. For years, I had tried to view religion through an academic lens, as the man-made catalyst of all the papal revolts and social revolutions I was so drawn to learning about. I had battled to see the church as my colleague, and superstition as a relic of the past. That God claimed Eve was sinning for eating the apple is the reason I cannot believe in Him , I told my heartbroken mother one night.
But now, in such a haunted yet holy place, my intuition won.
I put my fork down and keyed in on my surroundings properly. The enormous feast in front of me, combined with the long table, conjured up the image of The Last Supper in my mind. I felt compelled to say something to the silence. But should I say grace in Latin, as the monks who sat here would have? Or should I speak the English Protestant prayer taught to me by my pa?
As the rattling became louder and more aggressive, I settled somewhere in the middle. “Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord, amen.”
As the words left my lips and I crossed myself, the room once more fell into silence.
After a moment of pause, I resumed eating. My mind wouldn’t stop racing. What if the abbey was haunted? My hands were shaking, and when I drank, cold apple cider met cold sweat on my hand and chin. What if this place knew I didn’t belong here? I picked up my fork and tried to spear a cube of cheese, but I missed and ground the prongs into the plate. What if something bad was going to happen, and I deserved it? The door creaked open steadily, and my thoughts galloped.
Would anyone care if I went missing?
At the sight of someone in my periphery, I screamed and sprang to my feet. The fork flew from my hand and hit the ground with a clatter, along with the rest of my meal. Fat grapes radiated like marbles, bread sat soggy in a pool of olive oil, and colonies of risotto clung to tile and walls. On the other side of the room, an island amongst a sea of food and with a trident at his foot, stood the butler.
“Oh my God,” I cried, clapping my hands to my mouth. “I’m so sorry!”
He had somehow dodged it all—the fork, the food. His suit was spotless, his demeanor no more uneasy than it had been all day.
“No need to apologize. You did not do that on purpose,” he replied, surveying the wreckage. “I can clean it up. In the meantime, please follow me. I will be bringing you to your room.”
“ My room?” I repeated, getting up to join him.
“Assuming you will take the position, you will be residing in the abbess’s suite and abiding by its schedule.”
That only raised more questions. I considered pressing further, but it seemed easier to just follow along with the machinations of this place. I pushed myself into silence and shoved my anxiety into the back of my mind.
When we reached the abbess’ suite, which was in the wing opposite the one I had stayed in, the sight of my potential lodging drew me into the present.
The suite was comfortably large with decorations much more ornate than I had expected. Partitions compartmentalized the space into three areas: the bedroom, a reading area, and another room to which the door was currently closed. A queen-sized four-poster bed stood on top of an Arabian rug, complete with a matching armoire and a wingback chair. Everything was silk and satin and mahogany—certainly not the modest accommodations I had anticipated.
More fittingly, the paintings were all reverent—portraits of someone I assumed was Saint Dymphna herself. The reading alcove was more bare-bones, clearly unaltered from its original state. Rather than rugs, the floor was plain tile, the furniture unvarnished. My heart raced at the thought of what ancient treasures the bookshelves beside the fireplace held. Perhaps I could fascinate myself with a diary from the abbess herself, or a first-edition copy of some Latin epic. I might stumble upon some hand-scrawled poetry, or even an old almanac. If I was extraordinarily lucky, I could even find something to help my thesis.
“The maids are waiting for you in the bathroom, signorina.”
I was so lost in the fantasy that when the butler spoke, I jolted. “Huh?”
“Your maids are waiting for you in the bathroom,” he repeated with a scowl. “I will leave you to bathe.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. My maids? Getting a big fancy breakfast and a beautiful suite already seemed excessive, considering I hadn’t yet accepted the gig, but adding maids to the equation was downright comical.
The butler didn’t return my laugh. He ended the conversation with a small bow.
Was that supposed to be a joke? Joke or not, I heard water running in the other room. I couldn’t just let it overflow.
When I entered the bathroom, white noise filled my ears. My round lenses fogged up within less than a second, blinding me. But this didn’t matter, as they were snatched off my face immediately. Now the world looked as blurred and moist as the surrounding air, which was heavy with fragrance. In other circumstances, I would have found the scent of rose and sandalwood delightful, but now it felt like that sense had been overwhelmed to compensate for being robbed of my hearing and vision.
Then I was invaded by touch. Suddenly, two pairs of hands were on me, unzipping, unbuttoning, unclasping, and undressing me. They were swift and efficient, yet so gentle that I only felt my clothes themselves move. I didn’t even have the time to squirm or cry out before my clothes were in a heap on the ground in front of me.
Then those hands were lifting me in the air as if I were weightless. I took in a deep breath to scream, but the hot air was stifling in my lungs, and all that came out was a strange croak. I thrashed my head from side to side, squinting to view my captors. The small hands clasping my arms were attached to a bright, round-faced girl in her early twenties. Holding onto my legs was a stern, eagle-nosed woman who appeared wiry yet strong. Their hair was tightly plaited and pinned to their heads in flat, uniform updos, and they wore identical, taupe cotton dresses featuring dark twill aprons and a practical yet elegant design.
I relaxed just a hair. Maids. They were maids.
But this relaxation didn’t last for long, as I was quickly lowered into a massive claw-foot tub. Steaming water enveloped me, rushing up past my chin. Rose petals danced in the swirling water, and before it settled, the older maid poured in a jar of honey, followed by buttermilk. As I curled up to shield myself from both sets of curious eyes, I almost expected to see a massive spoon stir the delicious concoction I was getting mixed into.
“Please relax, Signorina Bowling!” said the youngest maid. “It is our duty to ensure you have a relaxing day.”
I wanted to point out what a ridiculous task it was to make me relax . As if I could relax when no one had told me why I was being treated like a goddess for no apparent reason, when I was quite literally ass-naked and defenseless. Yet she spoke so earnestly that I allowed myself to settle into the tub a bit more.
“You can call me Cora,” I told her.
“Of course, Signorina Cora! I’m Lucia Circelli, your lady’s maid. I will be responsible for feeding, bathing, and dressing you.”
I stifled a nervous laugh into an awkward smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lucia. But I don’t know that I’m going to be staying here, and I don’t think I’d have a maid even if I did. I’m not—” I wasn’t the abbess, or a duchess, or anyone noble, and that fact was at the forefront of my mind.
“You are Duca de’ Medici’s guest,” she said, smiling warmly. “Please, let yourself relax a bit.”
I was so confused and exhausted it didn’t take any further convincing. My younger self, the little girl huddled in the corner of the school library reading sloppily taped-together regency novels, took over. As I sank into the tub and let the water lap at my chin, I allowed myself to indulge in the daydream.
Unfortunately, the reverie didn’t last when I realized the older maid would not even look my way. She stood by the far end of the tub, tidying my rumpled clothes with a peculiar air. Was it disgust? They were freshly washed. What had offended her so much? Had my Italian been too touristy? Was my desperation palpable? Or was the problem just . . . me ?
A small hand pressed down on my shoulder, and Lucia’s dulcet tone whispered, “Signora Carbone is distant, but I promise she is happy to have someone in the abbess’s suite. She has kindness in her, even if it doesn’t always show.”
It was probably a lie, but it was a lie on my behalf, so I allowed it. I smiled as best I could and let her pull my arm from the tub to gently scrub it. All the while, Signora Carbone stood back from the tub, scratching away at some unknown document on a clipboard.
When my bath was done, she left to prepare pastries for afternoon tea, and Lucia enthusiastically gathered the outfit I would be wearing. It probably should have struck me as unnerving that the clothes she’d returned with were not my own, but it didn’t. Unlike the shoes which had materialized on their own, I felt that this pleasant young woman was my sister playing make-believe with me. Lucia dressed me in a fine dress I did not dare ask the price of.
Staring in the mirror, I frowned. The dress was wasted on someone of my short, boyish stature. But then, when I saw Lucia’s utter pride and satisfaction behind me, I could see the good qualities in it too. The lace choker around my neck accentuated what was now a surprisingly elegant jawline and high cheekbones. The emeralds brought out the green in my hazel eyes. And to my surprise, the coquette gloves and stockings actually looked flattering.
“Um, thank you,” I told Lucia over my shoulder, who grinned in return.
“Of course, signorina! By the way, Doctor Ntumba thought you might want to visit the libraries before meeting with her. Would you be interested in that?”
Libraries? As in plural? Despite not having accepted the job yet, my heart soared at the thought. Aside from my dire need for thesis material, I had already read all the books in my satchel several times over, and the idea of having access to more was exhilarating. No matter the genre, books were my solace, and they always had been. Books didn’t bully, books didn’t leave, books didn’t need, and books didn’t die. Instead, they transported me to fantastical realms and allowed me to live hundreds of lives within my own, ones with problems that solved themselves and people who spoke freely without expecting anything in return.
“Yes!”
The smaller library lived up to its name. It barely exceeded the size of my room, and its cleaning had been mostly neglected. Even so, its shelves teemed with countless volumes of various ages. Lucia left me there to explore, and I did so eagerly.
To my surprise, most of the books were not the things I could find in normal libraries. They were exactly what I had spent hours in fruitless pursuit of: old banking transactions, family trees, copies of letters . . . anything and everything related to the Medici family since the Renaissance.
I filled several pages of my notebooks with titles of documents to examine more closely, and many more with notes from what I had already scavenged. I had to remind myself I hadn’t signed any sort of contract, but the prospect of saying “no” to the job was growing more and more outlandish.
This inkling only grew stronger when it came time to see the large library. The room was a bibliophile’s sanctuary. Books covered every part of every wall, save the few sections with paintings, sculptures, or sitting areas. The room was scattered with wheeled ladders, and their pale bodies and yellow posts reminded me of a flock of storks. I followed the imaginary line to where they were staring. Overhead, in the middle of an oil-painted mural clearly inspired by the Sistine Chapel, was a massive golden chandelier. Even the floors themselves were decorated; the areas not covered by rugs or tapestries had been carved into with tiling, and Latin script surrounded each tile. In contrast to the study area by my room, this library appeared immaculately maintained. I would have bet money each individual book was dusted.
I didn’t notice Signora Carbone until she walked in front of me, handed Lucia a small stack of papers—busy-work, from the look on Lucia’s face—and marched to a desk in the corner.
“I manage this library,” she said, “and I manage it well.”
I felt a pang of betrayal at such a cozy sanctum being managed by such a standoffish woman, but I smiled and nodded anyway.
She beckoned me over. I stood awkwardly by her desk.
“As you may have noticed,” she continued, picking up a binder from a shelf behind the desk, “the books here are all organized. Each row is marked, and each book is assigned a number. I intend to keep it that way. Accordingly—” she dropped the binder onto the desk with an emphatic thud , and it swung open to reveal a gridded chart. “—any book or record you check out or even touch must be recorded within our logbook.”
Signora Carbone trailed her finger along each box as she spoke. “Here, you must put the name of what you have taken. Here, the EAN or whatever number it is assigned. Here, the location you have removed it from, the expected return date, the actual return date . . .”
She outlined, in excruciating detail, the hoops and ladders I would gladly leap through to read these books. Then she showed me a small receptacle to return it all. “Do you have any questions?”
I shook my head. As confusing as she had made it sound, the library’s system was straightforward enough.
“I see. So long as you follow these rules, you should not see me here.”
I gave her a tight-lipped smile, counting the seconds until she left. I went to work immediately, identifying each section and mentally notating a map of every shelf. To Signora Carbone’s credit, she had organized it beautifully, not just by author and whether a book was fiction or nonfiction, but by artistic classification. All the Arthurian legends were in one row, New Wave records in another. The placement made logical sense; I understood why she didn’t want it disrupted.
But before I got the chance to fully dig into it, Lucia returned. “Please come with me, signorina,” she said. “It’s time for you to speak with Doctor Ntumba.”