Page 36

35

Holmes

Friday, April 27, 1821

A fter a moment of sinking, something sharp struck the back of Holmes’s head. He flipped over, his body instinctively ready to swim again, but his hands, and then his feet, touched ground.

Rock.

It seemed impossible he’d made it to the mainland shore already. He blinked the salt water from his eyes and stood tall, glancing around.

He was not on the mainland at all. The current had, instead, taken him to the central islet of Li Galli, known as La Castelluccia.

Holmes knew these islets well; they were visible from much of the Amalfi Coast. He wondered, now, if the hazy form he’d seen from the Aquila ’s main deck was not the shoreline at all, but perhaps one of these islets. We are not far from land , Imelda had said. She hadn’t specified what land, exactly, this meant.

He didn’t care where it was: he was just glad to be on solid ground. He heaved himself up the rocky slope and lay on his back, breathing hard, a fine mist swirling above him, its dampness cooling his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

He inspected his wound beneath Imelda’s scarf. The bleeding hadn’t stopped, but it had slowed.

The morning sky was bright. The fishermen would already be out in their gozzi . Someone might see fragments of wreckage and send word to the village if they had not already. They would come looking for survivors.

But Holmes was a criminal, and with both Mazza brothers dead, their men in Naples would be out for revenge. Holmes would be hunted down and killed. Imelda’s sacrifice would be for nothing.

He needed to flee.

Indeed, the only way to save himself now was to pretend he was already dead.

After catching his breath, he waded back into the water and reached for a piece of flotsam, something resembling the side of a cabinet. He threw himself over it and began to kick, best he could, making his way for the mainland. It was much easier this way, having something on which to rest. He felt he could swim this way for as long as needed.

As he kicked, he laid his head on his arms, breathing hard and praying he wouldn’t be seen. He concentrated only on propelling himself forward by whatever means possible. He did not even look where he was headed, for he knew he would arrive at the shore eventually. He was too tired to care much about when.

Suddenly, the wooden flotsam on which he supported himself collided with something else.

He heard a scream. Then a cry of alarm. He looked up. And just as he’d asked himself long ago, so now did he ask at the sight of her again, Who was this woman that had just emerged from the sea?

It was Mari. His beloved. Like an apparition born of the mist.

“Mari,” he said, looking up at her like a fool. This was proof of it: he’d gone completely, entirely mad.

“Holmes.” She gazed back at him, dumbfounded. “Holmes.”

“It cannot be you, Mari.”

“But it is. How are you—” She studied his face, his hands. “How are you alive?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but he snapped it shut at the sight of what was tied around her: a length of rope, wrapped several times around her waist. It was knotted in the front, like she’d done it to herself.

As he heaved himself upward onto the flotsam to have a better look, he shuddered. At the end of the rope was an iron anchor, hand-forged, as wide across as Mari’s shoulders. He hadn’t any idea how she’d lifted the thing into the boat. But should she manage to drop it into the water, it would yank her under in an instant. She would not stand a chance.

“Help me up,” Holmes said.

“No,” she said, beginning to cry now. “No, I must do this.”

“But my love, I am here now.”

She shook her head. “Oh, Holmes. I did not think anything could make this moment worse. And yet, your being alive nearly does.”

He frowned, not understanding what she meant.

“We sunk the Aquila ,” she explained. “There is so much I haven’t told you. Matteo Mazza, he is still alive. There is something I must do now, to protect the village from him and his men.”

“You’re wrong, Mari. Matteo is dead. He was on the Aquila .”

“No,” Mari insisted. “I thought he was, too. But this morning, I learned he was not. Corso spoke with him just last night in Naples.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Days ago, I heard the officers speaking very clearly about it. Matteo was on the brig.”

“Then, he must have disembarked. Perhaps without your realizing it.”

Holmes nodded. He’d been imprisoned, after all, so how could he know for sure? “Please, Mari, help me up so we can talk about this.”

Together, in a terribly unwieldy way, they managed to get him into the gozzo . It nearly turned over at one point, which gave Holmes a great fright. He kept his eye on the anchor, ready to lunge for it should it go over with Mari still attached.

In the boat, he went to work at her very good knots. There were several of them, and he hardly took a breath until he had successfully released her from the rope.

“There is something you must know about me,” Mari went on. “There is a group of us women, and we have special—”

“I know it all already,” he interrupted. “I met someone on the brig. She told me of stregheria and your abilities.”

“She?”

“Your mother,” Holmes said. “Imelda. She set me free. I was imprisoned in the cargo hold, and she helped me get out. She was just above me, locked in the second mate’s cabin.”

Bewilderment crossed Mari’s face. “My…mother?” She gazed up at the sky. “I must be dreaming,” she said. “All of this, a dream.”

He shook his head. “It is not a dream.” He pointed to the scarf around his knee. “She was wearing this just this morning.”

Mari bent forward, taking a long look at it. “I recognize it,” she said. “She wore it often when I was younger.”

Holmes reached into his pocket and withdrew the flask Imelda had given him, holding it out for Mari.

She eyed it warily. “What is that?”

“I haven’t any idea. She asked me not to open it. To give it to you instead.” He held it out for her.

“No. No.” Mari averted her gaze. “She abandoned me and Sofia. I don’t want anything of hers.”

“Mari,” Holmes said. “She did not abandon you. The Mazza brothers, they didn’t know she had daughters. She turned herself over before they could learn you and Sofia even existed. She did it to protect you. That’s who she rowed away with, the night she left. The two brothers. Did you recognize Massimo before you killed him?”

“Yes.” Mari nodded, her tone softer now. “Yes, I did.”

Holmes quickly relayed all he knew, including the fact that Imelda and Matteo Mazza had recently convened. They were, in this way, partners—though with very different values. Matteo was evil. But Imelda? She associated with the men so her daughters did not have to.

When he finished his story, Mari merely stared at him in disbelief. “This is why she called me her cousin on the night she left. It made no sense to me then. She was trying to throw them off.”

“Exactly.”

Mari reached for the flask in Holmes’s hands. “I have spent a lifetime hating her,” she said, carefully removing the cork stopper. She began to cry. “How unfortunate it is,” she said through tears, “to have felt this way all my life. And then, in a single morning, she drowns—and I learn the truth.”

Slowly, she turned the flask upside down, letting the contents spill into her hand. A small, folded note fell out first. Squinting, she read it once, quietly, then she read it aloud for Holmes.

My dearest Mari. I met your beloved only hours ago. The way his eyes light up when he speaks of you…it is something I have never seen in a man’s eyes before. He cherishes you as much as I do. Perhaps even more.

He told me about Sofia. I have been dreaming about her nightly for almost two years. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of my spirit, I think I knew something had happened to her. Only, I had the gift of denial. You did not.

My girl, how much you have lost. I cannot fathom the pain you have endured.

I have been thinking about something for a very long while. I want to take them down, the Mazzas and all their men. I have been biding my time, waiting for the right opportunity.

That time, I know, is now. Holmes told me you killed Massimo. You began the work for me.

This leaves only Matteo. Holmes tells me he is after you.

I do not know whether Matteo is still on this vessel; moving around the brig is very dangerous for me, and I can only do so in the early hours of the morning. Matteo may be in the captain’s quarters, or he could have called for a tender. He may be in Naples, or he may be on another vessel headed for Positano.

So long as Matteo is alive, you are not safe. Nor the village. I know the routes they run—I know they always skirt Li Galli.

There is a way to assure Matteo’s demise. You will understand when you see what else I have put into the glass flask.

Do you remember the night I left, when I came to your bedroom and covered your and Sofia’s foreheads in kisses? It is my sweetest, most treasured memory, and the one I will think of in my last moments.

Please forgive me for all those empty years, all the times you must have wondered why I left. I have always loved you. This, I hope, is proof of it.

***

Yours,

Mamma

Mari dumped the rest of the flask’s contents out. All that remained was a strand of seashells, cool her in palm. “Her cimaruta ,” she breathed. Mari fingered the delicate charms, turning them over in her hand. “There is only one reason she would have removed it,” she said, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. “A strega never removes her cimaruta . Never. Unless—”

She gazed out at the water, very near where the Aquila had gone down.

“Unless what?” Holmes asked.

“Unless she means to perform the vortice centuriaria .”

Holmes frowned, confused.

“The spell endures for one hundred years. But to perform the curse, a strega must sacrifice her own life. And she cannot perform the spell while wearing her protective cimaruta .” Mari leaned forward, clutching the necklace against her chest. “My mother sunk the brig, Holmes. This explains why the maelstrom was so strong—much stronger, even, than we on shore expected. The vortice centuriaria is very powerful.”

But then Mari frowned. “Something still does not make sense. You said my mother was locked in the second mate’s cabin? A strega needs to touch the water to perform an incantation. How would she have done so, from inside the brig?”

“She was able to get out a few times,” Holmes replied, “as she mentioned in the letter. I wonder if…” Suddenly, he jerked his head upright. “A rope ladder. There was one in the cabin with her, just before I escaped. She must have slipped onto the main deck shortly after me and hooked the ladder from the railing. She could have crawled down it and—”

“Recited her incantation at the same time as those of us on shore,” Mari said. “Though, of course, we didn’t realize it at the time.”

Together, they peered toward the eye of Li Galli, near where the Aquila had gone down. It was difficult to see sitting down, but as Holmes carefully stood in the boat, he could make out a cluster of wide, deep eddies. They spun viciously.

A trap, waiting for the next crew of unsuspecting mariners.

Holmes leaned forward, gently brushing aside the collar of Mari’s shift. “You are not wearing your cimaruta ,” he breathed. He glanced at the rope he’d untied from her waist. “Did you intend to perform the vortice centuriaria yourself?”

Mari nodded. “Yes, after learning this morning that Matteo was not on the Aquila . He is on the next ship, La Dea , arriving soon. But it seems my mother—”

“Has already taken care of it,” Holmes finished for her.

“Yes.” She nodded.

Holmes lifted the rope and anchor and hovered them over the edge of the boat, ready to drop them.

“Wait,” Mari said. She reached for something that remained tied up in one of the rope’s knots. A bundle of paper.

“Your letters,” she said, tucking them close to her chest. “Every one you have ever sent me.”

“I—” he stammered, “I do not have yours. I kept them behind a plank in my berth.” He gazed at the water. “They are now at the bottom of the sea, I’m afraid.”

She gave him a small smile. “I am here. You are here. We don’t need any more proof of it than that.”

He threw the rope and anchor overboard.

“What can I possibly do now,” Mari asked, “to honor my mother? To repay her?” She clutched the glass flask to her chest. “We have no spells for love or remembrance.”

“I don’t think she needed either of those from you.” Holmes nodded to the letter in her lap. “She asked for one thing. Forgiveness.”

“I wish—” Mari’s voice was thick with tears “—I wish I could give her that so easily. I think it will take time.”

Holmes nodded. “Of course it will. It is a deep wound.” With his thumb, he swiped a fat tear from Mari’s cheek, then dipped his hand into the sea. “But your desire to honor her death shows that, already, a tiny part of that wound has begun to close.”

Suddenly, the boat gave a little shudder, startling both of them. Where Holmes’s fingertips grazed the water, something dark and glassy spun beneath the surface of the water.

Mari leaned over the edge of the boat, softly exclaiming. “Dolphins,” she said. “Three of them.” She reached her hand into the water, letting one of them gently touch the tip of its snout to her fingers. The water around them began to shimmer, sparkling orange and pink. Sunrays, Holmes reasoned, though he couldn’t remember ever seeing the ocean glimmer like this.

With the dolphins near, Holmes began to row to shore. The waves gently lapped the boat in; he hardly needed to pull at the oars.

As they went, Mari lay on the bottom of the small boat, her head resting against Holmes’s leg and her hands wrapped around his calf. “I will never let you go,” she whispered.

Holmes could not remember ever being so happy as he was at this exact moment. “Where shall we go,” he asked, “when we are on land?”

“The little island of Ischia,” Mari said immediately. “As soon as La Dea has sunk, we will go find Ami and Dante, and we will make for Ischia at once.”

***

Nearly an hour passed while Holmes and Mari remained tucked away behind a boulder, anticipating the arrival of La Dea .

While they waited, Holmes withdrew his journal from its wax casing. It was damp in the corners but mercifully intact. He turned to the first blank page, noting the date. Friday, April 27, 1821.

He then recounted all that had happened that morning: Mari’s mother, Imelda, helping him escape. Quinto’s gunshots. Finding Mari wrapped in rope knots.

He mentioned nothing of stregheria , though. That was not his secret to share.

As he wrote, Mari withdrew a tiny plover feather from her gown. “I nearly forgot I had it,” she said. “I found it a few days ago, and I’ve kept it with me since. It made me think of the story you once told me, saving the little bird from the boatswain.”

Holmes smiled, tucking the feather tight between the pages. He considered his many great fortunes and lifted his pen one final time.

This voyage has come to an end , he wrote. Both of us are presumed dead.

And yet we are terribly, wholly alive.