Page 5 of The Stone Witch of Florence

FOUR

OCCHIO MALOCCHIO

1333, City of Genoa

G inevra remembered vividly. The golden strings pulled her, connecting her back to her past self. She was no longer twenty-eight, a woman of advanced age. She was thirteen and her mother had made her a new dress to replace her old one, which was so worn-out it wasn’t any good even for a poor girl.

“Keep it clean,” her mother said. “It’ll have to do until you’re married.” Ginevra vowed to be careful, and then went away, beaming, to show off her new garment to the world. Her reverie was shortly interrupted by a tug at her hem. It was a beggar girl whose lip was twisted up so her front teeth showed. She held on tightly to Ginevra’s dress and thrust out her empty bowl.

Another day, Ginevra might have run home and found an old piece of bread—but today she fretted that her dress would be soiled by the girl’s dirty hands. She pulled it away pointedly and kept walking, casting a curious glance over her shoulder at the girl sitting in the dust. Their eyes locked. Ginevra’s breath caught in her chest. She looked away and continued onward.

Early the next morning, Ginevra put on her new dress and found it unbearably itchy. So itchy she regretted her old one had already been torn into rags. Doing her best not to scratch all over, she began her daily journey to draw water from the public fountain. At the little square where it burbled, she stubbed her toe so badly that the nail broke in half and bled.

“Porco Dio,” she muttered, and then clasped her hand to her mouth. It was an extremely rude curse that only sailors would say. She’d never dared to blaspheme even a little before. She looked around to see if anyone had heard, then carried on with her task, filling the heavy water jug and limping toward home.

On the way, dogs that normally kept to themselves chased her, and she only just escaped by throwing her jug at them where it shattered on the ground. Camiola, displeased that a perfectly good jug was ruined, let alone that she had no water for the day, combed Ginevra’s hair so roughly that the comb caught in a snarl and a whole lock was pulled out.

Clutching her head, and squirming around inside her clothing, Ginevra hurried to the home and shop of her mentor in search of solace. She huffed her way into Vermilia’s room, expecting her immediate sympathy, but the old woman was hunched over a low fire in the hearth and appeared to be muttering at the orange stone on her ring.

“A-hem,” coughed Ginevra.

“You are early,” said Vermilia, not turning around.

“Tell me what you are saying to that stone!”

“It is I who give directions here. Get to your work and leave me be!” Vermilia went back to her muttering.

Cowed, Ginevra tried to focus on her chores—preparing nettles to be boiled in wine for men who could not satisfy their wives. But she was so clumsy that the plants’ vicious hairs stuck all into her hands. She fanned them in the air for relief, but then her stomach itched and she jerked quickly to scratch it, knocking a cup of wine down the front of her new dress. Tears welled up in her eyes as a purple stain spread across the gray fibers.

Vermilia finally stopped muttering and hid the stone among her robes. She turned to her pupil. “And so what’s wrong with you today?”

Ginevra’s bottom lip trembled with the effort of keeping a neutral face. “Since this morning, I have lost my toenail, my mother’s water jug, and a chunk of my hair. I was chased by vicious dogs, and now I have stained the only new dress I have ever gotten, which has grown tight and coarse overnight. Have you ever heard of a more terrible day?”

“Yes,” said Vermilia. “Is that all?”

Ginevra turned away brusquely. As she moved, the palm of her hand caught on a rough spot of the table, and a large splinter broke off painfully in her flesh. “You see!” she cried, brandishing her new stigma. “I have been cursed .”

Vermilia looked at the wound and pressed a thoughtful finger to her lips.

“Ginevra, tell me what you know.”

She closed her eyes, the exercise now familiar. “I know that bad people are rich, though I, who am worthy, remain poor. I know that I am beautiful in my new clothes but uglier girls receive praise—”

“Enough.” She picked up a shallow wooden bowl and filled it with water, placing it on the table between them. “Ginevra, go and dip your fingers in the olive oil.”

Ginevra stopped sniffling. She knew this ritual. It was requested by those whose livestock sickened and died for no reason, whose gardens would not grow—young men who became suddenly impotent, women whose hair fell out after they argued with a neighbor.

“You think it’s that ?”

“Shh. Just do as you’re told, girl.”

She dipped her stinging and bloodied hand in the oil jar, and then let three golden drops fall from her fingertips into the water. The two of them peered into the bowl, and saw the spheres of oil sink to the bottom and join together, a distinct globule intact under the surface.

“Porco Dio!” said Ginevra again.

Vermilia sucked in air through her teeth. “The drops sink and do not spread.” She lowered her voice: “Someone has set the malocchio on you...”

“The Evil Eye? How did it find me? Is it here now?” Ginevra jerked her head around the room, straining her eyes to see into the dark corners.

“It is here and it is not,” Vermilia answered. “This you know. It roams the earth and takes jealousy and pride as its bedfellows. It is everywhere, it is nowhere.”

“Why do you mock me by speaking in riddles?” hissed Ginevra. She tried to pick the splinter out of her hand but her efforts only dug it in deeper. “Did you hear me, old woman, or have your ears grown too hairy?”

“Be quiet, rude thing! The malocchio makes you speak so. Which means we must make you laugh. Are you ticklish?” Vermilia reached out with both hands and poked her under the arms.

“Don’t touch me, Crone!” shouted Ginevra, recoiling. “You become senile in your unnatural age.” Vermilia only rolled her eyes in response.

“And you become stupid in your anger and forget what I’ve taught you.”

Some small corner of Ginevra’s mind shook itself free of the bitter swirling cloud and she remembered her lessons: laughter could deflect the Eye’s gaze, scare it far away.

“Tell me a joke, then, so I can laugh,” she managed, “but do not touch me again.”

“There’s a good girl. Unfortunately, the only ones I know are about fornication, and you’re too much a virgin to find those funny. But let me ask you this: have you recently purchased fish from Casoli Paracrotti?”

“...is this the beginning of a joke?”

“Well, have you?” repeated Vermilia.

“No! Why do you care what my family eats for supper?”

“Because: that man is a jettatore. ”

The awful word caught Ginevra’s attention. “You mean, Ser Paracrotti who always has the big pink shrimp?”

“Yes. The shrimp are a trick— jettatore are almost always charming, successful in business. So your guard is down. But misfortune comes to all who go near him. A jettatore looks at you and you feel a cold that seeps into your soul, into your bones—”

The Eye itself was not so uncommon, Ginevra knew. It could be thrown by anyone who felt spite, anger, jealousy—people were always coming to Vermilia, putting their fingers in oil, and then being told the excellent jokes about fornication until the Eye ran away.

But a jettatore ? This was a person born inhabited by the Eye, and whether they were angry or not, anyone caught in their gaze was plagued by greatest misfortune. No simple trick of laughter could send away the Eye if it came from a jettatore .

“So, Ginevra, if you haven’t visited Ser Paracrotti, then have you made somebody jealous? A neighbor?”

She started to shake her head, but then remembered the girl with the twisted lip. A guilty pang poked through her anger and Vermilia felt it.

“Tell me.”

“There was a girl—her face was disfigured—all I did was look at her.”

“You know better than to stare at somebody’s misfortune. At least, did you look at her with kindness? Offer a bit of food? A prayer?”

Ginevra looked down at the floor.

“Wicked girl! You have made it worse for yourself. This we cannot solve with jokes. What would inspire your gentle heart to provoke a deformed child into throwing you the Eye?”

“I didn’t mean to provoke her. I was just surprised by a dirty beggar!”

“There you go again. You, who eats farro soup on earthen floors. One frumpy new gown, and you speak badly about one who has even less. Keep it up, that’s what the Eye wants—”

But Ginevra was barely listening. She was trying so hard to hold back the vile things she wanted to say and do that she was overcome by a fit of hiccups that convulsed through her body in painful spasms.

“Please—HIC—please, I cannot—HIC—”

“Porco Dio,” said Vermilia this time. “If we can’t chase the Eye away, we have to puncture it, and it does not forget a stabbing so easily...”

“I do—HIC—n’t care, get it away from me!”

“Very well, if that is your choice,” said Vermilia gravely. She picked up two large needles and handed them to Ginevra. “Poke one through the hole of the other and repeat:

“Holes through Sight

Eyes against Eye

Envy Breaks

Eye Burst and Die.”

Through her ghastly hiccups, Ginevra repeated the verses and after pricking her fingers numerous times, threaded one needle through the other. Vermilia took the needles from her and stabbed them three times into the water bowl. They watched together as the large drop of oil floated to the surface and dispersed. Vermilia muttered a prayer of thanks. Ginevra vomited all down the front of her dress.