The Undrowned Child Read online

  “Don’t tell Nursie.” The doctor smiled. He opened a drawer and pulled out two crisp white sheets. In a moment the Brustolon looked like nothing more frightening than a lump of rock under a picnic blanket.

  A pale little boy in a nightshirt suddenly hurtled into the room. Teo glimpsed a nasty blackened swelling on his neck. His head had been cruelly shaved. The child looked wildly from Teo to the doctor and then fled back into the corridor.

  “Aha!” the nurse’s voice rapped nearby. “Got you!” From the corridor came the sound of fearful sniveling, a thwack and then loud crying.

  The doctor made for the door. “Now I have to go and stop Nursie from killing them with ‘kindness.’ They’re only children. And they’re frightened. She forgets that. We are overstretched, you see—so many children here with high fevers just now.”

  The doctor’s face darkened and he mumbled to himself, “I have a mortuary full of dead children, and still the mayor insists on funerals only by night. All so that his precious tourists don’t see!”

  When he saw Teo staring at him in horror, he patted her hand. “Don’t listen to me, child! How I ramble on! Anyway, you’ve not got whatever it is that ails the others. You’ve just had a blow to the head. Speaking of that, enjoy your book, dear. I’ll be off now.”

  After a few wary glances at the shrouded Brustolon, Teo opened the book again at the place where she had left off. What she read next made her frown.

  Venice is so much invaded by foreigners that we Venetians need to keep another city for ourselves, one that fits between-the-Linings, one that nobody else can see. This book is a key to that Secret City, a Venice that is private for Venetians alone. This book must never fall into the hands of foreign children or adults.

  Teo was crushed. The book seemed to be saying “Keep Out.” Nevertheless, she turned back to it, and made a translation of the old Venetian dialect on the next page for herself, writing it down slowly on a piece of paper (naturally, in Teo’s pinafore there were always pencils and paper):

  In Venetian we say “andar per le Fodere,” literally to “go between-the-Linings”—which means to follow secret paths. In these pages are ways for children to andar per le Fodere to places and stories in Venice, in and along ways that are not known to adults or foreigners, and which Venice herself has forgotten in the mists of time.

  It is important that the children of Venice remember these special stories, for if not them, then who? And it is this secret knowledge of the city that will one day help save Venice from her greatest enemy and her most terrible danger.

  Teo’s chest clenched tight. It was partly pleasure, the lovely shivery feeling of being on the inside of a huge secret, but there was a stab of fear too. The words “terrible danger” rang in her head.

  There was a little guilt mixed in, too.

  Underneath her delight, Teo was miserably aware that she wasn’t a Venetian child. And that therefore she should not have this book. She was one of the very outsiders from whom Venice needed privacy. Venice was crowded, it was true. The strange happenings lately seemed to draw even more tourists, just out of morbid curiosity. Teo reflected bleakly: “Everyone’s cramming in to make sure they get a look before she goes under. Like people looking at an accident in the street. It’s hideous!”

  In fact, Teo supposed sadly, she was an outsider everywhere. Her parents were not her parents. She was an only child, who, with no gift for friendship, felt at home only in the library or a bookshop. She was not just in the wrong place all the time; she sometimes felt as if she had been born in the wrong century.

  But this book had literally dropped on her head and into her hands.

  “I didn’t ask for this to happen,” Teo pointed out to herself. “The book chose me.”

  It had been quite a day. Teo was numb with exhaustion. The pain in her head was beating again like a drum in a procession. Outside, the wind howled against the window. She lay back against the pillows, and the book subsided into the blanket. The ringing in her ears had changed pitch, and now sounded like singing or chanting; like that schoolgirl choir again. Her eyes drifted over to the porcelain stove. Was that the shape of a mermaid picked out in the ironwork of the grate?

  She closed her eyes to listen better.

  Yes, she had heard that music before. Once again came the sensation of water all around her, as if she was floating out to the blue heart of an unknown sea.

  A draft of cold air made her open her eyes. The Brustolon’s white sheets were rustling.

  “It’s a statue,” she told herself aloud, in a firm voice. “And it’s the wind.”

  The sound of the singing filled her head like honey, making all her thoughts sweet and slow.

  “Andar per le Fodere,” she whispered drowsily, “go between-the-Linings … Goodbye.”

  Her final conscious thought was not of Venice, or herself, but of Maria, and the last time she had seen her. Teo was suddenly shot through with a piercing anxiety. “Maria,” she mumbled, “I really really don’t think you should …”

  The music stopped. The mermaid in the grate was rattling the stove with her tail. She opened her mouth. Teo saw a little pink tongue and pearly teeth. A rough but sweet voice urged, “Yoiks! Ye should not trust that perfidious lass, O Teodora-of-Sad-Memory! She lies like a hairy egg!”

  “Are you talking to me?”

  “Gorblimey! Who else? How about a civil how-do? That dafty girlie Maria, I tell ye—have an eye to her. Last time I saw a mouth like that, it had a hook in it. He’s taken her to him. Now she’s hornswaggling ye too, Lord love yer ’eart.”

  “Maria? Who’s taken her …?”

  Teo never finished that sentence, because at that moment the Brustolon’s vast arm thrust itself out of the sheet and wrenched off the fabric.

  The last thing she heard was the mermaid shouting, “Ye scurvy dog! Ye’ll niver …”

  When a young nurse bustled into Teo’s hospital room the next morning, she screamed at what she saw and dropped the glass of hot milk on the floor, where it shattered into a thousand sharp fragments.

  just before lunchtime, May 30, 1899

  Unfortunately, the girls’ agreement to avoid each other had not worked as well as they had planned. Venice was so very small. Teo kept bumping into Maria. They would give each other sickly smiles and pass on by, but every time it gave Teo a nasty jolt to remember that she was in effect lying to her parents by pretending to be with Maria.

  So Teo’s conscience had hit her quite hard, when, across the small square of Sant’Aponal, she caught sight of Maria twirling a new parasol covered with crests. Bending down towards her was a handsome youth of about sixteen years.

  He turned to point something out to Maria, and Teo noticed a big green glass ring on the middle finger of his left hand.

  Maria was all smiles, as if he was an old friend. A friend in Venice? Maria wasn’t at all impressed with the city. “Stupid place,” she scoffed every chance she could, especially when she saw how it infuriated Teo. And one time, when the parents weren’t listening, she had added with quite remarkable venom, “Personally I won’t be fussed if—I mean when—it sinks into the lagoon.”

  Teo thought, “Of course Maria looks more enthusiastic about Venice now she’s found a Venetian boy to flirt with.”

  Teo hadn’t called out a greeting, but sneaked up quietly, hiding herself behind a bulky American lady until she was right beside Maria and the boy. The air felt oddly cold around them, as if they were standing in a deep shadow, even though the sun blazed hotter than ever.

  “Why, Maria, how exceedingly nice to see you!” Teo had announced loudly, making Maria jump six inches in the air, her hair swishing like a horse’s tail. As the curtain of hair fell back onto Maria’s shoulders, Teo turned to the young man, only to discover that he had melted away. But his disembodied voice floated through the air, urging, “Don’t forget, little Mariella, never forget.…”

  That voice had a peculiar accent. Something about it made Teo squirm. I
t was rather like that feeling when you’ve cut your fingernails too short: painful and somehow shaming. Teo’s mouth filled up with a bitter taste.

  Teo was an extremely observant girl. And she had a remarkable memory that stored pictures, and even whole pages of books, just like a camera. To fix the young man’s image in her mind, she quickly ran through what she’d discerned when she was spying on them from across the little square. He might indeed be described as handsome, but it was in the repulsively flawless way of a shop mannequin. What ordinary boy carried a cane and wore an emerald ring? His eyes had glittered coldly, she remembered—and perhaps they were also just a little too close together?

  And the mole by his nose had been so very black, and so perfectly oval.…

  Then there was his voice. “Don’t forget, little Mariella, never forget.…”

  The young man’s words had written themselves in front of Teo’s eyes in a sinister Gothic script. They looked as if they had been put down with a goose-quill pen. And they lingered, even after he had disappeared.

  A picture of words—words without their owners underneath them—now that had never appeared to Teo before. The sight of that Gothic script was just as disturbing as the tone of the young man’s voice, especially because of the contrast: such a young man, and such antique writing. It simply didn’t make sense.

  “What’s this ‘little Mariella’ business?” was Teo’s first question to Maria. Then her attention was caught by something glinting on Maria’s ear.

  Teo whistled. Maria was wearing a single earring with a little emerald hanging from it like a spinach-green teardrop. The hoop of gold was driven right through a hole in her pretty little earlobe. Around the hole the skin was angry and red. For years Maria had wheedled to have her ears pierced, and her parents had always refused.

  “Little girls don’t mutilate themselves!” Teo had heard Maria’s father shout more than once. “Get that idea out of your empty head.”

  Maria’s silly clothes and crests were one thing, but a hole in her ear and an emerald earring?

  “You’d better get rid of that frightful thing before your father sees it!” Even to Teo, her voice sounded priggish. “Anyway,” she added more sympathetically, “that hole looks infected. Does it hurt?”

  Maria answered back with a shrill torrent of abuse—the words “boring bookworm” and “frump” were involved—as were some detailed comments on Teo’s own fashion sense. Which, if the truth were to be told, was not Teo’s strong point.

  “Beg pardon,” replied Teo stiffly. “Keep the wretched earring, by all means! Hope your ear gets gas-gangrene and drops off.”

  Standing right next to her, Teo had realized that Maria also reeked of musky perfume. She had now recovered from her surprise enough to give Teo a maddening smug and secretive smile. It was obvious that the smile and the perfume had something to do with the young man with the perfectly oval mole.

  Teo had absolutely known in that moment that she should tell her parents, or Maria’s, about the young man. But then she would have to confess to her splendid days roaming around the city on her own. And that would be the end of them.

  “Maria can look after herself!” Teo thought defensively. “Anyway, her parents don’t exactly fuss after her, do they? Not like mine! Sometimes I wonder if they even remember her name.”

  But inside Teo had felt uncomfortable, and a little concerned. For all her dressing like a miniature adult, Maria was young for her age, and, Teo suspected, also rather unhappy. If that boy was up to no good, then Maria would be vulnerable to flattery. Perhaps he was after Maria’s pocket money, which was, of course, swelled with Teo’s own.

  Just as Teo was softening, Maria had spoiled it all, drawling, “So tell me ’bout your romantic adventures in Venice, Dora. Ain’t you met any nice Venetian boys yet?”

  “Boys!” Teo had scoffed, thinking of the half-witted specimens she knew in Naples. “Remind me, what is the point of boys? Personally, I’d rather have bubonic plague!”

  The urgent tinkle of mechanical music interrupted their quarrel. In a toy emporium behind them, a music box was slowly opening its lid. The strange thing was that there was no one to do that, or to wind it up. It was lunchtime and the shop was closed, with its door bolted.

  Inside the music box, instead of the usual ballerina, a tiny tin mermaid swam around her wire carousel. Now, music box ballerinas usually have empty, pretty smiles. But this mermaid wore an expression of utter terror. As the carousel turned, Teo saw why. Just an inch away from the mermaid was a white serpent with a vicious expression painted on its tin face. The music increased its tempo; the mermaid and her pursuer went faster and faster, as did Teo’s heart.

  Maria laughed out loud, “Divine! Shame your pocket money’s gone, Te-Odore.” She clinked a bracelet made of linked metal crests.

  The face of Maria’s young man had swum into Teo’s mind then, and she had shivered violently, as if someone had placed a cold hand on her chest.

  And that cold feeling was exactly what Teo was remembering that night in the hospital when the iron mermaid told her to “have an eye” to the “dafty girlie Maria.” And she was still shivering when the smell of varnish washed into the air, and the Brustolon began to emerge from under his shroud of sheets.

  an hour before dawn, June 3, 1899

  Teo stretched out on the mossy tomb. The Key to the Secret City lay heavily on top of her chest. She lifted it up. By the light of the gas-lamp, she could see that the girl on the cover appeared to be asleep.

  Teo was in a vine-covered graveyard. The moon was waning and the sun beginning to warm the deep blue above her. The storm was over. She could not remember why or how she had got to this place. Shouldn’t she be in a hospital bed in Venice? The last thing she could recall was the Brustolon moving and the iron mermaid shouting in the grate … then—absolutely nothing. Had he …?

  She tried to drown that question with less terrifying ones. Where was she? Was she even in Venice? Where were her parents? Her clothes were uncomfortably wet with dew, as if she had been out all night in the open. Every bit of her body was sore and stiff. Her head ached violently and her mouth was dry as feathers.

  Her eyes focused on a tattered poster nailed to the lamppost. Extraordinarily enough, the poster showed a girl who looked rather like Teo herself.

  REWARD, it said, LOST GIRL.

  Teo shot up straight. That picture was her. That was her school portrait, a photograph taken just six months ago: a rather prim picture of a good little girl.

  Rising stiffly from the tomb, she pulled the poster off the lamppost and read:

  GONE MISSING

  FROM THE OSPEDALE CIVILE

  DURING TUESDAY’S STORM

  Teodora Stampara, eleven years old, from Naples, with curling dark hair, green eyes, slight build, a large bruise on her forehead. When last seen, the girl was wearing a blue skirt, a green bodice and a white pinafore. She appears to have walked out of her hospital room during the night of June 1, after sustaining a severe blow to the head. She is in urgent need of medical attention.

  The print became smaller:

  Desperately sought by her parents …

  Anyone with information leading to …

  She felt guilty, thinking of her parents and all their worst fears made real by her disappearance. She must find them instantly!

  That was easier said than done. She still had not the least idea of where she was. Nor had she any idea how long she had been missing. It had been sufficient time for someone to print some posters and put them up. How many days did that take?

  “Well, it’s no use staying here,” she decided, picking up the book.

  That book! It was only since she’d been given The Key to the Secret City that her life had taken this strange turn. Given all that had happened, it did not seem excessively odd to Teo to speak to the book itself. “Tell me! What is happening to me?”

  The girl on the front cover stirred and yawned, and went back to sleep.


  “I suppose you’ll answer when you’re ready,” Teo sighed, and tucked the volume into her pinafore.

  She walked a little unsteadily through the beautiful park of the graveyard, pausing at a Ladies’ Convenience that was as stately as a mausoleum. She washed her face with cold water and tried unsuccessfully to rearrange her curls into some kind of discipline. She stared at her face in the mirror: strained, frightened and a little wild in the gaslight.

  “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!” she said to herself.

  As she walked, Teo passed more posters fixed to trees. A forest of Teodoras, all staring hard, reproached her for wandering away from the hospital.

  The gardens thinned out and she found herself on the outskirts of a town. She shouted for joy to see it must be Venice—it could be no other place, not with such palaces, canals and gondolas. She had been afraid that she was somewhere else entirely. Soon she would get her bearings, and find her parents. And something to eat. Her belly was hollow with hunger.

  The town was stirring, like the dawn. At every step she expected some passerby to look at her, and recognize her as the LOST GIRL, and exclaim aloud. But none of the early-rising Venetians took the least bit of notice of her. She plucked up courage to talk to a kindly-looking lady, but the woman just pushed passed her, as if she was a beggar.

  “Well, you can’t blame them,” Teo conceded. The girl in the poster had her hair nicely done in plaits and sat calmly with her hands folded in her lap. Teo’s hair was loose and disordered, her pinafore was filthy and she was far paler than she had looked in the photograph.

  She walked deeper into town, desperately searching for a landmark she knew or a street name with which she was acquainted. The winding narrow streets remained stubbornly unfamiliar. She stopped at a mask shop that looked curiously bleached: instead of the usual colorful merchandise, the windows were stacked with plain white masks that looked faintly like skulls, apart from a single black spot, like a mole to the side of the nose.