Pierrot's Song

Chapter 4 - A Puzzle Solved-3

‘Which means to heal him, we need the right mask,’ Luka concluded.

Dario let out a whoop and jumped up and down, then grabbed Luka and spun him in a dance. Mina looked around at her companions and took a stumbling step backward. ‘To restore everyone, we’d have to take the key mask from every troupe.’ Despair flickered across her face. Then she straightened her shoulders. ‘Well, they already hate me for taking their canovaccio. Now I plan to take all their characters. They’re going to love that!’

~

As they neared home, Sofia quickened her pace so she walked beside Mina.

‘I think you and Paolo should go on ahead. We’ll go have a drink at the taverna and join you in a while.’

Mina and Paolo walked the last small distance to their home together, hand in hand. Occasionally they looked at each other and grinned. Relief and joy mingled in Mina’s heart, together with just a little pride that she had managed to restore her brother.

Mama was standing at the kitchen sink, looking out into the yard, when they returned. Placing a finger to his lips and signalling for Mina to stay back, Paolo crept up on his mother and hugged her. She turned slowly and returned his hug. It was only when she pulled back that she saw him properly.

‘Paolo. Paolo!’ Seizing his face in her hands, she peered at him. ‘My boy, you’ve come home.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, Mama. I’m finally home. Properly this time.’

Mama let out a shriek and pulled him into a long embrace. Then she scattered kisses across his face, over and over. Looking over his shoulder, she called out to Mina. ‘Go and fetch your father. Now! He’s in the shed.’

Mina spun around so quickly she almost skidded on the kitchen tiles. Racing across the yard to the shed, she couldn’t help but remember the vision she had received of the fire that led to Anastasia’s death, Uncle Tonio’s confrontation with the players, and finally, his golden thread being broken. Seeing the fire through the unbreakable glass of time long passed, she had been unable to stop it consuming the future of those involved. But healing Paolo was the beginning of righting many other wrongs that intuition told her were linked to the fateful conflagration.

‘Papa,’ she cried as she slammed the shed door open. He looked up from his work in surprise. ‘Mama needs you!’

She hadn’t performed with the players for nothing. Just a hint of panic was enough to make her father run for the house. Mina followed close behind, making it through the kitchen door just after he did.

Papa stopped dead, taking in the sight of Mama showering Paolo with kisses. A strange sound erupted from his throat. Paolo turned toward him, uncertainty in his eyes. Mina couldn’t see her father’s expression, but when Paolo broke into a smile, she choked back a sob. All their old animosities were forgotten as Papa lunged across the room, pulling his son into a tight embrace. It took a long while for them to break apart. Then Papa looked closely at Paolo’s face.

‘How did this happen?’

‘It was Mina. She did it. She healed me.’

Papa and Mama both turned toward her, eyes wide. Then Papa beckoned, and she ran to join them.

‘Oh, my girl,’ Papa murmured into her hair. ‘My clever girl.’

Finally, they all broke apart. Mina looked up at her giant of a father.

‘It’s all because of you, Papa,’ she said. ‘You told me to find my stories again. And I did. And it’s given me the power to change the world.’

~

Paolo took great delight in cooking them all dinner that evening. As he explained, he had been dependent on others for so long, it was wonderful to be able to prepare a meal for others. He didn’t stint, working with Mama to create a veritable banquet, with vegetable soup and crusty bread warm from the oven, a main course of fresh-caught seafood and oil-tossed tomato, eggplant and broccoli, flavoured with fragrant herbs, and afterward, figs and delicious provolone cheese. Papa hurried to find bottles of red wine, and their glasses were never empty as he proudly played host to his son’s return celebration.

Mama banned all talk of players for the evening. Instead, she plied her guests with questions about life beyond Andon, which she had never left. She revelled in descriptions of the beautiful landscapes of Litonya and, from Lisette, Rien. She reacted effusively to their stories of adventure, romance, and occasional danger on the road. She fell silent in awe at Mina’s descriptions of the palace in Aurea.

The distraction worked for a good while. Mina could see through her mother’s strategy, but she didn’t mind. It was a relief to drop the weight of responsibility for a few hours. Though she didn’t shy away from all she knew she must do, she hadn’t chosen it—it had arisen from her gifts. But she had achieved her goal of finding her brother, bringing him home, and restoring him. That was worth celebrating, even if it was only the beginning of a greater task. She brushed away the cobweb of a thought that, knowing what she now knew, she could have restored Uncle Tonio if he were still living. Regrets would not help her with the problems ahead.

Eventually the conversation turned to what they had found in the cavern in the Fureys. Mina’s parents were stunned to hear the tale of the princesses was true, and their images survived deep within the mountain. They were less surprised to learn the link between the princesses and the muses.

‘That cavern should be a sacred site!’ Papa blustered. ‘Everyone would make pilgrimages. Why was it hidden away?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mina responded.

‘Someone put in a lot of effort to stop it being found,’ Luka added. ‘The question is, who?’

‘The minstrel from the tale,’ Sofia said.

‘I think he became King Ambrosi,’ Mina responded. The others regarded her with shock. Of course, they would find such a thing hard to imagine: he was a hero to the people of Litonya, rebuilding the kingdom, heralding a golden age. She shrugged. ‘Who else? He only got to be king because the royal family were gone. Just like in the tale.’

‘Tell me more about the statues,’ Mama interrupted, clearly uncomfortable with the thought that a king treasured in story could have done deeds so terrible history had rewritten them.

Mina, Luka, and Sofia described the great chamber, the massive bowl of blue flame, the alcoves with their statues that appeared alive.

‘The princesses’ names were carved above the alcoves. Calinda, Volante …’

‘There was Allegra, Saveria … Aria?’

‘Lucina … and the one who escaped was Eulalia.’

Mama’s hand flew to her mouth.

‘Beautiful names,’ Sofia continued. ‘Old names. We don’t hear them now.’

Mama leaned over and murmured something to Papa. He stood and left the room. She began stacking dinner dishes. Everyone rushed to help her. They soon cleared the dinner’s remnants away. Mama found a bottle of sweet marsala, filling fine blown glass goblets to the brim for her guests.

Mina had worked hard during the evening to focus on their celebration—to not think of the tasks and responsibilities that still lay ahead. But the weight of them whispered around the edges of her thoughts, and wine made it difficult to hold their voices at bay. Unable to stop herself, she interrupted a lively discussion about favourite foods from the palace.

‘Paolo, someone had to have broken your thread deliberately. It’s the only way. Do you remember what happened?’

Mama pressed her lips together, flashing Mina a disapproving look.

‘I’m sorry, Mama, but terrible things are happening and I have to understand who is behind them. And besides, don’t you want to know who did this to him? Paolo?’

He glanced at his mother. ‘I don’t remember much. We were in Pedon, just travelling and performing. The usual. It happened during a rehearsal. I was playing the Inamorato and Miranda was the Inamorata, of course.’ He paused for a second, his hand touching his lips in an unconscious movement. ‘We had just gained a new canovaccio and Miranda and I were familiarising ourselves with it. Whenever we were onstage together everything just worked.’

Mama reached out and rested her hand on his.

‘She’s so beautiful, Mama. You would like her. Anyway, Miranda had just left the stage, I remember that much. Everything was overlaid with the lights of the Place of Dreams. But suddenly there was a shadow that seemed to come out of nowhere, black and … oppressive? Then I felt … pain. Terrible, terrible pain. But then life just seemed a lot simpler. All my worries and thoughts went away.’

‘The shadow,’ Mina said. She had to know. ‘Did it have a shape?’

Paolo squeezed his eyes shut, tilting his head a little. He was silent for a long time and Mina found herself leaning toward him, holding her breath. Finally, he nodded.

‘It was the last thought I had, I think, before everything changed. I remember wondering why such a thing would be in the Place of Dreams. But it was like a smoky cloud, so maybe I was imagining it.’

‘What was it?’ Mina pressed.

‘A bat.’

She exhaled, finally, and leaned back in her seat. ‘Roberto.’

Before anyone could respond, Papa re-entered the room. He carried a thick, leather-bound book with gold edging. It was the family’s most prized treasure, precious as a jewel, and Mina had never been allowed to touch it. Despite its majestic appearance, as far as she knew it held nothing of great importance—only crop and household records going back generations. For this reason, she had never really been curious about it.

Papa placed it on the table and Mama opened it reverently and carefully.

‘There’s something you need to see, Mina. It may be nothing. But then again, it may be everything.’ As she turned the first few pages, they crackled beneath her fingers, fragile with age. She beckoned Mina over. ‘You too, Paolo, this is your history too.’

Her children stood behind her and looked at the page she had found. It was a family tree, but a simple one, for it focused on a single line down the centre, from one name at the top through nine or ten generations to Olivia, Mina’s mother, at the bottom. Paolo and Mina’s names had not been added.

‘Mine is not a prolific family,’ Mama shrugged.

Mina could see what she meant. There was only ever one, or at most two children in each generation. Mama’s finger swept up the page from her own name to the top. She let it rest there without comment.

Mina’s eyes widened. ‘Eulalia,’ she whispered.

‘An unusual name,’ Mama said. ‘She was a northerner, the family story says, arrived here already with child, and would never say who the father was. Girls had been shunned for far less. But she had a way about her. Everyone loved her, and especially when it turned out she could tell stories. After her daughter was old enough, she used to leave her in Andon and travel Litonya telling her tales, making a living. Some say she was the original storyteller. I like to think that’s true.’

‘That explains how easily you took to storytelling,’ Sofia said in her deep voice, from across the table. ‘And your gifts. The original storyteller was meant to have made up stories from her imagination. Is she buried here? I would very much like to see her grave.’

Mama shook her head. ‘No, she’s not. The story we’ve always been told is that she never came back from one of her trips. Nobody ever knew what happened to her.’

‘Why haven’t you ever told me this before?’ Mina asked.

Paolo patted her on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, they never told me either.’

Before Mama could respond, there was a sharp rap at the front door. Everyone seated at the table froze. Mina looked across at Dario, remembering the consequences of their last encounter with the players. Seeing the expression on her face, he whimpered. Luka, who had fled with her after those terrible events in Kirio, looked as terrified as she felt. His whispered words echoed the ones whirling over and over through her thoughts.

‘They’ve found us!’