Dark Shimmer by Donna Jo Napoli Read Free Book Online Page B

birds.”
    Everyone looks at me now.
    “Why do you call us monsters?” asks a brother.
    “Not just you,” I say. “All of us. We are huge. Clumsy. Misshapen.”
    “A good description of mortals,” he says.
    “You talk like someone who might be drawn to convent life,” says another.
    The idea astounds me. Mamma talked with reverence of a holy sister who treated her well when she was a girl. “Would a convent take one such as me?”
    “You can’t go to a convent.” Bianca shakes her head. “You’re mine.”
    “Bianca!” Her father puts his arm around her shoulders. “Whatever are you saying? Princess Dolce must do what she is called to do.”
    “Aunt Agnola told me that women go to convents when they have no one…when no one wants them. Princess Dolce has no one….”
    “You don’t know about—”
    “She told us! She said she escaped. She has no one and nowhere to go. That’s what she thinks. But she has us. We want her.” Bianca stands, comes around the table to my side, and wraps her arms tight around me. I twist so that we face one another. Her head presses against my breasts. I stroke her hair. I don’t understand why this child wants me, but all I can do is want her back.
    Her father looks at me, aghast. “I apologize for my daughter. She’s not usually like this.”
    “My mother died,” I say softly, over Bianca’s head. “I miss her so much.”
    “I’m sorry. Very sorry. Bianca’s mother died years ago,” says her father. “Bianca was so small, she can’t remember her.”
    “She remembers the color of her hair.”
    The father’s eyes glisten. “Well…We recently moved into a new home. Perhaps leaving her old home still upsets Bianca. She never acts like this.”
    Bianca turns her head to look at her father, but doesn’t release me. “You saw her smock. She must have dressed as a poor girl to hide so she could escape. She was so thirsty, she drank from the birds’ cup. She is lost. She is alone. And we are here.”
    “Your imagination has always been rich, my daughter.”
    “Look! She’s real.”
    Bianca’s words bring me up short. This child’s heart beats against my own. Her hair tickles my throat. Maybe this is no dream. Maybe I’m surrounded by monsters.
    I cannot breathe. I cough and cough. I can’t stop coughing long enough to suck in air.
    “Sea onion,” Bianca says to the brothers. “Sea onion, fast!”
    I fall off the bench with my knees tucked up, coughing so hard that my head hammers.
    Something is shoved into my mouth. I know this…the bulb of the sea onion. I chomp down on it. I hold my hand in front of my mouth to keep the bulb in when I cough. Slowly, gradually, the coughs subside. I lie limp on my side.
    “Do you want to go to bed?” the father asks.
    I shake my head.
    “Bianca, go with the brothers now. They’ll tell you Bible stories and put you to sleep when you’re ready. I’ll take care of Princess Dolce.”
    “But she has to sleep with me.”
    “She’ll sleep in my bed.”
    “Your bed is narrow. There’s no room for the two of you.”
    “Of course not. I’ll take a cot. There has to be an extra cot.”
    “I’ll prepare one,” says a voice. “Come, child.”
    I hear them leave.
    “Let me help you.” The father bends over and extends a hand.
    I look away and push myself up to sitting. My chest and throat feel raw inside. Birds have alighted all over the table. They eat our crumbs, our remnants. “The birds. They’re joyous.” I laugh. I laugh just like Bianca.
    The father drops his empty hand. “You do talk like a religious soul. Even a mystic. Is that why you cut your finger?”
    I look at my finger. The blood has crusted. I lick it clean.
    “Are you going to tell me about yourself?” he asks.
    “You first.”
    He flinches. “Would you like to walk along the water as we talk?”
    We walk to the cypress trees and pass through them to the shore.
    “What do you want to know?” asks the father.
    “You know my