CHAPTER
1
1859
The boy clutched a marionette to his chest and shuffled into the barn.
His best friend—his only friend—Beppe glanced up from where he was whittling a narrow piece of pine. “Oh, Cirillo, what happened now?”
Cirillo blinked back angry tears and stepped toward him. Damp hay lay strewn over the floor, covering an errant knot of wood pushing up through the dirt. He tripped over it, the puppet tumbling from his hands as his arms whirled to gain balance. The toy landed face-first in the hay, the leg bent at an awkward angle.
Not unlike his own.
“She broke it. Again.” Cirillo choked out the words. “I hate her.”
He could still hear his sister’s laughter, tight and high-pitched as she stood in front of him. “Poor Cirillo can’t catch a ball with the other boys, so he’s stuck playing make-believe.” Sofia threw the toy high into the air, running off with her friends as it plummeted to the ground with a loud snap.
He’d eased from the chair and squatted down. He fought to keep his balance as his right leg wobbled. Scooping up the marionette, he made his way out of the expansive parlor room and through the portico. The sun soaked into his skin and eased some of the incessant pain, but his mind continued to spin hatred into a veil that clouded his thoughts.
The trek across the field and down to the barn was precarious and time-consuming, but Cirillo found Beppe in the same spot he’d left him hours before. Beppe slept in the stable loft and rarely left the outbuildings except for a hot meal or a tepid bath. Even then he preferred to swim in the lake unless it was covered in ice. An orphan, Beppe had wandered onto the estate several years before. His arrival happened to coincide with the departure of a stable hand who’d gone in search of greener pastures, so Cirillo’s stepmother took Beppe in to help with the horses. What the self-centered woman didn’t know was that the teen spent most hours in a hidden workshop he’d built inside the tack room. A padlock and chain kept prying eyes, and obnoxious girls, from peeking in.
Beppe put down his knife and the scrap of wood. On his table was an odd assortment of tools. A chisel, a mallet, a saw, and gouges for the wood carving, but also a liset, straight razor knives, clamps, and needles. “Come see. He’s walking.”
A wave of dizziness swept through Cirillo, and he clasped a hand to Beppe’s shoulder for support. Was it possible?
Together they moved to the tack room, where Cirillo waited as Beppe unwound the chains and eased the door open on silent hinges.
Cirillo held a handkerchief to his nose, breathing dried lavender in the hopes of masking the scent of clotted blood that wafted from behind the door.
The room was dark, the air heavy and humid. Thin bands of sunlight cut through cracks in the outer wall, slashing additional bars across the crates and instruments lining the shelves. Beppe lit a single lantern and the space came further into view. Cirillo leaned over to peer inside the single cage resting on the table in the center of the room. A mouse sat in a flattened bed of straw, perfectly still as if it had been stuffed. Even the whiskers remained motionless.
Beppe pulled a scrap of cheese from his pocket and handed it to Cirillo. “Put it just inside the cage.”
Cirillo lowered the handkerchief, his nose acclimating to the copper smell. He pushed the bit of cheese between the bars. It fell, and he yanked his finger back before the mouse could nip his skin.
A whisker twitched. Then another. The mouse shifted and stretched its paws. It pounced on the cheese. Cirillo’s mouth dropped as he took in the tiny legs. Four of them, covered in fur. Which would’ve been perfectly normal and unworthy of his time, if the hind leg hadn’t been a scrap of metal only forty-eight hours before.
Beppe grinned at him, his mop of pale curls sticking out in all directions like a halo. “Only think of your future. You’ll be able to ride horses. Spin girls around the dance floor.”
Cirillo’s lips smiled, but his jaw stayed tight. Those things didn’t matter. What girl would want to dance with him anyway? No. He had bigger plans. A grander scheme. He’d have the biggest stage imaginable, and his sister would never laugh again.
Copyright © 2017 by Nikki Katz
