Desdemona, Tag Cavello [classic literature list TXT] 📗

of that evil thing died in the basement with her, truly and with all my heart.

Poor, wretched girl. La tua anima `e libera.

∞

“What does that mean?” Dante asked.

He did this almost every time he heard Donati speak Italian. Never once did the singer appear irritated; rather, he answered with a tone that sounded appreciative of Dante’s interest.

“Your soul is free,” the singer replied.

“Do you really believe that?”

“Indeed I do. Upon death the soul is unleashed. Unleashed, that is, to return to its one true owner.”

For the next half hour they spoke of other things, then Dante had to leave. His father expected him to rake the lawn before lunch. Hearing this, Donati carefully offered a sum of money to have the same done for his lawn, to which Dante agreed, promising to return later that day. By four o’clock all the leaves in front of 114 were in neat orange piles, ready for bagging. When he was finished Dante rang the front bell. Donati opened the door with ten dollars in his hand.

“Is this enough?” he asked, with pure innocence.

Dante told him that it was fine—more than fine. He then thanked the singer for his generosity.

“You’re a good lad,” Donati told him. “A very good lad.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dante said again.

“Take this Sunny girl out on a Coke date. Or perhaps for an ice cream.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“But remember…” the other began, only to let his thoughts trail off on a chill afternoon breeze.

“Yes?” Dante reached, hoping to bring them back.

Donati took a deep breath before continuing. “Remember that she is dangerous. I know this from what you have already told me. She is dangerous, Dante. Take care to make adjustments when the pressure grows too high.”

And on that piece of advice, he gently closed the door.

CHAPTER NINE: A Drive North

At the end of October came a festival. Always at this time of year the local amusement park held one, for to summer a final farewell.

 

The park, called Cedar Point, named it Hallow-weekends, as the festival only ran on those days. This was its third year and Dante had yet to go even once. He had always wanted to (Halloween was his favorite holiday) but could never think of a proper way to ask his parents. He knew from past visits—summertime visits—that amusement parks were not the cup of tea of his mom and dad. The huge roller coasters did not interest them (never once did they pause on the midway to gape at their enormous, gleaming skeletons). The junk food vendors did not please them. They found the smell of Sandusky Bay offensive (unless its odor approached from the hull of a yacht). Icky smells of candy and soda made them nauseous. The place was too noisy. The place was too crowded. All of these things and others Dante could ascertain just by looking at their faces, or listening to their voices when they told him—along with whomever friend had come along for the day—to be careful, and to be at such and such a place by lunchtime.

Hallow-weekends won’t be so bad, Dante wanted to tell them, each and every year. Most of the rides are closed; the vendors sell apple cider; the bay won’t smell because the air is cooler. They would make good rebuttals for the elder Torns’ disapproving stares toward his request. Good, just not good enough. This year they had not taken him to Cedar Point at all. They might have had he asked, but more and more, their acquiescence for his follies seemed too awkward to endure. So Dante had decided upon silence last June. Now, in October, he did the same.

But it wasn’t Dante’s parents who finally took him to see Hallow-weekends. It was Sunny’s.

It happened this way: The Monday after his botched cigarette prank he went to school late. The blame lay totally with him. He’d forgotten to set his alarm clock; thus, both he and it overslept. At eight o’clock he stepped into the principal’s office with an excuse paper from his mother (its message dashed off hastily over coffee and a croissant).

The secretary scowled from her desk. “What do you want?” she groaned.

Dante gave her the paper. “Late for school.”

“Again?”

“I haven’t been late all year.”

Now the woman snorted. “That’s what they all say, kiddo. And what do you want?”

This last was directed over Dante’s shoulder. Her turned to find Sunny walking in the door. As always, she was dressed in black. Her crooked smile dodged around Dante to find the secretary.

“Just a moment of your time,” Sunny obliged. She walked to the desk without looking at Dante, and from a small, neat bag she wore on a chain around her wrist, produced a slip of paper.

“Another excuse paper?” the secretary asked, as if the death of her would soon come about from them.

“Yes,” Sunny told her, “I’m afraid I overslept. Forgot to set the alarm.”

“Shame on you.”

“I know. I’m horrible. Luckily, Dante is here to walk me to class.” She raised her slender arm—the one with the bag on it—to Dante. “Shall we?”

“Of course,” Dante said, in a rush of unexplainable confidence. “You look rather lovely this morning.”

“Why thank you, kind sir!”

“Let me get the door.” He held it open, and in a whiff of shampoo and perfume, Sunny went through. Dante then turned back to the secretary, whose impatient face had turned to something more like one placed in the audience of a frightful magic show, so large were her eyes. “A pleasant day to you, Miss,” Dante sang, pretending to raise an invisible hat, the way gentlemen once did in that city by the Thames whose etymology hides in ancient tablets.

“Thank you,” the secretary got out timidly.

When the door was shut, both Dante and Sunny began to laugh.

“Well played,” Sunny said, “well played!”

“Have you been reading deep literature of some sort over the weekend?”

She shook her head. “No, no. It’s just when your dad drives you to school in a Jaguar every morning you sometimes feel baroque. It passes.”

“Did you really forget to set your alarm?”

“I really did, my dear. Why?”

Dante shrugged. “Coincidence. I forgot mine, too.” His mind went back to the rat in the girls’ locker room. And then there was the biting spider in the blond boy’s bag. Coincidence.

I hope a part of that evil thing died in the basement with her, truly and with all my heart.

They walked slowly down the dormant hall. Sunny put her head on his shoulder. Her boots clicked. “Page 101,” a teacher behind one of the doors called. From more distant still came the rumble of thunder. A storm was coming.

“Sorry about the cigarettes,” Dante said.

Her eyes flicked upward. “We’ll have to do better next time, won’t we?”

By we, of course, she meant you. Dante knew as much but held his tongue.

“Doing anything this weekend?” she asked.

“Nothing planned,” he answered.

They had reached the new wing, top of the ramp. Bright fluorescent lights shined on posters and doors. Two other seventh grade girls passed by in the other direction; both said hello to Sunny.

“Well,” Sunny said, after nodding to them, “why don’t you come with us to Cedar Point? They’re having a Halloween festival.”

Dante’s heart stumbled. Never once had she called upon him outside of school. Now this sudden invitation to an event he’d been wanting to see for years.

“By us,” he said, “you mean you and your parents?”

“That’s right. My dad’s driving.”

She added this final part as if it would make everything perfectly safe. And indeed, why shouldn’t it be?

One reason seemed clear enough. “Do they know about us?” he put forth. “Do they know we’re like…a couple?”

Sunny’s green eyes flashed again in that way that signaled danger. “We’re not like a couple, Dante. We are a couple. And yes, they know.”

“How do they feel about it?”

“It?”

“Yes. The relationship.”

They had passed through the foyer, with its myriad spooky decorations, and were now at the entrance to the cafeteria, where Sunny would go for period one study hall. She stopped. Her grip on his arm tightened.

“Thank you for walking me, Dante. Now then. Would you like to come with us this weekend or…do you have someone better to buy pumpkin spice coffee for?”

“Sunny.”

The green in her eyes continued its vehemence. Such was its capering Dante could only think of imps before their stoning by sublimity. He knew he had only seconds to say the right thing, otherwise she would turn on her heel without a word and not speak to him until maybe Thanksgiving.

“Sunny,” he told her, “I would love to come with you this weekend. What time should I be at your house?”

The capering stopped; the flame went out. Crisis averted. Smiling, Sunny pulled him a little way down the hall, to a place where no one would see. Here she took a small slip of paper from her bag and wrote her address: 911 Wooden Tee Lane, Sycamore Hills. 4PM sharp!

“Sharp,” Dante said after reading it.

“That’s right,” she replied. Her eyes widened crazily. “Sharp as the stakes of Salem. Be there!”

“I will,” he promised. It was always nice to see her so happy.

“Thanks, Dante!” And before dashing off to study hall, she stood on tip-toe to give him the sweetest good-bye kiss, he might have mistaken it for a good and proper girl’s.

∞

The week passed happily enough. Dante walked to class with Sunny when he could (besides homeroom they only shared one other together). He ate lunch with her and her friends. In the afternoon they said goodbye at his locker, or sometimes her locker, always with that entourage of girlfriends standing close, their strange smiles hovering like Valentine’s Day balloons over a haunted dance floor. Every now and then between classes, Maris’ face would appear among the throng of migrating students. At these times the effect on Sunny’s confidence was passing but noticeable. Her chatter stopped; her grip on Dante’s arm tightened. Once, toward the end of the week, Maris drifted near their lunch table to talk with Mr. Wolfe. All of the girls with Sunny went quiet and bowed their heads. Sunny also went quiet. Her gaze, however, was defiant, locked with hatred on the girl she considered her enemy, whether by nature or bad fortune. Curious, Dante tried to get her attention. It was like she didn’t hear. She would not even look at Dante until at last Maris went away, at which point everything returned to normal.

His father okayed the trip to Hallow-weekends. It happened on Wednesday night, after Dante knocked on the door of his study and was told to come in. This room was even more hushed than the rest of the house, with its thick brown carpet and heavy oak paneling. On one wall hung a painting of a tree, ripe with fruit. The opposite wall contained a fireplace, lit for the chill evening, where thumbprints of dead bricklayers could be seen in the mortar.

“Hello, Dad.”

“What is it, Dante?”

The older Torn had turned in his seat. His face was like petrified wood, his dark hair neat as a doll’s. No emotion but vague annoyance at being disrupted (he was an accountant; six papers formed a triangle on his desk) tainted his eyes.

“I was invited by a friend to go to Cedar Point this weekend. Is it all right?”

Almost without hesitation, Mr. Torn said: “Yes, that’s fine.” A silence then burgeoned between them, wherein the only noise came from the fireplace. “Is that all?” Dante’s father wanted to know.

“Yes. Thanks, Dad.”

“Goodnight, Dante.” And without waiting for his son to leave, Mr. Torn returned to his work. He did not even ask on which day of the weekend the trip would fall, or at what time, or for how long.

“Goodnight,” Dante said.

But Mr. Torn was no longer listening.

∞

On Saturday, as the sun neared its unwarming meridian, Dante left number 54 in a black leather jacket. A long walk to Sycamore Hills came next, yet being a summertime paperboy he scarcely minded. The autumn wind lent vigor