Desdemona, Tag Cavello [classic literature list TXT] 📗

sounds. Defeated, he decided to tell her these things, to which she responded that of course she knew of his desires already, and that she wanted nothing more than to be with him, too. It would happen, she promised. They would find time to be together—to be alone together—no matter what the cost. From here Sunny’s voice took on a chiding tone. Had he already forgotten about her parents’ trip to Howling? And if not, why wasn’t he excited about it? The opportunity was perfect. They could have lots of fun. Maybe even too much fun.

“When is that trip?” Dante asked again. She had dodged the question at lunch. Now perhaps, corning her with it again, he could get an answer.

Instead the line clicked and went dead.

Dante pressed the carriage switch. “Sunny? Hello?”

There was another click in his ear, then a dial tone. He was about to call Sunny’s number in Sycamore Hills when a powerful gust of night wind struck the window. Twigs scratched the glass. The light flickered.

“Dante?” a female voice rang from the hall. “Dante?”

Sitting up in bed, Dante studied his bedroom doorway. Was his mother awake? The voice hadn’t sounded like hers. It had sounded higher, younger.

“Yes!” he called back, getting to his feet.

Only the wind answered, howling up State Street and onto Main like a woman fleeing murder. Dante peered into the hall. No one peered back. A single weak light—a night light—glowed from a console his mother had picked up last year at an Amish furniture store. That was it.

Needing to be further convinced, Dante walked to the end of the hall, where a window overlooked Norwalk’s huge Methodist church. This close to midnight it was nothing more than a sleeping giant. Amongst its dark, brooding stones Dante could make out very little. And anyway, the female voice hadn’t come from over there.

He decided to chance knocking on his parents’ door, lightly at first, then with more force when no one answered. Yet still nothing stirred on the other side. Dante took hold of the knob. His next action would be borderline anathema as far as the Torns were concerned. Under no circumstances did either parent allow their son into their bedroom. Undiscovered repercussions awaited. Sticky ends.

Dante turned the knob. Or rather, he tried. The door was locked.

“Dante?”

He jumped, nearly tripping over his own feet. The voice, faint and feminine, now seemed to be calling from his bedroom. Looking in that direction he could see the doorway. Light flooded the hall carpet. Had he turned it back on at some point? It was hard to know for certain.

Slowly he walked to the door. Halfway there the downtown clock tower chimed midnight. Dante got to the pool of light, leaned and peered into his room. There was his bed, his desk. Both were empty. His telephone, which he’d left on the covers, was also there. No sooner did he see it, it began to ring, over and over, stubborn for an answer though Dante hesitated a long time before at last finding courage enough to cross the room and pick up the receiver.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Dante!” Sunny’s voice replied cheerfully. “What happened?”

He looked back at the hall, almost expecting the mystery voice to say his name again. “I’m not sure. The line went dead.”

“Ah. Well for a few minutes there I thought it was you who’d died.”

“I was about to call you back actually, but then the house sort of got weird. I heard a voice call my name.”

“You’re just spooked over the wind.”

“Maybe that’s it,” Dante said, lacking conviction. “But it sure sounded real.”

When Sunny next spoke her voice was that of a Hollywood comedienne. “Maybe it’s haunted,” she moaned, elongating the word for drama.

Her tomfoolery forced a smile to his lips. “Then we have a late ghost. I’ve lived here all my life.”

Sunny didn’t answer, though this time he knew she was still there. Her presence tightened the line. “Sunny?” Dante said.

“BOO!” she screamed, loud as she could into his ear.

At that instant every light in the house went black. Lightning flashed outside; thunder boomed. A hundred public service announcements had taught Dante never to hold a telephone during a storm. He put it on the bed, rose, and tried to feel his way to the desk, where he kept a penlight. Halfway there the lights flickered back on. For an instant Dante thought he saw a reflection in the window—a reflection of something tall and oddly formed that leaped from view once the lights came on. His eyes went back to the door. It was still open, inviting him into the hall for a look.

No way, he thought, crossing the room with an intent to close and lock it.

A second flash of lightning lit the world outside, followed by more thunder. Dante had his hand on the door and was about to shut it when he noticed two deep, curved marks in the hallway carpeting. They were set far apart, with pointed tips turned slightly inward. They resembled, Dante thought, a pair of cloven hooves.

Rain began to pelt the window, lightly at first but soon with the commotion of hailstones. He closed the door, twisted the lock handle. With luck that would do to hinder unwanted visitors. Without luck…

“Who am I kidding?” Dante muttered.

Leaving the light on, he went to the bed and lay down. After five minutes he could resist temptation no more. He dialed Sunny’s number. She answered, giggling, on the second ring.

“What’s so funny?” Dante asked.

“I knew you’d call me once the lights came back on. I got so scared when my room went dark I screamed.”

“You screamed the word boo.”

More laughter, fading from the receiver as if its owner had fallen backward in bed. “I think that was it,” she said, regaining control. “First thing I thought of in the dark was ghosts.”

“Me too,” Dante said. “Are you okay now?”

“Oh I’m good. Everything’s fine here. How about you?”

“Power’s back on for now.”

They talked for another hour, never minding the storm or those public service announcements. Dante had forgotten all about monsters and ghosts when someone knocked on the door. Hesitant but not wishing to show weakness with his girlfriend listening in, Dante answered it.

“Go to bed,” his father commanded. “It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

“Aw,” Sunny pouted into his ear.

“Sure, Dad,” Dante said. “I’m out.”

Mr. Torn looked at the phone. “Who the heck are you talking to?”

“Girlfriend.”

“Is that so? Hooray for you. But please tell her goodnight and go to sleep.”

“Sunny?” Dante said into the phone. He smiled at his dad and made an O with his thumb and index finger.

“Yes, darling?”

“Goodnight and go to sleep.”

“Oh, very amusing,” Mr. Torn said, turning back to his own bedroom. “Goodnight, Dante.”

“Goodnight, Dad. Goodnight, Sunny.”

She was still laughing at his lame joke. “Goodnight, Dante. See you Monday morning.”

After she hung up Dante looked at the floor. Two vague scuff marks where Mr. Torn had stood marked the carpet. But as for the hoofprints…

“Gone,” Dante said. “Weird.”

“Dante?” Sunny called from the dark at the bottom of the stairs, freezing his bones. “I love you. Sweet dreams.”

There came a giggle, followed by fading footsteps. Then silence.

Slowly, Dante closed his door and locked it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Hospital Visit

The hospital floor shined with wax, as clean linen does of the finest flax.

 

Dante’s first thought, upon entering a brightly lit waiting area, was not to slip and fall down. He walked gingerly between several rows of plastic chairs. There was a TV on the wall, unplugged. Stacks of magazines lay fanned on a glass table. An old woman with a cane looked at him through heroic spectacles.

“No smoking!” she barked, squeezing the cane with blue knuckles. “My husband has emphysema!”

Ignoring her, Dante made his way to the service desk and inquired as to where he might find Mr. Horatio Donati. The nurse was a woman not much younger than the one behind him. She frowned at Dante, sizing him up with a pair of stormy gray eyes that perfectly matched the curls of hair poking from beneath her cap.

“We don’t have anyone here by that name,” she said.

“Try looking first,” Dante told her.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused. Now I’m looking for Horatio Donati. He got sick yesterday—mild cardiac episode—and they brought him here.”

The nurse’s jaw hung open. “My goodness, you’re a rude boy, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t come in that way.”

“You’re going to leave or I’m going to have you removed.”

“Hello!” a youngish-looking gentleman with black hair cut in. “Can I be of help?”

Dante repeated his request, to which the gentleman responded by looking at the nurse’s computer. After a few keystrokes Donati’s name popped right up.

“Room 112,” the gentleman said. “You can go right down. I’m Doctor Slater, by the way.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Dante said, and without sparing the nurse another glance, left the desk.

112 was at the end of a hall lined with healthy plants whose stems drooped from their pots. To Dante they looked ready to get up and walk. Several Christmas decorations hung on the walls—stockings, silver bells, Santa Clauses—as well as the door to Donati’s room, which was covered in green crepe paper. He raised his fist to knock, then decided that unless Donati had a nurse in the room he wouldn’t be able to answer.

Dante turned the knob instead. The door opened on a quiet, brightly lit room. Quiet for two reasons: The TV, like the one outside, was switched off, and the bed was empty. This second detail took Dante by surprise at first, until he noticed a wheelchair at the window, along with its occupant: Horatio Donati.

Despite his surroundings he didn’t look ready to present his ticket at Saint Peter’s gate just yet. His round face, Dante saw, was still ruddy with life, the curls of his black hair still rich. To judge by his belly he hadn’t been skipping out on the brioche. And most important of all his eyes, which had thus far not noticed they had a visitor, looked bright and aware. They were set on the window—or rather, what lay beyond. It couldn’t have been much. Dante knew the hospital was built in a circle around a plain green lawn, and that Donati’s window looked out upon that lawn. Still, the opera singer appeared as the nurse who’d spoken to Dante’s father had promised: comfortable and fully alert.

“Hello,” Dante said, stepping forward.

Donati’s head turned, and when their eyes met, his face broke into a wide smile. “Dante!” he called, raising his arms. “My boy! Mi sei mancato!”

What he wanted with those raised arms could not have been more plain. Smiling, Dante crossed the room and hugged his friend hard. “`E bello vederti,” he whispered.

The remark surprised even more alertness into Donati’s already shining eyes. “He’s been studying! Eh?”

“I looked that one up this morning,” Dante admitted. “I wanted to say it to you, because it’s true.”

“You’re a fine boy, Dante,” the opera singer said, tightening his grip. “A fine boy.”

“Don’t be too quick to judge.”

“Not at all.” Donati let go his hug and looked at him. “So long as you don’t forget what that other, slightly more well known Dante wrote in his Paradiso.”

“Tell me.”

“’The pious man may fall, and the thief may rise.’”

“Ouch. If that’s true then what does it mean to be good?” He was thinking of Sunny as he spoke, who always acted as if she already knew the answer was nothing.

But Donati held a different view. “It means that you care,” he said, “even if others do not. Even if”—he took a moment to cross himself—“God does not.”

“Don’t go losing your faith on me, Mr. Donati. One of us needs to be strong.”

“Never say that last part to a man in a wheelchair.”

“Sorry. I lost my head.” Rather than let the comment lead them into his strange goings on of late, Dante decided to change the subject. For help he looked out the window. The view, however, was pitiful as he’d imagined. Brown grass and drab, dead trees. “You need a