Desdemona, Tag Cavello [classic literature list TXT] 📗

stairs. With but one flaming wick as guide, the passage seemed narrow as the inside of a coffin. Shadows danced in time with my light’s fitful glow. I reached the landing on unsteady legs. A low-watt bulb, useless now, hung from the ceiling. Ducking past it, I found Princess’ door unlocked. It creaked as I pushed it open and called the girl’s name.

“Please,” I said when she didn’t answer. “It’s only me. Horatio.”

Her apartment was pitch dark. Standing at the entrance, I could see only a ghostly outline of the open door, along with a few faded tiles at my feet. Once more ignoring that voice of reason, I stepped inside, raising my candle high. A dry, musty smell invaded my nostrils. To the right was a window near the ceiling. It afforded some light—enough to discern I stood in a narrow, unfurnished room with filthy floors.

Then I noticed it. A trail of water led from the door to the back of the long room, where I could faintly make out the shape of another door hanging wide.

“Princess,” I called forth again. “Come upstairs with me.”

I stepped forward. My shoe crunched the chitin of a dead roach. The door loomed closer, closer. All was black inside. Yet I became certain Princess was there. With each step the floor grew more moist, the water like broken glass, reflecting my candle at myriad angles. As I reached the entrance to whatever room this was, the wind gave a demonesque howl. Boney fingers scratched at the window. They were, I knew, the boughs of a rosebush, though knowing did little to comfort my nerves.

I raised my candle once more. The room held only a single piece of furniture: an old rocking chair, moving slightly with the weight of its occupant.

“Princess?” I said to the figure in the chair.

She looked at me. Strands of black hair fell over her face, giving off the appearance of a girl in a death veil. Her eyes glimmered in the candlelight.

“Mr. Donati,” she said in a voice bereft of all music. “Thank you so much for coming. The rain has made a mess of my hair. Could you please brush it out smooth?”

“Of course,” I told her.

“Put your candle on the floor.”

I did as she asked. Her smile chilled me. It was the smile of a woman long buried, painted upon canvas to forever haunt the minds of passing admirers. I was one such admirer, and knew I would never forget Princess.

She sat quite still after handing me a brush. I stepped behind her. My left hand plunged into a curtain of black hair cold as flowing ice water. It spilled over my skin, wrapping itself about my wrist and fingers. My right hand squeezed the brush. Slowly, I stroked downward through the curtain, careful not to pull too hard where the bristles caught.

“That’s it,” Princess said. Only her mouth moved. The rest of her body was like stone. “Brush out where it catches and snags. Oh! How these ragged rats infuriate me!”

I gave her hair another stroke, and then another. Goosebumps rose on my arms. So cold were the inky black snakes of her hair I felt compelled to ask if she’d taken refuge from the storm in a shoveled hole. Yet with time the brush encountered less resistance. The follicles became smooth if not clean. And I brushed, and I brushed, there by the fitful fire, much like de Maupassant’s hero in that old ghost story of his. And at last Princess’ hair turned soft and smooth, an old black curtain in the window of a parlor where hymns are sung, and prayers uttered.

Her head snapped round to look at me. On her face remained that smile of the dead, captured by oil.

“Thank you!” she breathed in a pretty little gush, then leaped from the chair.

Her bare feet were delicate on the floor, her step dainty as a kitten’s. Lightening flashed from somewhere; thunder boomed. And with one final look in my direction, Princess disappeared through the door.

∞

Donati quaffed the second cup of cappuccino prepared for him by Dante while this story unfolded. “A lily bends on currents strong,” he said, “and sometimes you catch it, and sometimes it’s gone.”

“What does that mean?” Dante asked.

“It means I never saw Princess again. And with good reason. She was dead.”

“Stop it,” Dante spoke with a huff.

“No. I’m afraid it’s true. The very next day I went to Mrs. Dominguez’s apartment and told her this same story. She said it was impossible. That a girl named Princess had indeed lived in the basement apartment the previous year, but had hanged herself in the stairwell. She’d been engaged to a young man whom she loved dearly. The young man broke off their engagement to marry another.”

Dante turned incredulous. “How could a girl let something like that drive her to suicide?”

“It was love.”

“It was ridiculous!”

The old singer gave a tired, cagey smile. “What about Sunny? Don’t you love her?”

“Of course I love her. But—“

“And what if she left you tomorrow for another boy? What would you do?”

“She would never do that.”

“You’re dodging the question. If she left you, what would you do? Confront the possibility, and then your feelings.”

Dante closed his eyes. He tried to picture Sunny breaking off their relationship. She stood in his imagination, wearing that devious smile she owned. A widow’s peak of red hair burned over her brow. Dante? I’ve met another boy. A better boy than you.

How did that make him feel?

Rage swelled in his chest. An urge to find the better boy and kill him took hold. Following that he would need to punish Sunny.

His eyes flew open.

Donati was still at the table, awaiting an answer. “You look angry,” he said.

“I’m infuriated,” Dante agreed.

“This concerns me. You are not the sweet, apologetic boy I knew last summer.”

“Everyone changes, Mr. Donati.”

“But we try not to do that for the worse. This no matter what the bald authors tend to write. Love,” he pushed on, before Dante could reply, “is a wondrous fire. Or a cool breeze adorned in garments of sweet rain. Or many other things that make us happy to be alive, in our wasting prigione of flesh and bone.”

“Mr. Donati—“

“But when it’s perverted it is no longer love. The fire goes rogue. It burns fields and homes. The breeze becomes a storm, knocking down trees. Do you love her, Dante? When you think of her, do all impure temptations flee your heart? Or does she instill an urge to consume, to conquer?”

Dante thought of Billy then. Punching him, pounding his face into the floor, had been vengeance. Vengeance taken from its selfish owner in the name of manhood.

“I would do anything to protect her,” he said to the opera singer. “Anything at all.”

“Very good, young man,” Donati said, in a spiritless tone that suggested he didn’t mean a single word. “Very good.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN: Deployment

Light from angels uncorrupt repurpose eyes downcast abrupt.

 

February fourteenth—Valentine’s Day—did not arrive during the school week; thus, it was actually on the fifteenth that Sunny’s plan backfired with utterly disastrous results.

Not that the execution lacked brilliance. All of Sunny’s girls did their jobs, possessed of manners both discreet and tactful. It took only half a day to dot the school with crisp copies of the mock love poem they’d been given. Nor did their presence seem overabundant, like holiday decorations (of which there streamed many in pink and red, candy-coating the halls); rather, the poetry tended to blend with those hearts and arrows, so the adult portion of the school scarcely noticed at first.

One copy fluttered on a locker door, lifted by an icy breeze which had crept through an untended exit. Another protruded from two oft-read books at the library. Others popped up in restrooms (Dante had planted one inside a stall door of the boys’) and on bulletin boards. All were hidden just well enough, or made pleasant, happy company with the other decorations. Of those in the former group students continued to find copies perhaps too well hidden for the rest of that year. One in particular confused Dante. The story reached his ears long after the coming chaos had died down. In late June two boys were playing football on the back field. A pass thrown too hard had gotten stuck in a tree. One of the boys climbed the tree. Near the football was an abandoned bird’s nest—and in the nest, incorporated with leaves and straw, hung one of the copies.

Hint number one about something strange going on came at lunchtime. The cafeteria buzzed at a different pitch than normal. Giggles from the girls had lost their whimsical innocence to laughter more mischievous. Their boys were no longer smiling, but sneering and nodding, chewing with mouths open. Repeated glances were cast towards Shaya Blum who, oblivious to the spell cast upon him, sat alone as always, his taped glasses hanging askew, his dirty brown hair in tangles.

“So far, so good,” Sunny murmured at one point. Dante gave her hand a light squeeze. He liked the way her freckles burned when she was happy. They were doing that now.

But perhaps not for long.

Maris Dubois always sat behind them, at the opposite end of the cafeteria. This arrangement typically put her almost directly behind Shaya. Dull theatre, considering the girl had never once—to Dante’s knowledge at least—so much as lifted her eyes to take notice of the other. Like Sunny, she spent lunch talking with friends. But not today.

Several times already Dante had turned his head to gauge what reaction this morning’s chicanery was having on Maris. And indeed, she looked quite the changed girl. Every time Dante looked at her she was doing the same thing. Her eyes hovered at the nape of Shaya’s neck, pensive yet somehow detached, as if cast into a sea of dreams. Occasionally one of her friends would tap her shoulder and laugh. Those sitting with their backs to Shaya would often turn to smile at him. These smiles looked not the faintest bit derogatory, or sardonic. Rather, they were the smiles of girls happy for a friend.

No, Dante kept telling himself. Stop it already.

“What’s the matter?” Sunny asked.

He jerked in his seat. “Nothing.”

“Yes there is. You were looking at Maris.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. Caught in the act, what else could he do? “I’m waiting for the fireworks.”

Now Sunny turned her head. Her eyes found Maris’ bright splash of blonde hair and narrowed to slits. “There won’t be fireworks today,” she said.

“No?”

“No. Not all of these…giggles and whispers”—the words oozed with contempt, which was strange, for ruckus ordinarily pleased her—“are about Shaya, you know. Some of it’s about Billy.”

“Still? The kid hasn’t been to school for weeks.

Sunny whirled on him, snarling. “It’s about Billy, okay?”

“If you say so,” he told her, unwilted. “But I’ve never heard of a dead person making everyone so cheerful.”

“I never told you he was dead.”

“He is though, right?”

“Maybe.”

Talk at the table fell quiet. Sunny’s entourage stared at their plates. Stacey took a hesitant bite of her dessert; Rajani pretended to clean her glasses. That something bad had happened to Billy at the end of January was common knowledge throughout the school. One day he had come to class with a black eye and bruises; the next day, he went missing. No one had seen him since, and according to a number of newspaper articles written about the event, the police had no leads.

“Relax,” Dante said to Sunny, raising her hand to kiss it. “It’s all right. I know you took care of him.”

For it was imperative, he knew, not to diminish the queen in front of her court. Though I could if I wanted, he thought. Absolutely.

“Let’s see what happens for the rest of the week. I think we’ll be fine.”

“Dante,” he heard her whisper, “she doesn’t look hurt at all. She looks happy.”

Sparing another glance over his shoulder, Dante could see that his girlfriend was right. Maris did look happy. Or rather,