Belladonna

eight

Cass felt as though she were moving underwater, simultaneously weightless and weighted down. The lock clicked open. She removed the key and slipped it back around her neck as the door leaned inward. Holding her lantern high, she stepped forward.

The thick, musty odor of the crypt nearly made her gag. She leaned back, waving a hand in front of her face to dissipate the smell and dislodge the glimmering silver threads of a giant spiderweb.

Slowly, her eyes began to adjust to the dark. The Caravello tomb was smaller than Liviana’s, with four shelves on each side and just enough space in between for Cass to stand. She edged farther inside, bringing the hem of her cloak to her mouth, breathing through it.

The dead bodies of her ancestors crowded around her. Cass noted with relief that all of the stone coffin lids were secured in place. But beneath the lids . . .

She knew it was irrational, but she was gripped by the idea that her relatives had been taken, like Liviana. What if all the coffins were empty, or worse, filled with bodies that did not belong there?

The thought possessed her, consumed her; she had to check. She set down the lantern and tugged on the nearest stone lid with both hands, pulling back with all her strength. The cover slid back to reveal a slender bundle wrapped in white shrouds. Cass pushed apart the gauzy layers to reveal a grinning skull. Shuddering, she dragged the stone lid back in place.

That was enough of that. Time to stop being foolish and find the papers. She wished Luca had been more specific. Were the pages tucked inside one of the heavy stone sarcophagi? It took all of Cass’s strength just to pull back each lid and peek inside. More corpses. No papers. She examined the floor of the tomb and the dusty rafters above her head. Nothing. Stretching up onto her tiptoes, she reached a hand between the highest coffin and the wall of the tomb. Her bare fingers grazed soft fabric. No, leather. She pulled out a rectangular bundle, wrapped in well-worn suede. Undoing the cord and folding back one of the corners, Cass saw a thick sheaf of parchment tucked inside.

Suddenly the night, the dead bodies, all of her fear melted away.

She held the lantern close to the papers and saw that they were bound together with crude twine. She wanted to read them right away, but there was no place for her to rest the pages except for the damp floor of the crypt, and she wasn’t going to risk getting the papers wet or damaged.

Rewrapping the leather around the parchment, Cass tucked the bundle under one arm. She ducked out of the crypt, sucking in deep breaths of fresh air as she relocked the door. Then she hurried back through the graveyard, crossing the estate’s side lawn and heading back to the front of the villa. Slowly opening the door, she peeked inside to make sure no one was up waiting for her.

Hurrying up the stairs, she tossed her cloak over the back of her dressing table chair. She sat down at the table and eagerly unwrapped the pages.

Her stomach lurched. She recognized some of the writing: it was her mother’s long flowy script. She skimmed the lines.

We have learned that the head of the Florentine chapter is attempting to isolate the fifth humor solely from blood. We plan to travel to Florence to observe his methods, and to adjust our own process accordingly . . .

Cass frowned. She knew all about humors from her father, and she had heard stories of physicians who claimed they were selling healing tonics full of fifth humor. But everyone knew they were charlatans. There were only four main humors within the body—blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Physicians believed that an imbalance of these humors caused various infirmities. Only by bleeding certain vessels that connected to certain organs could the balance be restored.

Perhaps her parents had been trying to create a medicine? Her mother described, in the next passage, that her attempts to make an elixir had been unsuccessful. But why did she speak of the fifth humor as if it were real?

Next there were some notations in someone else’s handwriting. Cass flipped through snippets of notes from what seemed to be a scientist’s journal. Subjects. Trial numbers. She didn’t understand a lot of it, didn’t even know what some of the hastily drawn symbols meant. Most of the entries were dated 1594, just one year before her parents had passed away. There were repeated references to Florence and to the Order of the Eternal Rose.

Cass carefully turned another page. At the top of a yellowed and crumbling piece of parchment, someone had scrawled a six-petaled flower inside of a circle. It was the symbol from Angelo de Gradi’s workshop, the symbol Donna Domacetti wore on her ring. The flower inside the circle must be the symbol for the Order of the Eternal Rose.

But what were her mother’s notes doing mixed in with papers pertaining to some mysterious society? It was inconceivable that her parents would have been involved in grave robbing and sacrilege.

Cass felt her throat closing up. She continued turning pages, this time frantically, searching for some explanation. On the next page, a list of names and cities was scrawled in different handwritings beneath yet another symbol of the Order. Cass guessed it was some kind of attendance list.

She traced one trembling finger down the first column. Her parents’ names were on the list, midway down the page, and below theirs was the name Joseph Dubois.

She quickly scanned the other names. Luca’s father was on the list. Also Angelo de Gradi and Don Zanotta, husband of Hortensa Zanotta, who had accused Luca. Cristian’s name was not on the list. Most names Cass didn’t recognize at all—the vast majority of the signatures were listed as being from Florence. The name at the very top of the list was written larger than most of the others, but at some point the parchment had gotten wet and the letters had faded into a smear of black across the page. Cass could read the city on the right, though: Florence.

If all of these papers mentioned Florence, surely Luca was right and the book was there. As well as Hortensa Zanotta. Cass had never been to Florence, but suddenly the city was calling to her.