Falcon in the Glass Read online

  But early one morning a week after the children had first appeared, Renzo heard a different sound from the storeroom. Another cough — but hollow and deep and long. A frightening cough. Letta, holding the pontello while he worked the lip of a bowl, looked away from the glass and turned her head, listening.

  It came again, the cough. Again. And again — this time longer, so long that Renzo looked up too and waited for it to end, the glass cooling on the end of the pontello.

  “Letta?” A girl, maybe nine years old, poked her head through the storeroom doorway.

  Letta handed Renzo the pontello. He cracked the cooled glass into the bucket, lit a torch and, for the first time since the children had come, followed her to the storeroom.

  It was the boy Renzo had seen in the marsh. Letta squatted beside him as he lay cradled in the lap of another girl who looked exactly like the one who had summoned them. Sandy-haired, snub-nosed. Twins, no doubt. The girl with the marsh boy looked frightened. Behind her the heap of huddled children shivered. A cold draft leaked in through the shutters; clouds of frozen breath rose up and vanished among them. The marsh boy coughed again, one long, racking spasm after another. Renzo held his breath, waiting for the cough to end. His eyes were drawn, absurdly, to the sick boy’s feet. One was swaddled in rags but the other was bare — a tiny, dirty foot — its toes curled up as if to shrink itself smaller still, as if it wanted to disappear.

  Without a word Letta scooped up the marsh boy in her arms, pushed past Renzo, and carried the boy to the warm space near the furnace. The wading bird fluttered after.

  Renzo followed. “What are you doing?”

  Letta ignored him. She turned round to the others, who stood watching, crowded in the doorway. “Come here,” she said.

  One of them, the girl who’d been caring for the marsh boy, stepped out of the storeroom. Two or three others crowded behind.

  “No,” Renzo said. “Tell them to stay.”

  “Come here,” Letta said to them. “It’s warm.”

  Slowly they tiptoed out of the storeroom. They stood in an unkempt huddle at the edge of the glassworks floor. Birds perched on their shoulders, their wrists, on the tops of their heads: a crow, a finch, a sparrow, a magpie, a hawk.

  Wild birds.

  Wild children.

  “No,” Renzo said. “You promised! Make them go back.”

  Letta didn’t deign to respond but motioned impatiently to the others. “Come!” she said.

  Renzo wanted to shake her. How dare she defy him! If it weren’t for him, they’d all be out in the cold.

  The marsh boy coughed again — heart-stoppingly long. And now the others were coming, a tattered, grimy, shivering procession of them, padding silently across the floor.

  There was the girl who had held the marsh boy, with her twin sister close behind. Then came a dark-haired boy, maybe seven years old, holding the hand of a boy who looked about four. A light-haired girl, maybe two or three years old, tripped along behind them. Catching sight of Renzo, she fastened herself to the leg of the boy who came last — maybe a year or so older than the twins? — and rode on one of his feet.

  They all eyed Renzo warily as they passed, then gathered around Letta and the marsh boy. There, blinking at the furnace as at the blazing summer sun, their expressions were nearly identical. Of incredulity. Of bliss.

  “D’you want to toss us out, then?” Letta asked. “You’re bigger than any of us. You could try.”

  Renzo imagined himself picking up one ragged urchin after another, dragging them across the wide floor of the glassworks, thrusting them into the frigid storeroom and shutting the door behind them.

  The marsh boy coughed, hollow and long.

  Renzo sighed.

  A fragment of Sunday’s mass echoed in his ears: Suffer the little children. All at once he felt ashamed that he had denied them this wasted pocket of warmth. Warmth that meant so much to them, yet cost the padrone nothing.

  But still . . .

  “I can’t have birds flying all over the glassworks, knocking things over, strewing feathers and droppings. If you refuse to cage them, at least tie them down. With jesses or something. Like falconers do.”

  “No need for jesses. The birds’ll stay put.”

  “Stay put where?”

  “On their shoulders.”

  “You’re saying these children have trained wild birds to sit still on their shoulders for hours at a time?”

  She shrugged. “Not trained, exactly, but . . .”

  He didn’t want to know. Events were moving, taking on a life of their own, despite his best efforts to control them.

  And so it was especially unfortunate that in the small hours of the following morning, a little after Taddeo had left for home, the glassworks door opened and he came shuffling back inside. He retrieved his forgotten scarf from the hook near the door and was turning to go, when his glance swept across the wide floor near the furnace. He pulled up short, eyes wide.

  If the situation had not been so dire, Renzo might have laughed. Taddeo scuffed a little way toward the children. The birds surged all at once toward the rafters in a burst of fluttering wings. Feathers rocked down from above. Taddeo turned to Renzo as if he could not believe what he was seeing and wanted to confirm that it was not a mirage. He twisted back toward the birds, then the children, who sat silent, staring. Taddeo blinked, astonishment spreading across his face.

  “Renzo,” he said. “What is this?”

  12.

  Nonno

  No one moved. The fire roared and popped. Then Taddeo sucked in a deep breath and screwed his face into the expression Renzo knew so well: deeply aggrieved, working up to a dire complaint.

  Renzo knew he ought to say something, cut him off now, come up with a credible lie. He cast about for the right words, but they escaped him. He could only stand there, waiting, sick with dread.

  “Nonno! ”

  Renzo twisted round to see who had spoken. It was the light-haired girl who had clamped onto the boy’s leg. She jumped to her feet and began to lurch through the welter of children. When she reached Taddeo, she threw her arms about one of his legs and stuck there like a burr.

  Taddeo swallowed his complaint; his mouth hung slack. He blinked down at her, bewildered.

  Letta flicked a glance at Renzo, then stood, held out a hand. “Grandfather, come sit here by the fire.” She whispered something to the tallest boy, who hastened to Taddeo, pried the little girl off his leg, tucked her under an arm, and led Taddeo to the padrone’s bench.

  “Sit, Grandfather,” Letta implored. “Rest.”

  Abruptly Taddeo sat.

  Grandfather? Renzo was confused. Was he the little one’s nonno? But how was that possible?

  The light-haired girl held out her arms to Taddeo. The boy set her down on Taddeo’s skinny legs. The girl leaned into Taddeo, nestled against him. She thrust her thumb into her mouth and began to suck. Taddeo’s arm, seemingly of its own accord, gently curved itself about her, supporting her.

  Letta motioned for the other children to come, murmuring to them as they passed. Slowly they gathered about Taddeo. She motioned for them to sit at his feet. Taddeo gazed in wonderment.

  Renzo caught Letta’s eye. “Do you know him?” he whispered.

  She shook her head, biting her upper lip. “The little one thinks she does. As for the others . . . He’s very like someone they once knew. Someone who died in . . . Well, where we were before. And,” she added, “they do as I say!”

  When Taddeo recovered from his surprise, he would begin to ask questions. For which Renzo still had no acceptable answers. If Taddeo told the padrone . . .

  The marsh boy coughed again, not so frighteningly as before. Letta watched him a moment, then turned to Taddeo. “Is there aught we can do for you, Grandfather? Fetch you a cup of water? Rub your feet?”

  Taddeo’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment. But he quickly recovered himself; his face crumpled into its habitual cast of grievance and
pain. “My shoulders,” he whined. “My old shoulders, they pain me.” He looked down at the children, to gauge the impact of his words.

  The twin girls came around behind him and began to rub his shoulders. Taddeo closed his eyes and leaned into their hands, moaning. But one eye opened and slewed toward Renzo, as if to make sure he saw. As if to reproach Renzo that he had never treated Taddeo with the kindness and deference he so richly deserved.

  Renzo let out a deep breath, releasing the fear that had seized him.

  For now it seemed that Taddeo would not tell.

  But it was only a matter of time.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Gabriella?”

  Renzo heard his mother’s name as he stepped out of the church and into the cold winter sun. Pia slipped over the threshold to join him; he took her hand and peered back inside, whence had come the voice. The darkness was a balm to his eyes, which had been blinded by the dazzle of sunlight flashing off stone and water. Beside him Mama stopped and turned back too. Renzo breathed in the lingering scents of incense and candle wax, waiting for the man who had said Mama’s name.

  “Gabriella, it is you.” A man approached them through the sea of departing worshippers. His face — long and thin and homely — was unfamiliar to Renzo.

  The man fell in beside Mama, on the side opposite from Renzo and Pia. He was tall — the top of Mama’s head reached only to his chin — and walked with a slight stoop, as if he preferred not to tower above others. He shuffled beside her down the steps, leaning into her, speaking so softly that Renzo could not make out his words among the voices of the other churchgoers. Mama smiled, replied. The man was touching Mama’s elbow, Renzo saw. A light touch, well within the bounds of courtesy, but there was something about it that Renzo didn’t like. As if, were Mama to stumble, it was this man instead of Renzo who should rightfully check her fall. And the way he called her Gabriella, instead of Signora Doro. . . . It was disrespectful. He had no right.

  “Lorenzo,” Mama said, when they reached the path, “do you remember Signore Averlino?”

  Renzo shook his head.

  The man’s face creased into a smile. “It’s good to see you again, Lorenzo.” A sweet smell clung to him — a pleasant smell, and familiar, but Renzo couldn’t quite place it. He did not return the smile.

  “You met long ago,” Mama said, “when you were Pia’s age, I think. Marcello — Signore Averlino’s parents were friends of my parents in Venice, when we were children.”

  “Why is he here?” Renzo said. The question sounded ruder than he had intended, but Signore Averlino didn’t seem to notice.

  “For my niece’s wedding,” he said. “She’s to live on Murano; I may come here more often now.”

  “And here is my daughter, Pia,” Mama said.

  “Pia.” Signore Averlino said, bowing to her. “So pleased to meet you.”

  Pia curtsied gravely.

  “Signore Averlino is padrone of a carpentry shop in Venice,” Mama said.

  So that was the smell. Sawdust.

  “Carpentry must seem dull work to you, Renzo,” Signore Averlino said. “Compared with the splendid art of glass.”

  Renzo shrugged. Chests, tables, chairs, paneling . . . they were all the same to him. Heavy. Earthbound. Lightless. He felt sorry for men who worked in wood. It was a slow and tedious and pedestrian art. Nothing about it of quickness, of grace. Nothing to test a man’s courage. Nothing to fire his soul.

  The path narrowed; Mama and Signore Averlino edged ahead of Renzo and Pia, as there wasn’t room for them all in a row. Renzo noticed, for the first time in a long while, how pretty Mama was. Graceful and lithe, with hair the color of honey. She laughed now, a warm, low rumble. How long since he had heard that laugh?

  A sudden wind gust stirred up sand at his feet and flung it into his face. Renzo blinked and rubbed his eyes. Who was this Signore Averlino to come sniffing around, speaking so familiarly with Mama, taking her elbow, replacing Renzo at her side? Renzo was head of the family now. He could take care of them.

  But could he? Things were going slowly in the glassworks. Far too slowly, no matter how fast Letta learned. The children lurched from one crisis to the next. There were scrapes and cuts and bruises, there were toothaches and stomachaches and earaches, there were tears to kiss away and noses to wipe. And though Taddeo seemed to have taken to the children, perhaps he doted too fondly. He no longer went home early. He brought food — more food, Renzo feared, than he could possibly afford to buy. Renzo had heard rumors of pies vanishing from windowsills, of bread disappearing from the communal oven. If Taddeo had stolen them, and if he were caught, and if it were to come out why he’d stolen . . .

  “Lorenzo!”

  He lifted his eyes from the paving stones and looked up at Mama. “Where is Pia?” she said. “I thought you were watching her.”

  Renzo felt the heat of shame creep up his face, made all the more humiliating by the patient, concerned gaze of Signore Averlino. He was but a boy. Couldn’t even take care of his little sister. Must be reprimanded by his mother.

  Renzo turned to scan the path behind him. The churchgoers had mostly dispersed by now, though a few black-clad matrons still stood about talking. And there she was, all the way back at the church, holding out her hand to a beggar, perhaps the selfsame one she had given to the week before.

  Renzo hurried along the path, skirting the matrons. Above him gulls cried, reaching to touch the sky with their feathertips, teetering in the air. Light glinted off the water, diamond hard. The wind, smelling of salt and fish, buffeted his ears, making them ache with cold. “Pia!” he called, hearing the sharpness in his voice.

  She turned to him as the beggar’s knotted fingers closed about her coin, the blue-black shadow of the wall veiling his face.

  Renzo took Pia’s hand and dragged her away. “Didn’t you hear Mama last week? You’re to put the coin in the alms box. We have none to spare for beggars.”

  “But he’s hungry,” Pia protested.

  Renzo hauled her back down the path, remembering the night this past week when he had risen to go to the glassworks and had found Mama in the kitchen bent over the accounts, moving stacks of coins around the table.

  How much longer could they survive on the dwindling supply of coins and the pittance Renzo made? Even if he became an apprentice, it would be years before he could truly support his family. And what if he didn’t pass the test? How could they keep their house, feed themselves?

  He glanced back to where the beggar had sat crouched against the wall. But he was gone.

  Still, Renzo knew the silent, creeping dread that Mama must have been feeling.

  There but for the grace of God went they.

  13.

  The Shape of Fear

  It is possible, Renzo found, to work through fear. You can push it down, hoard it deep inside you, and breathe it into the glass. You can watch the glass swell, grow bubble-thin and gossamer, and know that fear is making it lovely, fear is giving it shape.

  With glass, joy is the preferable medium. But fear is powerful, and it will do, when joy cannot be found.

  He and Letta worked on through the night, though Renzo knew there was far too little time and far too much to learn. The footed bowl, the long-stemmed goblet, the crested wine flask, the eared jug . . . You could spend years coming to know them. You must — to master them. But Renzo did not have years. He had five weeks.

  That first night, when the children had come out into the open, their green eyes had followed whatever he’d done, hardly changing in expression whether the glass shattered at the end of the blowpipe, or slumped to the floor, or formed itself into a perfect, symmetrical bowl.

  They made him clumsy, the children’s eyes. They made him think too much. Especially with the birds watching too — though, true to Letta’s word, they stayed perched on the children’s shoulders as if fastened there.

  By the next night, he had managed mostly to forget them. He breathed his fear into t
he glass, and when he looked up, he saw the children curled in a heap together, sleeping like kittens. The cough had swept through them, erupting here and there. But the new coughs didn’t sound so dire as the old ones. Even the marsh boy’s cough had abated, though he still seemed listless, his cheeks aflame.

  The marsh boy. That was how Renzo thought of him. He didn’t want to know the boy’s true name. He didn’t want to know any of their names. He didn’t want to care about them.

  After a few more nights, as the children grew accustomed to warmth and food, they began to stir and move about. The two older boys handed off their birds and began performing acrobatic tricks to amuse the others —cartwheeling across the floor, or somersaulting one over the other, or the younger one standing on the older one’s shoulders and summoning his crow. Renzo cast a worried eye toward the crates and racks of finished glass; Letta barked out an order, and the two boys moved away. Still, there were stubbed toes and bloody feet, pricked by stray bits of shattered glass. There were skinned knees and barked shins. Once, the little light-haired girl shot out of the group and was nearly to the furnace before Taddeo’s long arm reached out to snag her and pull her back.

  Where you find children, Renzo observed, you will also find mud and mucus, vomit and blood. They wet themselves; they poke their fingers where they don’t belong; they babble; they shriek; they cry.

  And through it all the birds stayed close — though they sometimes strayed from shoulders to perch on heads, on wrists, on knees. Birds pecked at cheeks and at strands of hair, they stretched their wings, they scratched their heads, they fluffed out their feathers and napped. Truly, they didn’t seem forced to stay put but seemed somehow, mysteriously, willing.

  Only once did a bird interfere with Renzo’s work —when the magpie fluttered overhead and let fly a dropping that sizzled on the hot glass and burst into flame. Renzo cracked the vessel off the blowpipe, flung it into the pail. “Where are these children’s parents?” he demanded. Then bit his tongue. Did he really want to know?