“And you really want to live with that slob?” Aggripina, the three-legged Siamese, set an emphatic paw on Jenny’s knee. “He used you. He didn’t treat you with respect. Surely, you want better for yourself?”
Jenny sighed. Aggripina considered herself a fount of advice for the lovelorn. Sharing a house with her was like living with Ann Landers.
“I love Carl,” Jenny said firmly.
“Save your love for those who are capable of returning it,” the Siamese retorted.
“Carl loved me in his way.”
“If you can call something that makes you feel ugly and undesirable love.”
“That’s not just Carl,” Jenny said. “It’s fashion magazines and television and movies and rock videos. It’s all around us. You can’t get away from it.”
“You’re away from it here.”
“I’m hiding.”
“You’re healing,” the Siamese corrected her. “You need to see yourself as we see you.”
Jenny snorted. “As one who cleans up carrion?”
Ruffino gazed up at her adoringly. “You are quite neat,” he said. “You’re also kind and resourceful and you have the gift of making a home welcoming.”
“Definitely a Boy Scout,” Jenny muttered. “You left out loyal and obedient.”
“You are gentle and respectful with creatures smaller than yourself,” the Siamese added. “And though you’re hurting, you act with honesty, humor, and resilience. All these things we find beautiful, Jenny Myford.”
Jenny smiled reluctantly. “I find you pretty beautiful, too.” It was true. The elderly, amputee Siamese would never win a prize at a cat show, but Jenny had thought her lovely from the start.
Aggripina purred and rubbed against her. “Naturalamente. Was there ever any question?”
Jenny let it drop. It was sweet that the cats saw her in all her absurd weaknesses and loved her anyway, but their love couldn’t replace what she’d lost. She fell asleep each night surrounded by warm, purring bodies, and yet woke each morning sure that she was in Carl’s arms and grief-stricken when she realized that she wasn’t. And never would be again.
Each morning, Jenny began her day by gathering wildflowers along the banks of the stream. She’d make her way back to the village, stopping on the bridge to add flowers to those at the shrine. To her surprise, she’d become fond of the statue with the downcast eyes and gentle smile. Never quite sure if it was supposed to be the Madonna herself or one of the innumerable female saints, Jenny began to think of it as the Lady. She’d realized the first time she saw it in daylight that the statue was quite old and badly damaged. The Lady stood with her right hand palm up, in the traditional gesture of blessing. But her left hand, which should have lain flat against her blue robes, was missing, as was the entire lower left of the statue. It was as if someone had bitten a chunk out of it, leaving rough, yellowed plaster where there should have been robes as blue as the heavens. Jenny couldn’t help it, she felt a kinship with the broken statue, and so it seemed the least she could do was open the glass case and add a few stems of flowers to the vase.
It was at the shrine that Sasha appeared again. One day as Jenny opened the glass case, she heard something more than the murmuring of the stream behind her. She turned to see Sasha emerging from the stream, naked as a wood nymph, water streaming from her bright hair. With a model’s confident grace, Sasha pivoted on the grassy bank and faced Jenny straight on. For a long moment she stood absolutely still, letting Jenny have a good look at the high round breasts, the narrow waist and flat stomach, the long, ivory thighs and calf muscles so clearly defined they seemed faceted. She wore only the duke’s gold pendant.
Sasha’s lips didn’t move, but Jenny could swear she heard the throaty, taunting voice: “You see, Jenny, this is what beauty looks like.”
Jenny felt herself begin to shake. She didn’t know if the Sasha who stood in front of her was real, but she hated her. Hated her for being so beautiful. Hated her for walking into her life and taking Carl. Hated Carl for being dumb enough to fall for her. Hated herself for looking at Sasha’s perfect body and feeling humiliated by her own. Jenny sent the Lady a guilty glance; she’d never actually hated before.
Sasha took a step closer to the bridge, pale pink toes on bright green grass.
“Y-You shouldn’t be here,” Jenny stammered, surprised to hear herself speak.
Sasha wasn’t looking at Jenny now. She was smiling at the Lady, and Jenny had the oddest sensation that it was the statue, not herself, whom Sasha had come for. Quickly, Jenny turned and closed the glass case, then turned to confront the apparition.
Whether she was real or imaginary, Jenny had to ask: “What do you want? You’ve already got Carl.”
Again, Sasha’s mouth didn’t move, but Jenny heard her voice clearly. “You and I are alike, Jenny.”
“No,” Jenny said. “We are nothing—”
Sasha held up the gold pendant edged with pearls. “L’amour dure sans fin. You will always love him, won’t you, Jenny-o? For eternity.”
The use of Carl’s name for her made Jenny see a haze of bright red. Not even knowing what she was doing, she stooped down, grabbed a fist-sized rock, drew her arm back — and stopped as Leandro, a young charcoal-gray tom, bounded past her, across the bridge, racing toward the apparition.
Sasha stepped back into the waters of the stream. “A piu tardi,” she promised. See you later.
The charcoal torn came to an abrupt halt and started to shake. Sasha was gone, as if she’d never been.
Jenny knelt beside the cat and ran her hand along his quivering side. A cold bead of fear slid through her. “We’re both seeing things,” she murmured. “I’ve become seriously unhinged from my own life, and now it’s even affecting you.” She looked up at the statue in the glass case. “I have to get back to the States, to my own life,” she told the Lady. “Where I won’t see visions of Sasha.”
Jenny returned to the house shaken but resolved. She’d leave San Martino tomorrow. That would give her the day to say good-bye to the cats and wash her clothes before setting off. Marieangela, taking pity on Jenny’s one outfit, had lent a few of her own dresses to wear. Although they were all several sizes too big, Jenny had found them comfortable and somehow comforting. But now that she was leaving, it seemed essential that she go in her own clothes. So that afternoon, accompanied by Olivero and the tuxedo cat, she took her clothes and the bar of lemon soap down to the edge of the stream.
The afternoon light was odd, overcast yet glaring, and the branches of the trees that edged the water kept going slightly out of focus.
Jenny set to rubbing her jeans with the soap and swirling them in the icy water. Beside her, the black and white began washing Olivero’s ears.
She’d just wrung out her jeans and laid them on the bank to dry when she heard a low, dangerous rumbling sound that seemed to rise out of the earth. It wasn’t a tremor, she realized. The two cats were no longer contentedly grooming themselves. They were on their feet, ears flat, backs arched high, fur bristling; the sound she heard was their growling.
She followed their gaze across the stream to the source of the threat. In the cemetery a tall, slender woman, her pale hair braided and circling her head like a crown, moved among the plots, lightly touching each gravestone. She wore a long midnight-blue velvet gown. The neckline was cut straight across the breast bone, the bodice fitted close, the waist belted with a chain of sapphires. A round golden pendant edged with pearls hung from her neck.
“Hsssssstrega,” the black and white hissed.