Santorielli: Cadere Per Sempre

Something nags at me, its call was as a hook embedded into my very heart.

In less than a heartbeat, it did more than just that; it became a sickening wrench.

With one swift jerk, the darkness parts and whiteness explodes in an infinite field before my eyes. Then, it too dissolved and darkness descended again. Only, this was a darkness that would give way to light, so that I could see the two others beside me.

Three, if I counted the man sprawled before me––there was something wrong with his posture, though I can only see his two feet clearly at the moment. Small wonder, they were pointing straight at me.

I take a step back, and something squishes under the hard heel of my shoe.

I look down, and I fall to my knees, my stomach flipping and clenching as I become violently sick. Empty eyes from the severed head stare glassily back at me.

"What? No more bravado?" Amused laughter from the red-haired demon by my side.

For the third time, my vision darkens.

The blinding whiteness soon followed.

Chapter IX - Shadows of the Past

"Buongiorno, Mycaelis."

A rough tongue lapped at his cheek, and the weight on his chest and abdomen shifted abruptly. Something warm and sheathed in fur nudged inquisitively at the hand that was not lying across his hips, even as something cold and wet glided over his forehead.

It was the cold water dripping uncomfortably down into his ears that finally made Mycaelis open his eyes and try to sit up despite the pounding headache that threatened to fragment his skull. Needless to say, he immediately regretted that move.

"Too bright... My eyes!" Mycaelis groaned weakly from behind the hands he held covering his face. His headache seemed to thrive on the glaring sunlight, though.

A long-suffering sigh came from someone on Mycaelis' right side and a firm hand pushed him back on his back even as the wet towel was plucked off his forehead. "Lie down and stop moving. I think you hit your head hard, though not hard enough to break it."

Too disoriented and dazed to conceive of doing other than what that familiar voice said, Mycaelis only laid back down and tried to will the dull throb in his head away, before commenting blackly, "You sound disappointed, Cardello."

As he was tentatively lying down again, he noticed that there were pieces of paper scattered all over the floor––what he could see of them that the cats were not blocking, that is. There seemed to be wet spots on not a few of them.

"It was only an honest observation, Myca. As for the brightness, it's late morning and I drew the curtains." There were brief sounds of furniture being rearranged before Riccardo returned to his side, both hands now empty though damp.

Mycaelis grasped the hand Riccardo offered and let himself be helped up slowly by his long-time friend. Everytime Mycaelis winced, Riccardo would mutter an apology under his breath, moving again only when whatever was ailing Mycaelis seemed to pass. All through the ludicrously slow process, there had only been patience in Riccardo's dark brown eyes.

After Riccardo put away the large jug he had used to bring water––rather clumsily,––to Mycaelis' side to revive him, he had commenced in picking up all the pieces of paper he had dropped when he had walked in on Mycaelis lying unconscious on the wooden floor. Mycaelis, on the other hand, only padded around his room to change and clean himself up before someone else decided to come looking for him.

Idly stroking the fur of a small white cat that was curled in a ball in his lap, Riccardo quipped rather abruptly, "So, when did you hit your head? It looked as if you had been lying there for a while, the way you were dressed in yesterday's clothes."

The question made Mycaelis stop short in what he had been doing––straightening the fresh tunic he had pulled on. "The first time I came back to sleep, of cour––"

A frown marred his brow when he really thought about what he was saying. The... first time? You were here the entire time, were you not? The more he thought about it, the more uncertain he became. That nightmare––that one with the severed head, yes,––is just that: a nightmare! Stop letting it bother you so much.

Riccardo only gave him a quizzical look, but did nothing to press Mycaelis further regarding what he had said. That look told him, however, that it only meant that Riccardo was giving him time to think up a good answer before he would ask again.

As late as Mycaelis was, most of the castrati, both young and old, were still in the food hall, as boisterous as the majority of them had always been. Without much effort, the both of them found the others at a end of the long table.

And not a moment too soon, it seemed, because Santini was already on his feet, ready to leave the others in favour of demanding to know where Mycaelis had been. That prospect did not daunt Mycaelis much, but when the questions did come, different from what he had expected, he could only reply with confused looks.

With Guido following Riccardo around, Tomas only chirped a greeting to Mycaelis, participating very seldom in the conversation that was already rattling on between the other three.

"Where were you last night, Santo?" With the other glowering at him, Mycaelis could not decide if the jealousy threaded through Santini's immediate question was feigned or genuine. Of course, he answered with the only reply he had, "In my room."

Guido mewed petulantly when Riccardo stopped stroking it to confirm what Mycaelis had said, though he never took his eyes off the sheets of music he had been poring over. That familiar concern flashed through Tomas' turquoise eyes and his attention was momentarily diverted from Guido, "You found him under a what in his room?!"

"Under an overturned table. I found him just now. There's a lump at the back of his thick skull."

Santini looked at Riccardo rather sceptically, "He was not there last night. I know because I went looking for him."

Vittorio nodded his head, interjecting after swallowing a mouthful of bread and cheese, "Myca, you know I never agree with Santini, but I was there with him last night––"

Their heated conversation was interrupted by two of the older and more boorish castrati slamming a plate of fruit before Vittorio, exclaiming heartily, "Congratulations on beating that preening peacock yesterday, Vittorio!"

They then staggered away, laughing uproariously for no apparent reason. Apparently, it was meant as some sort of acknowledgement of something Vittorio had done. Judging by the murderous look Vittorio aimed at their retreating backs, it was not something he wanted declared to the world.

"Care to tell us what that was ab––" Riccardo started, before Vittorio snarled rather viciously, "Keep quiet, Cardello."

Noting the looks he was garnering from Mycaelis and Tomas, he went on in a relatively gentle voice––which Riccardo seemed to find amusing,––"The damned table was there, like Cardello said just now. Overturned."

His piercing green eyes settled on Mycaelis, "You weren't there, though."

"Maybe he fell, remembered something urgent he had to do, and got up again." Riccardo sounded utterly serious, until he continued, "And when he got back to his room, he just arranged the furniture by his bed so he could fall again and wake up in the same position."

That last made Vittorio snicker, though it had seemed to offend Santini a little. As usual, Riccardo's unexpected sarcasm seemed to Santini as if it were for mocking his intelligence with. Tomas merely frowned, but kept his comments to himself.

Bizarrely, though, Mycaelis did not find it funny at all. Something nagged at him...

Heavy footfalls announced the presence of one of the teachers––the one that seemed more concerned with Mycaelis than the others,––coming their way. Tomas seemed about to greet the old man, but the disdainful look he cast their way made him wilt a little.

"Santorielli. A private moment with you, please."

Trading a baffled look for exasperated ones with his friends, Mycaelis nodded and followed the old man out of the eating hall. It was beside a wide window that his teacher gave him a thin letter wordlessly. Mycaelis spared him a glance, expecting him to explain what this was about, but only broke the seal on the letter when no explanation was forthcoming.

Halfway through the letter, his vision started to blur. The closely packed letters seemed to crawl all over the page like an army of agitated ants, defying that he make any sense out of it.

Head still reeling, the numbness in his chest still spreading slowly, Mycaelis could not move except to let his arm drop back by his side, the letter still held between two fingers.

The tenseness in his shoulders and spine seem to have seeped into his speech as well, "When did you get this?"

His mind only screamed, why now? as the words from the letter echoed in his head: consumption has taken two of your brothers and your father.

"It does not matter when I got this. What matters is what you do about it." If the hand the old man had put on his shouder was meant to comfort him, it failed horribly. "Who is going to take care of your mother? Your remaining brothers and sisters?"

The old man had to look up at Mycaelis because of his unnatural height––what the lost of their manhood did to them! "Fortunately, you have so many people to turn to for sound advice here."

"What would you have me do?" Mycaelis found that he could nothing but murmur hollowly. The first hints of faraway suspicion started to blood into ugly blossoms when the teacher replied all too eagerly, "Your singing, Mycaelis! With a patron, what you have now would be as a mere pittance!"

His lips worked ineffectually for a few seconds, before Mycaelis could finally work out of his dry mouth, "Go to Florence to earn my fortunes, then?"

"Sì! I see that you understand now, Mycaelis, that you have thought about it all. You would be fulfilling your duty to your own family, a son grateful for the chance he had been given."

Alight with anger was the only way one could describe the way his light brown eyes flared; "Leave Rome, a perfectly suitable city for what we do. Leave Rome for Florence? Leave the only home I have, to repay the people who had sold me as if I were cattle?"

His teacher's voice hardened, "Did you think you would have made it this far if you remained in that little farm of yours?"

Too angry to care that he was acting rather rudely, Mycaelis knocked his teacher's hand off his shoulder. His feet took him a step forwards threateningly, almost of their own accord, "I was unwilling! I was too old! I knew what was going to be done to me. Can you say that you knew the same, maestro?"

For a moment, it seemed as if his teacher would do nothing but glare at him with wide eyes from a white face. But then, his voice came in a guttural growl, just as he struck Mycaelis hard across the face with a closed fist, "I am your teacher! You will not speak to me in that manner!"

Mycaelis did not bother to hold himself upright after that blow. The furious torrent of words ceased, he crumpled to the floor, a dry sob escaping his throat. With the retreating footsteps of his teacher came the parting shot, as subdued as it sounded, "Think about it, Santorielli. If not for the family you seem so resentful of, then for yourself."

He did not know how long he had been sitting there, just staring through angry tears that he would not allow himself to shed. Nevertheless, their voices seemed to have been raised enough during the argument that it had attracted the attention of others. Muted condolences were what some offered, while a handful of others only smirked and pranced past him. No few merely gave him their resigned smiles.

A shadow fell over him, and he prepared to ignore this person as well, until it became apparent that it was Vittorio, "Myca... I overheard. I– I'm sorry about your family." As stiff and awkward as it was, it was sufficient. It was sincere.

Mycaelis crumpled the letter in his left hand, before grasping ahold of Vittorio's hand, his lips forced into a half-smile, "No, there is no need to be sorry. My family is here; with you, Riccardo, and Tomas. Even Santini."