A Hidden Fire Read online

  Beatrice gestured to the line of food vendors. “I’m sorry we didn’t wait for you. We ate earlier, but there are plenty of things to choose from. Please help yourself; we can wait.”

  He shook his head, “No, I’ve eaten as well, thank you. Shall we go to look at the art?”

  “Ofrendas, Mariposa. Ofrendas first,” Isadora said with a smile as she took Giovanni’s arm and steered them toward a small building.

  “Do you know much about Dia de los Muertos?” Beatrice asked as they walked.

  He shook his head. “Not much. I haven’t spent a great deal of time in Latin America.” He knew plenty, of course, but he preferred to hear her explanation.

  “It’s not usually celebrated until November second, but the art center hosts a family fair on Halloween so parents have an option other than trick-or-treating for the kids.” Beatrice smiled at a pair of small children in skeleton costumes with flowers in their hair as they rushed past on the way to the carnival games.

  He observed their small, retreating forms. “It certainly seems popular.”

  “It is. It used to be just Mexican families, but now a lot of people like the tradition.”

  “And the ofrendas?”

  Beatrice smiled. “Just little offerings for the dead. Things they liked during their life, you know?”

  They walked inside the small building to see a makeshift altar set up and decorated with marigolds, crosses, and cheerful skeletons. Small candles flickered among them. Sugar skulls were mixed with small toys and placed in front of children’s pictures; bottles of tequila, mugs of chocolate, and small plates of food were propped in front of the pictures of adults.

  The small room was decorated elaborately, and the walls were lined with pieces of art celebrating the holiday. The flickering lights of saint candles lit the room as they sputtered in their brightly painted votives, and he could smell incense burning.

  “The art is a mix of professional and student,” Beatrice murmured, withdrawing two framed photographs from the messenger bag that hung on her arm, along with a small bottle of expensive tequila.

  Isadora had left them to chat with some women at the end of the altar but soon walked back to Beatrice with a smile.

  “Las photos, Beatrice?”

  “Si, abuelita,” she said, and handed Isadora the two small frames. They walked to the end of the altar where a few other families were setting up pictures and ofrendas.

  Isadora placed the two pictures on the altar and touched their frames. Giovanni spied an older man who must have been the grandfather in one picture. The younger man in the other photograph so closely resembled Beatrice, he had little doubt it was her father. Stephen De Novo stared out of the photograph with the same dark eyes that the young woman had.

  Giovanni wondered whether Stephen’s eyes had changed color when he turned, as sometimes happened. Oddly enough, he found himself hoping they hadn’t.

  He tried to examine Beatrice’s expression as she unwrapped the tamales and placed them on small plates in front of the two pictures, but her dark hair curtained her face and obscured her features. She placed the bottle of tequila between the two pictures, tilting them as if they could keep each other company on the crowded altar.

  The women stepped back to examine the effect, whispering to each other in Spanish but smiling and laughing as well. He cocked his head and looked around the room.

  Though it was filled with symbols and depictions of the dead, there was no fear and very little sorrow. It was unusual to find such celebration in the name of loss, and he found himself touched by the demeanor of the partygoers.

  Beatrice was smiling when she turned, and he saw Isadora wander toward a group of older women, nodding at him as she walked away.

  “Do you want to walk outside? There’s some music playing,” she asked. “I imagine she’ll chat with her buddies for a while, then come join us. I have to get out of the incense.” She waved her hand in front of her nose and laughed.

  He had hardly noticed the heavy smell until she mentioned it. He was so accustomed to filtering out the various and sundry smells of life around him that he did it automatically. He realized he probably hadn’t been breathing at all in the close environment of the crowded room.

  “Of course,” he said, gesturing to the doors. He placed his hand on the small of her back to lead her through the people streaming into the building. When they exited, he stepped away, suddenly aware of her body from the press of the crowd.

  “Was that your father and grandfather?”

  She nodded. “My grandparents raised me after my father was killed. We all lived together anyway. My mom’s MIA. Dad worked a lot and traveled, so my grandparents took care of me.”

  “When did your grandfather pass away?” he asked, careful to keep up the ruse of an unknowing companion.

  “Two years ago.” She smiled wistfully. “He had heart problems.”

  “What happened to your father?” He paused for effect. “Unless that’s too personal, of course. I don’t mean to intrude.”

  They lingered in front of a guitarist who was playing a children’s song for a small group. Beatrice shook her head, frowning a little.

  “It’s fine,” she said quietly. “Random violence happens everywhere, I guess, even picturesque Italian cities. He was in Florence for a lecture series and was robbed. His car was taken and he was killed. I’m sure they didn’t want him to identify them. And he would have. He had an almost photographic memory.”

  Yes, I imagine it’s even better now.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Beatrice.”

  She turned to him, amusement evident in her face. “Why do you insist on using my name like that?”

  He stepped closer. “Like what?”

  She flushed, but didn’t back away from him. He noticed her body was already reacting to his proximity. The hairs on her arms were drawn toward his energy and goose-bumps pricked her skin. He wondered what would happen if he reached out ran a hand along the smooth skin of her forearm. He could almost imagine the soft feel of it under his fingertips.

  “You know…with the accent.” Her eyebrows drew together. “And the old-fashioned manners. And what’s with the grandmother-charming?” She glanced at him before looking back toward the guitarist. “Are you trying to charm me, too?”

  A slow smile spread across his face. “Are you charmed, Beatrice?” he asked, letting her name roll of his tongue. “I don’t think you are.”

  Ignoring his own reaction and reminding himself of his objective, he took a deliberate step back and slipped his hands in his pockets, nodding toward another musician at the end of the parking lot.

  “Shall we?”

  She followed where his eyes led and they stepped back into the flow of people.

  “Your personality is too large for one letter, Beatrice. And, for the record, I don’t think anyone charms your grandmother. She does all the charming necessary.”

  She laughed, her head falling back as her eyes lit in amusement.

  Giovanni stopped for a second, entranced by the clear, joyful sound. He stared at her, drawn to her dark eyes. He stepped toward her a fraction too quickly, but the girl was lost in her own amusement and didn’t notice.

  “Yeah, Gio. My grandmother got all the charm in the De Novo family. She’s got it in spades, my grandfather used to say,” she replied, still chuckling.

  Not all of it.

  “Gio?” he asked, amused she had chosen the name only his closest friends called him.

  “Well,” she shrugged, “you don’t look like a ‘Gianni’ to me, so…yeah, ‘Gio.’ If you’re going to call me Beatrice, I’m going to call you Gio.”

  He stopped in the middle of the crowd, staring at her until she halted and turned back to look at him.

  “What?” she asked, and her forehead wrinkled in confusion.

  The people flowed around her, the seemingly endless, monotonous stream of humanity he had lived among for five hundred years. But she stood, dressed
in black, her fair skin flushed with life and her brown eyes lit with a kind of intelligence, curiosity, and humor that set her apart. For a moment, he allowed himself to forget his interest in her father and enjoy the unexpected pleasure of her company.

  She was bold and shy, formal and friendly. She was young, he realized, and innocent in a way he could hardly remember, yet her short life seemed to have been shaped by loss and abandonment. She was, surprisingly, rather fascinating.

  “Inexplicable,” he muttered under his breath, and walked toward her in the crowd.

  He hadn’t realized she heard him, but her eyebrows lifted in amusement.

  “Nothing’s inexplicable. Just not explained yet.” She smirked at him in the noisy mass of people, and he let his green eyes linger on her face for a brief moment before they kept walking through the fair.

  “Perhaps, Beatrice. Perhaps you may be right.”

  Chapter Four

  Houston, Texas

  November 2003

  “Why do you dye your hair black?”

  Beatrice looked up from the computer screen to see Giovanni staring at her again from his seat in the reading room.

  “What?”

  “It must be dark brown anyway; why do you dye it black?” he asked again, his eyes narrowed intently on her face.

  She wanted to laugh at his confused expression but kept a straight face as she answered, “Because it’s almost black, but not quite.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She looked at him over the reference desk, a small smile flirting at the corner of her mouth. “I just felt like it hadn’t really committed to a color, Gio. I don’t do things half-assed. I don’t want my hair to, either.”

  He set his pencil down and leaned back in his chair. “So, you’re saying you dye your hair because you think it’s…lazy?”

  He cocked his head in amusement.

  She shrugged. “Not lazy, more indecisive.”

  He smiled. “You realize that makes no sense, of course. Your hair color is determined by your genetic make-up and has no reflection on your personality or work ethic.”

  She glared at Giovanni playfully before sticking her tongue out at him.

  He looked at her in astonishment for a moment before he burst into laughter. She was startled by the unfamiliar, but not unwelcome, sound and joined him before she looked at the clock on the wall. It was already ten to nine.

  Still chuckling, she said, “All right, hand over the book. I’ve got to lock up.”

  He smiled at her and began to pack the manuscript for storage. She walked over, picked it up, and began her nightly closing ritual.

  In the weeks since he’d joined her and her grandmother at the festival, Giovanni had become surprisingly friendly. She found him lingering around the student union on random nights of the week, holding cups of coffee he never drank and wandering through the student-study area in the library. He made a point of chatting with her, but she found his intentions as puzzling as his profession.

  She had searched his name online, and though she found a myriad of rare books and antiquities dealers, his name never appeared. She found a copy of his business card with Charlotte Martin’s notes, but the only contact information on it was a phone number she was reluctant to call, though she did program it into her phone.

  When she asked her grandmother about the intriguing bookseller, she was shrugged off.

  “It’s like he’s from another planet, Grandma.”

  “He’s old-fashioned…and European. Maybe he just doesn’t advertise online. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “But not even a public telephone listing for his business? Not a single mention? It just seems odd.” She sat at the breakfast table, drinking coffee and watching her grandmother start the chili verde for dinner that night.

  “Do you feel unsafe with him?” Isadora turned to her, a look of concern evident on her face. “You’re alone with him in that reading room for hours every week. I won’t have you feeling unsafe.”

  Beatrice shook her head. “No, it’s not that. There’s just something…”

  Isadora turned back to the stove. “You’re creating a mystery where there is none, Mariposa. I think he’s a nice man. Just old-fashioned.” Her grandmother fell silent, and from her expression, Beatrice could tell she was reliving some of the dark times that had marked her granddaughter’s teenage years. Not wanting her grandmother to worry about her strange fascination, Beatrice attempted to lighten the mood.

  “Do you know he doesn’t even have a mobile phone? Can you imagine?”

  “Really?” Isadora may have not been as fond of technology as her granddaughter was, but she’d jumped at the chance to have a mobile phone when she realized she could talk with her circle of friends almost nonstop.

  “Nope. I’ve never seen him with one. Come to think of it, he doesn’t have a laptop, either.” She frowned again. “And what researcher doesn’t have a laptop these days? It’s just odd.”

  Her grandmother laughed. “Maybe he’s allergic to technology, mija.”

  In the weeks that followed, Dr. Giovanni Vecchio became a small obsession to her.

  He was rich, she determined, after noticing a silver-haired man hold open the back door of a Mercedes sedan for him on more than one occasion when they left the library. Giovanni had taken to walking her to her small, hand-me-down Civic some evenings when she got off of work, most often to continue a conversation they were in the middle of. He’d also tried to convince her that a brisk walk down five flights of stairs was the key to good health. She sometimes joined him and sometimes simply waited near the elevators. He was an unusually fast walker.

  She also determined he was in his early thirties. He looked younger but had casually mentioned too many foreign universities for her to think he had seen them all in less than that.

  What bothered her the most was that something about his appearance stirred memories of a time in her life she had tried very hard to forget, and reminded her of a face she had relegated to the back of her mind. She’d tried for years to put that dark chapter of her teenage years behind her, but the more time she spent with the mysterious book dealer, the more thoughts and memories began to surface.

  He stood before her now, his soft smile and beautiful eyes the very picture of politeness. He was wearing a moss-green sweater that evening which made his eyes look both green and grey at once.

  “Can I walk you to your car?”

  She paused, and he must have been confused by the odd look on her face because he stepped away.

  “I…sorry, kind of lost in thought.” She smiled. “You know, thinking about my indecisive hair.” She closed her eyes and shook her head, embarrassed that she’d used thinking about her hair as an excuse for her quizzical expression.

  He frowned. “Did you want—”

  “Sure,” she continued. “I’d like the company. Just let me shut the computers down. Can you get the lights by the door?”

  He paused almost imperceptibly but turned to walk toward the doorway. As she waited to log out of the library’s system, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He slipped his hand into his messenger bag and pulled out a pencil to flick the lights off before he tucked it back in his bag. His movements were smooth and practiced, and if she hadn’t been observing him, she realized she never would have noticed.

  She forced herself to look back at the computer and stood up straight when she heard the electronic sigh that indicated the machine was off. Gathering her bag, Beatrice plastered a smile on her face and walked toward the doorway to meet him.

  “Join me on the stairs tonight?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so. My feet are killing me. Join me in the elevator?”

  He looked at her for a second, surprised by her question. She’d never asked him to join her before and was curious how he would respond.

  “No, thank you. You know me—I like the exercise.”

  She chuckled a little and smiled. “Right.”r />
  “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  He turned and loped toward the stairwell, his quick feet almost noiseless in the dim corridor. She muttered under her breath as she watched him.

  “Right…sure I know you.”

  She ran into him again two nights later while she was working on a paper for her Medieval Literature class. She’d just finished her paper on the role of illuminations in devotional manuscripts when she saw him watching her from the archway by the coffee shop. She caught a glimpse of his pale face and was immediately thrown back to a memory from the summer she turned fifteen.

  “Grandpa, I think I saw him again tonight, by the movie theater.”

  Her grandfather sat at his workbench in the garage, working on a small carving of a butterfly for his wife. He set his knife down and brushed off his gnarled hands, holding one out to her. She took it and came to stand next to him, her purple shirt brushing against the bench and picking up small shavings of wood she flicked away with pink-tinted nails.

  “Mariposa,” he squeezed her hand, “my butterfly girl, I see him too. I still see him sitting at the kitchen table in the mornings, or tinkering with me in the garage. The memories, they’re natural, mija. It’s normal to remember him that way.”

  She frowned and shook her head, unable or unwilling to share her growing fears with her down-to-earth grandfather. The dreams were getting worse, and it was becoming more difficult to spend time with her friends who only seemed to want to talk about boys, clothes, or the latest music. She looked up into her grandfather’s loving and concerned face.

  Hector de Nova had handled the loss of his son as well as could be expected, flying to Italy to return with a coffin he had been warned not to open. His deep sorrow had been subsumed by the need to care for his grief-stricken wife and granddaughter.

  “But he—he doesn’t look the same when I see him. He’s too thin, and his skin ... it’s not the way I remember.” She felt her heart begin to race. “Am I going crazy?”