Robert Masello - The Medusa Amulet

No, the marquis would not rest until it was back in his own safekeeping, and this time for good.

The plane hit a patch of turbulence, and the pilot came on to apologize. “Sorry, sir, but we may have to divert another hundred miles or so north.”

To the marquis, it felt as if Nature itself were trying to thwart him.

But then, to calm himself, he remembered the way David’s eyes had battened on the bust atop his mantel. Caterina, he was all but sure, lived on-and in the most unlikely place of all.

That the great, and only, true love of his own long life, could have been swimming beside him through the sea of time-and without his ever knowing it-was almost too much to bear. The thought of the years that they might have passed together, sharing this strange fate, tugged at his heart; but the prospect of amending it was enough to fill him with a purpose and hope he had not felt for centuries.

When he had first perfected La Medusa, crafting the mirror from such unholy stuff, he had never suspected the toll it might exact. He was a young man then, and what did he know of life? All he wanted was eternity… and it never occurred to him that eternity could be the loneliest destination of all. He could not have guessed what it would feel like to walk among mortal people, to form attachments and forge relationships, in the full knowledge that your friends and loved ones would wither and die before your eyes-if you lingered long enough to witness it-while you soldiered on. He remembered the many occasions he had seen puzzlement, then a kind of fear, gradually creep into his friends’ and lovers’ eyes, as they noted how time had continued to ravage them while sparing Sant’Angelo entirely. And he had known, on those occasions, that it was time yet again to move on, to start over, to begin the slow withdrawal of his affections. Burdened with a secret no one other than Ascanio could believe or understand, he had become a nomad among men, a traveler in the solitary regions of infinite time.

The flight attendant was at his elbow, asking if he would like something to eat or drink. He requested she bring him his customary hot chocolate.

The storm was battering at the plane, and the pilot was still trying to maneuver around it.

Sipping the soothing chocolate, he put his head back and stared out at the red lights flashing on the wing, and the blowing snow and sleet glazing the window. There was so much he missed, from open and honest love to the skills his hands had once possessed. The greatest artisan in the world. At one time, there was no one who could have challenged him for that distinction. His works had been the marvel of their day, and he had lived to see some of them-not many, but enough-endure. What he had not understood, however-and wasn’t that the way of all magic?-was the price.

Eternal life, but at the cost of his genius.

It might just as well have been buried in the basilica, along with the pauper who occupied his tomb to this day.

He had imagined himself creating miraculous works forever, refining his talents, perfecting his arts.

But that, he had learned, was not the way it worked.

Only Providence knew how long you had been allotted, and once you had exceeded that secret span, you lived on sufferance. You became a walking shadow of your former self, bereft of all the gifts that had made life sweet and fruitful and worth prizing in the first place.

Cellini, the cleverest man of his day, had been outwitted.

The plane, buffeted by another strong gust of wind, banked its wings, and the chocolate lapped into his saucer. The attendant, on unsteady feet herself, brought him a fresh cup and another linen napkin.

The artisan who had never made an untrue object in his life had been lured into a trap of his own design. With greater skill than even a Leonardo or Michelangelo, he had fashioned for himself a destiny with no purpose, no shape, and no end.

“Where is David?” Sarah murmured, as Gary took a seat beside her bed in the hospice. “I need to see David. Where is he?”

Gary wished he knew, and he wished he knew what to tell her. He had been waiting for his cell phone to ring any second, telling him that David had at least landed in Chicago. But so far, nothing. “Soon,” he said, for the hundredth time, “I’m sure he’ll be here very soon.” He’d even tried reaching him on the last cell-phone number David had called from, but he’d gotten a mysterious message, in Italian yet, saying that Dr. Jantzen was not available. Or at least that’s what he thought it had said.

He glanced out the window at the rock garden, with its ornamental pool-now frozen-and its white-barked birch trees. He could see the lighted windows on the other side, too, occupied no doubt by other dying patients. The late-afternoon light was even more attenuated by the cloudy skies and the oncoming storm. He was terrified that David’s flight-whichever one he was on-had been delayed by the weather.

Sarah’s eyes closed again, and her head twisted on the pillow. Gary wondered if he should call the nurse and get her some more painkillers. “What do you need?” he asked.

“My mouth,” she whispered. “It’s so dry.”

He reached into the plastic cup for a chip of ice and put it on her tongue. It seemed as if she didn’t have enough strength even to suck on it, and the chemo had left her with mouth sores that refused to heal. But when the ice was gone, he picked up the tube of Vaseline and gently rubbed some of it on her parched lips. Her eyes took on that faraway look again.

“Maybe I should make a meat loaf,” she said, in one of the typical non sequiturs brought on by the medications.

“That sounds good.”

“David always likes it.”

“So do I.”

“And chocolate pie for dessert,” she said. “It makes Emme so happy.”

Emme was home now, with her grandmother. She’d come by a few hours ago, but Sarah had been seized with a feverish bout of pain and nausea, and the scene had suddenly gotten so awful that Gary had had to take Emme out to the car and rock her in his arms until she was able to stop crying.

Much as he hated for that to be her last view of her mother, he wasn’t sure that there’d be time for her to come back again. He’d told his mom to put her to bed early and try to get her to go to sleep.

Gary hadn’t had more than three hours of sleep in a row for days.

But there was a faint smile on Sarah’s face now, which meant that she was probably imagining herself back in her own kitchen, preparing that meat-loaf dinner. Just as well, Gary thought. When she was conscious, she was fretful and wore herself out asking about David, or worrying about what should be done to help Emme through the trauma once she was gone. When the morphine was kicking in, she was off on a cloud, but untroubled.

Gary slumped back in the chair, yawning and scrubbing his face with his hands. Dreadful as it was to be there, at least this place wasn’t as dismal and antiseptic as the hospital. Each room was private, and done up in neutral colors, with indirect lighting and soft, soothing music. You weren’t even allowed to use your cell phones except in the main lounge area. That, plus the view of the outdoor garden, gave the hospice a peaceful, even comforting, atmosphere.

A flock of sparrows landed in the garden, pecking at the ground between the tufts of snow and ice. Gary picked up a piece of the dried toast from the meal tray that Sarah hadn’t touched, left the room, and went down and around the corridor. A door there opened directly into the garden, and he stepped outside.

The cold air was a shock, but a bracing one. He took a few steps on the little winding path that circled the fountain, and the birds nervously flitted up onto the branches of the birch trees. He tore the bread into tiny pieces and threw them on the ground.