William Bell - Fanatics

“You can’t. You know you can’t,” she had said. She had been desperate and terrified, but she had uttered those words with something like confidence. What prohibition would someone like Savonarola recognize, no matter how much he thought Raphaella deserved to be burned alive? I could think of only one. It was an unbreakable rule that had applied through the ages to condemned witches and female prisoners bound for execution. As an ordained priest, Savonarola had been obliged to follow it.

“You persuaded him not to kill you,” I said.

Raphaella nodded. Her eyebrows rose.

The library was silent for a moment.

“Is it true?” I asked.

“He would have known if I’d been lying.”

I felt the world shift under me.

Raphaella smiled tentatively. “So what do you think?”

“I think that next to you, this is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Her smile widened. “I knew you’d say that.”

She came and sat on my lap and snuggled close, her head under my chin.

“Well, we’re all set, aren’t we?” she said. “We have no money, no place to live, and a baby girl on the way.”

I didn’t ask how she knew it was a girl.

THE NEXT MORNING, still reeling a little from the events and the news of the previous day, I walked downtown, planning to have a coffee at the Half Moon and then drop in at the Demeter and see Raphaella.

She and I were entering a new phase of our life sooner than we had planned. People we knew would soon be abuzz with gossip. Critics would tsk and complain that we were too young and irresponsible. Children bringing up a child, they’d declare. Ruining their future. I didn’t care what uncharitable opinions they’d spit out. Raphaella was my future.

“What happened to your face?” Marco asked when I sat down at the end of the coffee bar near the kitchen.

“It’s a long story.”

He nodded. “Understood. A latte, then?”

“A macchiato today, please, Marco.”

He smirked. “I see the Corbizzi family’s having an effect on you.”

I drank the coffee, chatting with Marco as he made a mini-pizza from scratch. Who ordered a pizza at 9:30 in the morning? I wondered as he repeatedly tossed the dough into the air, spinning it into shape.

“Hear about that business over at Geneva Park a while ago?” he asked.

I fibbed. I was getting tired of pretending, but the cops had made the publication ban clear. “I don’t think so.”

“ ’Parently some guy went berserk with a rake or shovel or something. Started wailing on a guy he didn’t even know. They hauled him away in a straitjacket.”

“Oh, yeah. I think I remember now,” I replied.

Marco’s remarks proved the cops’ and spies’ disinformation campaign was working. Now I knew why I had never been asked to make a formal statement the day I met with the three inspectors. My fight with the leader of the Severn Ten-Eleven-had never happened.

“Prob’ly a disgruntled employee like you hear about on TV all the time. He was with an outfit that took care of the lawns and flowers. That’s what you get for hiring outsiders,” Marco concluded, crumbling mozzarella over the pizza. He was always put out if people from outside the community were contracted.

“I heard they took him straight to the loony bin at Penetang. They say he escaped from there six months ago and was living in the woods.”

Orillia. Where a story was never accurate for long. I couldn’t resist.

“Must have been hard landing a job with a landscaping company from outside of town if he had been living in the trees.”

Marco grunted his agreement, then used a wooden paddle to slide the pizza into the oven.

I said goodbye and left the cafe, heading for Peter Street and the Demeter. I was surprised to find Mrs. Skye behind the counter. Raphaella was supposed to be on duty. Mrs. Skye was ringing up a sale, placing jars of vitamins and supplements into the customer’s environmentally friendly shopping bag.

After the vitamin lady had shuffled out the door, Mrs. Skye leaned back on her prescription table, arms crossed on her chest, scrutinizing me.

“Raphaella will be in later,” she volunteered. “She wanted to sleep in today.”

Did Mrs. Skye know? I wondered, searching her face for clues. She must have read my mind.

“Somehow,” she drawled, but without the usual edge in her voice, “I don’t see you as a father.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll both have to get used to the idea.”

Then, like a miser handing over his last penny, she said, “I suppose Raphaella could have done worse.”

“I love her, Mrs. Skye. I’m not going to apologize for that. To anybody. And I’m proud we’re going to have a baby. And I’m glad it’s a girl.”

A single tear trickled down the edge of her nose and onto her upper lip. Her face softened. This is what she looks like when she’s not mad at the world, I thought. Then I realized something.

“It was you.”

She swiped the tear away with the back of her hand. “What? What was me?”

“In the hospital,” I said, hardly able to believe it. “I did see you.”

She shrugged. “They weren’t treating your contusions properly. All those drugs they gave you, but no simple healing salve. Typical of the medical establishment.”

I felt a grin creep across my face. “Raphaella was right. You are warming up to me.”

“By slow degrees,” she said.

BETWEEN THE MANSION and the lake, the leaves on the outer edges of the trees showed a tinge of colour-red for the maples and yellow for the willows. The air was crisp and clear, the way it is only in autumn, and the lake glowed its characteristic green under a perfect blue sky. In a few weeks, leaves would be drifting down like multicoloured snow.

Starting today I was the caretaker of the Corbizzi mansion until it was sold in the spring. Mrs. Stoppini had instructed her lawyer to piece off the coach house and a bit of ground, and to maintain both a right of way down the lane and a narrow strip giving access to the lake. My lease was extendable after the three years were up, with an option to buy if I wished-and if I ever had the money.

I was looking out the shop window across the yard to the place on the shore where I had found the GPS. Chief’s Island was a dark green brushstroke in the distance. Behind me, in the light of the window, Raphaella sat in a lawnchair reading a book with lots of health-food advice for expectant mothers. Nearby, next to the spray booth, rested the second of the three pieces commissioned by Liz and Derek-the smaller of the two dressers-ready to be stained. The design for the bigger chest of drawers lay on my drafting table. Derek had kept his promise. He had been happy enough with the bookcase that he had recommended me to some friends, and I had a few new orders already.

My cell rang. I turned to see Raphaella earmark her page and take the call. She nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Stoppini,” she said, and disconnected. “The airport limo will arrive in approximately twenty-two minutes,” she announced in an uncannily Mrs. Stoppini-like voice.

“Duly noted, Miss Skye.”

All day Mrs. Stoppini had been giving us regular-and totally unnecessary-progress reports. She had called to declare that she had finished loading her steamer trunk. That the padlock had been locked. That the suitcases were packed and ready. That all of the windows in the house were closed and secured.

Raphaella and I crossed the patio and joined Mrs. Stoppini in the kitchen. Her trunk and bags stood ready by the door. She insisted on wearing her long shapeless coat and her hat-a beret-type thing that drooped over one ear-while she waited, as sharp-edged and angular as ever. Her lipstick had been applied over an even wider area today.