Deborah Noyes - Plague in the Mirror

They come out into the open sunlight of a different piazza — long, rectangular, columned — surrounded by looming stone towers, some almost eighty feet high and shadowing wooden stalls, pavilions, carts, benches, merchant stands. The place looks like some kind of medieval movie set, full of men in red and blue and brown capes, women with wares laid out on their blankets, and girls with raw pink hands offering baskets of dewy pears and plums.

“Here is our market,” Cristofana says, her voice patiently instructive, like that of a teacher introducing a new student to the class, and then — abruptly, as she seems to do everything — she darts down a long, narrow side alley, hooks a few lefts, a few rights, and marches them right back to the site corresponding with the courtyard in Florence Present where a faint, chalky sideways 8 marks the base of the portal.

“Oh,” May says, blinking, almost disappointed. On the other hand, the queasiness and headache are starting to wear on her.

Cristofana stands very still a moment, lost in thought, the gaping, invisible doorway somewhere beyond her, May presumes. When they first approached from what she now realizes was the future, May’s present, the portal had felt more like an absence than a presence, a blank summoning.

“You remember,” Cristofana begins, again patiently, like an adult speaking to a panicked child, “I told you I flew a bird through this doorway, and out it flew again? I have also flown one bird out and, following after, captured another, like the first in aspect, to fly back the opposite way. The first, from my world, did not return. It remained in your Florence… many hundreds of years away….”

May can only shake her head. No.

“The second, from your world, built a nest in a tree outside my window, fully fleshed, feathered, and beaked. It was an even trade, you see. My studies cherish balance.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I beg your indulgence just once more. This time, bella, I will go through alone and take the portone with me, so that you do not blunder in after and lose us both in the wilds of time. Stay nearby. Let the market amuse you until I return.” She points. “It is that way.”

“Are you out of your mind ? You’re not seriously going to leave me here? In the freaking Middle Ages?”

“I won’t be a moment.” Again… that patient smile. “Forget yourself, bella, your pettiness and fear. Look around, and be humbled. There is a first for everything, for all great leaps of knowledge, and you are making history.”

Before May can cry out or leap forward, her double steps through the portale, reeling what looks like a mirror-sheet of fabric in behind her, erasing herself in a hot streak of black light.

At the same moment, May feels jolted, shocked by what can only be the return of her real form. What was a whisper becomes a roar. Sounds are amplified, distant cart wheels and hammering. Smells rush in — manure, river mud, cat piss, lavender. Her headache is instantly gone, along with the queasiness. Her blood feels like it’s humming in her veins, and for a moment, May turns and turns, trying to take in her own form, veering into walls, disoriented and jumpy. Things calm down, but it takes her body a moment to adjust to “normal,” return to itself. ( Unite with its soul? she wonders, incredulous. Their soul, hers and Cristofana’s. The same soul — now here and there at once.)

The panic is swift and intense as it dawns on May that she’s flesh, visible, vulnerable. Feeling trapped in the alley, she stumbles over loose cobbles or a curb, toppling forward, falling hard. The pain is searing and she knows there’s a cut on her leg, a big one, but she rights herself quickly, bolting onto a dirt cart road crowded with rooting pigs.

You can do this, she tells herself. It’s just like being out on your own, in the present, except your guidebook’s no good.

Some things are the same, some few architectural landmarks — Florence is an old city — and she knows that the cathedral will still be there, though maybe not all of it and with a simpler facade, and May thinks she knows how to get back to the market. She sets out confidently in what feels like the right direction, nodding at those who pass, avoiding their curious looks and whispering.

As the frozen moments pass, she feels less scared or stunned and more sick and pissed that she had the bad sense to trust Cristofana, an obvious liar and lunatic, just because she happens to have a trustworthy face. But then May realizes that people are actually crowding in on her, pointing and jeering. They’ve never seen anything like her. An old woman crosses herself. A young man in formfitting — that is, bulging — tights and a short, stained tunic steps way too close, leering into her face. He has winey breath, and his bad teeth are bared, his head tilted like a curious dog’s.

At last, when something hard and slimy — a rind of chewed orange, May thinks — hits the side of her face, she panics and bolts, takes off running with the murmuring crowd collecting behind her. Darting down a narrow side street, she zigzags onto another tight block enclosed by sinister towers. Everything seems to press in and loom over, so she makes for the light between buildings, runs down one claustrophobic street and the next until she can see sky, plenty of it, and keeps running until there are few and then fewer and then no people in view.

She locates what must be a wealthy neighborhood — well-spaced residences with courtyards and small gardens or rows of potted fig trees between — darts out back and steals a plain-looking blue dress from a laundry line. Checking that her phone’s still in the rear pocket of her cutoffs — for all the good it will do her now — she slips the dress on over her tank with shaking hands, almost laughing out loud. Who’ll believe this? Gwen will sign her into the nearest mental institution when May tells her.

Tells her what ? How do you explain what even you don’t believe?

Something tells her not to abandon her own clothing, so May wads it into what appears to be a moth-eaten baby’s blanket and slings the bundle over a shoulder. The only problem now is shoes. She has nothing to replace her patterned flip-flops, but the dress is long enough to drag along the ground, so it might not matter. She rehearses holding the fabric forward with her free hand to conceal her feet.

Returning as purposefully as possible out to the street again, May spots a group of boys advancing from the direction of the medieval gate and the green hills beyond the city. They’re rough and rowdy, herding a sheep between them, so she turns back toward the city center, trying not to conspicuously hurry, but they keep pace, the poor sheep bleating in complaint.

Feeling less exposed but still edgy, May at last ducks into what looks like a public shop, its door propped wide open, though she can’t read the painted script on the sign dangling from chains over the entryway. Inside, chickens bob around and three young men are seated at easels of varying sizes. The two nearest the door watch disdainfully as she limps in.

But when the third, the man near the far wall, looks up from his easel, squinting in shadows, he seems to look into her — or that’s how it feels — and it knocks the wind out of her chest. He’s crazy beautiful, for one thing: a long, tapered face with a dimpled chin, the classic Roman nose, an expression that makes her cheeks burn. Below thick brows, his amber eyes are a liquid darkness, like coffee.

“Sì?” he asks politely, apparently on behalf of everyone, though the other two only squint warily back at him.