Chapter 31 #2
“What do you think she thought of her first taste of octopus?” Dante said. “That face she made.” He’d chuckled softly so as not to wake her.
“When she starts walking, the chickens better beware,” Mira had said with a laugh. “If you could have seen how fast she crawled trying to catch them. Fearless.”
They’d wondered together if she’d be quick with numbers, like Dante, or have a creative streak, like Mira.
“Maybe neither,” Dante had stated. “She could be something totally unexpected, a surprise to us both.” He put his arms around Mira’s waist as they’d gazed down on her. “I want to show her everything, to see what she makes of it all.”
“We already know what her life will be like,” said Mira. “She’s the daughter of a water woman. Someday she’ll learn to weave and tend the byssus.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
The question had seemed so preposterous, so unaskable that Mira had laughed as it hung in the air.
But as she’d watched Daniella’s chest rise and fall, her tiny fists flung out on either side of her, the thought lingered.
This was the only child she’d ever have, her heart’s desire.
If she grew to be a teacher, say, or a shopkeeper, would she love her any less?
A sudden memory. “When I was five, my mother and I sat on a bench by the port. We were watching a pescatore thigh-deep in the waves. ‘Watch the line he casts out when something takes it. See how it pulls tight?’ she told me.
“I remember the way the pole’s tip curved as the man pulled against the fish he’d snagged. He’d take a few steps backward. Reel and pull, reel and pull. I’d wondered what creature fought against the man: A small shark? Maybe a whale or even a mermaid? At that age, my imagination ran wild.”
Dante laughed. “It still does, cara.” Mira swiped at him and went on.
“My mother told me, ‘If you tried to hold on to that line, it might cut your hand, it’s so tight. If you run a finger down it very carefully, when it’s taut like that, and listen very hard, you might hear a sound, like a bow across a violin.
If you touch it while it makes that hum, it will travel down your finger, up your arm, and right into the middle of you.
’ She pointed a finger at the center of my chest and smiled, as if to say, Wouldn’t that be grand?
“But something about that description unsettled me, though at five I couldn’t say why. The thought of being connected to a sound or a song that might pull me out where my toes no longer touched the sand was frightening. ‘I hope the fish gets free,’ I told her. ‘Maybe he can swim very hard.’
“She asked me why I’d want that to happen. She said the fisherman would be sad. ‘But the fish wouldn’t,’ I told her.”
Dante had stepped closer and wrapped her in his arms. Daniella had stirred in her crib, her small legs kicking out. The little mobile made of glass fish tinkled faintly as a breeze wafted in from the open window. Here was their little fish, Mira thought.
Mira remembered the time before she’d taken the water oath, her brief wonderings about a different life. Had she not followed in her mother’s footsteps, she was sure, Zaneta would have had little use for her. What had she ever been besides a placeholder, the next in line?
Daniella started to cry as the sky opened up. The umbrella’s feeble shield no longer kept them dry with the rain coming sideways. Mira closed it, tucked Daniella’s head beneath her own chin, and sprinted for the rocks ahead. Thankfully, the tide was out. Sometimes that meant shelter in the rocks.
“It’s all right, Dani,” she soothed. “We’ll be out of this wind in a minute.”
Just as she’d hoped, there was a small opening between two of the jutting fingers of rock, and she scrambled into the entrance as best she could with one hand on the baby and using the other for balance.
It was a sea cave, damp and dark, but at least out of the wind and stinging rain.
Daniella’s cries echoed inside and seemed to scare her into even louder wails.
“Look, figlia,” she coaxed, swaying from side to side with a motion all mothers seem to innately adopt. “What’s inside here? What can we see?” Distraction. It always seemed to work where her curious child was concerned.
Mira always carried with her a pouch and a handful of tools in case she happened upon plants or sea life worth gathering.
Fortunately, Dante had insisted she carry a flashlight with her as well, after one too many evenings when time had slipped away from her and she’d arrived home after dark.
She pulled it from the pouch and switched it on.
Immediately, Daniella quieted, and the damp cave felt more hospitable.
Mira reminded herself to tell Dante he’d been right about her carrying it.
“A starfish.” Mira fixed the light on a pool of water near the ground. “What a pretty orange. And there’s a purple one.”
She ventured farther in. The cave seemed drier nearer the back, safe from the reach of the high tides. Mira wondered how she hadn’t noticed this opening before. If she had, she’d probably been too busy with her work to go exploring, and it was in an out-of-the-way part of the shoreline.
“Ninna nanna, ninna oh. Questo bimbo a chi lo do?” Mira absentmindedly sang the lullaby as she swayed.
Daniella had ceased her squirming, and Mira aimed the flashlight so that the light fell near the ceiling, lighting Dani’s face, her eyes round and expressive.
She loved how long and soft her daughter’s lashes were and the way they made her deep-brown eyes even bigger.
Mira softly rubbed the baby’s back as she nestled against her.
Her eyes followed the light as it reflected, hitting something that was not rock.
Curious, Mira edged closer. There, on an overhang up near the ceiling, something was wedged.
It looked like a box with a metal latch.
That’s what the light must have picked up.
Mira stood on her tiptoes and stretched out her arm.
She could almost reach it. She was clumsy and off-balance with Daniella’s weight across her front.
Her pouch! She untied the bag from her waist and cinched its opening tight.
Again, she rose up on her tiptoes, and this time she swung the pouch in an upward arc, intending to knock the thing loose.
She missed and tried again, experimenting with distance.
This time her aim was better, nudging the box toward the edge of the stone where it rested.
One more blow and she’d have it. With her last swing, the box tumbled off the ledge and landed on the damp floor as Mira yelped in victory.
“What do you think this is?” she whispered to Daniella. “Someone’s hidden treasure?”
The baby babbled in response, her eyes tracking the beam of light across the floor like a cat. Mira stepped carefully, wary of falling with Dani strapped to her. She knelt on the floor, the light aimed at the discovery.
The box was old; she could tell that much.
And unique: made of oleander, with a lovely clasp corroded from the constant salty mist that filled the cave.
The bottom was etched with lines, and as Mira peered closer, she could tell it was a map.
A map of Sardegna, how lovely! The tumble had marred the surface here and there, but otherwise, it seemed intact.
Mira ran her fingers over the lid, appreciating the woodwork.
Despite the corrosion, with only a little effort, she was able to pry the clasp free.
Astonishing. Mira sat back on her heels, trying to fathom what she’d found as her heart leaped in her chest. The box was full of familiar items: byssus, dyes, small glass containers of dried flowers, and thread in various stages of processing.
Her fingers brushed through sepia photos captioned with dates penned in spiky handwriting.
A bundle of letters tied with faded purple ribbon.
Mira feared handling them in this damp place lest they fall apart.
“Oh,” she breathed when, poking further, she found a wondrous handheld loom in the shape of a lyre, meant for weaving the smallest of byssus creations.
And at the bottom of the box, wrapped in layers of leather and cloth, lay what clearly was some sort of ancient script.
Mira unrolled it and recognized some of the Hebrew letters, but her knowledge of the language was rusty.
Daniella’s warm breath tickled Mira’s neck, and she glanced down to see that the child had fallen asleep.
The find meant nothing to her, and the sound of the rain falling outside the dim, quiet cave had been enough to lull her into a nap.
Mira shut the box and refastened the old clasp.
She rose to her feet, cradling Daniella in her sling with one arm while lifting the box in the crook of her other.
She peered out at the beach. The rain had tapered off.
She couldn’t wait to get back to the house, where she could examine everything in a dry, lit place.
How long had this box been wedged in the back of this sea cave?
Who had put it there, and why had they left it?
Obviously, the owners had been water women, given the contents.
She had so many questions, and the only one she could possibly ask was her mother.
Mira adjusted the weight she carried and set off across the wet sand toward home.