Chapter Seventeen #3
had left. Somehow, the carabinieri had caught up with me. But they weren’t here yet.
I ran my hands beneath the chest and felt a protuberance where someone had built a compartment into its base that was invisible from the inside and outside.
It was the right size to house a small manuscript.
I lay on the ground and used my phone’s light to get a better view, but I couldn’t see where it opened.
I felt all around it, getting frustrated.
It was a sealed box, apparently, with no opening.
I wished I could upend the chest, but it was far too heavy.
As the volume of the sirens increased, I tried again, forcing myself to take it slower, to be more careful.
This time, one side of the box slid cleanly away beneath my fingers and clattered as it fell to the floor.
I reached inside it. I had to explore it by touch, because it was impossible to get an angle to see. I felt a spine and a
hard cover, and caught my breath. My fingertips dug gently around it until I felt the soft edges of vellum leaves. The sirens
were screaming now, but I had to remain patient, to ease the book gently out of its hiding place. It came painfully slowly
and reluctantly, as if afraid of seeing the light of day, and then, finally, I had it in my hands.
The Book of Wonder. It looked like a dusty little volume but that meant nothing. I lifted the cover to a random page, and its beauty and brilliance
took my breath away. I could see at first glance that it was the equal of any of the finest manuscripts in the world, jewellike
and perfect, exquisite craftmanship in the illustrations. The Mona Lisa of manuscripts. Pages of text—tantalizing—that I had no time to linger over because the sirens were right outside now, tires
were squealing, car doors slamming, and footsteps were approaching, at speed.
I seized my backpack and shoved The Book of Wonder into it, then threw the piles of fabric back into the chest and shut the lid. As the church doors burst open, I turned to
face the door and fear rippled through me. Two carabinieri burst through it with weapons raised and they trained them on me.
Clio
Clio jumped out of the taxi as it pulled up behind four carabinieri vehicles parked haphazardly in front of the church where Anya’s phone had located her.
She heard Sid’s footsteps close behind hers as she ran across the square, but they were stopped outside the church by an officer who held them there even when Clio showed him her badge.
He spoke no English. He wasn’t interested in her attempts to persuade him to let her pass.
Once she and Sid had located Anya, she’d felt she had no choice but to call her contact and ask him to send the local carabinieri
to help Anya, because they had the best chance of reaching her first. Clio had covered her own back, too. To mobilize her
colleagues with maximum urgency, she told her contact about The Book of Wonder.
But now she was afraid she’d made a terrible mistake. During the taxi ride here, worry had begun to eat at her as it occurred
to her that if these women’s groups had successfully infiltrated the police force in the UK, they might have done the same
here in Italy.
She hadn’t said anything to Sid about her doubts, because he didn’t need to know—should never know—but as she stood outside the church, she was terrified she’d just delivered Anya and The Book of Wonder right into the hands of the Kats or the Larks.
“There she is! Anya!” Sid said.
Anya stood at the top of the steps, framed by the doorway of the church, a foil blanket around her shoulders. She looked small
and vulnerable. She was with a female carabinieri officer, and Clio’s tension rose another notch. She thought of Anya’s mother,
of how Anya wanted to use The Book of Wonder as leverage to get her mum to safety, and her stomach twisted with apprehension.
“Anya!” Sid called again, and she looked toward them but shook her head minutely. Not now.
Clio and Sid watched as Anya and the officer talked.
Anya removed her backpack. She put it on the ground and knelt beside it.
“What’s she doing?” Sid asked. He stepped forward.
Clio put a hand on his arm. She didn’t need him getting in the way.
She was paying close attention to where all the officers were, how they were armed.
She was trying to calculate her next move if she needed to make one, whether a move was even possible, or if it was too late for that.
Her heart was in her mouth as Anya reached into the bag and removed a small, ancient book, which she handed to the officer.
The officer smiled as she took it. She cracked it open briefly, just long enough to glimpse a page or two, then closed it
and handed it to a colleague, who took it to his car. Anya was safe, but they might have just condemned her mother to harm.
Sid whispered, “Why did Anya just give away her father’s bestiary?”
Had she? Was he right? Clio felt the world go still.
She held her breath as Anya walked down the steps toward them. The officers were standing down and leaving, car engines starting.
Anya was shivering and her clothes were dripping, leaving trails of droplets down the steps in her wake, but she was smiling
and hugging her backpack to her chest. Clio could see the outline of something heavy in it, something rectangular.
The Book of Wonder.
“Oh,” Clio said under her breath. “Clever girl.”
Anya
I chose the venue. The Piazza Isotta Nogarola was a nondescript square in a quiet, residential area of the city where tourists
didn’t venture. Verona had dedicated one of its least auspicious piazzas to one of their brightest daughters. But it suited
me.
A steady stream of quiet traffic passed through the square. There was a roundabout in its center and parking bays around its
edges. Beneath low-rise apartment buildings painted in pastel colors, the shop fronts were home to a newsagent, a hairdresser,
a women’s clothing store, a real estate agency, and two cafés.
Sid and Clio sat in one. I crossed the square toward the other. It was on a corner, beneath a prominent red awning, a row of black plastic tables and chairs out front. Pastries were displayed alongside silk flowers in the windows.
A bell jangled as I opened the door. I picked a table beside the window and in the corner, with a view of the whole room.
The café smelled of coffee beans, fresh bread, and the bright tang of confectioners’ sugar. Good-natured shouts volleyed between
the staff out front and their colleagues in back by the ovens.
It was the safest place I could think of.
Tracy Lock arrived first, representing the Fellowship of the Larks. I was expecting her. I’d contacted her via Sarabeth. I
want your most senior representative, I’d told her. Don’t mess around with me. No one else will do. I have The Book of Wonder.
Those words were all it took to summon the women in power. Both arrived in Verona and signaled that they were ready to meet
within twelve hours. If I’d been in any doubt that the book had been their ultimate goal, I wasn’t anymore.
Tracy arrived wearing shades, a scarf, and a hat. She was low key. No one in the shop would have guessed who she was.
I still wasn’t sure who would take the third seat, but I was confident Tracy had known who to reach out to from the Order
of St. Katherine. Where there was power, there were always back channels. Why would these groups of women be any different?
She arrived soon after: Cece Beaufort, my father’s wife. It took my breath away to be meeting with his mistress and his spouse.
She and Tracy nodded at one another, unsmiling, and Cece took her seat.
The Order of St. Katherine versus the Fellowship of the Larks. Magnus should have kept his eyes open wider.
I needed to keep mine open, too. It had never been more important. I still didn’t know where my mother was, but I heard her
voice as loud and clear as ever.
Be strong. Trust your judgment. You can shape more of your destiny than you think.
“Shall we talk about The Book of Wonder?” I asked.
I laid out my conditions. If they met them, I said, I would give them the book. They listened and asked me for some time. I moved to a table on the pavement out front and watched them through the glass as they talked. Across the street, Clio and Sid were waiting and watching, too.
After a while, Tracy made a call. When she hung up, they beckoned me back inside and explained that an agreement had been
reached. They wouldn’t reveal details, they said, but soon I would have proof that they were telling the truth and that my
conditions had been met.
“How?” I was afraid they were outmaneuvering me.
Cece said, “We wait until midday, and you’ll see. Are you still getting messages from your father?”
I nodded. Magnus was still violently angry that I’d evaded him. Every time another message arrived from him it sent a chill
down my spine.
“We’ll check in with him a little bit later and I think you’ll find he’s not a threat anymore,” Tracy said. Neither of them
would say more.
Time ticked. The city’s ancient bells chimed in the distance. There was no small talk and a lot of silence. Both women sent
and received messages, moving pieces on boards. We ordered food that we barely touched, took turns stretching our legs on
the square. I messaged Sid, keeping him and Clio informed. They were starting to have doubts. They questioned whether it was
becoming dangerous. I told them I wanted to wait.
Almost two hours had passed when Tracy received a message and said, “It’s done.” She looked up, meeting Cece’s gaze, and something
profound seemed to pass between them, something that looked like a mix of sorrow and relief.
“Is it online yet?” Cece asked.
Tracy nodded.
“Show Anya.”
She handed me her phone and I read a breaking news item posted just three minutes earlier.
“At least one dead after chopper crashes near St. Andrews, Scotland.”
It took me a moment to understand what I was reading, and what a shockingly brutal and efficient thing they’d engineered.
“Is it him?”
Tracy nodded. “I’m afraid Magnus has been the victim of a tragic accident. As you know, he liked to pilot his own helicopter.
I believe he was on his way south to deal more directly with the matter of finding you. I’m sure you’ll have some feelings
about his death, but this is for the best. It makes it possible for Cece and me to come to an arrangement over The Book of Wonder. You’ll get what you want. Your mother will return home safely, and we’ll honor Magnus’s commitments to her regarding the
clinical trial. We’ll ensure the safety of Clio Spicer. The Order of St. Katherine will become custodians of the book. In
return, Cece will donate its equivalent value to the Fellowship of the Larks, enabling us to build and run our foundation
and continue our good work helping women. As the sole primary beneficiary of Magnus’s will since their children are still
underage, she’s in a position to do this.”
The relief I felt was indescribable.
“We’d also like to discuss your future,” Tracy said. “We would both like you to remain working on the manuscript collection.
It will still be a foundational part of the library.”
“I won’t work in a library that carries his name.”
“How does the Rose Brown Library sound to you?”
“I’ll think about it. I want to speak to her.”
Within moments they’d got Mum on the phone. She told me she loved me, and I said it back. When I hung up, they were both watching
me impassively, and I found myself looking at them with new eyes.
They were so different from me, so calculating, so powerful, so dedicated to elevating women’s lives and probably more realistic about what it took to change a man’s world than I might ever be.
They were terrifying. What they were willing to do, and had done, was horrendous.
Part of me felt like I’d just made a deal with the devil, but I knew I’d had no choice.
“Of course all of this is contingent on us taking possession of the book,” Cece said.
“You don’t get the book until we get the money,” Tracy said.
I messaged Sid and Clio, and they met us in the street.
I asked Sid to give the book to Tracy, and he handed her a simple cotton tote bag containing a priceless manuscript. Cece
watched every move. I’d looked into the eyes of both women, and I knew they’d never stop fighting each other to get what they
wanted, but this might bring some temporary peace between them, perhaps enough to last a generation, perhaps not.
A town car pulled up, sleek and shiny, and out of place in this neighborhood. Tracy and Cece left together. I couldn’t imagine
what they might be saying to each other in the car.
I leaned into Sid and felt safer than I had for days, but I also knew I’d never feel safe again, not the way I had before
that email from Diana Cornish dropped into my mailbox.
We said goodbye to Clio. She took a cab. Sid and I decided to walk. I was thinking about Magnus, trying to work out how I
felt about him now.
After we’d been walking in silence for a while, I asked, “Do you think either of those groups are really doing good? Considering
their methods, are they truly helping women or are they seeking power for its own sake?”
“Both,” Sid said. “What do you think?”
We’d reached the riverbank, which was gently sloped, and we walked down onto a pebbly beach.
The water ran fast and clear; it was a beautiful shade of turquoise.
Sid skimmed stones and I sat on the beach and watched.
On the opposite bank the city of Verona rose up, centuries old, as timeless and beautiful and proud as ever, but it had been built by men.
After a while I’d worked out my answer. I said it aloud, even though Sid was too far away to hear me. I didn’t need him to.
I said, “They did what it took.”