Cabriatti said something then that has stuck in my head these last few weeks:
'How easy it is to be accustomed to miracles.'
I haven't figured out exactly why, but it seems to me that almost everything adults say to you is a lie. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just that it's true. I don't mean when your mum says 'I love you' to you or your dad tells you he thinks your poem about canal algae is 'unique'. That's just reiterating stuff that everybody knows already. I mean all the day to day stuff – you have to get dressed, you have to do your French homework, this is how the world works, you don't want to do that, you ought to do this. It's not really true, not in the way that everything's true until the age of – well, looking at my sister, I guess until the age of fifteen. That really is the best episode of The Space Carpenters ever, boys and girls shouldn't really ever, ever mix, and football is either really brilliant or stupid depending on how good you are at it. But I think, at some point love and money get in the way and people start lying and because everybody is lying to everybody else no-one seems to mind and as a result anyone who isn't an adult gets confused. Maybe I'll think differently when I'm older.
That's why when an adult tells the truth it always stands out. I think even my sister noticed – at any rate she took her eyes off whatever nonsense Gary Barlow was spouting for a split second and glanced at Cabriatti. Adults always look sad when they say something other than a lie, but Cabriatti looked heartbroken. At the time I didn't really get why he was so upset. What could be wrong with a world filled with miracles. But it is true. When the wonderful becomes commonplace everything does become that bit smaller. There isn't any room for anything else.
That was part of the appeal of the festival. While the performers and artists went about creating a real version of the unreal and the unseen there was always a demand for those who promised that the unreal genuinely existed without spoiling it by proving it. It wasn't that different from today. There were all sorts of fortune tellers, mediums and mind readers who would wander between the revellers (they weren't respectable enough to be allowed stalls of their own) charging the smallest of fees to produce little miracles of their own. There was always the slightest hint of something crooked about it, but it entertained and as long as no-one was hurt everybody worried about more important things instead.
Until something impossibly important came along and twisted the shape of the world. This was why the festival had become confined to one little spot. Not just one but a whole line of miracles that had been unfolding throughout the morning. Angelica was only the latest, staring overjoyed, disbelieving, at her healed arm, crying at the realisation that her life had been restored. Even in the short time Cabriatti was there he saw a bent old man who'd been coughing fit to burst sent on his way singing and laughing, almost dancing and a 23 year old mum of two from Sunderland giving a tuneless, if heartfelt, rendition of I Will Always Love You in memory of her late Grandmother.
No, hang on, that was the X Factor again. I was listening to Cabriatti's story, I just got a bit distracted by the telly. I'd switch it off but there was no way I was going to risk the potential side effects it could have on my sister. I have no idea what the appeal of music is but I know it hath charms to soothe the savage psychopathic sister and I wasn't going to risk angering her.
Every now and then the two women who had been dancing and doing all this healing would take a break from their combo of lousy moves and laying on of hands and take some water and rest. A quick question or two to some of the other onlookers had revealed that they had been doing this all morning.
'Who are they?' Cabriatti would ask.
'Why it is Santa Lucia herself,' they would usually say. 'She has come home to save us all!'
Now that was all a bit odd because the real Santa Lucia that the village had been named after had lived and died in the 11th Century. Said the man from the 16th Century. But that wasn't the point. No what really mattered was that as far as it was known the original Santa Lucia – or at least the one from 1072 – had been made a saint because she was kind to animals and children, sometimes at the same time and there was no record that she had ever been able heal people let alone help them to grow back any missing bits. There was nothing about her being a dancer or having sidekicks but then I guess a lot can change in the space of 500 years.
Cabriatti wasn't convinced but in the eyes of the rest of the village she was the genuine article, a real, live blessed saint returned from heaven to spread miracles and throw amateurish shapes on the dance floor. As night fell and the day's festivities ended she was swept away as the guest of a wealthy merchant's family whose daughter she had cured, a cheering throng following her and her retinue from the square. By now word of what had happened here would have reached Florence and Siena. There would soon be many more visitors to the village. The festival was effectively ended. It would be a completely different show tomorrow.
The inventor retired to the abandoned watch tower he called home. There was only three habitable rooms within it and the largest of those was taken up with his workshop. The manservant of his late brother would occasionally come by to make sure Cabriatti had remembered to eat and maybe to do the odd spot of housekeeping. Lately, Cabriatti had been consumed with a number of projects – he'd been looking forward to the festival as a welcome change. He'd been sleeping in his workshop and it was there that he made his bed that night.
When he woke the first thing he saw was the full moon through the skylight. The next was the silhouette of a figure as they moved forward and stood in front of it. It was still the middle of the night.
'I'm sorry to wake you,' said the figure, 'but my sister and I have to be gone from here before daybreak.'
As Cabriatti's eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw that he had two intruders. Two women.
'A visit from the Santa Lucia. I am blessed. I didn't know you had a sister. There's no mention of her in any of the histories I've read.'
My elder sister had a summer job in a call centre once. They said to her smile when you're on the phone, the customers will be able to tell from your voice even though they can't see you. The alleged saint was smiling at Cabriatti.
'My little sister is a recent addition to the family. She's a great help to me. The duties of a saint can be very demanding.'
'I saw your performance today,' said Cabriatti. 'It was nothing short of spectacular.'
'Thank you. It's always important to make a good first impression,' replied Lucia.
'Not the dancing. That was rubbish. The other stuff. Growing people new limbs and what-have-you.'
The sister growled at this (a bit like my sister, that) then spoke for the first time. 'It's a new routine. We haven't had time to rehearse it properly yet.'
'Ignore him, Lisa,' advised Lucia. 'Our work is for the people, not the critics. It's difficult for some people to understand the concept of being popular.' Lucia wasn't smiling now. 'People who shut themselves away from the world, who deny themselves the pleasures of the common touch.' She blew the dust off the top of a complicated piece of equipment.
'I'm sorry ladies, I don't think you have anything you can offer me. It can't be too long until dawn. Didn't you say you had to be off before then?'
'We'll be out of your hair soon enough, brother alchemist,' said Lucia.
'Excuse me?'
'As soon as you give us the Lodestone. My sister and I have a long journey to make. We're going to need something to point us in the right direction.'
'I have no idea what you're talking about,' lied Cabriatti. Badly.
'Francesco Cabriatti: Inventor, craftsman, alchemist. Thirty-third custodian of the Chianti Lodestone.'
'Oh, that. It doesn't work.'
'What?' exclaimed Lisa.
'Don't listen to him, sister. The Lodestone is one of the most powerful divination tools within the Three Worlds. It's here somewhere. Being its custodian is not a task to take lightly.'
'Well, good luck in finding it in all this mess. I can't remember where I put it. I haven't seen it in ages.'
Lucia actually hissed. 'Then allow my sister to jog your memory. She can be very persuasive.'
Lisa growled again. Only this time it was an inhuman, bestial sound. In the night shadows it was difficult to see, but where Lisa was once stood there was another shape altogether. She had transformed into an enormous black cat and was even now bearing down on the terrified inventor.
'This isn't really helping,' he almost squeaked.
More soonliest.
Even more hooked!!
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