Death Of A Sad Face (A Serafina Florio Mystery) Read Free Page B

“There were words, I can tell you that. And shouting.”
    “Do you know where he may have gone?”
    She shook her head.
    Serafina thanked her for her information and returned to the main floor.
    The footman appeared with Serafina’s cape. As she swung it round her shoulders and fastened her gloves, something on the floor caught her eye. It whirled like dust in the wind. What was it, a piece of material or her imagination? She bent to examine it—a long silky thread, the color of a ballerina’s gown.
    “Is this yours?” she asked Lucia, holding up the thick filament.
    The baroness shook her head. “Pink’s not my color.”
    Serafina laid the strand between two pages of her notebook. It curled in on itself, guarding its own secret.

Under A Gibbous Moon

    Late Wednesday evening October 28, 1868
    Teo’s eyes had trouble adjusting to the dark so he looked back at Donna Fina’s door, and that was a mistake because his heart squeezed when he realized he was really leaving. He took a few steps forward trying and steady himself.
    Suddenly out of the sky, a flying creature appeared, disguised as a man. It had huge black wings and wore a mask and slammed him to the ground and took the wind right out of his mouth. With one mighty claw, he lifted Teo and shook him and set him on his feet, not asking him if he was hurt or anything. The beast breathed heavy and sweat beaded onto his bushy brows, but he didn’t fool Teo, not one bit. He knew him, all right—it was the specter.
    “Forget what you saw, boy.”
    Teo didn’t know what to say, but he nodded.
    “You saw nothing, remember?”
    Teo nodded harder, faster. “Sure, mister.”
    “What did you see?” the specter asked, removing his mask and sticking his ugly face close to Teo’s.
    “You?”
    The creature slapped him. “What did you see?”
    “Nothing?”
    “That’s right. Now, remember that.”
    He lifted Teo by the neck and dragged Teo with him. “Do I know you?” the specter asked.
    Teo remembered the shoes the specter wore from long ago when he mended them at his father’s shop. They were strange shoes for a man or for a creature, all soft and made of fine leather and a girly color, too, his father had said.
    But Teo shook his head and whispered, “No, you don’t know me, I never seen you. I don’t see you now, and I didn’t see nothing,” and Teo looked straight ahead when he said it so the specter wouldn’t see the lie on his face.
    “You’re the shoemaker’s son.” And the monster shook Teo and twisted his collar, gagging him. The specter wore strange clothes, too, and he walked too fast and dragged Teo along with him.
    “Let go of me, beast!”
    The specter didn’t answer, but pressed Teo’s neck harder, and Teo couldn’t speak, and he neither looked right nor left, but after a while he got the shakes, so he knew for sure it was the specter put a spell on him.
    He tried to remember what Falco had told him about getting rid of specter curses: squeeze your eyes shut and spit twice over your left shoulder, cross your wrists and point the first and last fingers of both hands toward the ground and pump them fast, up and down, until the spell melts into the earth. Teo worked his hands and fingers just so, but the beast wouldn’t let go. He had Teo in his fiery clutch, and they flew low over the ground, so Teo screwed himself up and said, “Where are we going?”
    “No questions.”
    Then Teo thought that since he was doomed anyway, he might as well try to wrestle free from the specter’s mighty hold. So when the beast least suspected it, Teo called him a bad word and wrenched himself upward and spit into his face.
    The phantom clutched his eyes and Teo tore himself free and did his feint and dodge and ran fast, jumping into a ditch and hiding behind a prickly pear.
    His ears burned and his head pounded, but he didn’t move. Only when he saw the grizzly thing coming after him, he ran to the hills, but the creature scooped him up and shook