Nomad (9 page)

“I have to disagree,” Giovanni countered gently. “I don’t think a person can become a true individual being alone. We only become unique and authentic by entering a community of two, by sharing our lives. Community, family, that is what is important.”

“If family is so important, why were you off trekking Antarctica while your dad was sick?” Jess shot back before she could stop herself. She didn’t like the feeling of being lectured.

“Jessica!” her mother exclaimed.

It took Jess a moment to regain her temper. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, it’s a fair question.” Giovanni took a deep breath. “Family is everything, but sometimes, family can be… complicated.”

“I’m sure there was nothing you could have done.” Jess tried to backtrack.

Giovanni forced a smile. “But, what a terrible host I am. Let’s change topics. Your father?” He looked at Celeste. “Is there a Mr. Tosetti?”

“Tosetti was my maiden name,” Celeste replied. “We’re separated.”

“But not divorced,” Jess added, looking at her mother and raising her eyebrows. “He’s an astronomer, works at Harvard.”

“An astronomer?” Giovanni’s eyes lit up. He looked at Jess. “Then there is something very special I would like to show you. After dinner perhaps?”

Jess hadn’t meant to be so sharp-tongued. A bad habit, but mentioning her father’s profession had a calming effect. “Yes, I’d like that.”

The rest of dinner went smoothly. Giovanni was the perfect host, and the food and wine were spectacular. Afterward, Nico offered to take Celeste for a walk through the gardens, while a nanny ushered Hector off to bed just before the final round of
grappa
was served. Which left Giovanni and Jess alone.

“It’s amazing.”

Jess stood on a stepladder, admiring the mirror of a large reflecting telescope in the castle’s observatory. It was similar in design to the one her father had taught her to use, back at their cottage in the Catskills. Jess had seen the dome-shaped roof on one of the castle turrets, but she hadn’t thought anything of it. Giovanni had just clicked on a set of motors that winched back the covering, revealing a beautiful Tuscan night sky; a carpet of stars thrown across the inky blackness above.

“It’s, what, a meter across?”

“One point one,” Giovanni said. “My grandfather’s hobby, his passion, was astronomy. In the tradition of Galileo, yes? He lived not far from here.”

“Amazing, and it’s in such excellent condition.” She stepped down. “Can I give it a try?”

“Of course, be my guest,” Giovanni said, inviting her to the controls.

Jess did a quick calculation in her head. Early October. That meant Venus should be near Pisces. Looking up, she started by finding the Great Square, just like her father taught her as a child. There, in the south, four bright stars glittered. Three of them formed the edge of Pegasus, and she traced the outline in her mind. Just beside it was Pisces, and Venus should be just at its left tip at this time of year. Unscrewing the stops on the telescope’s gimbals, she swung it around, first eyeballing the approximate direction, and then looking into the viewfinder.

She found the tail of Pisces, and after slowly adjusting she found the bright yellow dot of Venus. Carefully, she focused. “Beautiful,” she whispered. Leaning away from the telescope, she turned to Giovanni.

“Yes, beautiful,” he said softly, but he was watching her, not the night sky. She felt him reach to hold her hand, and he leaned in to kiss her.

Jess recoiled. “Whoa, hold on. I said we could be
friends
.”

Giovanni let go of her, backed up two steps. His face fell. “
Scusi
, I didn’t mean to—”

“And, I told you to
stop
apologizing.”

They stared at each other. The stars glittered above.

She sighed. “If you’re going to do something, just do it.”

He stood back, the look on his face perplexed. A warm Tuscan breeze blew between them, and Jess felt the walls inside her crumble. Just a little. She took a step toward him.

The door to the observatory swung open and bright light spilled in from the stairwell. Enzo’s head appeared through the crack in the door, his brown pork-pie hat casting a saucer-like shadow across the stone floor. For a second, Jess could have sworn she saw a flash of something in his eyes.

Giovanni frowned at Enzo. “
Che cos'è
?”

“Many apologies.” Enzo grimaced. “But there’s a phone call for Ms. Jessica.”

“Who is it?” Jess asked.

“
Te padre
, your father.”

“My dad?”

Enzo nodded, offering a phone. “
Si
, Dr. Ben Rollins. This is your father, yes?”

Jess stepped across the platform and took the phone. It was a strange time to return her call. “Dad, what’s up? Are you okay?” She listened for a few seconds. “What? You want me to do what? Wait, slow down. You’re still at the Astronomical Union meeting, right?”

“Is everything all right?” Giovanni asked.

Jess listened to her father for thirty seconds, holding her hand up at Giovanni and Enzo. Then, setting down the receiver, she looked at both of them. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go.” She pushed past Enzo and hopped down the stairs as quickly as she could.

NOMAD

Survivor testimony #GR14;

Event +62hrs;

Name: Aubrey Leaming;

Reported location: England, undetermined

My name’s Leaming, engineer onboard the RNLB Jolly Roger out of Gravesend station, just south of London. Suppose I’m captain now. We lost Valentine, first mate Ballie Booker too. Horrible. Did save eight civvies, got ‘em secured down in the survivor room, for what that’s worth.

When they ordered the evacuation of the city, we knew it was madness, but then the whole thing was madness, wasn’t it? Where d’they expect people go? So me and the boys decided to hoof it into Tower station, see if we could pick up a few. I mean, we had the Jolly Roger, the steel-carbon Severn-class lifeboat of the RNLI, bastard can take anything…anyway, we race up the Thames as it empties out. Twenty feet of water gone in an hour. We make it as far as Canary Wharf before our keel hits mud.

We know it’s coming, but people are standing there on the walls, just staring. Captain Valentine, God bless him, gets up there, convinces a few to trudge through the muck and we secure them, like I said. But then…we thought it was a cloud, mate. It was Ballie who realized what it was. A wave, man, maybe a thousand foot high. Ballie screamed at me to get inside, strap in while he battened down the hatches. The first sheet of water hit us like we’d been fired out of a cannon, cracked the superstructure and half the starboard windows on impact, but she held, our Jolly Roger, she did. Old Ballie never strapped in…we were tossed around like a cork in a blender, puke and blood everywhere. For best part of an hour we were submerged before popping to the surface and the Roger righted itself. Unbelievable, mate, absolute madness.

I was the only one still conscious, so I set the bilge pumps and went to check our position, radio for help. But  the
electronics was down, the VHF antennae sheared off. Just this shortwave, and thank God for that. So I went topside, took the sextant and charts. Didn’t know what to expect, but certainly not bloody blue skies. As if nothing had happened. Like we’d been transported into another world. I got latitude of 52.4 degrees north. Can’t measure longitude in daylight, but we started in London and were swept along, and that wave came from the south, near enough. So I was over Leicester. Or Birmingham. But nothing, just churning blue. No land visible at all and I was supposed to be in the middle of bloody England…

Transmission ended signoff. Freq. 2182 kHz/USB.

Subject reacquired pgs 16,24.

OCTOBER 18
^th

10

C
HIANTI,
I
TALY

JESS FOUND HER mother waiting for her at one of the stone tables in the garden outside the western wall of the castle. A cloudless, aquamarine sky hung over spectacular views down the valley and into the plains sloping to the Mediterranean. On this side of the walls stretched manicured lawns crisscrossed by gravel paths and trimmed hedges, shaded by huge, ancient oaks. Hector was playing soccer next to the reception building with Raffael and Lucca, teenage brothers who performed odd jobs around the castle. Enzo was playing with them as well.

“Someone slept in,” Celeste said in a singsong voice as Jess approached, the leftovers of a breakfast of cheese and cured meats spread on a plate before her. “Want some?” Celeste asked, holding up a cup and carafe of coffee.

Nodding, Jess slid onto the stone bench opposite her mother. She hadn’t slept in. She hadn’t even slept. All night she’d been on the phone with her father, going over the information he had. About Nomad. About the unknown anomaly approaching. This morning she’d hidden in her room, needing to be alone, needing to think.

“Did you have a nice evening with Giovanni?” Celeste asked, filling the coffee cup and handing it to Jess. “You seemed to hit it off. I saw the two of you up in the observatory when I was walking down here with Nico.”

Taking the coffee, Jess took a sip. She stared down the valley, at the village of Saline far below, at the networks of roads and towns in the plains beyond that. Soon, in a matter of months, all of this could be gone. Just like that, as if it had never been here. Nothing seemed real, as if a plastic sheet had been pulled over reality, insulating her from it.

“This place is magical,” Celeste said, following Jess’s eyes looking down the valley. She reached across the table to hold Jess’s hand. “You were right to drag me out here. It does feel like home. And what a silver lining!” She laughed. “The police, your fight with your ex…if it hadn’t happened, Giovanni wouldn’t have invited us to be his guests. He came by this morning, said we should stay the week, invited us to go horseback riding through the vineyards. We can stop for lunch down—”

“We have to go,” Jess said in a dead voice, still staring down the valley at the village. She hadn’t seen her mother this happy in years, and it broke her heart to ruin it. But she had to. And, in a funny way, she might get what she wanted: get her mother and father together.

“What?” Celeste squeezed Jess’s hand. “Don’t be silly. And can you imagine? Giovanni’s grandfather was an astronomer, just like your dad—”

Jess pulled away from staring at the village and put her coffee down, turning to look her mother in the eye. How could she even start to explain this? “We—have—to—
go
,” she repeated.