Ring of Fire (13 page)

“Are you the owner of the Domus Quintilia?”

Linda Melodia heaves a sigh and answers, “In a certain sense, yes.”

“What luck! Could I ask you a few questions, then?” The woman holds out her hand. “My name is Beatrice.”

“H
AO!
H
OW’D YOU DO THAT?
!” S
HENG CRIES EXCITEDLY
. “I’
VE
never seen anything like it! You were like … like a cartoon superhero!” He raises his right index finger and yells, “Now I’m gonna show you something!”

Mistral elbows him to make him cut it out. Elettra looks far from happy. She walks along, her head hanging low, her eyes half-closed. Her long black hair looks like dry, thorny twigs.

“How are you doing?” Harvey asks her.

“I feel tired,” she answers. “And really confused.”

“You’re not the only one. Strange things are happening. And quite frankly …” Harvey thumbs through the professor’s journal. “I think this is going to make us understand even less than we did before.”

“We’re all shaken,” adds Mistral. “We were really in a tough spot with that guy. …”

“What, are you kidding?” Sheng snorts, gesturing. “It was fantastic! We ran off like four daredevil robbers and then the stairs … whoosh! And the front door … bam! And finally … on the street! Incredible!”

“Maybe we should stop somewhere to rest,” suggests Mistral.

“Yeah,” Elettra agrees.

Harvey shakes his head. “I think the best thing for us to do right now is to put some distance between us and the library.”

“I could use something to eat,” suggests Sheng, looking around. “What time is it? Can’t we grab a burger somewhere?”

“Why don’t we go back to the Caffè Greco?”

“Burgers!” Sheng insists. “I want a giant hamburger … a What’s-Your-Beef-Evil-Security-Dude-Gianni Burger!”

Mistral yanks on his backpack. “Would you cut it out with the stupid jokes?”

“You know what we call a stupid joke like that in Rome?” Elettra interjects, a little smile on her face. “A
pasquinata.”

“A
pasqui
-what?”

“Pasquinata.”

“Which would be …?”

“Pasquino is the name they gave to a statue the Romans would hang comical messages on, to make fun of the people in power.”

Harvey holds up the professor’s journal. “Then let’s go there! We could hang this on it.”

Elettra’s head shoots up. “That’s not a bad idea …,” she thinks aloud.

“Um, what isn’t?”

“The Pasquino isn’t far from here,” explains Elettra, pointing down a cobblestone street.

“So what?”

“Right next to the Pasquino,” continues Elettra, “is a quiet little place where they serve what’s called the
coppetta incredibile
. It’s
a dessert made with whipped cream, pistachios, strawberries, meringue and custard. What do you say?”

“Approved!” declares Sheng, instantly giving up his plans for a hamburger.

The afternoon light begins to fade, but not the kids’ curiosity. Sitting around a little table outside the Cul de Sac restaurant, four empty dishes of
coppetta incredibile
in front of them, the kids listen carefully to what Elettra is reading from the professor’s journal. The first pages aren’t particularly interesting. They sound like notes from a university lecture about Nero, who, it seems, was his favorite topic.

“He liked crazy people,” remarks Harvey.

Elettra turns page after page. “Sure looks that way. Nero as emperor, Nero in battle, Nero’s childhood … It seems he was tutored by a very important philosopher called Seneca, one of the great minds of antiquity. The greatest tutors often ended up with crazy pupils. Aristotle taught Alexander the Great, Seneca taught Nero …,” she summarizes.

“So who was your great tutor?” Sheng asks Harvey, getting elbowed in reply.

“Seneca taught Nero the secrets of the natural world. He told him about Earth, the planets, the moon and the sun. He described the four elements that every other thing is made of: water, air, earth and fire. Nero was particularly fascinated by fire, an element of both life and destruction.” Elettra struggles to translate the following pages. “Seneca maintained that mankind was allowed to make advances in discovering some of the secrets of the cosmos, but that there was a limit. There were secrets that were never to be revealed.”

“That’s just like what was written on the note in the briefcase!” Mistral points out.

“Here the professor added a footnote: ‘That’s what I’m looking for. And one of these secrets is hidden in Rome.’”

Sheng slaps his hand down on the table. “What did I tell you? Keep going! Keep going!”

“There’s another footnote …,” says Elettra, turning the journal upside down. “ ‘Study the tops and the wooden map. Find out how it’s used. Ermete.’”

“What does ‘Ermete’ mean?” asks Mistral, resting her pencil beside her sketchbook, in which she’s been jotting down the things that seem to be the most important.

“It’s a name, actually,” Elettra explains. “But I don’t know who that could be.”

“So the professor calls the thing a ‘wooden map’…,” Harvey points out. “What else?”

Elettra thumbs through a few blank pages and others on which drawings have been sketched. “I’d say he wasn’t as good as you, Mistral. What do you think these are supposed to be?”

The girl studies the sketches in the journal and remarks, “It looks like he was trying to copy down the drawings we saw on the tops.”

Elettra nods and turns the page. “Here he goes back to talking about Nero again.”

“How boring!” grumbles Sheng. “I want to know what the secret is!”

“It looks like Nero wanted to know that, too …,” Elettra comments. “When Seneca spoke to him for the first time about a secret that mankind was forbidden to seek out, Nero was furious.
He demanded to know what the secret was, and Seneca replied, ‘It is the greatest of secrets, but the time has not yet come for it to be revealed.’”

“Typical answer from a teacher,” remarks Mistral.

“And Nero?” asks Harvey.

“I bet he was angry,” Sheng throws in.

Elettra giggles. “I’d say so, too. He abandoned the teachings of Seneca and started to learn from tutors from the Orient, who convinced him to worship fire and the sun god.”

“Zeus?” Sheng guessed.

“No. His name was … Mithra,” says Elettra, reading aloud.

“Never heard of him.”

“I have,” Sheng remarks, amazing everyone. “I think they still worship him in India. Or something like that …”

“The professor writes that Mithra was the sun god. A god who came back to life after death, just like the sun sets and then rises again in the morning. And … this is weird … in ancient Rome he was celebrated on December twenty-fifth!”

“On Christmas?” asks Mistral.

“They didn’t have Christmas back then, you know,” Harvey reminds her.

“So when did they get all their presents?”

“Nero started to believe he was a god himself,” Elettra continues, reading. “And that he was the actual personification of the sun. Basically, he went crazy. ‘Foolish mortal, you have gone further than was allowed. You have sought to learn secrets that you should not have sought out. You have discovered answers to questions that you should not have asked.’ That’s Seneca again, I guess.”

“What did Nero say to that?” asks Harvey.

“He ordered the construction of what’s called the Colossus Neronis, the largest bronze statue ever forged. In it, he was depicted as the sun god, surrounded by fiery flames.”

“He totally lost it. …”

“Yeah. In fact, later on he set fire to the city. As though he were a god, he destroyed the very thing that gave him power. And to do that he used …” Elettra struggles to translate the words that follow. “… The Ring of Fire.”

“What’s that?”

The girl shakes her head. She shows them the journal, in which the professor has drawn a ring surrounded by flames. The following pages are brutally torn. Drawn on the remaining scraps are flaming circles and spirals.

When she sees them, Mistral rummages through the backpack and pulls out the sheets of paper she picked up from the library floor. There, too, are circles and spirals copied over and over again, obsessively.

“To be honest, I doodle stuff like that when I need to kill time …,” says Sheng. “Maybe the professor talked on the phone a lot.”

“I say he was insane,” insists Harvey.

“Actually …,” Elettra says softly, leafing through the last remaining pages in the journal, “from here on in, nothing else is legible. Except for … well, this, maybe. ‘The Ring of Fire is Seneca’s secret. It’s hidden below and hidden above. Search below and you shall find it above. To find the way, use the map.’”

“What does that mean?” asks Sheng.

“Nothing,” blurts out Harvey. “Just like everything else we’ve read so far. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“But if it says you need to use a map to find the way there … Well, he did leave us a map,” Mistral points out.

“But what kind of a map is it, anyway? It’s just a hunk of wood,” says Harvey.

“Isn’t there anything else in the journal?”

Elettra shakes her head. “I don’t think so. Except for … let’s see … These look like phone numbers, partially crossed out … ‘Ilda, news, 06543804. Orsenigo, dentist, 18671903.’ ” Saying this, she hands the journal to Sheng. “That’s all, I guess.”

“Can I use one of your pencils?” Sheng asks Mistral. He copies the phone numbers down onto a napkin and looks carefully at the last pages of the journal.

“So what do we do now?” Mistral asks.

Elettra and Harvey exchange glances. “It’ll be getting dark soon …,” the American boy points out. “And we’ve been gone since this morning. Maybe we should go back to the hotel.”

“Are you tired?” Elettra asks him.

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I’m really curious, too. …”

Just then, a little melody comes from Mistral’s purse. Her cell phone’s ringtone is playing the refrain from “You’re Beautiful,” a song by James Blunt.

“Bleah!” grimaces Sheng, rubbing the pencil across the inside cover of the journal.

Mistral fishes the cell phone out of her purse and answers it. “Hi, Mom!” The conversation soon turns into a monologue of “Yes, of course, I understand, no, no, that’s fine, don’t worry about it,” and quickly comes to an end. The phone plops back into her purse and a look of disappointment clouds the girl’s face.

“Bad news?” Elettra asks her.

“Well …,” replies Mistral. “My mom needs to leave Rome on business and she won’t be back before tomorrow night. She’s leaving me her room. Although … if you don’t mind, I’d rather stay in your room.”

“Sure, no problem,” says Elettra.

“Do you have to go back to the hotel to say goodbye to her?” Harvey asks.

Mistral drums her ice cream spoon against the saucer. “I’m not sure …,” she answers. “But I don’t think so.”

“Then we can stay out a little while longer,” suggests Elettra. “I know a great place to get pizza.”

“I’ll need to let my parents know,” says Harvey.

“What about you, Sheng?”

“What?” The Chinese boy is still busy rubbing the tip of the pencil across the last page of the journal. “That’s fine with me. … I just need to talk to my dad.”

Mistral picks up her cell phone and hands it to Elettra. “You want to make the call?”

The girl punches in the number of the Domus Quintilia, but before hitting the send button, she says, “Actually …” She takes a look at Sheng’s napkin and punches in a second phone number. After a few rings, a woman’s voice answers.

“Is this Ilda? Yes, hello there!” Elettra booms out boldly.

Harvey jumps up from his seat. Sheng’s mouth falls open. Mistral smiles.

Elettra goes on, unperturbed. “This is the professor’s niece. Yes, Uncle … Alfred. Oh, you didn’t know? Well, he does. Actually, he’s got two nieces and two nephews in all. That’s right.

Of course we … What? He’s … he’s doing just fine. … But … well … I can imagine. Yes … yes, he told us that. We know it’s been a long time since he’s stopped by. For … for news. Sure. So you do have some, right? News, I mean. …”

Harvey runs his fingers through his hair nervously and starts walking around the table.

“You set it aside for him,” repeats Elettra, “as always? Well … great. We could stop by to pick it up. That way … that way we can surprise Uncle Alfred. What’s that? It’s heavy? Oh, it doesn’t matter. …” Elettra motions to Sheng to jot down an address. “The newsstand in Largo Argentina. Fine. In fifteen minutes. Perfect!” And with this, she hangs up.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Harvey blurts out. “Why did you call that number?”

“Why not?” she responds, handing him the cell phone. “What was your plan of action?”

“I don’t know!” Harvey grunts. “But anyway … darn it! We should all decide what to do together, shouldn’t we?”

“Well?” asks Mistral.

“That was the owner of the newsstand in Largo Argentina. She said she’s set a lot of stuff aside for ‘Uncle Alfred,’ ” Elettra answers. “And we’re going over there to pick it up.”

“Perfect! While we’re at it, why don’t we call the dentist and schedule an appointment?” Harvey sputters. “In fact, maybe the tooth we found in the briefcase belongs to him!”