Unmasking Elena Montella (17 page)

She took her coat off and put the kettle on before bolting upstairs. When she reached the bedroom, she found herself standing in the middle of the room wondering what she’d come up for with such urgency. It wasn’t like her to be forgetful. She looked around, trying to jog her memory but she just drew blanks. She thought about retracing her steps to the kitchen to see if she could pick up her train of thought, and she was just about to head back down when something caught her eye.

Gleaming gold in the dim light of the bedroom, the mask stared at her, empty-eyed, from the dressing table.

‘
Hello,’ she laughed, not feeling quite so alone anymore.

Rosanna had stared at her in astonishment when she’d taken it out of the box and placed it there.

‘
What did you buy that for?’ she’d asked.

‘
I don’t know,’ she’d replied, not wanting to try and explain that she’d felt as if she hadn’t had a choice in the matter.

She thought it looked really at home on the dressing table, gazing blindly out at the room, its gently curving shape filling the space beside Rosanna’s jewellery box perfectly.

She picked it up and, just like the night before in the calle, her hands seemed to glow with gold. She pulled her fingers along the smooth, cool black ribbons and toyed with the idea of putting it on. If only, she thought, I could wear the mask - hiding behind it so that nobody could see me. She smiled to herself. She was turning into a child again - running away from her fears and responsibilities. Yet, that was what she wished to do more than anything else in the world at that moment.

Elena held the mask up and smiled at it. ‘I wish you could make me invisible,’ she whispered, as if to a trusted friend.

The hollowed out eyes seemed to speak to her.
Put me on, they dared. Make me yours. I will not disappoint you. Put me on. You know you want to.

And she did. She really did! Her heart was racing like a child’s at a fairground. She felt a flow of excitement travelling through her body and couldn’t stop herself from grinning widely.

Peeping around the door to double-check that there was nobody in the flat, she slipped the mask over her face and tied the black ribbons behind her head. She’d expected it to feel cold but it was pleasantly warm against her skin and fitted snugly around her eyes and over her nose. She was just about to take a look in the mirror when she suddenly felt nauseous. Her skin was burning up and her vision was beginning to blur and she had the startling sensation of pins and needles in her eyeballs. Something very strange was happening. She felt peculiar - as if she were dissolving. Her mouth felt dry and her heart was hammering loudly.

‘
Rosanna?’ Elena called out in a hoarse whisper. She felt so helpless and vulnerable and sincerely hoped that her sister might have returned home early from her afternoon visit. But there was no reply. Elena was alone.

She didn’t think things could get any weirder so, when the jolt came, she cried out loud. Her body felt as if it had been electrocuted and she was so shocked that, after the initial scream, she found she couldn’t speak at all.

What was happening to her? Her hands flew up to behind her head to try and rid herself of the mask but she couldn’t feel her hands at all. Her mind must be playing tricks on her, she reasoned, or she must surely be asleep and having some sort of weird nightmare.

Wake up! Wake up!
She told herself and then she heard a thud - she’d landed on the floor. Had she fainted? She still felt dizzy but not enough to faint, surely? Her eyes closed and she groaned as she slowly felt the tingling sensation leave her body.

And then -
bliss!
She felt unusually warm and relaxed, like those blissfully gentle moments before sinking into sleep. She could feel her heart rate slowly returning to something approaching normality. Letting out a deep breath, she opened her eyes.

Nothing. Elena panicked, shut them and opened them again, her vision flooding with the bedroom. For a few seconds, she just sat there, listening to herself breathing. Everything was okay. She’d just had some sort of funny turn, she assured herself. Maybe she was overdoing things and this was her body’s way of telling her that she needed to slow down. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Something, she thought, was missing …

HER!

She
was missing!

‘
WHAT THE HELL?’

Well, at least her voice was still working, and she could still see. So what was going on? She tried to pinch herself with her unseen arms. ‘Ouch!’ She was still there, then, and not asleep. But maybe it would have been better if she
was
asleep, she thought. At least she could explain things then. But she was very much awake - awake and -
invisible!

That was it! She was
invisible
!

She shook her non-existent head. Surely that wasn’t possible? Surely the notion of invisibility only lived in fiction? Yet, here she was, standing in the middle of Sandro’s apartment with nothing to show but her confusion!

This wasn’t a trick, and it wasn’t very likely that this was her body’s response to stress, was it? It was the mask.

Her hands flew up to the ribbons tied around her head. She could still feel them and, loosening the little knot she’d made, she felt the mask slipping away from her face. She waited. Slowly, very slowly, the tingling sensation returned and she saw her body floating back into existence, appearing like a hazy mirage before settling into its usual solid self.

Oh my God! Mio Dio!

She looked at the golden mask in her hands, her eyes wide with wonder. What had she got hold of here? She was holding a little piece of magic - a miracle - something that wasn’t meant to exist.

Elena turned it around, expecting to see some sort of explanation or warning: a sticker, maybe, saying something like:
wearing this mask can seriously injure your appearance
, but there was nothing.

She took a deep breath. Even though she’d experienced the most horrendous reaction when she’d put the mask on she wanted, more than anything, to try it on again - just to check - just to make sure she hadn’t imagined it all. Placing it against her face, she carefully tied the black ribbons behind her head once more and waited.

She felt only a slow dissolving-like feeling this time which was a great relief. Perhaps the powerful reaction only came the first time. She had obviously lost her mask-wearing virginity.

Giggling, she walked across the room. She could still hear her feet on the floorboards and she obviously still took up physical space because she had to open the door in order to go down the stairs.

‘
Rosanna?’ she checked to see that she still had the apartment to herself. The coast was clear so she walked down the stairs on invisible legs, grinning with an invisible mouth. She knew exactly where she was heading: there was a large, full-length mirror in the bathroom downstairs and she intended to get a good look at herself - if that made sense.

Walking into the bathroom, she stood in front of the mirror. It was true - she could see absolutely
nothing
. But she still wasn’t completely convinced. She walked across and placed her hands on the mirror’s wooden frame and, still, she could see nothing, even though the feel of the wood was very real underneath her fingertips.

‘
Mio Dio
!’ she whispered. She wasn’t there at all! She was just air and space; she was a big fat nothing! And then, something dreadful occurred to her: maybe she’d died! Maybe she was able to turn invisible because she wasn’t really there anyway? But her senses were still present: she could speak, see and hear. She picked up a bar of Sandro’s primrose soap and sniffed. Yes. Her nose was still intact too. What about taste?

She ran through to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of apricot juice and drank, the liquid heaven filling her with relief. But were her senses only apparent to herself? There was nobody there to ask which meant one thing: she’d have to leave the apartment if she was to find out the truth.

Grabbing her coat, which instantly turned invisible the moment it was on, she left the apartment. It was a strange feeling to open the door into a world in which she was invisible. She was lucky that there was nobody around to see her or, rather, not see her, but observe the door opening and closing for no apparent reason.

She turned left and walked the short distance down to the Fondmenta Nove and looked out across the expanse of lagoon to the island of San Michele. It never failed to dazzle her with its beauty and, for a moment, she stood watching the water taxis bouncing over the waves, and the vaporetto leaving a huge white wake in its trail. People were out walking their tiny mascot-like dogs along the front whilst others shopped for groceries, and all were oblivious of her. It wasn’t as though she’d stopped traffic before but they, quite literally, walked right by her without even noticing. She watched in amazement as a young couple walked towards her. They were linking arms and both wore sober expressions on their faces as if it would hurt them to smile. Could she make them smile, she wondered?

As they got closer, she wondered what she should do. The young lady was nearest to her and, as she approached, Elena stuck a foot out - just slightly- and watched as the lady tripped over it. Her eyes widened in astonishment as she clutched the arm of the man and looked behind her to see what had caused her to stumble, but there was no pebble or loose paving slab. The man shook his head and the young lady frowned.

Elena wondered whether to follow them and see what else she could get away with but she thought better of it when she saw a middle-aged woman approach. She was carrying one small carrier bag of groceries and was muttering to herself. Elena waited until the woman was parallel with her and then tapped her on the shoulder. The woman screamed and almost threw her bag of groceries into the lagoon in fright, and Elena had to cover her own mouth to stop herself from screaming too. Turning around, the woman looked down the length of the Fondamenta Nove to see who had assaulted her but, of course, there was nobody there.

Elena supposed she was lucky that she had only caused her to scream. This invisibility lark was beginning to give her a sense of power that could very well be her undoing.

With this thought in mind, she returned to the apartment and took the mask off as soon as the door was safely closed behind her and she’d made sure she was the only one inside. Again, she felt a tingling sensation spreading through her body until she was visible again. She laid the mask on the long oak table which Sandro used to spread out all his art equipment. It looked at home amongst the brushes and tubes of paint, and that was when she remembered Stefano. He’d created this mask so surely he knew what it was capable of doing? And why had he given it to
her
? He’d taken very great care to find this particular mask for her, but why?

Elena grabbed a carrier bag from the kitchen and placed the mask inside it and then left the apartment again. She felt too fidgety to queue and wait for the vaporetto so decided to cover the distance on foot.

Elena had never walked so fast in her life. She almost flew over the bridges and, to be honest, wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if she actually had with the way things were going that day. Canals blurred as she broke into a run down narrow calli and across campi, questions flying around her heated brain. What had she been sold? What did she have in her possession? Did Stefano know what he’d given her? And, if he did, why had he given it to her?

Her feet pounded up the wooden steps of the Academia Bridge and she weaved in and out of groups of tourists, finding her way through the narrow streets towards Viviana’s.

Allowing her pace to slow, she took a few deep breaths. She felt a bit dizzy but wasn’t sure if that was from all the running or because of the strange experience of the mask. She checked inside the carrier bag and its blank eyes looked back up at her in complete innocence. It didn’t seem right to put a magical mask inside a plastic bag but she’d wanted it to be well hidden.

Turning right into the tiny calle, she noticed the instant hush around her. There was nobody around. In fact, she couldn’t remember seeing anyone much after she’d left the Grand Canal but she was in too much of a hurry to think about that.

She marched straight up and opened the door into Viviana’s, the little bell announcing her arrival.