Arcadia Awakens (14 page)

She couldn’t see anything through the condensation on the glass.

She saw a movement just around the corner of the house, and knew at once that it was Zoe.

Her sister moved out of the shelter of the building and crossed the strip of open land, stopping halfway. Rosa quickly stepped back into her room until she could no longer see whether Zoe was looking up at her window. When she next dared to look outside, her sister was moving into the shadow of the chestnuts.

Rosa was wearing black jeans and canvas sneakers, with one of the dark T-shirts that Zoe had given her. She had the key to the front door in her jeans pocket. That was all she needed; a flashlight might give her away.

She quickly left her room and crept along the high-ceilinged, dim corridors to the stairs, until she reached the back door and was out in the open. Florinda was usually in her study at this time of day; the domestic staff had gone home to the village or to Piazza Armerina long ago. Rosa just had to take care not to run right into the arms of one of the guards patrolling the grounds.

Her sister had been heading up the slope. Beyond the row of chestnuts, pinewoods rose toward the top of the mountain. Although Zoe had not looked as if she were in a hurry, she had a considerable head start by now.

Rosa had noticed exactly where Zoe disappeared among the trees. The sky was still clear, the moon, half-full, gave a little light. Soon Rosa found a small trail leading up the mountainside.

Pine needles muffled her footsteps as the path wound its way past hollows and steep slopes. Just before she reached the top of the mountain, she saw her sister, a shadow among the tree trunks. Zoe was about fifty yards ahead of her. She was walking briskly, but not with any great haste.

Once, Rosa looked back over her shoulder and saw a few isolated points of light beyond the trees. The palazzo windows. Why hadn’t the motion detector light outside the house come on? Had Zoe switched it off? And if so, whose eyes was she hiding from? Florinda’s? Rosa’s?

Zoe disappeared down the other side of the mountain, and Rosa quickened her pace. More pine trees, more shadows. Somewhere ahead of her Zoe was walking through the darkness. Wind rustled in the needles of the trees.

And then the slope came to an end as suddenly as if someone had chopped a piece off it with a gigantic spade. A sharp edge, and below it a rocky, wooded ravine. Maybe thirty feet deep, no more. The opposite slope was also wooded, with the clear, starlit sky above it.

Rosa stopped at the edge of the drop. Now she could see that the path, after bending sharply, led along the side of the ravine, and she thought she could see Zoe again, a slender figure between the rocky edge and the trees. Rosa followed her more slowly now, which kept her from being seen when her sister stopped abruptly and looked around. There was no time to look for a hiding place farther in among the trees. She stood where she was, in the shadow of a pine, and hoped the darkness would hide her. Zoe was looking straight at her now. But she turned her eyes first to the ravine, then up to the sky, as if expecting airborne pursuers.

When Zoe continued on, Rosa stayed put a little longer before finally moving again herself. The path led on for several hundred yards farther along the edge of the drop, not more than a couple of steps from the ravine below. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted.

The bulky outline of a farmhouse emerged from the darkness. Rosa thought at first that the run-down place was empty, but then she saw a faint light inside. The tiles on the roof were crumbling, the pale walls were dilapidated. There were no shutters on the windows anymore, but someone must have hung black curtains inside. A thin strip of light showed through a narrow gap in the dark fabric.

Zoe shouted something that Rosa couldn’t make out. The back of the house came right up to the edge of the rock, and the front of it faced the woods. The door opened, creaking, and yellow light flooded out onto the ground. Zoe was silhouetted against the bright rectangle, in which a figure appeared, thickset and broad-shouldered. The man beckoned her in, and the door closed again.

Rosa took cover among the trees on the edge of the pinewood, choosing a place that would be out of the light when the door opened again. She wasn’t sure what to do now. Stealing over to the window seemed childish. Why would she be interested in what Zoe was doing inside the house? But then, why else had she followed her sister? She felt almost ashamed of it now.

She was about to simply turn away, leaving Zoe to go about her own business, when the door creaked again and swung open. There had hardly been time for the two people inside to exchange greetings.

Her sister came out with the sturdy man, both of them black silhouettes against the brightness of the doorway. Zoe leaned forward, kissed the man on both cheeks in a friendly farewell, and hurried back along the path at the edge of the ravine. She was holding a flat bundle of something in one hand, as she had the first time Rosa saw her out like this. She looked back over her shoulder once, waved to the man, and disappeared into the darkness.

Rosa held her breath as the outline of the man lingered in the doorway for a few moments. He seemed to be looking around. His gaze wandered over the outskirts of the wood, including the place where she was hiding. He paused several times, as if he had noticed something, but then went back into the house and closed the door. Rosa bit her lower lip, hardly daring to move.

As she hurried back to the path, she realized there was no real reason for her to be nervous. This was Alcantara land, the palazzo was quite close, and her aunt’s armed guards were patrolling on the other side of the mountain. Florinda must know about the man living in this ruin. Rosa assumed Zoe was visiting him on her aunt’s behalf. But what did she come here to do?

Ahead of her the path above the ravine was empty. Zoe must have made good time. Rosa quickened her pace too, and was soon climbing the slope, following the narrow trail to the mountaintop.

Something growled among the pines.

First on her left, then behind her, then on her right.

She didn’t run away, but instead stopped in her tracks.

Slowly, her eyes moved over the tree trunks. No undergrowth blocked her view, and the trees grew far apart.

There was no missing the tiger. She had always thought that big cats were elegant and supple, but the animal standing there in the dark was powerful, a mighty mountain of muscle and fur striped black and orange, with white markings around his muzzle. The tiger bared his canine teeth.

She ought to have been surprised. Or scared to death.

But she was neither.

They come at night.

The growl turned to a deep roar.

Always at night.

The tiger completed a loop around his prey, while she turned with him, never taking her eyes off him. A few yards up the slope he crossed the path and slipped between the trees to her left again. He was approaching her, not directly but in a spiral, gradually decreasing the distance between them.

Another circuit, and then another.

When he crossed the path for the third time, he was only a few yards away. There was something hypnotic about his threatening aura. Rosa stopped turning and stood there facing the ravine. She couldn’t even fathom the thought of making a break for it.

He was ten times faster than her. She didn’t have a chance.

The stealthy sound of his paws padding over dry pine needles died away. He was right behind her, just behind her back. So close she could smell his breath. He smelled of the wild. Of animal power. Of the confidence that he could do anything he wanted to her, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. And although she knew he was far more dangerous than the human beasts of prey she had met earlier, she still felt no fear. All her senses were paralyzed, including whichever one set off the panic instinct.

Very slowly, she turned to face him.

He stood just three feet farther up the path, his gigantic body tensed, his head lowered. Staring at her.

She remembered that look.

She recognized his eyes.

She still felt no urge to scream and run away, but she began to move anyway, cautiously, nudging backward step by step. And wondering why she hadn’t recognized him before.

He was going to kill her. That was why he had come here.

She’d had bad things done to her once before, and since then she’d been ready to defend herself. Against anyone or anything. But why was a strange chill spreading through her body, instead of hot rage?

The tiger followed her. Slowly, crouching low, he prowled down the path, still keeping the same few feet between them. As she walked backward, her feet felt for support on the springy forest floor. The path was steep here. The slightest wrong step and she would fall. The ravine wasn’t far behind her, perhaps ten steps away.

She could see that he relished having the advantage of his superior strength. He was watching her, and seemed to be waiting for something. Waiting for her to finally panic? The ice in her veins prevented it.

She began to tremble as the unnatural chill took possession of her whole body. The tiger narrowed his eyes. She expected him to pounce on her at any minute.

Rosa opened her mouth.

There was a hiss. For a moment she thought she had uttered it herself.

Behind the tiger, the dark path came to life. Its winding bends quivered; the ground was moving. Shadows were gliding down the mountain.

Rosa stopped, but the tiger kept on coming. He was crouching, ready to leap.

All at once the darkness lifted from the ground, a black ribbon rose in the air behind the great cat, and it looked like the path itself was changing course, flowing over the tiger and seizing him.

The beast of prey uttered a high snarl as he realized that he was being attacked from behind. The darkness wrapped itself around the tiger’s body. Its front end gaped open, two golden almond-shaped eyes glittered in the moonlight. The mouth that had just been hovering in the air above the nape of the big cat’s neck shot down.

The tiger was faster by a fraction of a second. He threw himself aside, his back hitting a tree, and squeezed his attacker between his heavy body and the trunk. The thing had been about to bite, but the force of the impact left its jaws snapping at empty air.

It was a snake. A snake several yards long, with silvery black scales, a skull the size of a crocodile’s, and fangs as long as Rosa’s fingers.

It had coiled itself tightly around the tiger’s body and was crushing his rib cage, while its head whipped back and forth in the darkness to keep out of reach of his snapping jaws.

T
HE TIGER AND THE SNAKE
rolled on the ground, hissing and growling in a life-and-death struggle, colliding with tree trunks. The big cat tried to pounce but staggered, and the beasts landed back on the path again still entwined. This time they were on the slope just below Rosa, who swung around and tried to keep her eye on the chaotic tangle of yellow and black, claws and sharp fangs.

She still felt the chill inside her, but it had stopped spreading. Her whole body was pulsating as if her heart had swollen to many times its normal size and was threatening to break through her thorax. She was in pain; something was tugging at her limbs, trying to twist and break and then reshape them.

But all that was in the background, because the struggle between the two creatures demanded her full attention. Rosa, struggling to keep her balance, could not take her eyes off the raging tiger. He was trying to summon enough strength to throw off the giant snake, which had now coiled itself several times around his body. Once again he stumbled, then fell and rolled away down the path, taking the snake with him in a swirling cloud of dust and pine needles. He got to his feet again only when they reached the outskirts of the wood, and through a daze Rosa remembered what lay beyond it. The edge of the rock. And below that the ravine.

The snake’s skull, half stunned by the impact, swung back and forth above the tiger’s back. Once again the wide mouth gaped open, the curved fangs shining like ivory daggers. The tiger passed one paw over his head and shoulders, almost clumsily, as if a troublesome insect had settled there. He caught the reptile below its head; the supple body bent, elegantly absorbing the force of the murderous blow. But still the snake couldn’t manage to sink its fangs into the tiger’s neck—and it saw, just a moment too late, that the tiger’s blow had also served a second purpose. Its swift evasion had brought its body within reach of the tiger’s muzzle, only for a moment, but that was long enough.