Whispering Bones. Rita Vetere
so the authorities boarded up the doors and bricked up the windows of the infected households. No, there was no recourse there, and if her parents did not survive? What would become of her? Her aunt had already turned her away. There was no one else. How long could she remain alive on her own? Thinking of such things made her weary, wearier than she’d ever felt in her young life. At some point just before dawn, sleep overtook her tired mind.
* * * *
Isabella opened her eyes to the sound of heavy banging and sat up with a start. For a moment she wondered what she was doing on the floor then everything rushed back like a waking nightmare. She hurried to her parents’ bedroom and stopped in the doorway. The room was in utter darkness. Isabella travelled to the window to unlatch and open the shutters. She stood at the window, uncomprehending. The louvers were open. She had not closed them the night before. Beyond the glass she saw the bricks and mortar that prevented light from entering. Her mind registered the fact that the banging had not ceased and it was coming from the front door. As it dawned on her what was happening, she raced from the room.
“No!” she screamed, rushing to the door. But she was too late to stop what was happening. By the time she arrived, the hammers had ceased pounding.
“Help me! We are alive in here. Stop!”
She heard the low-pitched voices of the men as they moved away from the house, their job completed.
“Stop! Come back! Come back!” Frantically, she unlocked the door and tried to push it open as the voices receded. The heavy oak door did not budge, and she knew from having seen other houses that the workers had securely fastened it from outside, imprisoning her and her parents in their home. The house where she had lived for all nine years of her life had become their coffin. She leaned heavily against the door and slid to the ground, trying to wrap her mind around what had happened. Someone had reported the Moretti house to the authorities. Someone, a neighbor, or...Zia? The awful thought rang true and filled her with such cold malice she found herself unable to think, unable to form a single thought except: Dead. We’re all dead now. She repeated the words out loud, as if speaking them would somehow make it comprehensible. “All dead now.”
She sat, unmoving, while chaotic thoughts flapped all around and panic she couldn’t control raced through her. The darkened house made it impossible to tell how long she remained sitting there, but eventually a miserable, retching sound reached her and she got weakly to her feet. Mamma. Her mother needed help. Isabella fumbled her way around the dark kitchen, lit a candle and carried it with her to her parents’ room. Both her mother and father lay unmoving on the bed. Isabella placed the candle on the night table and checked for breathing. Her mother was still alive but, oh, the way she looked. Her once-beautiful face was now a grotesque mask of sores. Her head had tilted to one side as a result of the large lump on her puffy and swollen neck. Isabella’s gaze traveled downward and took in the blood stains covering the front of her mother’s nightgown and the bedding.
She cursed herself for having fallen asleep earlier. Had she remained awake, they might have been spared. Perhaps the men who had sealed off the house could have been persuaded to take her parents to the Lazaretto, where they might at least have a chance of recovery.
Isabella moved to the other side of the bed. Unlike Mamma, her father did not appear to be breathing. Heeding some instinct that rose in her, Isabella did not touch him. Papa was dead. She just knew.
She stood at the end of the bed, inhaling the foul stench of disease, mesmerized by the dim light of the candle glinting off fresh blood at her mother’s mouth. She listened to the low death rattle coming from her mother’s throat.
A strange numbness penetrated Isabella. When finally she left her parents’ room, she moved like a phantom, instinctively heading to her own bedroom, where she crawled into bed. Isabella curled into a tight ball, consumed by the horrific images of her lifeless father and sick mother, knowing that within hours her mother would also be dead. The understanding reached deep into the marrow of her young bones—she was alone. Alone in this house of death.
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