The Ancestor Read online

  “But why?” I asked.

  “The truth has never been an easy burden for the Montebiancos,” Dolores said. “With power comes pride. Better to hide a problematic child away than to let the world know how very damaged she—and thus the family—was.”

  Suddenly, I remembered the woman in the tower. The flicker of the candlelight over her pale face. The way she had watched me. It had not been Bernadette in the tower.

  “Ambrose, Vita’s father, had wanted to kill Vita, but her mother stopped him. I suspect she thought Vita would not survive long, and would take her tainted blood with her to the grave. But instead, Vita remained strong and vital. And, of course, her parents grew old and died, leaving Vita to the family like a cursed heirloom, one passed from generation to generation.”

  “Vita is alive,” I said.

  “She will be one hundred and two years old in March.”

  “And she is the person in the northeast tower.”

  “She has resided there all her life.”

  “But I don’t understand,” I said, trying to work out the consequences of this information. “Why didn’t Vita inherit the title of countess?”

  “Mon Dieu,” Dolores said. “Vita would never have been capable of running this place. She was deemed incapable of managing her own affairs and disinherited. The family records are in the library. I would suggest you acquaint yourself with them.”

  I glanced up at the portrait of my ancestor, the oils gleaming in the flickering candlelight. “Can I meet her?” I asked.

  She twisted a large ruby on her finger. “In time, yes. But not now. I’m in no condition for Vita today. She is not easy to stomach, even at her age.”

  “What is wrong with her?” I asked, feeling a knot of anxiety tighten in my chest as I realized that Vita’s medical problems might explain my own troubles.

  Dolores gave me a long, steely look.

  “The Montebianco family is one that survives by traditions, Alberta. Traditions that have been passed down for many hundreds of years. These traditions might seem outdated to someone like you, coming from a place like America, where people do just as they please. But for us, they are essential. The suits my husband wore were sewn by the same haberdashery in London as his great-great-grandfather used. His shoes? We have a cobbler in Milan who knows the family feet intimately—the width, the length, the peculiarities of shape. I don’t imagine you have these kinds of traditions over there in America, but for us, certain practices are not questioned.”

  She coughed again and, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket, wiped her lips.

  “For the past hundred years, the most important tradition of your family has been to keep Vita. Keep her from harming herself, of course, but mostly to keep her from outsiders. That has not been an easy task. She is often her own worst enemy. And over the years, there have been instances of trouble. Stories. Rumors. When fear and superstition get hold of simple people, they turn violent. Have you heard the accounts of what happened to noble families during the revolution in France? Such violence has happened often throughout history. Frightened peasants surround a family, burn them out of their home, parade them through the streets, and execute them. They pillage and destroy everything of value. It is savagery. They would have killed us all if they’d got ahold of Vittoria.”

  Dolores turned her wheelchair to face me, her green eyes suddenly ablaze.

  “But now you are here, and there is a higher responsibility to uphold than protecting Vita.” Dolores gestured to my ancestors gazing down from their gilded frames. “The Montebianco family relies upon you, Alberta. It is their legacy, our legacy, that must be kept. And I will help you do it.”

  Thirteen

  The air felt heavy as I pushed Dolores back to her rooms on the west side of the castle, as if weighed down by all that she had left unsaid. I wanted to ask her to explain what she had meant about protecting our legacy, but the poor woman was exhausted. Even before I handed the wheelchair off to Greta, she had fallen asleep. The morning had been overwhelming for me as well, and I felt the beginnings of a headache. I asked Greta the way to the courtyard and, armed with the mink coat, headed outside to get some fresh air.

  Leaving from the main door, I retraced my path from the night before. I walked over the icy flagstones, past the outbuildings and toward the main gate, glancing around, looking for Fredericka. She was nowhere to be found, thank God, but the doors of the mews stood open, wide and menacing. I was surprised to find that the outbuildings, which had seemed enormous and solitary the night before, were little more than one small corner of the vast courtyard.

  Daylight revealed it to be as big as a football field, the interior walls lined with windows and doors that opened directly into the castle. A set of stone stairs led up to a second-floor landing, where I could see—through a pane of intricately connected hexagons of glass—a chandelier in the ballroom I had discovered that morning. Above, the entire perimeter of the third floor was lined with shuttered windows. Below, stone pots stood throughout the courtyard, topped with snow and ice. I imagined that, come spring, they would be blooming with geraniums the color of blood.

  The chapel, that jewel box that had seemed so small from above, was in fact quite large up close, with vertical stained-glass windows and a stone steeple. I peeked inside and found rows of pews, an altar, a table of burned-out candles, and a marble baptismal font positioned before the altar. The last time it had been used, I realized, would have been for the baptism of my grandfather Giovanni and his brother, Guillaume.

  Being outside felt good after my strange and disorienting morning in the castle. The chill was reassuring, its effect simple and predictable. A thick white mist hung over the mountains, leaving the air cold and heavy in my lungs. Smoke rose from chimneys on all sides of the castle, diffusing the scent of charred cedar. I took a few deep breaths, filling my lungs with the smoke-tinged air, the aftertaste of carbon lingering in my throat as I came upon the castle gates.

  Gigantic, iron, and topped with spikes, the main gates of Montebianco Castle were imposing and impassable, two qualities that had surely served the castle well over the centuries. The doors were huge iron panels decorated with metalwork, the family coat of arms blazing at the center, and while I hadn’t noticed them the previous night—it had been dark and the helicopter had touched down at the very center of the courtyard—I saw now that these gates were the only way out. And they were closed tight.

  I gave the doors a shake, trying to determine whether I could push them apart. They were locked, but even if they weren’t, they weighed a ton. I remembered the boy Joseph, Greta’s six-year-old son, who had gone missing. With gates like that, he couldn’t have wandered away on his own. Basil’s theory about the father taking the child seemed like the stronger explanation.

  I worked my foot into a groove below the latch, testing out the possibility of hoisting myself up, but there was nothing to grab on to, and the top of the gate was ten feet above me, at least. Even if I were able to scale the door, the top was lined with iron spikes, short, sharp spears standing at attention, as if waiting to display a row of decapitated heads. Dolores, Greta, Sal, Basil, and the mysterious Bernadette. Enzo and Zimmer. Me. Human totems against the fierce elements outside.

  The clanking of metal behind me rescued me from this gruesome thought. “Good afternoon, madame.” I turned to find Sal walking toward me, a shotgun in his hand. “Need some help?” he asked. His expression was taciturn, accusatory, just as it had been the night before, only now I noticed the intelligence in his sharp brown eyes.

  “I was thinking I would take a walk. But the door”—I shook the gate again—“is locked.”

  “It is always locked,” Sal said, his whole manner questioning, suspicious. “What do you want out there?”

  “I’d like to get a sense of the property.” I gave him the most authoritative look I could muster. “Maybe check out the village.”

  “You won’t find anything down there, madame.”

>   “Nevenero isn’t very far, is it?” I asked.

  “Farther than it looks. If you want to see the village, let me drive you.” He gestured to a Range Rover parked in the far corner of the courtyard, shiny and gray, a snowplow rigged to the front. It was the single modern object I had encountered since my arrival.

  “Thanks,” I said. “But I’d rather walk.”

  Sal shrugged, selected a key from a ring on his belt—large and old-fashioned, bigger than the rest—unlocked the gate, then pushed the doors back. They creaked, the hinges rusty and unwilling, revealing thigh-high drifts of snow on the other side. He pointed to a cleared stone path snaking around the exterior of the castle, wide as a moat. “If you follow that,” he said, “you can see the village from the east lawn.”

  I thanked Sal again and hurried past the gate, happy to get away from him.

  Stepping outside the protection of the castle walls gave me the first real sense of the ferocity of the Alpine wind. I was met with a glacial gale, a strong slap of force from the north. Walking into it, I followed the exterior ramparts alongside the castle. In the somber light of late afternoon, the castle, with its gray towers and shuttered windows, felt sinister, identical to Nonna’s grainy black-and-white photograph. The landscape was equally foreboding, the mountains casting a desolate shadow across my path. Now I understood what Nonna had meant when she said the castle was always dark. In such gloom, blue skies and sunlight seemed impossible.

  Rounding a corner, I made my way uphill to the highest point of the grounds, the east lawn, where I was met by a wall of box hedges. Ducking through a small gate cut into the greenery, I entered a snow-covered expanse with a pond at the center, the surface a perfect circle of ice. In the spring, the pond would be so clear I would see a miniature civilization at the bottom—rocks and fish and frogs and moss. On warm afternoons, I would watch the shadow of the mountains float on the surface of the water, giving it the look of polished silver, convex, like an overturned spoon. But then, on that winter day, the pond was merely an extension of the frozen world, the colorless foreground to a vibrant greenhouse beyond.

  After the castle, the greenhouse seemed a miniature paradise. It was a Victorian structure made of iron and glass, its paint chipped and rusting, the panes fogged, rimes of frost collecting at the edges. I opened the door and a rush of balmy air fell over me, heavy with moisture and fragrance. Flowers and fruit trees grew in clay pots from one end of the space to the other, their waxy green leaves pressing like hands against the windows. Masses of tomato plants climbed wire cones, the fat fruit nudging potted lemon trees. I shrugged off the fur coat and leaned into a lemon tree, inhaling the bright, sweet scent of citrus.

  Seeing a wicker chair, I sat and stretched my legs. The sun was beginning to set, the light turning pink and orange on the granite rock face, a liquid light that seemed to drip from the peaks. The scene was beautiful, startling, like something you would see in a picture. And yet there I was, in real life, watching it unfold before me.

  If only the truth about my family would unfold with such grace. So far, I couldn’t get anyone at the castle to give me a straight answer about anything. That my great-grandmother was alive was a surprise, yes, but it didn’t have to remain such a mystery. If Dolores would just explain what was wrong with Vita and why she was such a big responsibility, I would make arrangements with Zimmer to assist her. I would bring the matter up as soon as he returned with the helicopter.

  The sunset was in its final moments of brilliance when, across the east lawn, Sal emerged through the gate in the hedge. He trudged past the pond, then turned toward the greenhouse. I didn’t have any reason to fear him, and yet I felt that there was something dangerous about Sal. It wasn’t only his gruff manner or his behavior at the gate that bothered me, but something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on. Perhaps I associated him with Fredericka’s attack and the painful scratch on my cheek, which wasn’t entirely fair. He was probably a perfectly nice guy who was trying to do his job.

  And yet, as he walked toward the greenhouse, I grabbed the mink coat and ducked behind a potted lemon tree, crouching down as he stepped into the greenhouse. He lifted a basket and walked from one end to the other, picking vegetables and fruit. I heard the squeak of a faucet turning, then water splashing. Some minutes went by as he moved past the beds of herbs and flowers, sprinkling them with water, his boots sliding over the colorful mosaic floor. I breathed slowly, quietly, thankful that Fredericka wasn’t there.

  Soon, Sal hung up the hose and went to a table, above which gardening tools hung on the wall. He took down a clipboard, glanced over it, pulled out a pair of shears, and went to work snipping herbs. He examined each plant with care, taking the leaves in his fingers before harvesting them. When he’d finished, he went back to the table, hung up the shears, and emptied the herbs into a large glass jar. Then, tucking the jar into his basket of tomatoes and lemons, he walked past me and out the door.

  When I was sure he’d gone, I stepped out from behind the lemon tree. The greenhouse was tranquil, everything just as it had been before he’d come in, only my peace of mind had been altered, replaced by a nagging sense of unease.

  I went to the table and grabbed the clipboard, finding a chart filled with Latin words, perhaps twenty or so. I didn’t understand Latin, but I guessed that the chart must be a list of herbs. Sal had checked off those he had harvested—Cicuta maculata, Atropa belladonna, and Ageratina altissima. He must be collecting plants for Bernadette and her herbal remedies, I thought, maybe even herbs to make the ointment for my cheek. It was incredible, I thought, how self-sufficient they were.

  I threw on the mink, went out the greenhouse door, and made my way to the gate in the box hedges. But as I walked past the pond, something caught my eye: at the very highest point of the east lawn, perched on a hill overlooking the pond, sat a squat structure built entirely of white marble. I glanced at the sky, where a deep purple night had fallen to the east. If I wanted to be back inside before dark, I would have to hurry.

  I hiked past the pond, following a cleared path lined with white mulberry trees—their gnarled black limbs pruned back to stumps—to the building. It was the family mausoleum, the façade composed of pillars molded with acanthus leaves and sculptures of angels. montebianco had been chiseled into the lintel above a wrought-iron door, an elaborate portal that opened into the belly of the family tomb.

  I pushed open the door, stepped inside, and found myself surrounded by dozens of names carved into marble cartouches. I examined the graves of the oldest members of the clan first, Frederick Montebianco (1235–1269) and Isabelle Montebianco (1240–1271), then skipped from plaque to plaque, jumping through time: Amadeo Montebianco (1765–1855) and Alberta Montebianco (1766–1834); Leopold Montebianco (1782–1818); Flora Montebianco (1819–1858) and Vittorio Montebianco (1814–1890); Eleanor Montebianco (1884–1942) and Ambrose Montebianco (1858–1929); and Guillaume Montebianco (1931–2016).

  As I considered these names, I was drawn to a cartouche that read “Vittoria Montebianco.” I knew immediately that something didn’t match up. The Vittoria Montebianco lying in the tomb had been born in 1915—the correct birth year for a woman turning 102 in March—but, mysteriously, the date of her death read 1920. Vita was the mother of my grandfather and was, if Dolores was to be trusted, still alive. Yet, according to the plaque, she had died when she was five years old.

  I shivered, pulled the mink coat tighter, and turned to go, wondering what it could mean, when I saw at the far end of the mausoleum a tablet, a marble cherub poised above, which read: Bénissez les âmes des innocents, qui sont partis avant le sacrement du baptême. Below, in tiny print, ran columns of names. Dozens of them. I leaned in to read them, but the light had faded and only the faintest purple haze lit the stone. As I slid my finger down the cold marble slab, pressing each name, a well of emotion swelled in my chest: these were the names of babies who had died before their baptism. I stepped back, finding it difficult to
breathe, suddenly aware of the low ceiling and the narrow walls, the way the cherub leered, his smile mocking me. I knew then that whatever disorder had afflicted my family began long ago, here in the Alps, among my ancestors. It had been cast in my blood like a curse.

  Fourteen

  Dolores had suggested I acquaint myself with the Montebianco family history by reading the family records, so after a restless night of wondering about Vita—and the plaque I had found in the mausoleum that suggested she’d died long ago—I decided to go to the library the first thing the next morning.

  Luckily, I found it more quickly than I had expected—it was on the third floor, in the northwest tower of the castle, a long, chilly hike from the first floor. Built into the turret, the library was a large circular room with bookshelves that followed the curve of the wall, the ceiling high and conical. My eye was drawn to an elaborate family tree painted overhead, the branches and leaves curling upward, filling the ceiling with the names of my ancestors and the dates of their births and deaths.

  Basil was at a desk near a window, writing in a thick ledger. It had begun to snow, and a cyclone of white swirled against the window, obscuring the mountains. There was a pot of ink at Basil’s side and a black fountain pen in his hand. He appeared to be cataloging books—there were stacks and stacks of them on the table, fifty at least. A history of the Alps, collections of political essays, a biography of Mary Shelley, and a novel by Ann Radcliffe.

  As I approached, he put down his pen, gave me a quick wave, and gestured for me to join him. I dropped into a hard, wooden chair. The room was cool, drafts of air slipping through the windows. I shivered and wished I had worn the mink coat, which I had left hanging in my rooms.

  “You must have a lot of time to read,” I said, glancing at the biography of Mary Shelley.