Caterina Moderno's Arc

Chapter 5 of 2

The moth still turned its slow circles over the well when Caterina pulled Lucia back. "I can't go through yet," she said. "Not like this. The mint is still working in me. If I cross while I'm half hers, I might arrive as no one." She needed to undo the change first. That meant Artemisia's shop. That meant the tools that made her. Lucia understood at once. She had watched that shop for years. "She sleeps after dark," Lucia said. "The smell fades. That is when the lights go out." They walked back through the quiet lanes to Lucia's house, the dark turret rising above the brambly roses. Inside, past the drawn curtains, Lucia laid a plan flat on the desk like one of her records. "Her back door sticks. I have heard it. We go in, we find what unmakes you, we leave." Caterina hesitated. Artemisia had burned her clothes, yes. But Artemisia had also fed her, named her, kept her hidden. "She helped me," Caterina said. Lucia did not raise her voice. "She is remaking you. That is not help." Caterina looked at her own hands, at the hair she had pinned without thinking. She nodded. They waited until the shop went dark. The back door gave with a low scrape. Inside, the heavy velvet drapes sealed the room in black. Caterina lit a stub of candle. Everything looked strange to her changed eyes, but she knew what she wanted. On the worktable sat the seam kit, its scissors and thimble laid out like surgeon's tools. Beside it, the tin of mints. Caterina reached for the kit. "This is how she stitches people. There has to be a way back in here." Lucia moved to the shelves, lifting bolts of cloth, searching. Caterina opened the kit. The thimble was warm. She did not know why. Her fingers found a slim silver hook, and a memory that was not hers whispered its name. She flinched. A lamp flared in the doorway. Artemisia stood there in her nightdress, blue eyes wide, then cold. She looked at the open kit in Caterina's hands. She looked at Lucia among the cloth. Her gaze came back to Caterina and stayed. "You," Artemisia said softly. "I gave you shelter. I let you keep your shoes." Her voice did not rise. It sank. "And you open my door for her." She did not look at Lucia again. Only at Caterina. That was worse. "I need to be myself when I go home," Caterina said. "Undo it. Please." Artemisia's hand tightened on the lamp. "It cannot be undone. You know that now. You came to steal it anyway." She stepped inside and shut the door behind her. "Put down my scissors, Caterina." Caterina did not put them down. She held the kit against her chest. The trust between them was gone, and both of them knew it. Whatever came next, she could not walk back into this shop as a friend again.