Lucia Senza's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

For six years Lucia Senza had watched the shop next door, waiting to catch its owner in the act. Tonight she meant to end it. She stood at her turret window in her black widow's dress and stared at the heavy velvet curtains across the way. She had a plan, a girl on the inside, and witnesses coming at dawn. She had a notebook full of dates, smells, and sounds. Now she needed only to see behind that curtain herself. The girl on the inside was Caterina. Lucia had found her weeks ago, hiding near the fountain, foreign and lost. Caterina hated the shop as much as Lucia did. So Lucia had made a bargain. Caterina would open the door. Lucia would finally step inside and gather proof. Then the authorities would come and drag the truth into daylight. Lucia crossed to the shop under the dark. She pressed her palm to the velvet drapes at the front window. They did not part. She pushed harder. Something held them fast from within. She leaned close and saw it. Blue thread, stitched tight along every seam. The curtains were sewn shut from the inside. Caterina had done this. The girl who swore to help her. Lucia rapped on the glass. A shape moved behind the fabric. The curtain shifted an inch, and Caterina's face appeared in the gap. Her mouth opened, but no sound came. She pointed at her own throat and shook her head. Her eyes were wet. "You promised me," Lucia hissed. "You promised to let me in." Caterina pressed a slip of paper to the glass. The handwriting was shaky. "I can't speak now. She sealed my voice. I sewed the curtains so you'd stay out. If you come in, she'll do to you what she did to me." Lucia read it twice. Fear crawled up her spine, then hardened into rage. The girl had chosen the woman inside over her. She had chosen the very person she claimed to fear. "Then you've made your choice," Lucia said. "And I've made mine." She stepped back from the sealed window. She would not get inside tonight. But she no longer needed to. She had watched Caterina's silent mouth. She had watched a girl too frightened to scream. That was proof of something monstrous. That was a witness who could not lie. Lucia walked home through the empty square, past the tiered fountain, her boots loud on the stone. At her desk she opened the notebook and wrote the date. She wrote what she had seen. A voiceless girl. Curtains stitched shut against a neighbor. A door that would not open. At dawn she would bring the authorities. Not to see inside the shop. To take the girl out of it. If Caterina would not help her expose Artemisia, then Lucia would expose Artemisia by rescuing the proof herself. She blew out the lamp and waited for the light.