The Good Left Undone(23)

“Who will protect you? I don’t like the idea of Parma at all. But I don’t like this town either. I don’t have anything nice to say about Viareggio. You almost lost your eye.”

“I shouldn’t have turned. If I had listened to you, I wouldn’t have been hit.”

“There are always more rocks and there are always more boys to throw them.” Domenica patted his hand. She and Silvio sat on the step for a long time as the white moon flickered in and out behind the clouds. “Silvio, listen to me. When you get to Parma, don’t tell them about your name.”

“They find out anyway.”

“Not if you have a better story,” Domenica offered.

“What do you mean?”

“You have to talk about your father before they assume you don’t have one. Something like this: Signore Birtolini was a great man, a sea captain who battled pirates. He saved a treasure belonging to the Holy Roman Church, on a ship that was burned at sea.”

“But that’s not true.”

“It doesn’t matter! It’s your story. You make it up! Say this: Your father jumped off the ship with the precious relics, into a small fishing boat. He held on to the relics through hurricanes and blight and starvation and delivered them back into the hands of the pope himself, who went to anoint him in front of all the cardinals when Signore Birtolini . . .”

“Was hit with a rock.”

“No! Your father suddenly died, having been bit by a poisonous fish off the coast of Napoli while saving the relics. That’s the important part. Signore died while returning the loot! The pope dropped to his knees and kissed your dying father as he gave him the last rites. Extreme unction. Your papa was now whole in this world and the next. The cardinals stood in a red circle and wept. The pope wept. Together, they prayed as the angels came to take your father’s soul back to God.”

“You don’t need to go to the library. You don’t need to read books. You are a book.”

“Have a story ready, or people will make up one for you. You have to do it before they can. Promise?”

“Promise.”

“At least you listen to me. Nobody around here cares what I think.”

“I think you’re the most intelligent person I know. I’ll never make another friend like you.”

“Sure you will,” Domenica assured him.

“I don’t think so. You’re strange, Domenica. But there’s strength in what makes you different. Coraggio.”

Domenica opened the cloth. She gave Silvio the remaining bombolone. He accepted it and split it in two to share with her.

“Take small bites so it doesn’t pull the stitches,” she said.

Silvio ate most of the second bombolone in tiny bites. She ate the rest. They left not a single granule of sugar on the cloth.

Domenica folded the cloth into a neat square and gave it back to Silvio. “I was really hungry,” she said as she climbed back into the house. She poked her head out of the open window. “Thank you.”

“Domenica?”

She leaned against the windowsill. Her face—the only face he looked for in school, or at church, or anywhere for that matter, ever—was so close to his that for the first time in his life, the boy felt lucky. “Before I took the map, I found something that I thought might help you.”

“A weapon?”

He smiled, but the stitches hurt. “No. There’s a book called The Log of Captain Nicola Forzamenta in the map room. Pirates often hid treasure in churches.”

“Interesting.”

“It is.” Silvio went down two steps on the stairs.

He stopped at the bottom of the steps before turning around and bounding back up the stairs two at a time to face her. “Domenica?”

Domenica leaned on the window sash. “What is it?” she whispered.

He did not answer her; instead, Silvio took Domenica’s face in his hands and kissed her.

Silvio’s lips were softer than the bomboloni, which surprised her.

“Ciao, Domenica.” Silvio, having expressed himself so intimately to his best friend, was overwhelmed by what he had done. “I must go.” He climbed down the steps; when he reached the street, he looked up at her and smiled, holding the side of his face where the rock had landed because it still hurt. “I will return for you someday,” he said, so softly only the moon heard him.

Domenica waved goodbye before she pulled the shutters closed, lowered the window, and secured the latch. Through the slats, she watched Silvio Birtolini walk away.

It would be so much easier to fall asleep now that her belly was full. What would she ever do without Silvio Birtolini’s friendship? The old people said that every person was replaceable, but in her young life, that wasn’t true. There was no replacing Silvio Birtolini, because if there were, she would have already done it. He was the only friend she had whom she trusted with her secrets and her dreams. Silvio had the cunning to hunt for the buried treasure, and he was the only friend she liked enough to share the loot with once they found it. A true friend would steal for you.

There was a chance Silvio was right, that the pirates didn’t bury the riches in the dunes as she imagined, but instead hid the jewels in one of the churches. It was also possible the pirates had buried the treasure in the pine groves or found a spot up on Pania della Croce. She thought about this long enough to eliminate some localities that carried ancient lore. The pirates couldn’t have gotten as far as Monte Tambura, because they made it back to the ship docked in Viareggio in the same day. It was possible that they hiked up to Rifugio Rossi, left their things in the hut, and went farther up the trail to bury the valuables, retrieving their essentials on the way back down to the ship. There were so many options, so many places the pirates might have hidden the treasure. She doubted she could find it without Silvio.