1 - Interrupted Aria by Beverle Graves Myers Page A

little one?”
    “I think I need some of my medicine,” she replied in a small, tight voice.
    “I thought something was wrong when you came back from the Mendicanti this afternoon.” Annetta nodded knowingly. “Was Father hard on you at the concert? Did he embarrass you in front of the other girls?”
    “It wasn’t Father. He said I did all right today.”
    “Then what is it, child?” Annetta gently raised Grisella’s chin and studied her impassive face.
    “Someone made a promise to me. Someone was supposed to be there and never showed up.” The candle flame glinted off her hard, dark eyes. “I waited and waited.”
    I watched uneasily as Grisella’s lips compressed and her grip on the candlestick tightened. Long familiar with our sister’s moods, Annetta was a step ahead of me. She had already retrieved a key from the belt at her waist and was removing a bottle of elixir from a drawer in the table by her bed. Grisella had not yet been totally overtaken by whatever strange force caused her tormenting spells. She allowed Annetta to take the candle from her clenched hand and even helped our sister tip the elixir into her mouth.
    “Not so much, dear,” Annetta cautioned.
    “I know. I’ll be all right now,” whispered Grisella as she laid her head in Annetta’s lap.
    Annetta relaxed back against her pillows and folded her legs under her skirt. Her brown eyes showed the relief of having averted another of Grisella’s spells. Grisella lay motionless as Annetta stroked her hair and gave her some advice about how to get along with the other students.
    “I know some of those girls must be very jealous of you. You have a nice home to come back to at the end of the day, and most of them are orphans. Not only do you have a family, but your father is one of the most important maestros at the school. I’m sure some of the girls do and say things to hurt your feelings, but you can’t let them bother you. Tito and Felice know what I’m talking about.” Annetta prompted us with a raised eyebrow.
    “She’s right, Grisella.” Felice took the cue. “We were teased all the time at San Remo. When Tito started getting solo parts in our concerts, little accidents started happening.” He grinned up at me. “Remember when that bunch from Genoa locked you in the latrine and old Norvello was going to whip you for being late to rehearsal?”
    I could laugh about it years after the fact, but the incident had been no joke to me then. When hundreds of boys of different ages are housed together and kept on a rigid schedule of study and practice, high spirits are bound to get out of hand. The popular maestros tolerated our pranks and tried to provide some play and recreation, but a few seemed to enjoy crushing any sign of misbehavior. Maestro Norvello had been a particularly mirthless stick of a man who had more than once drawn blood from my bottom with his hickory cane.
    I finished Felice’s tale. “And you scoured the compound and found me just in time. You even smoothed things over with that old.…” I let the word I had been going to use to describe our most hated maestro hang in the air in deference to Grisella’s young ears.
    “And then there was the time you were almost poisoned to death,” Felice continued, rocking back and forth on his stool.
    “What happened?” cried Annetta as Grisella pulled her head from our sister’s lap and sat up with a curious expression.
    “It wasn’t really that bad,” I explained. “Someone doctored my wine before I went on stage. He wasn’t trying to murder me, just interfere with my singing. He succeeded in that. My throat turned to cotton and my breathing was ragged. I got through the opera somehow, but it definitely wasn’t my best night.”
    “Who did that to you?” asked Annetta in shocked tones. She had never competed with another singer for a coveted role and had no idea how cutthroat the process could be. It was no wonder ambition was rampant with the stakes so