The Witch of Napoli by Michael Schmicker Page B

threw me against the wall, and said I was a whore, and a bitch, and he knew what I was doing in the dark with Lombardi and Cappelli, and when I stopped making money for him he was going to kill me.”
    She shoved the tin box back into her bag.
    “Well he’ll have to find me first,” she said fiercely. “And I’ll have a knife ready, and maybe I’ll kill him instead.”
    “How did you manage to escape?”
    “He went out drinking with his friends, and I grabbed my clothes and the money box and came to the train station, and slept here.” She grimaced and rubbed her shoulder. “God, Tommaso, that was a hard bench.”
    A nanny towing a young girl glanced at us curiously as she headed down the hall to the women’s lavatory. I handed Alessandra her bag.
    “Wait till you see your cell in Lombardi’s asylum,” I teased.
    She finally noticed my bag.
    “What’s that?” she said.
    I thought fast. “A bag Lombardi wants you to take to Torino for him.”
    I walked her to the track and when the conductor finally called ‘all aboard’, she took my hand.
    “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Tommaso,” she said. “If only you could come with me.”
    I pulled the ticket from my pocket.
    “Maybe I will.”
    Alessandra looked at the ticket, then at me, then let out a whoop of joy and smothered me in her arms, dancing me around the platform.
    “You and me, Tommaso! We’re in this together!”
    The whistle blew and the train started to pull away from the platform.
    “Get on! Get on!” I laughed. We ran alongside, passengers gawking out the windows as I pushed her up the steps, threw our two suitcases on, and leapt aboard just before the platform disappeared. Alessandra ran to our seat, yanked up the window, and stuck her head out.
    “
Arrivederci
, Napoli!”
    It was goodbye forever, as far as she was concerned. She was never coming back.
    The train picked up speed, the dirty streets and dingy tenements of Naples slipping backwards, the city falling behind, until we burst free onto a sunlit plain of orchards and vineyards and turned north for Torino.
    For one brief moment in time, we were both on top of the world – we were both getting out of Naples, and setting out together on a grand adventure. For Alessandra, Rome was no longer an impossible dream, and I had a shot at my own dream. I would be spending the summer touring Europe, with Alessandra in the next hotel room and Pigotti stuck in Naples. It was a long shot, but a boy could get lucky.
    Then Huxley showed up.

Chapter 20
    N igel Huxley was a
stronzo
, a turd
.
    All Englishmen are – they enjoy humiliating other people. Huxley viewed Italy as a country stinking of stupidity, superstition and criminality. Unfortunately, he was also chief investigator for the prestigious London Society for the Investigation of Mediums so it was inevitable that he would eventually learn about Alessandra.
    As luck would have it, it didn’t take that long.
    Lombardi’s manservant was waiting for us with a carriage when our train pulled into Porta Nuova station in Torino. Lombardi took Alessandra straight to the asylum where his staff warden,
Frau
Junker, a stocky German woman with short-cropped hair, welcomed her with a scowl. The building reminded me of a prison – which it was for the patients. Three stories, with bars on the windows, a great iron door opening into a dark, empty, grey, stone courtyard where several miserable souls wandered about gesturing and talking to themselves. This was going to be Alessandra’s home for the next six months. Lombardi’s valet handed Alessandra’s valise to the warden. I hopped out to accompany Alessandra to her new living quarters, but Lombardi ordered me back in the carriage. He was impatient to get home.
    Alessandra turned to me with a nervous look. “Tommaso, promise you’ll visit me often.”
    “I’ll be here so often you’ll be sick of me,” I promised, squeezing her hand. “We Neapolitans have to stick