Passion Blue Read Online Free PDF Page B

of linen cloth—and anything that would make a mark—a piece of chalk, a sliver of charred wood.
    Giulia’s mother had encouraged her, bringing her scraps of paper, praising her efforts. But to her foster-mother Annalena, Giulia’s scribbling was a self-indulgent waste of time, and she was scolded if Annalena caught her at it. She couldn’t stop drawing, though, any more than she could stop breathing. The attic storerooms had become her sketchbook. She’d drawn in charcoal on the plaster walls, in chalk on the plank floors, in a mixture of ashes and water on the underside of dust cloths. She’d drawn things she saw and things she had never seen. She’d drawn her mother’sface, over and over, pouring her grief into the pictures, her loss and pain. Sometimes she was able to reach a place where those things didn’t exist, where she was not a bereft and frightened girl, where there was only the unity of hand and eye and all that mattered was the images she brought into being.
    Much had changed since then. She’d learned to live with her grief, and then to live beyond it, though she could always touch it if she tried. She no longer had to draw on walls—she had Maestro’s sketchbook, and the sticks of charcoal she carried in her belt pouch. She had Maestro’s study, where she was always welcome—a far more friendly refuge than the chilly attic, with its fading traces of her childhood scribbles. But the drawing…that was the same. She was more skillful than she had been—she could draw almost anything. But it was still her favored way of escaping from her life. It still poured from her as naturally as breathing.
    With Maestro’s gifts, the cedar box was too full to close. But what to leave behind? There was no question of abandoning the trousseau, the only memento of her mother she had, now the necklace was gone. She sorted through her own things, setting aside all but the embroidered sash and the silver chain. Then she culled her drawings. In the end, she kept only a handful: her mother, drawn from memory, the topaz necklace encircling her throat, her heavy braid falling over her shoulder. Annalena at the kitchen fire. A portrait of Maestro. A view of his study and one of the attic. The sun and shadow in the
cortile
at noon.The orchard, where she had loved to sit and draw or dream.
    The remaining sketches she left on the table, along with the odds and ends she had discarded. Someone would find them eventually, and wonder how they had come there.
    She repacked the box, putting in everything except the silver chain, then closed the lid and tied it up with cord. She removed the talisman from her pocket and threaded the chain through the copper loop at the top of the stone.
    Not much light angled through the attic’s tiny windows. Even so, the blue of the lapis lazuli was as brilliant as a bird’s feather, and the copper inlay gleamed. Inside the stone, a spirit slept—a living thing wrenched from the heavens, imprisoned by the sorcerer’s will and by her own. What had he said?
Your desire is its desire now
.
    She shivered.
How do I know the spirit is truly bound? How do I know it won’t get free?
She heard Maestro’s words:
Sorcery is a sin, not just for those who practice it but for those who seek it
. And the sorcerer’s:
What you want from me is dangerous
.
    And her mother. What would she say, if she were here?
    In the end, the only person you can rely on is yourself
.
    Giulia drew a deep breath. She licked her finger and pressed it to the talisman. “A-na-su-rym-bor-i-el,” she whispered, enunciating carefully to keep from tripping over the strange syllables. Then again, for good measure: “Anasurymboriel.”
    She half-expected to sense the spirit as it woke: a tremor against her hand, a spark of light. Nothing happened. But when she looked up again, the attic around her seemed clearer than before, the bags and barrels and boxes more distinct, the scent of cinnamon and clove and saffron more sweet. As