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BOOK I

PROLOGUE

1845: The Bedbug

I

So I grew half delirious and quite sick,

And thro' the darkness saw strange faces grin

Of monsters at me One put forth a fin,

And touched me clammily: I could not pick

A quarrel with it: it began to lick

My hand,meanwhile a piteous din

And shedding huin

To near me, then retreat I heard the quick

Pulsation of ht

Of life and death within me; then sleep threw

Her veil aroundis true:

When I awoke, the sun was at his height,

And I wept sadly, knowing that one new

Creature had love for me, and others spite

- Christina Rossetti

THE FELT-PADDED BASE of the ivory bishop thumped faintly on the marble chessboard

"Check," said the girl

The face of the old man across the table from her was in shadow - the curtains were drawn across the street-side s, and the chandelier overhead hung crookedly because of the gas-saving mantle screwed onto it - and all she could see under the visor of his black cap was the gleam of his thick spectacles as he peered at the chess pieces

Both of them hated to lose

"Andowlishly at the girl

She sighed and spread her hands "I believe so, Papa"

The oldfro throwing the piece onto the coals Instead he put it into the pocket of his robe, and when his hand ree instead a thumb-sized black stone statue

Christina raised her eyebrows

Old Gabriele's answering smile ry "I carry it around with ood any does"

He put it down onto the square where his king had stood, and it clicked against the marble

Wanting to head off yet anotherdoes, Christina quickly asked, "What sort of good did it once do? You've said it's buona fortuna"

She and her sister and two brothers had seen the little statue on a high shelf in their parents' bedroom ever since they could remember, and they had even taken it down and incorporated the stuames when they were alone, but this was the first time in her fourteen years that she had ever seen it downstairs

"It led me to your land, and I thought it ht keep us healthy and prosperous, not - not destitute and losing ed with me useless'"

Christina could see hilint of the tears that were always ely ready these days, especially when he quoted Milton's sonnet about going blind She wished she had let hiame

Adopting a htly quoted a later line froan to pick the chess pieces froht denied?'" And she smiled at him and went on, "'I fondly ask'"

"Yes, you foolishly ask," he snapped "Where is yourroo room?"

It occurred to Christina who it was that her own indulgently dis Christina or one of her siblings when they used to wake up frohtmares

And she rehtmares, her father had always dropped the little stone statue into a glass of salted water She couldn't recall nohether it had ever helped

Her overness, and this rented house on Charlotte Street had no drawing room

Christina had laid all the chess into the wooden box, and now, leaving the statue alone on the board, she knelt by her father's blanketed knees and took his cold, dry, wrinkled hand

"How did it lead you to Mother?"

He was frowning "'Light denied,'" he said "I should destroy the daain"

She blew a strand of hair back from her forehead "I won't listen to you when you talk like that" Again she reminded herself of her mother, as if she were the parent now, and her father had become a petulant child

"Is it a compass?" she asked

After asmile "You were always a contrary little beast Tantrums Cut yourself with scissors once when your mother corrected you! I should never have told you about it"

"Tell me about it"

He sighed "No, child, it's not a coives you dreamsthat are not really dreams"

"Like second sight?"

"Yes I knew aboutstatues, from my days as curator of ancient statuary at the Museum of Napoli - soed to the Carbonari there, who also know s"

Christina nodded, noting the black spot on his palm - he had often told the children that it was the mark of Carbonari membership