Interstitial

December 1933

With Ambrose gone, the truth belongs to me. It is mine and I can keep it hidden, as Ambrose did, or I can make it known. The greater part of me wishes to fold it up in a box and throw it into the oubliette in the northwest tower, where it will live in darkness, unknown. Another part, however, wonders if this is not something that must be seen by the world. As the naturalist who examined my daughter once said—Vita is an unknown treasure of our planet. Special. A creature from another time.

Ambrose held his secret as strongly as the oubliette holds prisoners. In all the years we were together, he said nothing. He waited until the very end of his life to tell me the truth of how Vita came to be.

Do I dare to write it down? I am superstitious. The British naturalist would laugh to hear me, but I fear bringing something terrible down upon us. I am uneducated in the ways of Mr. Pringle and fear the power of the pen to bring truths into being that might have remained unformed. And yet, if I do not write down what I have witnessed, the truth will disappear forever.

I remember it as though it were only last night when Ambrose asked for his confessor. The priest arrived from the village and went to Ambrose’s bedside, while I stood, listening from behind the door. He had been sick for some months, and I believed he would recover if he could survive until spring. But the sickness took hold of his lungs, gripping with such ferocity that Ambrose spoke with a faltering voice, spending each word as if it were a golden coin. The weight and value of his words were not lost upon me.

“Heavenly Father, hear me . . . I must confess . . . something I have kept from everyone . . . the truth . . . Vita is my fault.”

I heard him say it: Vita is my fault. His fault. A rush of relief swelled through me. I began to weep. This confession relieved me of a terrible burden. Always, they had blamed me. Surely I, the mother, was at fault for bringing such a creature into the world. But Ambrose’s confession confirmed what I had long suspected: I had not caused Vita’s troubles. He was responsible for Vita. The Montebianco family was responsible.

The priest was our confidant, having relieved Vita of spiritual burdens, and he knew enough to remain silent as Ambrose spoke. Ambrose asked the Lord’s forgiveness. He said he should never have married me, that he had known even before we met that he was from a cursed lineage. His parents—who had arranged our marriage—had been foolish. He had been selfish. He had loved me and hoped that we would be spared. Now that Vita existed, he prayed she would bring no further suffering to others.

I listened to this strange talk, trying to understand it. But as soon as the priest left, I went to my husband’s side and demanded he tell me everything. What did Ambrose know about Vita’s origins? What had he hidden from me? What is our child? How did she come into being?

My dear Ambrose, who was once so beautiful and strong, looked at me weakly. How time makes us wretched! How it deforms and destroys us! I put a wet towel against his neck and gave him spoonfuls of water from a cup. I had always thought death was like falling asleep, but his was a form of wrestling, as if the material and ethereal worlds were pulling him this way and that, both wanting him, both unwilling to let go.

“Why would you have me tell you?” he asked. “When it will only terrify you, my love?”

“I am an old woman now. You will soon be gone. What is left but honesty?”

It was then that Ambrose told me the horrible truth.

“I saw the creature with my father,” he began, gripping my hand. “We were hunting wild boar in the caves above Nevenero. Do you remember, Eleanor, when I took you there?”

I nodded. One summer afternoon, when we walked together in the mountains, he stopped at an arcade of caverns, bent his knee, and gave me the bouquet of wildflowers he had collected. We were married already, our union having been arranged years before by our families, but it was only then I knew he loved me.

“I was fifteen years old when my father took me hunting,” Ambrose continued. “I was inexperienced and worried that a boar would maul me. I carried my flintlock ready, clutching at its wooden handle so hard it was slippery with sweat. Wild boar shelter in those caves all winter. My father knew this and came to that same spot each year. I stayed close to my father, following in the deep tracks he made in the snow.

“We climbed and climbed until we came to the caves. My father bent and picked up part of a chestnut left with the boar’s droppings in the snow. ‘There’s one close by,’ he said, and made his way to the mouth of a cave. I held back, watching him, listening. I wanted to see how he aimed, how he shot. I wanted to see if he flinched when the boar charged.

“It was then that I saw a movement in the trees. I flipped my rifle onto my shoulder and steadied it, taking aim. And there it was, staring at me. Its eyes enormous, blue, so big I couldn’t look away. The brow was low, heavy, and the nose large and flat. White fur covered it from head to toe, so that it seemed to emerge from the snow.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“It was an ape,” he said. “But a man, too. An Iceman, whose eyes were blue as crystal. It was very big, so large that I had to raise the muzzle of the rifle to take aim at its heart. I only heard my father cry for me to stop after I pulled the trigger.”

I stared at him, trying to understand what he was saying. There are many wild animals in our region, but no apes. The creature he described could not exist. It was impossible, his story. Impossible.

“The beast has been known in these mountains for generations, my father told me. They were here before us, even before mankind. They are from an earlier time, perhaps before the Flood. These are their mountains.” A wave of pain washed over him. He clenched his teeth together until it passed. “There is a village of them somewhere above Nevenero. I have not seen it myself, but there were men in my family who have been there.” He paused. “And once, very long ago, there was an instance of . . . crossing.”

Ambrose glanced at me, to be sure I understood.

I stared at him, aghast. Could he possibly be telling me that some part of his noble family—the fine and ancient line of Montebianco—was infected with the blood of this strange creature? That our child, our poor deformed Vita, was the product of such beastly stock? I could not believe it.

“That is not possible,” I said at last.

“It has long been talked about in the village,” he said quietly.

“But it is a legend,” I said. I wanted to dismiss what he was telling me. I wanted him to die rather than continue. “A village legend.”

“My grandfather, Leopold Montebianco, the youngest son of Alberta and Amadeo, and described by my father as a strange and eccentric man, discovered the village of Icemen in the mountains in 1812. He lived with the creatures for two years, studying them, making notes of his experiences, and when he returned to Nevenero, he brought with him a child, a son named Vittorio. This Vittorio was my father.”

“Your father was like our Vittoria?” I asked, anger rising in me like mercury in a tube, hot and quick. Why had he not told me before? Why let me torture myself all these years?

“No,” he said, grasping my hand. “There was nothing unusual about my father, Vittorio. And nothing, as you well know, in my nature resembles these creatures. But I knew the taint existed in our blood. I never wanted to continue the curse. And yet, I loved you. I could not keep myself from marrying you. Our child, however, has unmasked the truth: with Leopold, the Montebianco lineage became intertwined with these Icemen. Vita’s forebears were creatures of the mountains. She carries the traits of this ancient race of beasts.”

“Vita is one of them?” I asked, my cheeks stinging with shame, although some deep part of my being was joyous to have this explanation of Vita at last.

“Yes,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine. They were filled with terror. “She is one of them. But she is also human.”

As I finished reading Eleanor’s memoir, I took a deep breath, folded the pages, and put them back into the book. There was a tension pulsing through my chest, a pressure so constricting, so tight, that I stood and walked back to the window to get some air.

I gazed out the window, at the immense vista of mountains, the peaks pale against the pinks and purples of the setting sun, struggling to take in the meaning of Eleanor’s memoir. If what Eleanor wrote was true, Vita was not the only one afflicted with this legacy. A creeping sensation of horror fell over me as I understood: this was who we were. Not just Vita, but the Montebianco family, all born after Leopold. At last I understood all the terror and secrecy around Vita. My grandfather Giovanni’s shame. The desperate measures Ambrose had taken to hide his child. The estate’s requirement that I stay in Nevenero. It all made sense. Vita was the expression of our darkest secret, her existence proof of the taint in our blood. She was part of me, her genetic code twisted into mine, a legacy that I would carry with me and—if a child were to ever arrive—pass down. I was descended from these creatures. The Icemen were my ancestors.