Free Dark Shimmer by Donna Jo Napoli

you mean to others. And I hate it that you don’t see it yourself. You deserve to.
    “First, you comfort Bianca. You comfort Marin, too. He was bereft after five deaths in a row. Our parents, in a boating accident. Then our older sister, Moderata, in childbirth, like his wife, Veronica. Marin and Veronica’s son survived but one day.”
    “How awful.”
    She sighs. “And third, you remove my fear of being reduced to nothing. There you have it.” She rises and uses the chamber pot in the corner, while I look the other way.
    “What do you mean, reduced to nothing?”
    “It’s what would happen if Marin married anyone from the nobility. My life will be far better if he marries you.”
    “Marries me?” I sit up in shock.
    “Marin hasn’t let himself understand it yet. That’s how he is. But I can see what’s happening to him. And I’m glad he wants you. You don’t look down on me—the maiden aunt, spared life in a convent only because her brother had mercy and claimed her to look after his child.” She shakes her head. “Marin saved me because we’ve always been close. We see things the same way, even if I realize it before he does. He’s been glad to have me help with Bianca. But others don’t understand that.” Agnola opens the doors of the large wooden wardrobe, selects a dress, and spreads it over the top of the painted chest at the foot of the bed. She opens a drawer in the bottom of the wardrobe and takes out underclothes. She stops and smiles at me. “I like how you think, Dolce. Get out of bed. We can talk as we dress. I need to explain what the morning will be like.”
    I’m not ready to dress. I run my hands down my torso and suddenly feel self-conscious. There was never a chance before that how I looked might matter to a man. But now…I allow all the vague hopes I had not let myself acknowledge to flood me. Marin is good. Marin is wonderful! Is it possible he’d marry me? He’d have to be mad.
    High-pitched yips snap me back to the moment. They come from the courtyard. Agnola pulls up the rope and carefully wipes off Ribolin’s muddy paws with a towel. Then the pup goes flying around the room, jumping on and off every bit of furniture. I anticipate a headache and perch on the edge of the bed so that if it blinds me, I won’t fall. But it doesn’t come. And I realize I haven’t had a headache, or any sudden weakness, in days. My hands—I hold my palms before my face and spread the fingers—they’re steady. The pink is still there, but my hands don’t shake. I’m healthy.
Oh, Lord, please keep me healthy. Please make me worthy of Marin.
    Agnola talks as she arranges her hair. Her eyes follow herself in the silver mirror.
    “You’re so rich,” I say. “Yet you look in a silver mirror instead of a glass one.”
    Agnola gives a little laugh as she pats her hair into place. “Glass mirrors the size of this one cost as much as a room’s worth of furniture.”
    I’m astonished. I’ve made mirrors larger than the silver one.
    Lord, that means the glassblowers got rich while they paid us hardly anything. I have the terrible sensation that it’s easy to get cheated in the larger world.
    I’m so lucky to have been found by this family and no other.
    Agnola rouges her cheeks and lips. She darkens her brows with a pencil. I watch, fascinated, as she makes me repeat greetings after her, in exactly her way of speaking. We’ve been practicing for weeks. Agnola tells me to let her answer everyone’s questions. She tells me to pay attention, and if I have to speak, I must try to mimic the way the other women talk. Their speech is refined. Mine is not. But I’ll be all right, she says, because I’m a good mimic. She tells me I must allow the servants to serve me, not to help them as she and I do at home. I must laugh when she laughs, listen closely when she listens closely. I must smile at everyone, and she makes me practice that special smile: never big—not a grin, just a thin, small