Free Mozart’s Blood by Louise Marley

never real. They have no meaning!”
    The young Teresa frowned and wandered away. Surely Mamma could never be wrong—but perhaps Mamma didn’t have the same dreams Teresa did. Perhaps because Mamma came from the Casentino, and not from Limone, and she didn’t have the waters of Lake Garda in her blood….
    And now, drowsing in the coach from Brescia to Milano, with an unfriendly lady and a hungry-eyed man for companions, with the shocks of ruts and rocks jarring her spine, Teresa dreamed. She saw again her father’s stricken face as she left, and in her dream she reached for him, but he turned away. She found herself on a wide stage, in a strange gown, a garment even more elegant than that of the veiled lady sitting across from her. Her hair felt heavy, piled on her head in loops and curls. There were other people, singers, wearing gowns and frock coats. Lights glared on their rouged cheeks and reddened lips.
    The dream changed, and she heard her mother singing as she swept the stone floor of the house beside Lake Garda. Teresa, outside the house, leaned across the balustrade to take a peach from laden branches that hung low over the water. The fruit was soft and ripe, fragrant with sugar and sunshine. She parted her lips and sank her teeth into its flesh.
    But it was not a peach she tasted. It was hot, and salty, with a bitter iron tint. She put her fingers to her lips, and they came away red with blood.
    With a shudder, she woke. The lady opposite her snored gently, her veils lifting and falling with her breath. Her companion, however, was wide awake. He had lifted Teresa’s skirts with the toe of his smooth leather boot and was gazing at her exposed leg. His parted lips gleamed with saliva.
    Teresa jerked her leg away. “Basta!” she exclaimed. She bent to smooth her skirt back down over her ankles.
    The lady awoke with a start and glared at both of them. “What’s happening?” she demanded.
    Her husband, for such he must be, Teresa thought, soothed her with quiet words, avoiding Teresa’s eyes. But the lady sat stiffly, wakeful now, staring at Teresa through her swathes of silk.
    Teresa turned her head away and gazed out the carriage window at passing fields of wheat. The ripe seed heads nodded in the hot sun as if bowing to the girl watching them. She put her fingers to her lips, remembering her dream. It was always good when Mamma came to visit her in her sleep. It was good to dream of singing, of what might be. But a peach full of blood…what did that mean? What was real?
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    Teresa Saporiti’s first sight of Milano was of the lacework spires of the Duomo rising above the city center. The coach stopped in Via Mengoni, short of the Duomo’s wide stone plaza. The driver opened the door. Teresa could hardly wait to be out, to drink in the sights and sounds of the fabled city, but she waited politely for the older couple to alight first.
    The man stepped down. The lady stood up to adjust her ample skirts before leaving the carriage. While her husband was turned away, speaking with the driver, she faced Teresa.
    â€œA word of advice, signorina,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
    Teresa got up from her seat, but she couldn’t straighten in the cramped coach. She stood awkwardly, her shoulders hunched, her head against the roof. “Yes, signora?”
    â€œStay away from married men,” the woman said. “People will think you’re a tart.”
    Teresa, hot and hungry and tired, lost her temper. “A word of advice for you, then, signora,” she said. She didn’t whisper. She let her clear, strong voice carry outside the carriage.
    The woman already had her gloved hand out the door for assistance down the step. “I hardly think I need advice from someone like you,” she began.
    Teresa interrupted. “Your husband wants watching, signora. He has a wandering foot.”
    The lady froze, and her veils rippled as her head