The Witch of Napoli Read Online Free Page A

Alessandra in the morning.
    That night, Alessandra escaped the house.
    “I had a second key,” she admitted. “I was sneaking out every night when they were asleep to see this boy. The night I ran away, I broke into the kitchen and stuffed my dress pockets with their silverware. I sold a spoon whenever I got hungry.”
    She found work as a laundress, and got married at 15. Her first husband was only a year older than her. She was madly in love with him, but he didn’t put bread on the table. To keep them from starving, Alessandra started holding séances herself. There were a lot of dead for her to talk to. Cholera swept through Naples all the time, and every family had lost a child to yellow fever or typhoid fever and hoped to make contact one last time. Mothers besieged her seeking assurance that their little boy or girl was safe and happy on the Other Side. A few were simply looking for a supernatural thrill, hoping to hear a rap, or feel a phantom touch or watch a table levitate in the air. They paid Alessandra what they could – a cup of goat milk, a lemon, something stolen from a house they cleaned – and it helped keep them alive. But one day she came home and found her clothes in the street. Her husband had gambled the rent money, lost it, and had taken off, leaving her with nothing. Someone told her to talk to Pigotti. He could help her.
    “They told me he had money and liked pretty women,” she told me. “I was desperate so I moved in with him.”
    It was a terrible mistake.

Chapter 5
    A lessandra is beyond his reach now, thank God.
    Pigotti took over her show and her bed but he was insanely jealous. He couldn’t stand the thought of her sitting in a darkened room holding hands or pressing her leg against other men. He wasn’t dumb; he saw how men undressed her with their eyes. But he liked the money more.
    I should have been afraid of him after that first séance, but I was cocky, sixteen, and crazy in love with Alessandra.
    I finally came up with a scheme.
    I made a print of her with the cat – after cropping Rossi out of the picture – and mounted it in a pretty walnut frame, then sent her a message through Rossi offering her the picture and suggesting we meet for lunch. I waited nervously for her response, worried that I had appeared too aggressive, but a few days later received a scribbled note telling me to meet her that night at eight o’clock in the Piazza del Plebiscito. I snuck out of work early and hurried back to my apartment to press my white dress shirt, brush off my suit jacket, and pat a few drops of cologne water on my face before catching the tram to the piazza.
    It was a beautiful April evening, the sky turning pink from the setting sun and a large crowd of smartly-dressed ladies and gentlemen already strolling the arcades and enjoying the cool sea breeze up from the harbor. I got there early and dodged my way through the clopping horses and the slowly circling carriages to the Caffè Gambrinus, expecting to see uncle Mario outside the entrance, in our usual spot, selling postcards. He wasn’t, but Marcello was still there waiting tables.
    “Aren’t you the big shot now, working for the
Mattino
,” he teased when he took my order. “You better leave me a big tip.”
    “Important people expect superior service,” I laughed. “A
caffe nero
, and make it quick.”
    I sat there enjoying the show, one I never got tired of. Foreigners flock to the piazza to tour the royal palace which fronts the square, shopping for hats and gloves, lava and coral cameos, and copies of ancient bronzes. They always proved entertaining. As Marcello gabbed away in my ear, I sipped my coffee and watched a knot of German tourists, clutching their Baedekers and pestered by beggars and bootblacks, make their way towards the grand fountain to see the dancing dogs. Trailing behind them was a pair of Carabinieri, smartly dressed in their cocked hats and black and red police uniforms, watching for