Immortal by Traci L. Slatton Page A

Lord’s grace, this artist of miracle paintings, to know what I was. He would loathe me. I shook my head. “I’ll find you, Master.”
    “See that you do, pup,” he said. He cuffed my head playfully and took his leave.
    A while later I stumbled out of the chapel, transported with joy at having been spoken to by Giotto himself, master of the frescoes that gave me solace while I was working. He had treated me with kindness and even interest! My feet skipped down to the shining river, under a bridge where I had often slept. I was standing close to the water, which was suddenly dappled and blue, full of mischievous currents and surprising peaks of winter light. Sometimes the Arno rose and washed away the bridges and carried away screaming people, but today it was peaceful in its playfulness, and laughter floated down from the bridge above.
    After a while, I came to myself. I was being hailed. “Bastardo,” a weak voice was calling. Propped against one of the bridge struts, his useless legs stretched out before him, was Marco.
    “Marco!” I ran to him and hugged him tightly. He was pale and dirty, the scrapes on his face were full of pus, and he was much thinner. But he was alive. I asked urgently, “Are you hungry? I’ll get food!”
    He shook his head. “Not anymore. I was the first few days.”
    “I’ll get you bread and meat!” I scrambled up, prepared to run off and get him something.
    “Stay and talk with me, Luca. I always liked to talk to you.” Marco made a weak gesture with his muddy hand. I sat down beside him. “He let you go outside. Our plan worked. For you.”
    My throat constricted, but I forced out the words. “Marco, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know this would happen to you!”
    “At least I’m not working anymore! That’s something. You may be able to walk, but you still have to work.” He laughed bitterly.
    “Are you surviving out here? How is it?”
    His long lashes fluttered down. “The streets of Florence are not kind to cripples.”
    “I know. But I’ll bring you food every time he lets me out,” I promised.
    Marco opened his sunken eyes and smiled. “You would do that, I know. Bring me food and talk to me as if I mattered, as if I was still special.”
    “Of course you’re still special! You matter a lot!” I said hotly. “Just because you live on the street doesn’t mean you don’t matter!”
    “You’re the special one now. You learned from me. You’re keeping that thing alive inside you that would have you be kind.”
    “You were the kind one,” I said. “You gave me candies and teased me so I’d laugh and told me how to take a beating so it wasn’t as bad as it could be!”
    “I did little things for you and the other children because it kept me alive in there. You have to do those things now. Help the other children. Give what you can. Don’t hold back, give everything, anything! That’s how you save yourself!”
    “I want to save
you
now!” I cried.
    “You can save me, but not with food.” Marco’s black eyes were like spears into me.
    “Water? Wine?” I asked. “Tell me!”
    “Freedom.” He smiled as he said the word, then pushed himself upright with his bony arms. “Help me into the river.”
    “No!” I rocked back on my heels, shocked and understanding. “Don’t ask that of me!”
    “You owe me, Luca Bastardo,” he said, with finality. “I didn’t tell Silvano about you.”
    “This is no escape, Marco! You’re alive! You said yourself, at least you’re not working!” I grabbed his shoulders. “Marco, you have to try!” The words poured from my mouth in ragged pleas, but despair filled my gut. Marco’s eyes were set and void. I didn’t know why I hadn’t noticed that before; Marco, who had found a way to survive the brothel, had now yielded to his mutilation. In some way, he’d already left himself, already died.
    “I’m not alive,” he said, his face distorted with savage anger, his voice like the weighted silk bag swinging