The Witch in the Lake by Anna Fienberg Page B

heard no reply.
    The last he saw of Merilee was her cloth bag, flapping open and empty against her shoulder as she ran.

Chapter Six
    Leo crouched on the forest floor. He kept thinking about the bag. He couldn’t think of anything else. As soon as Aunt Beatrice came into his mind, or Merilee’s tear-wet face, he thought of the bag. The soft canvas, the black clasp undone, the way it had hung open, empty.
    He began to run through the trees, back down to the path where they’d met. He had to find Merilee’s song. It seemed so important suddenly that he could hardly see the bushes, dull and matted with dusk.
    Leo arrived home just as his father was lighting the lamps. The room looked cosy and unusually tidy—papers stacked in orderly rows on the shelf, the stone floor swept, the table laid with a fine embroidered cloth. And there at the head of the table sat Signor Aldo Butteri.
    He raised his glass of wine to Leo as he came in. ‘
Buona sera
, Leo,’ he greeted him, ‘come and sit beside me!’
    Leo glanced over at the fire where his father was ladling pasta into three white bowls.
    â€˜Go, go,’ cried Marco happily, ‘go and sit. Look what our friend has brought.
Accidenti!
’ Marco sucked his finger where he’d splashed a drop of boiling pasta.
    â€˜
Porcini
pasta, wine, guests,’ said Leo slowly, ‘this must be some kind of celebration.’
    â€˜You could say that!’ cried Marco as he brought over the bowls. He filled their glasses. ‘Tonight Signor Butteri has brought us a gift that holds the most important discovery in the world.’
    Signor Butteri gave a little cough, waving his hand a little as if to say ‘oh, it’s nothing,’ but he was glowing with pleasure and pride, his face lit up like a ripe red
pepperoni
.
    â€˜Look!’ Marco pointed to a book that lay open on the table.
    â€˜
Fabric of the Human Body
,’ read Leo, ‘by Andreas Vesalius, 1543.’
    â€˜Yes!’ cried Marco. ‘Can you believe it? At last a book of human anatomy is published, and here we have it lying casually open on our own dining table! Hah! Look, Leo, drink it in, turn the pages, read, study, be amazed, but make sure your hands are clean first.’
    Leo looked. In the centre of the title page there was an illustration of Vesalius dissecting a corpse. Leo grimaced. His father’s favourite subject.
    He pulled a stool up to the table. There was nothing to do but sit and listen. Maybe he would think of something—something heroic and brilliant—while the talk washed over him.
    â€˜I was lucky enough to be present at a lecture Vesalius gave in Padua, last year,’ Marco said. ‘He was dissecting a forty-year-old male—dropped dead after choking on a turkey bone—and a hundred students were watching the operation. They couldn’t believe their luck.’
    Aldo Butteri took a sip of wine. ‘I hope this book doesn’t encourage your strange ideas, Marco. I only got it for you because you insist on this kind of thing, but I don’t hold with the temple of the body being invaded by heathens, as you well know.’ He clicked his tongue in disgust. ‘It’s quite against the law to use a human subject. Before this bold fellow Vesalius came along, dogs or pigs were good enough.’
    Marco gave a hoot of laughter. ‘Yes, and it was while watching pigs being slaughtered that the great Leonardo da Vinci discovered the heart is a mere muscle—’
    â€˜Preposterous nonsense!’ cried Aldo, choking on his wine. ‘The heart is too noble—it’s the centre of the life force, you savage! The heart heats the blood, filling it with the glorious vital spirit!’
    â€˜You should attend one of Vesalius’s lectures yourself, Aldo,’ Marco replied, grinning. ‘I’m sure he’d convert you.’ He turned to Leo. ‘Lecturers before him always got a