Concetta Aragosta and her friend Pinuccia lived near the top of the hill locally called Mount Portorosso, just a block or so from the medieval tower that stood there. Often one or other of them could be found in the front garden, tending to their flowers or their little vegetable patch, but today there was nobody in evidence but a couple of their cats. Alberto and Giulia exchanged a worried glance at this sight, but Alberto plucked up his nerve and went ahead to knock on the door.
Concetta opened it. She was a tall, wiry old woman, her face deeply lined from many decades of squinting in the sun. "Ciao, Alberto," she said. "We didn't order any fish today."
"I know," Alberto said. "Listen, it's kind of a long story, but we've brought Arturo."
Arturo, standing at the end of the walk with Helena, Giulia, and Ugo, raised a hand to give a nervous wave hello.
"Oh," sighed Concetta. "I know why he's here." She turned to call inside. "Giordana! Your brother's looking for you!"
"Giordana's here?" Arturo's nervousness was abruptly forgotten as he hurried forward to see. At the same time, they heard Giordana's own cry of surprise from indoors, and a moment later she appeared behind her aunt. She was still wearing her seagrass dress, but her aunts had given her a shawl to wrap around her shoulders.
Sea monsters could not always recognize each other in human form, but Arturo and Giordana seemed to know one another at once. At least, Arturo definitely did – he ran up and threw his arms around his sister's middle in a hug that knocked her right off her feet.
"You're alive!" he said.
"Of course I'm alive!" she replied. "Did Mom... oh, no, did Mom have to send you to look for me now?"
"No, the genie took Mom away and I thought he took you, too!" said Arturo.
Giordana frowned. "The what?" She looked up at the other visitors for an answer.
"I said it was a long story," said Alberto sheepishly.
Inside the little house, Concetta made a pot of tea while Pinuccia, who was short, plump, and quiet, sliced up a loaf of focaccia. This had apparently been brought to them by Giordana.
"I didn't find you at the laundromat," Giordana told Arturo, "so I went back to the fish shop and Signora Marcovaldo told me you'd run off when you heard I was looking for you. I figured you went home and I ought to go too, but those two boys who'd been showing me around said they had to give me a present. They said it was something they do to make sea monsters feel welcome." She paused. "At least, that's what the fat one said. The skinny one kept snickering at him.
"So they took me to the bakery and gave me this big loaf of bread." She pointed to the slices Pinuccia was passing around. "That's a strange place, the bakery. It's decorated with all these harpoons and nets, and Ciccio said it was because his father used to work on a whaling ship. Why would anybody want to hunt whales?" she asked. "Whales are perfectly nice."
"She brought the loaf to us," Concetta said, "because she could tell the water would ruin it, and I'm afraid we insisted she stay a while. I was going to see her home and apologize to Attinia."
"What happened to Mom?" Giordana asked.
Arturo looked at the older kids, so Giulia and Alberto stepped up to explain. A few sentences into the story, Giulia fell silent and let Alberto continue on his own, because she'd realized this would be the first time any sea monsters besides Arturo and members of Luca's immediate family found out about her wish. The ones they'd met before, like Signora Zigrino and Donzella the blacksmith, and even maybe Uncle Ugo, had just assumed she was somebody new in the area... the same thing people in Portorosso had assumed about Luca and Alberto for half the summer. What were Concetta and Pinuccia, who already knew Giulia, going to think.
"A genie?" Concetta said when he got to that part of the tale. "You can't be serious."
"Of course we're serious!" huffed Alberto.
"Sea monsters exist," Helena offered. "Why not genies?"
"That's hardly the same thing," Concetta said. "Sea monsters aren't magical... you may as well say if we exist then fairies must, too!"
"Sure we're magical," said Alberto. "What's the Change, if it's not magic?"
Concetta paused and looked over at her friend, but Pinuccia could only shrug. Clearly neither of them had ever thought of it in that way.
"The Library of the Deep holds the story of how the Sorcerer Oannes made it possible," Uncle Ugo put in, "so I would say it is very much magic."
"Anyway," Alberto went on, impatient with this aside, "Giulia was the one who opened the bottle, so she was the one who got the wish..."
Giulia realized that it was her responsibility to tell this part. "Yeah," she interrupted, "and I wished I was a sea monster, so I could... so I could visit Luca's house and watch the baby fish hatch, and go see the shipwreck Alberto found." It sounded so dumb now... but it had been so much fun at the time.
"And she's amazing at it," Alberto added defensively, in case either of the old women had anything to say about that. "She learned to swim in no time at all, and now she's almost as fast as us, and she was the only one brave enough to try Uncle Ugo's worms."
"It is true," Ugo nodded. "Smart girl. Luca chooses his friends well."
"You mean it worked?" asked Pinuccia, looking Giulia over as if to see if there were anything visibly different about her.
"It did," said Helena. "We're still figuring out how to deal with it."
"I can show you," Giulia ventured.
"No, no, that's not necessary," Pinuccia assured her.
"What's any of this got to do with Mom?" Giordana wanted to know.
"That's about what the genie did after," said Alberto. He went on to describe how they'd met the genie in the shipwreck, and then what had happened, first at Arturo's house, and then at Luca's. He finished by explaining how Luca had gone back alone to look for more people, with the amulet to keep him safe. Giulia kept quiet through this, feeling like all the sea monsters in the room were staring at her disapprovingly, although she didn't dare look any of them in the eye to check.
"We're gonna fix it," she added quickly, when Arturo finished. "Somehow. We don't know how yet but we promise we will. Until then, Arturo and Uncle Ugo need somewhere to stay... and Giordana too, I guess."
"We'd be delighted to have Giordana and Arturo," Concetta said. "We don't see nearly enough of them."
"But we don't have a lot of extra room," Pinuccia added, with a wary look at Ugo.
"Of course, of course," he said, raising a hand to reassure them he took no offence. "And I'm not the type to impose, especially on a family who are getting acquainted! That's why I came here in the first place, to get to know my own nephew better. Do not let me keep you from doing the same!"
Arturo heaved a sigh of relief. One set of weird relatives at a time was clearly all he could handle.
The rest of the group thanked Concetta and Pinuccia and bid them a good day. As they left, Pinuccia was already getting out a measuring tape and talking about the need to alter some clothes for the children, but Giordana followed them out the door and caught Giulia's wrist. She pulled both her and Alberto into a hug.
"Thanks for looking after Arturo," she said. "If I'd gotten home and found him all alone I would have gone nuts, so I'm glad somebody was with him even if it was you guys."
"Hey, no problem," Alberto said.
"Prego," Giulia agreed.
Giordana straightened up again and took another look at Giulia. "I never would have guessed about you," she said. "I mean... I guess that's not something I would have thought of anyway, but you never seemed weird or anything, besides that you were hanging out with Luca and Alberto and you have to be kind of weird to do that."
"Thanks," said Giulia, who wasn't entirely sure Giordana was complimenting her. It was hard to tell if she meant her comments in a positive or negative way.
"Once we get this fixed you're gonna be seeing more of all of us weirdos," said Alberto proudly.
"Uh-huh." Giordana clearly wasn't sure what she thought of that.
As they left the yard, Uncle Ugo shooed away an orange cat that was sniffing at his trousers, and then gave a shudder. "That was a narrow escape!" he said. "Anyone who can live up here for forty years because of a grudge is somebody to be feared! As for me, I saw the culvert below your piazza. It looks nice and dark and I think I will be quite comfortable in there."
"You can't do that," said Giulia. "It's probably full of rats and things."
"And it's still in the water," Alberto agreed. "The genie recognized Luca and me even when we were on land. You can't attract his attention, and that means you have to completely pretend to be human."
"Do I look like I know how to pretend to be human?" Ugo asked.
"We didn't have to teach you to walk," Alberto pointed out. "You must have done this before."
"Long, long ago," said Uncle Ugo.
Giulia had been told that Luca had needed to learn to walk when he first came out of the water. She'd wondered about his parents and where they learned, but hadn't even thought about it when they'd dragged Uncle Ugo onto the shore. He'd been unsteady at first but had found his balance very quickly and was now walking just fine, as if he'd only needed to be reminded how. "What happened?" she asked.
"There was a war going on then," Ugo replied curtly.
That seemed like something they should probably not delve into any further. Giulia looked over her shoulder, as the house Concetta and Pinuccia shared vanished over the top of the hill. "They didn't say anything about me," she said. "Just Giordana did."
"They didn't say anything good, but they also didn't say anything bad," Alberto pointed out. "And if they did, then who needs them?"
Giulia wondered if they were talking about her now that she couldn't hear. "I guess if Oannes wanted humans and sea monsters to be friends, he'd be okay with me," she decided.
"I don't know that's true," said Uncle Ugo. "The Change, that was one of the magics Oannes is supposed to have refused to the humans, even at the cost of his life."
"That doesn't seem very fair," Alberto observed. "So we can just walk around in their world, but they can't come into ours?" That had been what led to Giulia's wish in the first place.
"If we could ,what would be the difference between us?" Helena asked.
"Maybe that's the point," Alberto said. "We're supposed to be friends while still being different." That seemed to be the lesson everyone had taken from the day of the Portorosso Cup race, at least.
"Maybe Oannes didn't really want us to be friends," sighed Giulia. "Maybe he said that, but he just wanted his people to be able to spy on us."
This idea wasn't one she'd put a lot of thought into – it just popped out in the moment. Once Giulia had said it, however, she realized it made a frightening amount of sense. Passing unrecognized among humans was just what Alberto and Luca had done in the summer, after all, and they'd been reasonably successful at it even when people found their behaviour a little strange. A sea monster spy who actually knew what he was doing, as long as he was careful not to get wet, could go just about anywhere.
The others must have been thinking something similar, because conversation paused as they all took a moment to digest the suggestion. Into this silence Giulia added, "teaching us to read and write might be sort of the same thing. Once you're writing stuff down, anyone can read it, including your enemies." An awful lot of Old Tommaso's stories about the war involved intercepting and decoding messages. If that were true, if the whole thing were about spies rather than friendly relations, then Giulia, as a human who could turn into a sea monster, was the exact opposite of what Oannes had in mind.
"Perhaps you should consult the Librarian of the Deep," said Ugo. "There are things in her archives that even she knows nothing about. The answers may lie there."
"Only one of us would be able to go. There's only the one amulet," said Alberto.
"And that's if the Librarian is even still down there," Giulia added morosely. The idea of the Librarian of the Deep and what secrets she might know still intrigued her, even if it were now starting to be very clear that the ocean wasn't Giulia's world and she would never be allowed to belong in it.
"I volunteer," said Ugo, as if he were being very magnanimous. "While I'm down there I can collect some supplies. I shall starve up here otherwise."
"Wherever you end up, I'm sure they'll feed you," said Helena dryly.
"But what are they likely to feed me on?" Ugo asked. "Bread, like the old ladies tried to offer me? Ugh!" He stuck his tongue out. "It's mostly air! You get more than enough air up here already."
When they came to the street where the hostel was located, Alberto and Giulia went ahead to peer in the window and see who was in the ground floor shop. It looked like only Signor Gamacchio himself. They opened the door very slowly, just in case, but no buckets fell down, so they walked in.
"Hello, children," said Signor Gamacchio, in the middle of sorting some magazines. "Shall I call Professor Hamid for you?"
"No! No, don't call her," said Alberto.
"We need a bit of a favour," Giulia explained. She held the door open to let her mother and Ugo inside.
"Oh," said Signor Gamacchio, taking his turn to look over this odd stranger. "Hello."
"Hello, Simone," said Helena.
"Buongiorno," said Uncle Ugo.
"This is Luca's Uncle. He needs a place to stay for a few days," Alberto explained.
Signor Gamacchio took in Uncle Ugo's eyes, and their refusal to move in unison. "Are you sure he doesn't need a doctor?"
"No. He's just like that," said Alberto.
"Also," Giulia put in, "you probably shouldn't let Professor Hamid know he's here. She already thinks something weird is going on."
"She mentioned that," Signor Gamacchio agreed. "Is there something weird going on? Weirder than usual, I mean?" Local standards tended to be somewhat higher than Professor Hamid's were likely to be.
Giulia's instinct was to keep the secret, and for a moment she almost did... but Signor Gamacchio was hardly a stranger, and like much of the rest of the town, he had come to be somewhat proud of Portorosso's unusual neighbours. "Something's happening to the sea monsters. We're not sure yet what it is, but we think they're safer out of the water."
"So I may be very busy soon," Signor Gamacchio observed.
"Depends on how many people Luca finds," said Alberto.
"I'm sure we can figure something out to pay you later," Helena added.
"No, no." Signor Gamacchio held up his hands. "If people have been forced out of their homes I am happy to accommodate as many as I can. That's just being neighbourly!" He turned to Uncle Ugo and attempted a hospitable smile. "Shall we find you something to wear?"
"Absolutely not," Ugo replied "As warm as it is up here I am already being boiled alive. Have you anywhere cold and dark?"
"You don't want to sleep in the basement," Signor Gamacchio said. "It gets damp down there."
Uncle Ugo nodded eagerly. "Yes! Damp! Perfect. That sounds very comfortable." He tapped his fingertips together with a smile.
This clearly went against every instinct in Signor Gamacchio's body. He took a deep breath, perhaps reminding himself that sea monsters were not human even when they looked it, and should be provided with what they needed, not what he thought they ought to. Then he made himself smile, and said, "let's see what we can do to make you feel at home." He got his keys out to unlock the basement door. "What do you prefer to eat?"
"Whale carcass," Uncle Ugo replied at once.
Signor Gamacchio froze with the key in the door. "Uh... mutton is also a mammal," he managed. "Maybe you'd like that?"
A few minutes later, Uncle Ugo was happily settling into a leaky basement corner and Helena and the kids were on their way back down to the piazza.
"I wonder how Luca's doing," said Giulia nervously. She kind of hoped he'd be waiting for them at the Pescheria, but she had a feeling he wouldn't be. Until she'd seen it for herself she hadn't realized that the sea monster community was spread out like farms in the countryside rather than being a town like Portorosso, and it would probably take him hours to search.
"He had the amulet, he's fine," Alberto replied at once.
"You know what I meant," said Giulia.
He sighed. "Yeah, I do. Maybe we should go check on him."
"I don't think that's a good idea," Helena told them. "You don't know exactly where he is, and you can't go searching all over when it might be dangerous to be in the water."
"Yes, Mamma," Giulia said, but when she looked at Alberto she found him just as uncomfortable about the idea as she. Luca had family missing. So did Arturo and Giordana, but they at least had each other and their aunts. Luca was all alone, and he shouldn't be, not when he'd been so upset the last time she'd seen him. It wouldn't be safe in the water without another amulet... would it be possible to make more?
"Alberto," she said. "You were copying out that writing on the back of the amulet. Do you remember what it looked like?"
"There was a little owl with skinny legs," he remembered, "and a letter T with a loop over it..."
"Can you draw it again? That might count as more amulets," Giulia said.
Alberto brightened. "You think so?"
"It might not be enough," Helena warned them. "We don't know anything about that object. Maybe the face on the other side is important, or maybe it has to be made of gold... we don't know what goes into making it work. Anyway, I don't know if I'd trust that you can reproduce it from memory. Maybe it's something to try when Luca gets back."
Giulia sighed in frustration, but her mother was right. "We can ask Professor Hamid about it later," she said. The Professor ought to at least be able to tell them whether the symbols alone would do the job. "Once Luca gets back."
Luca was not waiting for them at the Pescheria, but somebody else was. Massimo had returned early from his fishing. He didn't have much of a catch, but he did have a guest. With him in the boat as he tied it to the quay was a man nearly as tall as he and just as broad across the shoulders, though older and fatter, with a pot belly and steel-grey hair. He was sucking on the knuckle of his right thumb, which he'd apparently injured, and was wearing Massimo's blue jacket – but under that he had only a pair of seagrass trousers that marked him out as another sea monster. Alberto and Giulia ran ahead of Helena and down the steps to meet them.
"Signor Donzella?" Giulia guessed.
"Hello, again," the man replied around his injured thumb. "The shrimp. Little b... little beasts hit hard."
"Silvestro came up beside my boat and said Luca had told him I would give him a ride to shore," Massimo said.
"He found me at Chiara Zigrino's," said Donzella. "I was hoping she could help me out with this, but she wasn't home. Place was a mess. Luca told me the same thing and happened at a bunch of other houses, and when I went to check in at my brother-in-law's, it was the same, nobody there. Then Luca spotted the boat going over, and told me I needed to get out of the water and Massimo would help."
"Did he find anybody else, or just you?" Giulia asked.
Donzella shook his head. "What's going on? Where is everybody? What happened to Giorgia and Junior?"
"We're not sure. It's got something to do with the genie," said Giulia.
"Your genie?" asked Massimo, his eyebrows rising.
"Yeah." Giulia looked at her feet, ashamed of herself. "My genie."
"Where's Luca now?" Alberto wanted to know."
Massimo finished getting the boat safely tied, and then helped Donzella get up and out onto the stone quay. It was clear that, unlike Luca's parents or uncle, Donzella had never been out of the water before. He was having a terrible time getting his balance. Helena came forward to help.
"We'll get you up to the hostel," she said. "Simone Gamacchio has said he'll take in as many as he can. Luca's uncle is staying with him, and Arturo and Giordana Trota are going to be with their aunts at the top of the hill."
Donzella nodded, struggling to stay upright. "This looks so easy when humans do it!" he complained.
"Signor Donzella," Alberto insisted, "where is Luca? Is he okay?"
"Last time I saw him he was on his way home," Donzella said. "He said he had to take care of one more thing."
Alberto frowned, then realized where his friend must be. "Oh!" he said, kicking his shoes off. "I know exactly where to find him!" He leaped into the water.
"Alberto!" Massimo said sharply. "Didn't Luca say it wasn't safe?" But Alberto was beneath the surface and gone.
"I'll get him!" Giulia said. She pulled her sweater off, squirmed out of her jeans, and jumped in after Alberto.
He had a good head start by now, and for the second time that day, Giulia had to swim with all her might to keep up. She remembered practising for the race that summer, watching the seafloor go dimly by beneath her and feeling like she was absolutely flying along, but that had been nothing compared to how fast she could go as a sea monster. If they didn't want to let her swim in the race again next summer, she couldn't really argue. She had an unfair advantage now.
She caught up with Alberto halfway down a slope and called out to him.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"To the meadow near the Island, where he used to let the fish graze!" Alberto said. "That's what he went to take care of! If the genie disappeared everybody else, there'd be nobody watching them!"
That definitely did sound like something Luca would do. Giulia remembered how affectionate he'd been with the little flock when he'd introduced her to them. They all had names and he knew their individual quirks.
She followed Alberto past the island and down into a little sheltered area surrounded by rock formations. The seaweed grew thickly in the bottom of this even in the winter, and sure enough – the fish were grazing there, while Luca was sitting on a big stone in the middle, hugging his knees to his chest and with his tail curled around himself. Most of the flock seemed uninterested, but one fish was gently butting Luca's shoulder, trying to get his attention.
Luca put up a hand and pushed the animal away. "Not now, Giuseppe," he said.
"Luca?" Alberto asked.
Luca raised his head, and Alberto swam closer to sit down beside him. Giulia wanted to follow, but hung back. Her mother might say this wasn't her fault, but that didn't mean Luca agreed, especially now that he'd had some time to think about it. Luca was usually a very forgiving sort of person, but this was a completely different situation from any they'd been in before.
"You shouldn't be down here, Alberto. Go back to town," Luca said.
Rather than argue, Alberto told him, "we found Giordana. She was at Concetta and Pinuccia's house. Her and Arturo are gonna be staying there while your uncle and Signor Donzella are at the hostel."
"Good. You need to go, too," Luca insisted. "I'll be back for dinner, but somebody needs to look after the fish and now there's nobody but me."
"You don't sound like you're fine," said Alberto.
He was right – Luca wasn't fine at all. He was utterly miserable, with no idea what to do next. It was a relief to know that Giordana was okay, but with her, Arturo, Uncle Ugo, and Signor Donzella... that was only four people out of the entire community. Everybody else was just gone and they didn't know where or whether they'd be able to find them. Luca curled up a little tighter and brushed salt secretions out of the corners of his eyes.
"What are we gonna do?" he whimpered.
"We have some ideas," said Alberto. "Your Uncle thought he could go check that Library of the Deep. The Librarian is supposed to know all kinds of things so maybe she knows about genies. Giulia had an idea that if I draw copies of the writing on the back of the amulet..." He paused, realizing Giulia hadn't joined them, and looked around until he spotted her sitting by herself on the rocks above the meadow. "Giulia?"
She slid down and made her way over to join them. "I'm sorry, Luca," she said, settling down next to the boys. "If I knew this was going to happen, I would have told the genie to get right back in his bottle and tossed it back into the sea."
"And I would have taken it to the deepest place I know and buried it," Alberto added.
Luca shook his head. "Don't be sorry," he said. "It's not your fault. I just can't stop thinking about... what if they're gone forever?"
"No way! We're gonna get them back," Alberto promised. "Giulia thought we could ask Professor Hamid, too, since she knew about the amulet. Maybe she'll know more things the ancient Egyptians used to do about evil spirits."
"And even if she doesn't, she might know somebody else who does," Giulia added. "She knew the man who knew about the Abtu, and when your Uncle started talking about things that live in dead whales, she knew a guy who knows about that, too."
"Yeah," said Luca. "Yeah... you know what? You're right." There had to be somebody who could tell them what they needed to know, and Professor Hamid and the Librarian of the Deep both sounded like good places to start. Feeling a little better now, he put his arms around his friends and pulled them close for a hug.
"Underdogs forever, right?" Giulia asked.
"That's right," Alberto agreed. Both of them also knew that if the worst happened and they couldn't find the missing people, the two of them would be Luca's family... but neither dared say that out loud. It was too awful to think about.
Luca himself seemed to have even more on his mind than that, though. "Giulia," he said, reluctantly loosening his hold, "don't be sorry. It was still a good wish. The genie messed it up, not you."
"I'm not sorry I made this wish," Giulia told him. After all, if she'd wished for anything else, she would be waiting at home, worrying about both of them right now. "I'm sorry I made a wish at all." If she hadn't, there would have been nothing to worry about.
Luca just nodded. He heaved a sigh and tucked his knees up to his chest again, and a few moments went by with no sounds but those of the fish moving through the seaweed as they grazed. The distant thrum of a motor told them that a boat was passing over, but it was not visible from down in the hollow.
"So this is what you used to do all day, huh?" asked Giulia. Another fish came up and inspected her toes for a moment. She reached to scratch its head, but it darted away.
"Yeah," Luca murmured.
"Seems really peaceful," she offered. It was kind of hard to believe they were in any danger down here, with the seaweed waving tranquilly in the current. Maybe in the summer she could take a couple of turns at it.
"It's boring," said Luca. "I used to sit here all day and just wonder about stuff... like where boats came from, or why it got dark at night, or why dolphins need to go to the surface to breathe even though fish don't."
"You know the answers to all of those now," Giulia reminded him.
"Yeah. I guess I do." Boats were something humans built so they could cross the water without getting wet, night was dark because the sun was on the other side of the world, and dolphins couldn't breathe the water because they were mammals and evolved from animals that lived on land. The world had turned out to be so much stranger and more complicated than he'd ever imagined.
"Come on, Luca," said Alberto, "let's all get back. Massimo and Helena are worried about you, and they didn't say so, but I'm pretty sure your uncle and Signor Donzella are, too."
"I'll have to take the fish home," Luca said. "And make sure they have feed."
"We'll help," Giulia told him.
They rounded up the little flock and Luca counted them... Donatella, as usual, was hiding somewhere, so they had to search until they found her nibbling at the weeds under an overhang. With everyone present and accounted for, they took them back to the Paguro house. Alberto and Giulia got them into the barn and dragged a bag of feed over to fill the manger, while Luca also fed his father's crabs. This was a slightly more dangerous task, as the crabs recognized that Luca was not their usual caretaker and had no qualms about pinching him to express their annoyance. Alberto remembered to release some krill so the jellyfish in the house wouldn't starve.
Luca looked across the field and frowned. "Other people have livestock, too," he said.
"We can't possibly look after all of them, Luca," said Giulia. "We just need to find everybody as fast as we can, okay?"
"Okay," he said reluctantly. Giulia and Alberto took his hands, and the three of them set off for the shore.