Afterlife

part four

by Go-Go Spiders

Federico and a cluster of Paola's girls watched Ezio practice lifting a courtesan's purse in the garden courtyard of La Rosa Colta. Ezio nonchalantly brushed against his target as Paola had shown him, gently knocking his shoulder into her and reaching for the pursestrings at the same time to quickly untie it.

Except Ezio wasn't quite fast enough, and the purse was still attached to the courtesan when she began to walk away from him. Ezio let out a noise of frustration when the purse moved out of his grasp, reaching out an arm to stop her. As he touched her bare shoulder, the loosened strings finally slipped apart and the purse fell from the courtesan's skirt, loudly spilling its contents across the cobblestones in the courtyard.

Federico winced in sympathy as Ezio's face turned red from embarrassment. So close after hours of practice.

"Thief, thief," the courtesan said without enthusiasm, shifting on her bare feet. "Stop him."

"And you have been caught trying to steal," Paola said to Ezio, moving next to Federico. She held a bright red apple in one hand. "Look, here come the guards to throw you into prison."

Ezio groaned, stooping down to scoop the coins back into the small purse and hand it back to the courtesan. "I almost had it that time, Paola."

"That is true. And you are much better at pick-pocketing now than when we first started," said Paola. "But almost being able to steal isn't what I'm teaching you, Ezio. Try it again. Oh, and do not interact with your target more than you have to – it increases the chances they might remember you later, when they realize their purse is missing. You do not want to be remembered."

Ezio nodded.

Paola turned to Federico as Ezio and the courtesan moved back into their starting positions for another attempt. "We will leave them to this, for the moment," she said to him quietly. "It's your turn now. Come with me."

She brought him up the floors of the brothel and into the building's spacious attic, ivy crawling over the windowpanes. "This should work nicely for our purposes," she said. "My girls are not allowed up here. We will not be disturbed."

"All right, Paola – how are you going to teach a dead man to be a better ghost?" said Federico.

"I'll tell you," Paola smiled. "Your problem, Federico, is that you're confused. You act like a man who is still alive when that is, unfortunately, no longer the case," she said.

Federico snorted. "I'm very much aware of that fact I'm dead, Paola. That's not really a revelation to me."

Paola shook her head, the dark-red fabric of her headpiece fluttering slightly. "You misunderstand me, Federico. You are still thinking as if you were alive, when you should be thinking as a spirit. Ghosts are invisible, incorporeal, not bound to the same laws the living are. You can use this to your advantage to get revenge on the man who betrayed your family. But first, I want you to catch this." She held up the apple.

Federico looked at her in confusion. How could she expect him to catch something? "But you just said -"

Paola gave him a knowing grin. "I know what I said, Federico. Try to catch the apple anyway."

She gently tossed the apple towards him. Feeling slightly foolish, Federico reached out and attempted to catch it. The apple passed through the palm of his hand without any resistance, landing on the floor behind him in a dusty corner.

"We'll try again," said Paola.

"I can't do it," said Federico after several more failed attempts at catching the apple. "I can't even touch the damn apple!"

"You can't?" said Paola with a small frown, kneeling down to pick up the apple where it'd fallen. "But you can touch other things, Federico. You don't plummet down through the floor when you walk. Ezio told me you were still able to climb up buildings, and I saw you lean against the furniture earlier. But I imagine even those things felt rather insubstantial to you, yes? "

There was an uncomfortable silence. "That's right," said Federico. The only thing that had felt genuinely solid to him as a ghost was Ezio.

"Do you know why you can do those things, but you can't catch this apple?"

"No," said Federico with surprise. "Do you?"

She nodded. "Your natural state as a ghost is to be intangible, but even if you're not aware of it, you still expect a building to support you, for your feet to not pass through the floor when you stand. In your mind, even as a ghost those objects are solid and immovable. But something as small and light as this?" She held up the bruised apple. "Not as easy for your mind to accept as solid. Unless you consciously choose to think of it that way, of course. Your mind is the key."

She spoke with so much confidence and authority regarding ghosts that Federico found himself asking, "Have you ever seen one before, Paola?"

"Seen a ghost before you came here with your brother? I have," said Paola, looking down at the apple. "My mother and father were the first ones."

Federico was silent, not knowing what to say. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's all right. They died at sea when I was Ezio's age and my sister was only a young child. Their spirits came to say their final goodbyes to Annetta and I the night their ship was lost." She paused. "Annetta couldn't see them at all; she lacks the second sight. So I told her what they were saying – that they loved both of us, that we had to look out for each other – and then they disappeared. That was the only time I saw them." She was quiet for a moment and polished the bruised apple with one of her sleeves. "Shall we try again?" she said.

Federico nodded, carefully considering what she'd just told him. As Paola tossed the apple to him again and he watched it arc through the air, he repeated a mantra inside his head: 'The apple's solid, I can catch it, the apple's solid, I can catch it...'

This time, he caught the apple for a moment, translucent fingers pressed against the firm red skin. He stared at it in shock before he lost his concentration and the apple slowly slid down through his hand. It landed at his feet.

Concentrating, Federico managed to nudge the apple on the floor with the toe of his boot and gently rolled it back to Paola.

"You're a very quick learner, Federico," said Paola approvingly. "Just like your brother."

Paola tossed the apple to Federico several more times until she was satisfied. He could never hold onto the apple for very long, but he could at least catch it every time she threw it. Afterwards, Paola and Federico watched Ezio attempting to pickpocket the courtesan from the attic window facing the courtyard in a comfortable silence. When Ezio finally succeeded at lifting the purse without the courtesan noticing, he held the stolen purse above his head with a wide smile. The group of Paola's girls surrounded him and loudly cheered, one kissing his cheek. Federico grinned, proud of his little brother.

But something was bothering him, something Paola had told him about her parents.

"Why do you think you didn't see the ghosts of your parents again, Paola?" Federico asked.

"Because they had done what they'd needed to do. They were at peace," she sighed, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "I do not think the dead and the living were meant to walk side-by-side forever."

This chapter would've been up sooner if I hadn't had to spend Monday night reinstalling OS X on my Mac after a software update went sideways. At least all my files were OK...

Thank you all for the kind reviews so far. They do mean a lot to me. c: