He and the mysterious woman had danced for hours, neither needing a different partner. When she spoke, she had a curious accent that he could not place. Soon he forgot that and listened only to her words. She knew more than anyone he had ever met—history, philosophy, and the mysteries of the human heart. Serenity and wisdom rested in her slim form, and he wanted to borrow her peace. For her, perhaps, he might find a way to rejoin the simple cares of mortal men.
After the dancing, at this very same window, she had raised her mask that he might see the rest of her face, and he had lifted his as well. He had gazed at her in a silent moment more intimate than he had ever shared with another. Then she had handed him her mask, excused herself, and disappeared into the crowd.
Only then did he realize that he did not know her name.
She never returned. For more than a year he had searched Venice for her, paid ridiculous sums for incorrect information. She was the granddaughter of a doge. She was a slave from the Orient. She was a Jewish girl who escaped from the ghetto for a night. She was none of those.
Heartbroken, he fled the city of masks and strove to forget her in the arms of a hundred different women—some dark as Moors, others fair as snow. He had listened to a thousand stories from them, helped some and forsaken others. None had touched his heart, and he left them all before he had to confront their aging and deaths.
But now he had returned to Venice to banish her from his thoughts, fifty years after he had danced with her across these floorboards. By this time, he knew, she was likely dead, or a wizened and blind old woman who had long forgotten their magical night. All he had left of it himself was his memory and her old leather mask.
He turned the mask over in his hands now. Black and glossy, it was a thick flat ribbon of leather that slashed across her eyes, with a tiny paste jewel glittering near the corner of each eye. A daring design, its simplicity at odds with the ornate masks worn by the women of those times.
But she had needed no further adornment.
He had returned to these bright halls to cast that dark mask into the canal tonight and banish her ghost to the library of his past. Gripping the old leather, he glanced out the open window. Below, a gondolier poled his slim craft through the dark water, ripples lit silver by moonlight.
Beyond the canal’s banks, figures hurried across stone tiles or over bridges. People on mysterious errands. People on everyday ones. He did not know, did not care. Like everything else, it wearied him. For one moment, he had believed that he might find connection, until she left.
Reluctant now to part with it, he stroked the mask with his index finger. It had rested in the bottom of his trunk for years, wrapped in the finest silk. At first he’d been able to smell the scent of lotus blossoms, but even that had faded. He brought the mask now to his nose and sniffed—one last time—expecting to inhale the odors of old leather and cedar from his trunk.
But the scent of lotus blossoms bloomed instead.
He turned his head, fearful of looking, the movement so slow that he would not startle even a timorous bird. His heart thumped in his ears, so loud that he expected the sound to draw all eyes to him.
She stood before him, unmasked and unchanged, her serene smile the same as a half century before. The mask slipped from his fingers to the floor. His breath held in his throat. Dancers swirled around, but he remained motionless.
It could not be.
Could this be the same woman’s daughter?
He dismissed this possibility.
Not with such an exact likeness.
A darker thought intruded. He knew of the ungodly beasts that shared his march through time, as undying as himself, but of craven bloodlusts and madness.
Again he banished this prospect from his mind.
He could never forget the heat of her body through her velvet dress when he danced with her.
So what was she? Was she cursed like him? Was she immortal?
A thousand questions danced in his head, replaced finally by the only one that truly mattered, the question he had failed to ask fifty years ago.
“What is your name?” he whispered, afraid to shatter the moment into shards like the one that she wore around her slender neck.
“This evening, it is Anna.” Her voice sounded with the same, queer accent.
“But that is not your real name. Will you share it with me?”
“If you will.”
Her glittering brown eyes looked long into his, not flirting, instead assessing his measure. He slowly nodded his agreement, praying she would find him worthy.
“Arella,” she said in hushed tones.
He repeated her name, matching her voice syllable for syllable. “Arella.”
She smiled. She had probably not heard her name spoken aloud by another in many mortal lifetimes. Her eyes sought his, demanding he settle the promised price for learning her one true name.