Unmasked

The City came from the sea.

It grew like a fungus, slowly at first but steadily spreading. It crept across the waters as more and more people settled there. Some sought shelter, others wanted safety, and some simply had nowhere else to go. The waters gave it life, gave it protection. While they also provided connections to any other port in the world they made it harder to reach, cut it off from the influence of other cities. It grew within itself for generations. The waters let trade in and out, drowned secrets and washed away things that people would rather forget. It flowed through the streets, each canal a vein carrying the lifeblood of the great City from one place to the next. The City grew upwards as it grew stronger, rising from the depths that Atlantis had once fallen to. This City could never be claimed by the sea because the seas already owned it.

Above the surface they worked hard to build boats and bridges. Beneath the surface something watched. And waited.

***

I picked up my mask and turned it over in my hands. The weight of it soothed me. It was always a little surreal to hold. I stared down at it, poked a finger through each empty eye socket and smiled. It had felt unnatural to be without it, like I was smiling down at my own painted skull. My real face had been too raw, too exposed. It is possible, in Venice, to disguise yourself for most of the year. It is just those long summer months where we have no carnivals to which the masks can be worn that make things difficult. It is possible, in Venice, to cultivate deep friendships with people who never know your true face. In these masks nobody knows who you are or where you come from. You can tell them anything. As the daughter of a convict, living here is the biggest blessing I could have dreamed of. Summer can be a very lonely.

I let out a deep, relieving sigh and turned the mask over one more time to look at the back. Summer was over now. I fixed my mask in place. With the cool china pressed against my nose and mouth, I could breathe easy again. I could even smile. When I looked in the mirror I recognised the face looking back at me.

The sun was beginning to set, turning the canal waters from blue to a light, fiery orange. Some lanterns deeper in the City had already been lit. I took to the streets and bridges, rather than the gondola. I much preferred to travel by water, but the canals would be too busy with the first night of the Carnival. The streets were busy too, but it is far easier to hurry around people than it is to hurry around their boats.

It is amazing how little attention people will pay to one another when you are all in masks. On the first few nights of a carnival, there are people who compare masks with one other, complimenting or envying them, but the novelty of that soon wears off. The vibrant colours of the costumes in the crowd changed the colour of the streets like the sun changes the canals. They were blue and purple and red and orange against the white Istrian stone City.

I held my head up. No one looked at me. They didn’t talk to or about me as I passed them by. I could look at them now. I could wonder what they were hiding. Some of them wore full face masks like mine. Others had ones that left their lower face uncovered. I wondered what it was like to take such a risk. Did they have more or less to hide than the rest of us? Were they hiding in plain sight? Had any of them been affected by what my father did? Had they sat on his jury? Was one of them his executioner? Treason was an offence to the whole City, after all. Or so they said.

I waited for my friend on the bridge. I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long. No matter if I was early or late, he always appeared no less than a minute after I did.

“Anna,” he greeted me and I knew him by his voice. He was dressed in a bright and vibrant blue, the colour of the canals before the sun sets. His mask covered his whole face, as mine did. It was mostly white with curling blue waves that rolled down his left check and rose up from the corner of the right eye. It fit him in such a way that I could not properly see his eyes, they were just dark spaces with a faint shimmer of life behind them whenever his face caught the light.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“Waiting for us,” he said and I liked to think that he said it with a smile. He led me away from the bridge and away from the throngs of people who were heading directly to the City centre. “We’ve not seen you in a while."

“We’ve not had a Carnival in a while,” I countered. Why would he say that? None of us ever saw each other outside of Carnival time. I had no idea who he was when he was unmasked any more than he knew who I was. That was our deal.

I had taken ill the last few weeks and hadn’t ventured out much. Had they found me out somehow? Did they know who I was? What would they think of me if they did? He changed the subject too quickly for me to fully gauge what he meant. Perhaps I was just being paranoid.

There was a slightly run-down hall in a slightly run-down part of the City. I had walked past it a few times, but never given it much thought. It had always been closed. But it was here that Marinus led me. There was music playing inside and I felt warmer than I had all summer. I had missed this.

The paint on the doors was chipped around the edges the wood underneath was damp. It must have rained. They creaked when Marinus pushed them open. The waltz sped up. I was greeted by a swirling mass of blues and turquoise and deep purples, with splashes of white from masked faces caught up in a dance. Extravagant feather headpieces rose and fell in time with the music. Long cloaks cascaded down shoulders to sweep across the floor. A dance of freedom.

Marinus turned his masked face to mine and extended a gloved hand. “Anna,” was all he said. I liked to think that he was smiling, because I was smiling back at him. I took his gloved hand in mine and curtsied before he swept me off to the dancefloor.

As we danced, lost in a sea of blue, I looked for masks that I recognised. An almost fully turquoise mask marked out my friend Colette in the crowd. I glanced to the man she was dancing with and immediately knew him to be Luca, his mask split down the middle between one side of midnight blue and the other almost pure white, but lightly flecked with gold. I was glad to see them here.

“This City,” Marinus said as he spun me closer to him. “Is rotting, Anna.”

“Marinus,” I cautioned. “What are you talking about?”

“Corruption,” he said.

“Marinus, not so loudly,” I pleaded. You never knew who might be listening.

“They all know it,” he said. “And I think you know it to, Giovanna.”

Giovanna.

I had never told him my full name. My blood ran cold. I stopped. He stopped too. In one heartbeat the music around us stopped and every masked face in the room turned to look at us. Their bodies stayed frozen in a dance, only their heads twisted to look. I shrank back from him, but he kept a firm hold of my hands. “How did you-”

“Your people,” he cut across me. “Have forgotten their roots. They have forgotten who truly controls this City. Your father failed to remind them, so now the job passes to you.”

“How… how did you-” I repeated in a whisper. He laughed and it was cold.

“Oh, you poor, sweet girl. You didn’t think you were the only one in this room who was in some kind of disguise, did you?” He lifted my hands to either side of his face. I gripped his mask with my fingertips but didn’t dare remove it. “Go on."

For the first time since we’d met I was sure he was smiling. Smiling at my fear. I didn’t move.

“No,” my voice was small but I was proud that it didn’t shake.

“You can’t run from this, Giovanna,” he said. “We won’t let you leave.”

I was so close to his face that I should, finally, have been able to see his eyes. I saw nothing but empty, dark space. My fingertips felt damp. I tugged on his mask and he laughed again. It came away in my hands and I was instantly drenched in saltwater. I heard the kind of watery crash that the sea makes when it breaks upon a rock and everyone around me was gone. The hall filled with water. I was trapped in a swirling, violent maelstrom. Blues. Turquoise. Splashes of white foam.

It hit me so hard that when it was over I was left on the ground as the waters of Venice poured out of the door. The flowed into every ocean, every river, ever canal, every puddle around the City. In a City made of islands, how could I ever leave? I shivered, with only the company of a cold and echoing laugh in a flooded music hall.