Read Passion Blue for Free Online

if the world had been veiled in gauze, which had just now been pulled away.
    She clasped the talisman around her throat. It fell just below the little pouch that held her horoscope fragment; the chain showed at the neck of her dress, but the talisman itself was safely hidden. She was struck again by how heavy it was, almost as heavy as her mother’s necklace.
    “I’m sorry, Mama,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t have given him your necklace if there was any other way. You understand, don’t you?”
    There was, of course, no answer.
    It was time to go. She raised her hand to cross herself, to say a prayer for the journey. But could she pray to God, now that she wore a celestial spirit around her neck, bound to defy God’s will for her?
    For a moment she hesitated. Then she lowered her hand.
    “Forgive me,” she murmured.
    The weight of the box pulled at her arms as she descended the back stairs to the ground floor, where the kitchens and workshops and servants’ quarters were.
    Since her meeting with the Countess, she’d thought only about the sorcerer and the talisman. Butnow, for the first time, she felt the weight of what was about to happen to her. By the end of this day, she would have passed beyond the walls of Milan, beyond the only home she had ever known, beyond all that was familiar. The dim, spice-scented attic, the orchard in the spring, the serenity of the
cortile
, the way the kitchens smelled on feast days, Maestro’s rooms, his books, her studies—she would never experience those things again. She would never see Maestro again, or Annalena.
    And what of her mother? Palazzo Borromeo held all the memories of her mother that she had. Would the memories fade, once she was gone? Would she begin to forget her mother’s face?
    As long as I have my drawings, I can’t forget
, she reminded herself.
I’ll never have to listen to Clara’s taunting again. I’ll never have to hide in the pantry to avoid Piero. I’ll actually see some of the world I’ve been reading about for all these years
.
    It didn’t help. Fear sat in her stomach. It fluttered in her throat.
    In the room she shared with Annalena and Clara—Piero had moved into the stables years ago, with the other grooms—Giulia made a bundle of her possessions: two chemises, a spare dress, her sewing kit. She left the box and bundle in the hall, and went to the kitchen to say good-bye to Annalena.
    Annalena had been good to Giulia—better than she needed to be, with two children of her own. She’d cried yesterday when Giulia told her about the Countess’s decree. Today they both wept, embracingamid the noise and bustle of the kitchen.
    “’Tisn’t right, you being sent off this way.” Annalena pulled away, scrubbing at her cheeks, then using a corner of her apron to dry Giulia’s eyes. “You never said nothing about wanting to be a nun.”
    “Don’t worry.” Giulia tried to sound confident. “I’ll be all right.”
    “Maybe you can write a letter. I can get one of the clerks to read it for me.”
    “I will if I can, I promise. Thank you, Annalena. For all you’ve done for me.”
    “’Twasn’t so much. You’re a good girl.” Annalena crossed herself. “I’ll pray to the Blessed Virgin to keep you safe. Now go, before we both start bawling again.”
    There was no one else Giulia cared to say goodbye to. Though it was not yet noon, she retrieved her bundle and box and went out to the
cortile
. She set the box in the sun and sat down on it to wait.
    “I’m frightened, Mama,” she whispered.
    To stop herself from crying again, she summoned her favorite daydream: the dream she turned to whenever she needed strength or comfort, the dream that was also a promise—her own promise, to herself, that she would never give up her fight against her stars. In the dream, the difficulties of her horoscope had been solved, and she was at home in her own house, awaiting her husband’s return. Sometimes her husband was a notary or a clerk.