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molto bello.”
He cocked his head to one side, his eyes alight. Would you like it as a birthday present? Shall I give it to you, Miss Wintermute?”
    Clara cried, “Oh, no!” and clasped her hands behind her back. “I mean, no, thank you. It’s very kind of you — but I couldn’t take it.”
    “Perchè no?”
Grisini shut his fingers over the watch and opened them again. His palm was empty. He laughed at her surprise, stepped forward, and flicked one of Clara’s ringlets. The watch reappeared between his fingers. “If I choose to give it to you, why not?”
    “I don’t —” Clara began, but the watch had vanished again. He snapped his empty fingers, and it gleamed in the palm of his other hand. He lost the watch a third time and discovered it behind Clara’s sash; he produced it from under her chin; he bent almost double and brought it out from the hem of her skirt. He circled her, his hands fluttering, the watch winking in and out of thin air. Clara felt as if she were being tickled. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to scream.
    “Perhaps you are afraid your mother will find out,” Grisini said softly. “How shocked she was, a little while ago! Oh, yes, I saw! The boy works the skeleton puppet — so I watch — and I hear you laugh!” His grin widened. His teeth were black and yellow, like the keys of an old piano. “But of course, she is shocked because you are laughing at death. Is that not so?
È vero!
But I say, Miss Wintermute, it is good to laugh at death —”
    “I — I wasn’t,” Clara stammered, “I didn’t —”
    “You did,” he contradicted her. He set his forefinger in the narrow groove above her lips, commanding her silence. “You have a brave heart,
madamina.
” His finger descended, grazing the lace on the bodice of her dress. Clara thought he was about to lay his hand against her heart, but instead he scooped up her gold locket and held it in the hollow of his hand.
    “
Cosa c’è?
It is new, yes? A birthday present? Only I think you do not like it.” His mouth twisted in an upside-down smile, as if he were talking baby talk.
    “I do like it,” Clara said desperately.
    Grisini smiled at her dishonesty, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “A very good sapphire,” he said in a pleased tone of voice. “Siamese?”
    “I don’t know,” Clara answered. Her mouth was dry.
    “The filigree work is well done,” Grisini observed. “Not quite so well as a Venetian jeweler might do it, but very fine.” He turned the locket to catch the light. “It’s the inside you don’t like, yes?” He leaned closer. “Open it up and let me see. I have shown you my treasure; now you must show me yours.”
    Clara felt sick. Grisini, the puppet master; Grisini, the foreigner, had touched the lace on her dress and was asking to see inside her locket. Such things did not happen. She gazed at his wriggling, agile fingers and felt a throb of terror lest he touch her again. She yanked the gold chain over her head and held it out to him.
    He accepted it gracefully and opened it to see the picture within. Against an ivory background was a weeping willow tree, less than an inch high. Each branch and frond was fashioned from snippets of human hair. “Ah, so this is for mourning! The hair is from your dead brothers and sisters, I suppose.”
    “How did you —?”
    “Servants talk, I am afraid, and such a sad story begs to be told.
Povera
Clara!” He held out the locket so that she could take it back. “But you were not made for weeping, little
madama.
You should laugh — as you did today — and you should dance. You
shall
dance.” He smiled. “Shall I tell you how?”
    His voice was gentle, encouraging. Against her will, Clara’s eyes met his. It seemed to her that they were terrible eyes: the whites slightly reddened, the irises as opaque as granite. She could not look away.
    “You are weary of mourning, are you not? You want to laugh and to dance . . . and there is something else,