Young Nicola Gregori has always wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, a brilliant clock-maker who’s famous for his wild, fantastical designs. But his father instead sends him to school to learn more practical matters. Nicola, stricken with infantile paralysis that left him with a deformed right leg, becomes an object of mockery and cruel jokes in school. He learns that in order to survive his daily ordeals, he needs to vanish in the crowd, to stop aspiring, to stop dreaming, and above all, to believe himself unworthy of respect and love.Tragedy strikes when Nicola turns sixteen. Gustav Renfred, an old friend of his father, takes on Nicola as his charge and whisks him away to an isolated islet filled with empty mansions and bordered by a bluebell forest. There Nicola slowly learns about the tragic story that tightly weaves together the fates of Jacopo Gregori, Gustav Renfred, and Gustav’s twin sister, Constanza.
Magic, impossible dreams, and unrequited love come together in Ambrosi, the Renfreds’ mansion, where Nicola is caught up in a world of haunting portraits, a ghostly housekeeper, and the mysterious disappearance of Davide, Constanza’s adopted son. When Nicola’s invited to one of Renfred’s magical masquerades, he discovers the answers to riddles as well as the mounting danger that the Renfred family faces with every passing hour.
With the masquerades’ existence depending on the physical and mental strength of an ailing Renfred, the task of solving the mystery of Davide’s disappearance before time runs out falls on Nicola’s shoulders, and he has no choice but to depend on things that he’s long learned to suppress: courage, self-respect, and the desire to aim for impossible goals.
As they walked back to the ballroom, hand in hand, the heat that suffused Nicola’s face didn’t abate, though the languid strains of a pretty barcarolle distracted him a little from his embarrassment. They took their places again among the revelers, and while Nicola had never heard of people dancing to a barcarolle, they nevertheless managed to do so in what could only be described as a modified waltz. The movements were slower, more intimate, and less conducive to laughter and high-spirited exchanges. Partners held each other close, devoted all their attention to each other, and moved in graceful circles around the ballroom as though they were the only people left alive in the world.
For Nicola, the moment was beyond magical. His partner kept his attention on him, the intensity of Pierrot’s gaze softened only by that melancholy that had shown itself earlier and continued to cast a palpable shadow over him. Nicola tried to smile to set him at ease, but for all his trouble, he could only manage to encourage a faint curl of a pale mouth, and he grew tired of being cheerful even before the music ended.
For better or for worse, the piece to which they all danced was a long one, and to avoid being dragged down by his partner’s silent moodiness, Nicola tried to imagine a clockwork oarsman navigating its boat through the dark, silent waters around the island, its strokes keeping time with the music. As the seconds passed and the world continued to move in graceful circles around them, Nicola’s imagination continued to be fed, the images growing more and more elaborate -- more concrete, even.
He saw that the clockwork oarsman was not only rowing its boat in the moonlight, but that it also had two passengers -- more like shadows -- sitting close together, with one leaning heavily -- perhaps tiredly -- against the other. The shadow that was leaning was shorter, its head resting against its partner’s shoulder as though it were lost in deep sleep. The other shadow allowed its companion to pillow its head against it, though its own head drooped as well, bowing forward and then slowly turning to the side so that its head, too, leaned against the top of its partner’s in its turn. In the darkness, their slumbering silhouettes gave Nicola the impression that they were travelers who’d finally reached the end of their journey and were about to disembark.
He also wasn’t sure if it was nothing more than the effect of the music itself, with its moderate tempo and dreamlike melody, but something impressed upon him that those two shadows in the boat weren’t returning, that their journey was something that had been delayed for far too long. Maybe to a cruel extent, even. But whatever the nature of their journey across the quiet waters, it was meant to be their last.
Nicola was startled out of his state by the slight touch of a finger against his cheek, and he blinked. Pierrot was watching him, a slight frown marring his masked features now.
“Are you all right?”
“What -- me? I am, yes. I’m sorry, the music overcame me for a moment.” Nicola chuckled, feeling sheepish.
His partner continued to frown slightly, and he touched Nicola’s cheek again, this time raising his finger before Nicola to show moisture on it. It was only then when Nicola realized that he’d been crying, and he was shocked. That image of the tired couple in a boat struck him hard, something that his imagination had never done before. The strong sense of tragic inevitability rose from that image and helped engrave its sad shapes in Nicola’s mind. It was so odd, the way a simple romantic “daydream” would affect him so much and, indeed, feel so real.
He said nothing and simply shook his head, this time taking the initiative and changing their pace when the barcarolle ended, and a spirited waltz took its place. He barely even heard the distant tolling of a bell -- the same one that called out to him earlier -- fighting to be heard over the raucous activity in the ballroom. And as though to remind him, someone in the assembly cried out, “One o’clock! Two more hours!” A cheer rippled through the dancers, and as though in one mind, everyone hurled themselves into the waltz with renewed energy. It seemed like a race against time, with a normally empty ballroom filled with specters intent on devouring every possible second in their grasp till the three o’clock hour.
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