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  Ercolana was another town commune of Naples and it was situated at the western foot of Mount Vesuvius, on the Gulf of Naples, just southeast of the city.

  Dima could see the lights of Naples. She could barely make out Mount Vesuvius due to the darkening sky.

  Her trunk and the cats were but a dot in the distance, in the middle of the Gulf.

  Dima had hoped to join the coven of the Walnut Witches and have a family again of sorts. She never felt so alone as she slowly sank to the bottom of the gulf where it was dark and one could drown in a matter of minutes.

  Chapter 12

  DIMA SHOT TO THE SURFACE OF THE WATER. A fish flopped on her head. She chewed on the rope which the witches had tied to her ankles and wrists.

  Pompeii fought the current with his magic and shifted to a life preserver ring. Dima grabbed on, exhausted.

  In any case, she would never have drowned. She still wore around her neck the dragon-shaped pendant which held the dried-up, smelly sac that she was born in. Being born en-caul was rare since the amniotic sac normally broke at birth. For centuries seafaring men had searched the world over for the unbroken sacs of newborns. If a sailor was lucky enough to find or purchase a caul, he preserved it in a jar aboard ship to keep the ship from ever sinking. “If I had been on the Titanic, the ship never would have sunk,” she said to Pompeii.

  The life preserver wobbled in the water, in answer to Dima’s comment.

  “Yes, I know that was half a dozen years ago and I had no shapeshifting stone then to be young again. Still, my caul would have kept the ship from sinking, iceberg or no.”

  Dima let the sharks nibble at her ropes until her hands were freed.

  Pompeii then zapped the sharks, electrocuting the deadly flesh-eating prey.

  Dima stroked the amulet on her chest which was in the shape of a dragon. She opened the golden dragon, forged by the gypsies, and peeked inside at her caul which had managed to stay dry even at the bottom of the ocean.

  Her trunk was bobbing on the water with the cats huddled on top. Through the cracks in the trunk, the magic books were glowing. It was a good thing Dima had the foresight to wrap the books in waterproof bags.

  Hanging onto Pompeii and kicking her legs, Dima swam over to her trunk and climbed on top. One cat sat on her head. Each shoulder held a cat and three cats sat on her lap. The other cats were all wrapped around each other.

  Her trunk floated on the high seas with Dima riding proudly on the top. As far as Dima was concerned, she defeated the Walnut Witches. She still had her life, her trunk, the shapeshifting rock and 17 cats, the books of magic, the enchanted walnut seeds, and the recipe for Strega.

  There was a United States Navy ship that was about to set sail, the U.S.S. Druid. The sailor she had slept with was onboard. Well, she had slept with several sailors. She would recognize that flaming red hair and beard anywhere. The sailor she spotted on deck was the man who left the flier about liquor prohibition coming to America.

  “Psst.” She called him over to the bow of the ship where Dima hid in the water.

  He stared at her in shock. “How did you get in the water, Dima?”

  “I was looking for you to give you this paper you left in my room.” She waved the flier at him.

  “But how did you…”

  “The how I came to be is a long story and a taller tale than this ship. As ships go, the Druid is not impressive. You lie when you brag.” She spat at him. He did not entirely understand her since she spoke in broken English mixed with a bit of Russian and a bit of Italian. He did understand enough to know that she was calling him a braggart.

  “The Druid is a patrol vessel,” he explained. “The ship has also been an escort and has performed towing duties. But now, we are returning home to be outfitted with some new guns.”

  Dima forgot that the Americans and some of Europe was still fighting World War I, which was known as the Great War.

  “We will return to Europe but to France not Italy,” he added.

  Italy was on the same side of America, as was France but Dima could care less where the ship was returning to. She batted her eyes at the sailor. “Will you be my ally and take me to America on this ship?”

  “You are a woman and this is a navy ship.”

  “I can disguise myself as a man,” she said.

  “What about your cats.”

  “The cats will eat the mice onboard. You are a hero of the United States Navy.”

  He puffed out his chest.

  “Act like a hero and save me from some bad people,” she added.

  “Very well, but if you get caught, you don’t know me, understood?”

  “Understood,” she said, “but only if you teach me to speak better English on the way to America.”

  The sailor snuck her on board along with the cats and her trunk.

  Dima was soaking wet and resembled a drowned rat.

  He hauled her trunk to his room while Dima found a deserted corner.

  She spun with Pompeii and transformed herself into a male version of herself. She had played with the notion of turning back into the hefty man who had stolen the Strega recipe but decided that she needed to not arouse suspicion.

  Dima walked away from the dark corner and then ran over to the side of the ship and vomited.

  I must be suffering from seasickness, Dima thought with some surprise. She had not once felt queasiness when she sailed on a ship from St. Petersburg and the ship had no yet set sail.

  Oh, there was the sour stomach again.

  Dima held her head over the side of the ship and hurled.

  It was going to be a long, harsh trip to America.

  Chapter 13

  THE SHIP MADE STOPS AT MESSINA AND PALERMO IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA BEFORE CRUISING THROUGH THE STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR. The water was blue and peaceful but Dima did not enjoy the view much due to her seasickness.

  The Mediterranean Sea opened to the Atlantic Ocean. Morocco was to her left and Spain to her right but all Dima could think about was Russia. She was surprised at the rush of feelings that hit her like an iceberg. She knew that she would never return to Russia, a place that had given her so much pain. Her birth was a wound in her heart that would never go away no matter how long she lived.

  The trip to New York City from the time she left Naples took a month. Dima was leaning over the side of the ship vomiting when the Statue of Liberty came into view. She straightened her sailor’s cap and wiped her mouth, smoothing her moustache. Dima swaggered towards her sailor, but she was exhausted. Being on the ship zapped her energy before lunch. I do not make a good sailor, she thought. Her tiredness could have come from the mid-August heat. The air was stifling and Dima wiped her neck with a rag.

  The sailor grabbed her by the neck and jerked her over to a closet. She was surprised to see her trunk in the closet. “I’ll sneak you and your cats off the ship as soon as we anchor. Put on woman’s clothes, unbind your hair, and take off that fake moustache.”

  Dima rubbed her moustache that was not fake.

  “A trusted friend of mine will take you in a dinghy to Ellis Island. You must check in at immigration to gain entrance to America legally. It would be to your benefit.”

  “Why?”

  He was frustrated by her disobedience. Dima was not like other women.

  “Well, for one thing, if you become ill for any reason, you can get free medical care if you haven’t found a job yet. Plus, the immigration workers will answer your questions about where to rent an apartment and where you should live. They will steer you in the right direction to your own kind.”

  “What do you mean my own kind?” Dima narrowed her eyes at the sailor. The Walnut Witches had tied her ankles and wrists and then dumped her in the gulf to drown her. Dima was unsure that she wanted to live with her own kind. To be polite, she agreed for him to take her to Ellis Island.

  Dima closed the closet door. She spun with Pompeii clutched in her hand and turned back into her younger self. She wore a ski
rt and a colorful blouse with a scarf covering her head.

  It was night time and this part of the ship deserted except for her and the man she thought of as Sailor. Dima meowed loudly and the cats came running towards her.

  The sailor looked at her strangely.

  Dima shrugged her shoulders. “What can I say? I speak cat,” she said.

  “Good one.” He laughed at what he thought was a joke.

  She thanked the sailor as he carried her trunk and helped her down to the dinghy.

  The 17 cats climbed down the ship and then jumped in the small boat that was rocking in the water.

  Dima sat in the dinghy looking up at the ship until she could no longer see the sailor waving his hand.

  And to think that I never asked his name. We really are two ships that pass in the night. Well, a ship and a dinghy anyway.

  Chapter 14

  HER SAILOR GAVE DIMA A FAKE MANIFEST TAG FROM ONE OF THE PASSENGER SHIPS DOCKED AT PORT. She rode on the ferry with other immigrants to Ellis Island. The façade of the main building had some whitish, huge, stone eagles which were almost as impressive as her snowy owl familiar.

  The line to get into the main building was long. A sign in ten different languages stated that immigrants could not bring pets. There was no place to quarantine animals. Immigration threatened to confiscate any cat or dog and destroy them.

  You must hide or risk destruction, she instructed the cats.

  The cats scurried in 17 directions.

  Dima chuckled. Everyone thought the cats were merely strays.

  There were a lot of Russian immigrants in line worried about the health exam. Immigration sent back sick immigrants to their country of origin.

  Dima stood in line for about an hour. The man at the door invited her to leave her trunk in storage but she politely declined. He then handed her over to a nurse who led her to a doctor. The army had taken over the hospital to treat soldiers wounded in the war. Therefore, the doctor performed the required medical exam in a tent.

  Dima could see her smug face in the doctor’s shoes. With her young body, she had no worries about passing a physical exam, until she vomited on his pristine-white pants.

  “It’s just nerves,” she said to his scowling face.

  The nurse beside him wrote some notes. She then took Dima behind a screen and had her remove her underwear and lie down on a bed.

  This is bullshit, Dima thought. There is nothing wrong with me. She wondered if there was a private area where she could shift into the snowy owl and fly across the water to the place, they called Battery Park.

  The doctor stepped behind the screen and asked Dima to describe her illness. He spoke in Russian.

  Ah, so they found a Russian doctor since a good majority of the immigrants are from Russia, she thought.

  Her nerves rattled. She was not expecting so much bother over a sour stomach. She did not travel this far so that America could send her back to Russia to stand before a firing squad. Besides, the man was a doctor and could perhaps give her a tonic so she spoke the truth.

  “Well, I am exhausted most of the time.”

  “Probably from the long trip from Russia,” he noted.

  “I came to America from Italy,” she corrected and spoke a little Italian.

  He did not look impressed.

  She scowled at him. “My breasts are harder and more tender and have even grown bigger. I cannot control the urge to pee and leak a little urine sometimes. I am constipated occasionally with a cramping in my bottom stomach and my sides.” Nor have I been able to control any of the symptoms with magic, she thought worriedly.

  The nurse lifted Dima’s blouse and the doctor poked and pushed against her breasts.

  “Lift up your skirt,” the doctor ordered.

  The nurse stood next to the doctor with her arms crossed. Dima supposed the doctor had no plans to ravish her.

  Dima slowly lifted her skirt and the doctor poked and probed in her privates.

  “Your condition is as I suspected.” He wiped his hands with antiseptic.

  “Am I dying?” Dima thought that even though she could shift into a younger woman, perhaps she was wrong about achieving immortality. Inside her body, maybe she was facing an imminent death, imminent because she was 97 years old, and way above the average that most people lived. Most women were dead by the age of 42. “I am rotting from the inside out,” she told the doctor.

  He patted her head. “You are pregnant is all.”

  PREGNANT??????????? WHAT THE F’??????????????

  Dima’s thoughts were so loud that the 17 hiding cats were screeching and breaking a few light bulbs.

  “But that’s impossible,” she said. Dima always took steps to avoid pregnancy in the early days, before the eggs of her body turned to the dust of old age. She gave up birth control when she turned 50, which was about half a century ago.

  “Well you are about nine and a half weeks pregnant which is why I was able to feel the baby.”

  Ah, there was an explanation. When Dima became young again, she did not take precautions. Dima assumed that she could not get pregnant, regardless of the magic rock. Dima calculated in her head. She most likely conceived in Pompeii. There were several men who could be the father—the American sailor, an Italian hotel clerk, a British diplomat who was vacationing with his dreary wife and the Greek tourist.

  “Get dressed,” the doctor ordered.

  He and the nurse stepped behind the screen to give her privacy. However, the doctor continued to question her.

  “Are you married?” he asked suspiciously.

  The doctor and nurse were silhouettes on the screen to Dima’s eyes. The two would be set against her if she was a loose woman. The health authorities would recommend deportation to Russia if they suspected that she was a prostitute, or if they thought the government might have to financially support her in any way.

  Dima hiccupped and shifted into her ancient self. She gulped. What would the U.S. government do if they knew I was a 97-year-old, pregnant witch? Would they consider me a miracle? A freak? An abomination?

  Quick, Dima grabbed Pompeii from her skirt and spun, turning back into a young woman. She drank from the opposite side of a glass water to stop any more hiccups.

  Good. Fear no longer trapped air in her throat. No more hiccups.

  “I am a widow,” Dima answered the doctor. She rifled through the clothes in her trunk.

  “You can explain your circumstances to the registrar.”

  Dima sighed with relief. The doctor ordered the nurse to give her a clean bill of health.

  Dima stepped from behind the screen. She now dressed in a dark-blue, modest, woman’s suit that was proper for a widow and could pass as mourning clothes. Since there was little time and no facilities to transform herself with soap and water, she had used Pompeii to shift her from the young, carefree Dima into a serious Dima with bun and no makeup. She was even a little thinner, her face anyway. She now knew the reason she could not control her thickening waist was because of her pregnancy. Her face was the same but changed. Dima had a drawn look but not so tragic that she appeared as if she would wallow away in a room waiting for a monthly check from the government.

  Neither the nurse or doctor noticed the changes in Dima, probably because they met with so many immigrants throughout the day, they never really saw any of them.

  We are just the numbers they assigned to us. Dima spit on the floor, wiping her mouth with a gnarled hand. Uh-oh, her nerves caused the shifting to not complete as it should have. She shoved her ancient hand into a pocket and breathed deeply, trying to relax away her fears.

  A guard escorted Dima back to the main building, not because she did anything wrong, but to prevent her from sneaking away and catching a ferry to Battery Park. A ferry left every half hour and transported the immigrants who passed the entire process and were thereby, cleared by immigration.

  The Register Room had a vaulted ceiling and row after row of long wooden benches to sit
on or one could stand. There were many other Russians in line and Dima had almost forgotten what it was like to be with her own people. To hear her native language was comforting in so foreign a place. Dima was smart and had a gift for languages. True to his word, the sailor had taught her quite a bit of English on the way over from Italy. Dima could, also, cuss in English like sailor. She now picked up a few more English words by listening and watching.

  She reached the front of the line and sat before a woman who asked her questions. She is trying to trick me to see if I might be a prostitute. Dima had once been a prostitute so she knew how to answer the questions so that the woman would believe that she was not a prostitute.

  The woman inquired about her name, age, sex, and marital status.

  When it came to her occupation, Dima did not hesitate to say, “I am a fortune teller.”

  “A psychic?” the woman said.

  “Yes, if you like. I, also, am a medium.” Dima lied though she did have the Starostavne Book of Conjuring Magic and she did bring a tree back from the dead, if only for a little while.

  “I am a healer,” she added and lied again.

  “Are you a nurse?” the woman asked.

  “I’m an herbalist.” Dima had yet to read the Starostavne book of Herbology but she knew that the white magic was in there if she had an interest, which she did not at this time.

  Dima proved to the woman that she could read and write in Russian and a little bit in English.

  “And your final destination?” the woman asked.

  Dima lifted her chin proudly. She knew a little about New York City by eavesdropping. “The Lower East Side,” she said since this is where most Russians lived.

  “How was your trip financed?” the woman asked.

  “By an inheritance from my great-grandmother,” she answered.

  When asked if she had any relatives to pick her up, Dima answered, “My husband.” She then gave the woman a name and address she had heard from someone in line.

  The woman frowned in puzzlement. “But you said your last name was Romanoff.”