Page 3 of Just for a Taste

The letter I received in the mail a few weeks ago, written in gold ink on black parchment, had initially seemed like a prank.

Hello, Miss Cora Bowling,

I am mailing you to inform you of a job offer. I have looked through your credentials and find them satisfactory. Here is the description:

Healthy adult wanted for paid blood donations in rural Sicily. Room and board provided. Long-term gig with a generous salary. Discretion required.

Please respond as soon as possible via mail if you are interested. It is my understanding that you will be.

– Doctor N.

There was no start day, pay, or even the first name of the sender. I should have thrown it away at first sight, but what did I have to lose? The only shred of information was the return address on the envelope. I recognized the insignia on the wax seal—the Medici coat of arms. The exact family I was at a dead end studying.

Sure, it could have been a scam, but at the same time . . . what if it wasn’t?

We exchanged a few letters, every reply increasingly bizarre. First, there was a basic questionnaire regarding my knowledge on a variety of topics, an official application form for me to fill out, a request for a series of my blood work, and a written essay about a subject of my choice. Finally, an NDA. Each response only vaguely acknowledged that I had sent the previous requirements; there was no sign of when the correspondence would end. The last letter contained airline tickets, car vouchers, and a small note.

See you soon for the interview.

—Doctor Ntumba

Coming here was stupid and dangerous. But for someone in my situation, this was too valuable a chance to pass up. This position provided too many opportunities for an authentic look into the world I’d spent my entire life studying, and an income to boot.

As soon as I tried to switch to another app, my phone died—not that I had signal anymore anyway. I returned my phone to my bag and watched the clouds pass, trying to steady my breathing.

By the time I reached my destination, the sky was a mottled mixture of pinks and blues and the abbey itself was a bare silhouette against the orange sun. It was only thanks to the old-fashioned lantern, held by a woman I assumed was Doctor Ntumba, that I could spot her among the shadows.

After I gathered what little luggage I possessed and hopped out of the taxi, it puttered away, leaving me alone to approach the abbey and my interviewer. With a gulp, I sized up the woman before me.

The presumed doctor was a curvy woman wearing a white button-down shirt, a knee-length tweed skirt, and a matching fitted jacket. The conservative color-scheme of her clothes helped bring out the brightness of her hot-pink heels and the deep red ombre of her braids. Behind a pair of rectangle glasses were discerning, heavy-lidded eyes, which were as rich in color as her umber skin.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Signorina Bowling,” she said in Italian, her deep tone lilted with an accent I couldn’t decipher. Even so, I was relieved to hear a familiar dialect.

“Please,” I replied, shifting my suitcase into my left hand and holding out the other, “call me Cora.”

“In that case, call me Noor.” She accepted my hand with a robust shake.

To call such an esteemed woman by her first name seemed an impossible task, but I didn’t protest outright. The doctor opened a heavy iron gate and led me into the front perron. I stared in awe at the land around me as the streetlights flickered on. I had seen images of fantastic duomos and basilicas in Rome and other major Italian cities, but I had not expected such majesty from a rural abbey.

In the middle of the garden, a plume of water burst from the center of a massive fountain surrounded by a ring of gravel and a flawlessly trimmed wall of flowering shrubbery. On the periphery were flower-beds as intricately woven and colorful as a tapestry, and alternating, evenly spaced rows of trimmed hedges and olive trees. And the chapel . . .

It was completely and utterly magnificent, the sort of Sicilian Baroque architecture you could write a thesis on. A beautifully detailed lava-stone stairway led up to a garden terrace and a pair of towering wooden doors. Elaborate statuary featuring grinning masks stared down at me from above, and numerous sets of eyes and swirling vines seemed to be embedded in pillars. Through large rounded windows, I could discern paneled murals all along the ceiling inside. All of this stretched impossibly long and tall in every direction.

In my moment of awe, Doctor Ntumba’s words slipped past me entirely. “English or Italian?” she repeated, though not harshly.

“English, please,” I replied a bit too quickly, picking the first word that came to mind. “Or whichever you prefer, I suppose.”

“English it is, then.”

After giving the door a hefty shove, she led me into the chapel. Despite my desire to stop and marvel at every historical inch, Doctor Ntumba’s swift pace and countless turns allowed for little more than glimpses at the art crowding every inch of the walls and the flowery engravings on the twisted columns. After what seemed like a dozen lefts and rights, I was swept quickly into what I later learned was a minor scriptorium.

Doctor Ntumba stepped out briefly, giving me a chance to look around the small room. I sat in a floral armchair facing a broad oak bureau and an outswing window. Dusty cobwebs swayed against a scarcely open window, the only source of freshness in an otherwise musty room. A stained-glass lamp served as the only artificial light in the room, for all the candles seemed to have been snuffed out long ago. I could tell the furniture had received a single cursory dusting.

Two bookcases spanned the walls, crammed with books that appeared as if they would fall apart if they were so much as touched. My eyes immediately skimmed the contents of the shelf closest to me, but before I got the chance to examine the titles more closely, the door behind me closed gently.

Doctor Ntumba took her seat in a simple wooden chair in front of me, rather than in the plush chair behind the desk. Perhaps she meant to make me feel more comfortable, but it had the opposite effect. For a second, it seemed like she would berate me and point out the obvious truth: a mere peasant didn’t belong in such a castle.

Her focus instead shifted to the clipboard in her hands. She glanced over my labs so quickly, I knew the act was purely for show.

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