The All-Powerful Ring Read online

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016

  Text copyright © 2016 by John Bemelmans Marciano

  Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Sophie Blackall

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-17543-3

  Version_1

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHARACTERS

  OPENING NOTE

  MAP OF BENEVENTO

  THE WITCHES OF BENEVENTO

  1 Guts

  2 Get That Eel!

  3 The Tale Of Beppe Sfortunato

  4 Laundry Day

  5 Destiny

  6 A Very Long Night

  7 A Chapter In Which Nothing Goes Primo's Way

  8 Gotten!

  9 The Tale Of Maria Beppina

  10 To Dare A Manalonga

  11 Tarantella Party

  CLOSING NOTE

  WITCHONARY

  HOW THEY LIVED

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

  DEAR READER,

  Welcome to the Triggio, that little neighborhood that lies in lowest Benevento. The dusty, noisy, dirty, smelly, run-down, rude, no-decent-person-DARE-go-there Triggio. Oh, how I love it!

  Of course, I am a demon, and nowhere in Benevento are we witch-folk so welcomed as in the Triggio. All of my friends—be they spirits, fairies, ghosts, or the Clopper—love it here.

  For the most part, we supernatural types cohabitate peacefully with our non-witch neighbors. Of course, we can't help but put a scare into you ONCE in a while. None of us will really hurt you. None of us, that is, except the Manalonga!

  Manalonga lurk under bridges and in wells just WAITING for the opportunity to reach their long arms up to grab someone and take them down to wherever it is they take their victims. Even WE are afraid of them. But you children—you are the ones the Long-Arms want the most!

  Be careful, now—they'll say ANYthing to trick you! They'll pretend to be your best friend or the boy you have a crush on or maybe your dad—anything it takes to get you to lean over the bridge or look down into the well. Then—SNATCH!

  And unlike our friend the Clopper, the Manalonga actually have grabbed someone (or so the good folk of the Triggio believe). His name was Beppe Sfortunato, and he was a child who just happened to be walking over the bridge one day, not paying enough attention.

  Beppe's family still lives in the Triggio, including the boy who would have been his nephew—a boy who is far TOO brave for his own good!

  Is it wise to have such courage?

  YOUR LOYAL SERVANT,

  SIGISMONDO

  (WITH BRUNO & RAFAELLA)

  1

  GUTS

  CLANK clank clank! goes the mighty sword.

  Or rather, tik tik tik goes the long, thick stick. Primo is just saying “clank clank clank.”

  “The glorious knight swings to behead the hideous monster!” he cries.

  The hideous monster being his cousin Rosa.

  Primo is with the Twins on what used to be the roof of their barn. He leaps from one beam to the next, daring Rosa to do the same. “Come and fight, you cowardly beast!” he says, and whacks her on the butt.

  “That's IT, donkey-brains!” she says, throwing down a tile and leaping across beams to tackle him.

  Primo fends Rosa off for a moment with his sword-stick, but then she grabs his leg and pulls him down. They wrestle on the thin—and shaking—rafters of the barn.

  “You two are going to kill each other!” Rosa's twin, Emilio, says through the slats of the barn roof. “Or Father will. You guys are supposed to be laying tiles, not playing—remember?”

  Rosa, grumbling, picks up a tile to get back to work, but when Primo says, “Yeah, stop messing around, little cousin!” she can't help but throw it at his head. Primo ducks, but the tile hits the barn wall and cracks at the very moment the Twins' father is hauling up another load of tiles.

  Uncle Enzo looks up, furious, and pulls down his lower eyelid. His warning sign.

  Primo sheepishly goes back to work. You don't mess with Uncle Enzo. Ever. And he's been even meaner than usual lately, because of the Janara.

  It's shaping up to be the worst Janara season anyone can remember. Rosa and Emilio's farm has been wracked by witchy mischief for a week. The worst came last night, when all the tiles from the roof of the barn got blown off and tossed into the fields. It's like a tornado hit it!

  Friends and neighbors are helping put the roof back together. The Twins' brother, Dino, and the other little kids are out in the fields, tracking down the tiles. Sergio is the only big kid with them. He's too afraid of heights to work on the roof, although he pretends that has nothing to do with it. Not Primo. Primo loves heights.

  “Look, we need to do something,” Primo says, taking a tile from the basket. “Forget hanging salt on the doorknobs and Zia Pia's spells and potions. We need to take matters into our own hands!”

  “And how can we do that?” Emilio says.

  Primo's answer: “Augurs.”

  “Otters?” Rosa says.

  “No, augurs. That's what you call it when you slaughter an animal and read their guts,” Primo says. “It's how the ancient Roman priests read the future, so it's got to be the best way!”

  Although he states this as fact, Primo is half making up what he's saying as he goes along.

  The first time Primo ever even heard of auguring was a few nights ago when Momma was making rabbit for dinner and Maria Beppina's dad started talking about it. It was pretty much the first interesting thing Uncle Tommaso ever said.

  “The insides of animals hold all kinds of secrets,” Primo says. “Like to everything!”

  “Even if that's true, none of us knows the first thing about how to auger,” Emilio says.

  “Don't worry,” Primo says, sticking his thumb in his own chest. “I'll know what I'm looking for when I see it.”

  A rumble of thunder sounds in the distance. “Is it going to rain?” Rosa says.

  “No way,” Primo says. “It's too sunny.”

  Creeping toward them across the sky are wispy black clouds that resemble the twirls of smoke coming out of nearby chimneys. All of a sudden, in spite of the sun, it starts to rain.

  “I hope you're better at reading the guts of animals than you are clouds,” Rosa says. Primo sticks his tongue out at her, jumps off the side of the barn into a haystack, and starts running for home.

  “Hey, wait up!” Sergio calls from the field, but Primo is already gone.

  2

  GET THAT EEL!

  THERE'S an old saying in Benevento that a drop of rain on the roof of the castle becomes a river by the time it reaches the Triggio. Racing through the rain, Primo is heading upstream. Literally!

  At his front door, Primo runs into Poppa. He is carrying a ba
sket.

  “What's in the basket?!” Primo yells above the thrum of the rain.

  “You'll see!” Poppa yells back.

  “Gather around, family, gather around,” Poppa says when they get inside. “I have a surprise!”

  Poppa always has surprises. Primo's older sister, Isidora, and his grandmother Nonna Jovanna come to the table, ready to be thrilled. Momma, on the other hand, is only ready to be annoyed.

  Father opens the basket to reveal—“Ta-da!”—an eel.

  “An eel?” Momma says. “How can you spend our money on an eel? That's only for holidays and feast days!”

  “I didn't spend any money!” Poppa says. “I traded it for what Renzo the Barber owes at the vegetable stand. He'll never have the money to pay us, so at least we got something.”

  This only makes Momma more angry—she can't stand Renzo. Or any of Poppa's friends. “If you made Renzo and the rest of those layabouts pay in silver coin instead of IOUs, then we wouldn't be half-starving all the time!”

  “But tonight we have eel!” Poppa says. “And did I mention it's a magic eel?” He winks at Primo. “It will grant us three wishes!”

  “You and your stupid jokes,” Momma says, shaking her head. Then, to Primo: “Go tell your cousin to come help with dinner.”

  Primo rolls his eyes. Why does he always have to be the one to go upstairs and call Maria Beppina? And why does his cousin always have to eat with them? It's embarrassing enough that she and her strange father are related to him and live upstairs.

  Kids like that jerk Mozzo make fun of Primo because of Maria Beppina. He always defends her, of course—she is his cousin—but why can't she be a little less strange herself?

  Primo pushes the door out into the driving rain and takes the outside steps two at a time to the upper apartment. He bangs hard on the door. When Maria Beppina opens it, Primo says, “Dinner! Eel!” and runs back down as fast as he can.

  Back inside, Momma is putting branches on the fire. “Too much, too much!” Nonna Jovanna says. “You want to roast it, not burn it!”

  “I know how to cook an eel, Mother!” Momma says. She gets out the cleaver to whack its head off. “Now please, open the basket.”

  Momma reaches in and grabs the eel. But the beast slithers out of her hands and curls up her arm. It lands on the floor with a thud.

  “Body of Bacchus!” Momma says. The eel takes off.

  Nonna Jovanna says, “I got it!”

  But it goes right through her legs. “No, I have it!” Primo says, and dives under the table.

  “It's here!” Isidora says, lifting a pot.

  The front door opens. It's Maria Beppina. “NO!” everyone shouts as the eel slithers outside.

  “Follow that EEL!”

  The rain is coming down in sheets and the street now is a river, so much so that the eel can swim.

  Down, through, up, and across the alleys of the Triggio it goes. But at the Theater, the eel vanishes. Everyone looks frantically in the galleries and arches and behind rocks.

  “There!” cries Isidora, pointing past Primo to the street above the Theater. Primo's heart leaps as he watches the eel slither right by him and turn the corner out of sight. He takes off after it, now in the eel-chasing lead.

  On the other side of the Theater, Primo follows the eel to the courtyard in front of the Cemetery of Dead Babies. The eel slithers up the well in the center of it and comes to rest on its wide stone rim. The beast then turns its head to face Primo.

  Hello, Primo! I really am a magic eel. Come and grab me, dear boy, and I will grant you all the wishes you desire!

  Primo freezes. The voice isn't coming from the eel. It's coming from the well. Inside the well.

  Manalonga!

  What are you waiting for, Primo? Come get me!

  “What are you waiting for, Primo?” his family yells from behind. “Go get it!”

  In that instant, the eel turns and slithers down the well. Primo races to its edge and peers down into the darkness.

  A flash of lightning brightens the inside of the well for an instant, and that's when Primo sees it. Something, hurtling up toward him, reaching for him. Is it a hand? The hand of a Manalonga?

  Primo launches himself back and away, banging into his sister and bringing them both tumbling down into a puddle, right as the rest of the family arrives.

  “You stupid toad!” Isidora says to Primo. “Why didn't you grab it when you had the chance!”

  “Well, why did Maria Beppina have to open the door?” Primo says.

  “There goes our money, right down a long dark hole, like it always does!” Momma says, throwing her hands up in the air.

  “Well, why didn't you hold on to it!” Poppa says to Momma.

  “So it's my fault you let your deadbeat friends take whatever they want and . . .”

  3

  THE TALE OF BEPPE SFORTUNATO

  DID I really see what I think I saw?

  Everyone else has gone to sleep, but the question won't stop banging around Primo's head. Staring at the goddess Diana (the half an ancient marble head that sits in their kitchen wall), Primo tries to bring the moment back.

  It all happened so fast—as fast as the flash of lightning itself—but that hand! It was a hand, wasn't it? A green scaly hand with long claw-like fingers. Now he can see it, right there in his head!

  The only kid Primo knows who has seen the hand of a Manalonga is Rosa. This happened because she didn't do a very simple thing, which every mother in Benevento tells every kid from the time they are a baby.

  One day, Rosa somehow forgot to kiss the pebble and got dragged halfway down her family's well. She only escaped, she claims, because she beat the Manalonga off with her pail.

  Not that Primo believes Rosa—not about the beating-off-the-Manalonga part, anyway—but can he believe himself? Still, when he thinks about that green scaly hand, coming up, trying to grab him, he feels the prickles of fear all over again.

  Primo hates being afraid. Of anything. Other kids, like Maria Beppina, are scared of witches. She's even terrified of the Clopper catching her, although everyone knows that weird old witch has never caught anyone.

  Primo laughs at all that stuff, but he can't laugh at the Manalonga. Then again, no one laughs at the Manalonga.

  Manalonga lurk underwater and underground, just waiting for the chance to trick you into coming near so they can snatch you.

  Avoiding them in wells is easy enough. Bridges are more dangerous. The best you can do is stick to the middle path—the safety zone—and plug your ears with your fingers and sing LA-la-la-la-LA! as loud as you can. And run!

  Where do Manalonga take their victims? Some say it's to the Underworld, but Nonna Jovanna says it's to caves that are so dark they pluck out your eyes because you won't need them anymore, and they set you to work mining for silver. No one knows for sure, and it's the not-knowing that's the scariest part.

  Actually, the scariest part is that—unlike the Clopper—a Manalonga has caught somebody: Beppe Sfortunato.

  Everyone in the Triggio knows of the day a Manalonga snatched Beppe Sfortunato. To Primo, however, the story means something extra, because Beppe is Primo's uncle. Or would have been, if he hadn't got gotten.

  Beppe was the older brother of Primo's mom. Nonna Jovanna always says how Primo is just like Beppe—never doing what he's told, always looking for adventure.

  “You have a special destiny, Primo, just like my Beppe,” she says. “But yours will turn out as well as his did badly!”

  The one thing Nonna Jovanna and his mom never talk about is the day Beppe got snatched. But Poppa does.

  “That's the stone—right there—where Beppe was standing,” Poppa would always say when they crossed the bridge. He would doff his cap. “And I was back over there, on the road, watching everything.


  “We were your age, Beppe and I, when it happened. It was a day like any other, a day like today.” Poppa would say this if it was sunny, and sometimes even if it was rainy.

  “Beppe was walking over the bridge out of town to the fields when he heard the voice. It was the voice of Matalena—the prettiest, sweetest girl in town. I could hear it, too, as clear as you can hear me right now.

  “'Beppe! Beppe!' the voice called from beneath the bridge. 'Look at this beautiful bottle I found! I think it has a message inside, but I can't get it out! Can you come help me?'

  “'Beppe, no!' I shouted. But it was too late. He couldn't help himself. He walked to the edge of the bridge, leaned over, and WHOP!” Poppa would snatch at the air with his fist. “The Manalonga got him.”

  Poppa would put his old red cap back on and take a deep breath.

  “Oh, I remember that terrible shriek, the horrible claws on the monster's hands, and the sickening splash when Beppe was pulled into the water.

  “Everyone in the Triggio went searching the water for Beppe, but there was nothing. No Beppe, no Manalonga. Even the fish were gone.”

  “But how did you hear the Manalonga?” Primo would ask. Only the person being called to is supposed to be able to hear the voice of a Manalonga.

  Poppa would shrug. “I heard what I heard!”

  It's a mystery, but so is everything about the Manalonga. There is no understanding them.

  Or is there? Maybe that eel was a sign. “Augurs!” Primo says to Diana, snapping his fingers.

  He has an idea, a great idea, but he needs help. Maria Beppina's help.

  4

  LAUNDRY DAY

  PRIMO loves Tuesday afternoons. Laundry day! It's not that Primo likes doing the wash—in fact, he hates that part, and he avoids it at all costs. He likes laundry day because he gets to hang out with his cousins at the river rather than be stuck up at the boring grocery stand.