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Haven

Sunday

A s the taxi pulled up to Savina’s villa, I spotted Enzo’s bright orange Vespa parked out front. He’d texted me a few times in the last day, but I’d been so preoccupied with everything else that I hadn’t given him more than a few short replies.

The front door was slightly ajar, and Mal and I stepped sheepishly into the foyer. “Hello?” I called out.

“Haven.”

I turned to see Enzo—shirtless—with a screwdriver in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

“Hi,” I said. “Enzo, meet my friend, Mal. Mal, meet Enzo.”

The two nodded at each other, and Enzo leaned in to give me a gentle kiss on the cheek. “My mother mentioned that you two have chatted a few times,” he said, “though, she wouldn’t get into details. I didn’t realize you had hit it off so well.” He cocked his head to the side, an invitation for me to share more.

I glanced around the foyer. “It’s for the project I’m working on. Turns out she knows quite a bit of local history.” It was the best I could do.

“I’ll go find her,” Mal said. She rushed off, leaving the two of us alone.

I noticed a black hair band around Enzo’s wrist. My black hair band. I gave it a playful snap.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Found it on the floor the other night. Next to the kitchen counter. Haven’t taken it off since.”

“I like it on you,” I said, touched that he’d kept it.

Mal called me over from the other room. As I turned away, I felt Enzo’s eyes on me. A rush of warmth spread through my chest: no matter what went down with Savina in the days to come, I knew Enzo and I weren’t finished with whatever this was.

Savina rushed forward to give me a hug. “Come, come,” she said, motioning for me to follow her to a small utility room off the kitchen.

Once we were alone, Savina leaned in close, her hands on my shoulders. “I can see it in his eyes,” she whispered. “Enzo, he is falling in love with you—if he has not already. Oh, Haven, how—”

“Wait,” I said, holding up my hand. Lucille’s photos had come in soon after we’d hung up, and I’d already traced through them. Now, I zoomed in on one of the photos and showed Savina the handwritten name at the top of the genealogy chart. Mari DeLuca.

Beneath this, a spiderweb of descendants. Hundreds of them.

There were, in truth, streghe everywhere. All over Italy.

I took a deep breath. What I was about to share with Savina wasn’t without risk. There was the possibility that, after telling her Mari had descendants all over, Savina might recruit them for her own wicked endeavors. But I had an incredible amount of leverage, including the discreetly recorded phone conversation with Savina from Friday evening. I’d gladly turn it over to officials if needed, along with every other bit of information I’d acquired.

“She didn’t drown herself,” I said. “Mari lived, and I have proof of it.” I thought of Holmes’s journal, tucked away at the archive. “I have proof her lover survived the Aquila ’s sinking, too. And her mother? She didn’t abandon Mari. Your mother’s legends and lore might have had bits and pieces of the truth, but the real narrative looks much different than what you’ve been led to believe. Including,” I added, holding up my phone again, “the fact that you and Renata aren’t the end of anything. There are streghe everywhere.”

Suddenly, it dawned on me that I served as the connection—the link—between these two separate lines of streghe . Savina believed she was the end of her lineage. Lucille was looking for the truth at the start of it. How could they have possibly known or discovered one another without my efforts?

Savina hadn’t pulled her eyes from my phone screen. “I don’t understand. Where did you get this?”

Briefly, I told her about Holmes’s log and my online genealogy research. “I spoke with a woman, Lucille, earlier today. She’s the one who sent me this. She’s one of Mari’s descendants and big into genealogy. She spent years compiling this information. Mari’s data, for instance, comes from parish records in the nineteenth century.” I navigated to my Gmail account. “Lucille sent me this, too.”

Not sure what you’ve read , she’d written in the email, but stregheria isn’t like other forms of witchcraft. Every strega I know uses her powers for good. For benevolence—change for the better. This lineage has been unspeakably rewarding, the greatest gift of my life.

Finally, Savina pulled her eyes from the phone. She gazed out the small window where, beyond, the small patch of olive trees had grown amid the thicket of evergreens. “ The greatest gift of my life,” she repeated. “I think I would like to speak with her.”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

I thought I caught a glimmer of something like release, or deliverance, in Savina’s eyes. “My, how I need to lie down…” she finally admitted.

I let out an exhale. I didn’t consider Savina an evil woman but certainly a grieving, fearful one. She believed that catching up on a lifetime’s worth of magic would keep her remaining child safe and well.

This didn’t make her actions right. But I could, in a way, understand her motives.

I grabbed my phone, ready to put it in my back pocket. The screen lit up, revealing the image of my father on his boat: his hair dripping water, the indent of his dive mask on his skin. Everything that had unfolded in the last few days had been because of him—a result of my hunting down the treasure that had eluded him.

Of course, I hadn’t found the jewels—not yet, anyway. In spite of my distaste for Conrad, I’d left them for him to find first.

But what I’d discovered was indescribably sweeter: Mari and Holmes’s love story.

They couldn’t have known it, but it was powerful enough—even now, more than two hundred years later—to save an entire region.