Page 66

A soft, ethereal moonglow hung in the damp air of the ruined vineyard, and Julia walked among its tangled grapevines, thornbushes, and underbrush void of color, reduced to shades of black.

Tonight was a special night, a full moon in Scorpio, which encouraged spirituality that she hoped would serve her first-ever do-it-yourself séance.

She turned on the flashlight and aimed it in front of her.

Insects zoomed crazily in and out of its jittery beam.

Birds flew squawking in panic from mounded thickets.

Something flew near her head, and Julia ducked, reflexively.

She tried not to think about bats, vipers, or anything else scary.

Bianco trotted at her side, and she carried a brown bag, plus the gun that Courtney made her take.

Moonlight illuminated the swath they’d cut to the well, and she followed its path, casting the flashlight left and right. Her footsteps snapped twigs and leaves. Thorns scratched her ankles, and bushes snagged her shirt and jeans. She kept going until she reached its stone rim, a lightish circle.

She turned off the flashlight, waiting until her eyes adjusted to the gloom.

She set the flashlight and the gun on the top of the well.

She didn’t know if she still had the ability to communicate with a soul, much less Rossi’s, but she had to try.

She was praying the well could be a thin place for Rossi, maybe more than the bedroom, because this is where Rossi had hidden her strongbox of evidence to save herself and her daughter.

Julia reached into her bag and took out the photo of young Rossi that Anna Mattia had given her.

She set it down on the well. Next she took out the baby photo, presumably of her birth mother Patrizia, which she’d found in the drawer.

She put it next to Rossi’s. Lastly, she withdrew Patrizia’s lock of hair and set it down on top of the pictures.

She placed her hand on the hair to see if she felt anything.

Her palm didn’t tingle. The hair communicated nothing to her, conducted nothing through her. It was an inanimate object, opaque to her, once again. She feared her gift was completely gone, but she kept going.

Julia kept one hand on the hair and photos, then placed her other hand on the well. Its stone felt rough and gritty under her palm, a thick and solid rock hewn from earth itself, an artifact she was going to use in her appeal to Rossi’s soul.

Close your eyes.

Julia closed her eyes and slowed her breathing.

She listened to the chirping and buzzing sounds until they receded into the background, then the ether.

She emptied her mind of every thought but Rossi.

She visualized Rossi’s photograph, Patrizia’s baby picture, and the hair, hoping they’d connect her somehow.

Helen would say, Allow deeper.

Julia’s mind quieted and she found herself sinking to her knees beside the well, kneeling as if she were in church. Her thoughts echoed in her head like a prayer.

Please, Emilia, Elena, whoever you are, tell me why you brought me here.

Tell me your reason was worth the harm I caused an innocent man, lying between life and death.

Please tell me how I can reach him.

Please tell me how I can help him.

Please help him.

Please help me.

Julia waited, her eyes closed. She focused intensely, martialing every single brain cell. She tried to see into the depths of her soul out to her very skin, desperate to plumb whatever abilities she had left, to dredge up any vestiges of her gift that remained at all.

Suddenly a twig snapped in a thicket beyond the well.

Julia’s eyes flew open. A bolt of terror electrified her. She jumped to her feet. Bianco bounded past the well, barking.

A shadow flew behind the thicket. Something was running away. Someone.

Julia reached for the gun, but knocked it with her hand. It skidded into the well.

“No!” Julia shouted, panicky. Bianco was wedging himself into the underbrush. She ran to him, grabbed him by his collar, and dragged him away.

“Courtney!” Julia screamed, running to the villa.