As I left the thicket of vines, I looked back over my shoulder.
The western wing of the mansion was 200 feet behind me, and the house stretched far beyond that to the east.
I turned and ran.
It was just as Filomena had said: a field, then a patch of forest.
I stumbled through the trees until I reached a stone wall at least 10 feet high.
There was no way I could get over it – and then I remembered what she had told me:
Go left.
I did as she said until I found a break in the stones: a huge gap like an earthquake had cracked the wall apart.
The breach was easy enough to squeeze through, and I found myself on a hill overlooking a tiny village.
Careful of snakes like the one I had encountered the other day, I made my way down the barren hillside until I reached the deserted cobblestone streets of the village.
It was an old place – and far smaller than Mensano, which only had 200 inhabitants.
If I had to guess, I would say fewer than 50 people lived here. It was a dying village populated by old folks who refused to leave their homes.
There were only a handful of stone buildings, but one of them was a church. It towered above me, a relic from centuries past.
I looked all around, but there was no one to be seen in the streets…
So I opened the wooden door of the church and went inside.
The interior was rustic, with a giant vaulted ceiling. Unlike the chapel in the mansion, it felt cold and impersonal. There was no art adorning the walls here – only bare stone.
“Hello?” I called out timidly.
Dozens of wooden pews surrounded me on all sides, and I slowly walked down the center aisle. Everything was quiet around me.
“Hello?” I said, louder this time. “Is anyone there?”
“Yes?” a man’s voice answered from the rear of the church, startling me.
A priest in a black robe appeared out of the gloom. His face was thin with hollow cheeks, his wispy grey hair unkempt. He walked with a cane, and he looked up into the air as though searching the rafters for something.
I realized he was blind.
“Is someone there?” he called out.
I quickly moved closer to him. “I need your help.”
His blank eyes gravitated towards my voice as he smiled. “Yes, my child?”
I felt uneasy. There was something unsettling about the way his eyes roved over me.
But he was a priest. I was finally safe.
“I need to call my father,” I said. “He lives near Mensano.”
“You’re quite a ways from home. What are you doing here? Did your car break down?”
“No – the Rosolinis were holding me prisoner. I just now escaped.”
“The Rosolinis!” he exclaimed, and his face suddenly darkened.
“Yes.”
“And you escaped, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, Father.”
“They did not take advantage of you?”
“No.”
“They did not… sully you?”
The way he said it was disturbing…
Like he was imagining me being touched – or worse –
And he almost seemed to enjoy it.
“No, they didn’t do anything,” I said with a frown. “But I need to call my father to let him know I’m alright.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a telephone, my dear.”
“None?” I asked in astonishment.
He held out his arms and gestured to the church around him. “As you can see, there is not much here. This is an old village and an even older church.”
My heart filled with despair. “Well, someone in the village must have a phone, yes?”
“Probably, but – you escaped from the Rosolinis, you said?”
“Yes. Is there someone I could ask for in the village, someone with a phone?”
“How did you escape?”
“There was a passageway out the back,” I said hurriedly. “I really need to contact my father – thank you, but I should go.”
I turned to leave –
“Wait,” he said. “I forgot – I have a cell phone. For emergencies.”
I frowned. “I thought you didn’t have a phone?”
“I use it so seldom,” he said with a smile as he peered up sightlessly into the sky. “It slipped my mind. Come – come, I can let you use it.”
He began to tap tap tap his cane towards the back of the church.
“Come – come, my child. Come with me.”
I was afraid… but I followed him as he made his way into the shadows.
