I can’t believe I didn’t think about covering up the hickey. My skin burns for the duration of breakfast, and when I finally finish my food, I hurry upstairs and cover it up with some makeup. I keep waiting for Giorgio to storm into my room and tell me off for being so careless, but he never does.
Around eleven, I pull on my gardening clothes—leggings and a loose T-shirt—and decide to go outside. Hiding in here is just making me look guiltier.
When I reach the front door, I draw to a halt. Polo’s sitting on the front steps, rubbing his ankle while Sophia whines anxiously beside him. He looks like he’s in pain.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He glances up at me. “Ugh, no. I was about to take Sophia for a run, but I twisted my damn ankle.”
I move closer to get a look. “What? How?”
“Tripped over myself right here.” He motions at the steps. “And it hurts like a bitch.”
“Do you need to go get it looked at?”
He continues to rub his ankle. “No, but I’m going to get some ice. Sorry, girl,” he says to Sophia. “You’re going to have to do your business in the yard.”
The dog barks, her tail wagging back and forth. She looks so excited to go for her walk that I say, “I can take her.”
“You sure?”
I offer him a hand to help him up. “Yeah. I was just going to the garden, but I can walk her instead. Where do you usually go?”
Polo smiles. “Thanks, Martina. I take her into the woods. There’s a trail that starts about thirty meters behind the greenhouse. It’s marked by a red ribbon tied to one of the tree trunks, so you won’t miss it.”
A walk on the trail sounds nice, but Giorgio’s warning sounds inside my head. I’m not about to break another one of his rules, especially after this morning. “Actually, Giorgio doesn’t want me going there. I can take her around the property, though.”
“Ah, that’s right.” Polo braces his palm against the wall to help him navigate the stairs. “Sure, just take her as far as you’d like.”
“Should I keep her leashed the whole time?”
“She likes to run without it. She won’t go far.”
“Okay, sounds good. I hope your ankle isn’t too bad.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you soon.” He hobbles inside while Sophia totally loses her mind beside me.
“Don’t worry, we’re going,” I tell her as we hurry in the direction of the greenhouse. “Just don’t pee on the tomato plants, all right?”
We jog to the edge of the property where Sophia finally stops to sniff at some bushes, and I get a second to look around. The trail Polo mentioned should be somewhere here, but I don’t see the marker. I wonder if the forest really is as easy to get lost in as Giorgio implied. The trees are dense but passable, and if there’s a trail, shouldn’t it be simple enough to stay on it? I suppose I can ask him to take me one day. He doesn’t seem like the hiking type, but if I ask him nicely… I can even toss in a favor as a gesture of my thanks.
I’m sure Giorgio will have plenty of ideas of how I can thank him.
I giggle to myself. Last night was everything. My body can’t help but heat a few degrees every time I think back to it.
And this morning… I didn’t know it was possible to be so ravenous for another person. We both couldn’t stop touching each other.
I’m still sore even though I told Giorgio in the shower that I wasn’t. A little pain is nothing compared to the physical pleasure of being with him. I bite down on my lip at the memory of how he took his time to get me ready for him. How raw and unguarded he was while he was deep inside of me. How his eyes shone with fondness when I met his thrusts and told him how good he was making me feel.
I’m so lost in my own thoughts, I don’t notice that Sophia is done with the bushes until she races past me.
My head whips around, and my eyes widen when I see her disappear into the tree line.
“Sophia!”
Shit.
I run after her, passing right past the red ribbon Polo mentioned.
“Please be close by,” I mutter as the sky above me gets obscured with branches and leaves.
Ahead of me, there’s an excited yelp, but I can’t see her amongst the foliage. I halt, getting on my tiptoes to try to find her before I get too far.
“Sophia! Come back!”
The forest is alive with sounds. Crickets, birds, and rustling branches.
A dog barks. It’s from farther away this time.
I glance down at my sneakers. I’m a decently fast runner, but Giorgio explicitly told me not to go into the woods.
Still, I can’t just leave her.
“Wait up, Sophia!” I shout.
Sun streams through the foliage in bright patches as I jog down the narrow trail. It’s clear it’s not used very much. There are branches and tall grass growing right through it in some parts. I doubt anyone other than the inhabitants of the castello have ever used it.
I have to slow down when my breathing starts coming out in short puffs. “Sophia!”
There are two distant barks.
I wrinkle my forehead. She still sounds pretty far away.
I’ve got a stitch in my side, but I pick up my speed again, eager not to lose her.
The leaves blur around me as I follow the barely there path. Ugh, Giorgio will kill me if he finds out. At the back of my mind, a worry appears. What if I can’t find my way back? Sophia will, though. She’s been down here before. As long as I find her, she’ll get me back home.
There’s another bark, this time much closer. Suddenly, the trees ahead of me part, and I burst into a small clearing. In the center of the clearing stands an old cottage with a sagging roof, its walls covered in ivy. This is the house I saw a few days ago from the tower. My gaze drops to the steps leading to the front door, and when I see Sophia there, I release a relieved breath.
“There you are.” Tall, uncut grass folds beneath my feet as I walk over to her and clip her onto the leash. She lets me pet her and then barks at the house.
Lifting my gaze back to the cottage, I recall what Giorgio said. It had been damaged in a fire…but where are the signs? I run my gaze over the wooden door. There’s no soot. The windows are boarded up, but the frames are undamaged.
My brows scrunch together. Doesn’t seem to me like there was a fire here. But why would Giorgio lie about it?
What is this place anyway?
There are spider webs all over the front door, displaying an assortment of decaying leaves and dead insects. It’s pretty obvious no one’s been inside for a very long time.
I glance down at Sophia. “Have you been here before?”
She snorts, hops off the stairs to run a circle around me, and then tugs on the leash like she wants me to follow her to the back of the house.
“Where are you going?”
This dog is acting like she hasn’t been outside in weeks, even though that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
We round the cottage, and she stops suddenly to sniff at a random patch of dirt. She whines and starts digging, sending dirt flying directly at me.
I jump to the side to avoid getting hit in the face. “What on earth are you doing?”
She digs for a while, but then stops and starts barking, glancing back at me as if she wants me to come take a look at what she’s found.
“What’s this?” I ask. “You found a…stone?”
She barks.
I suppose that’s the kind of exciting stuff dogs live for.
“Good girl,” I say, lowering down on my haunches beside her to take a closer look. “Oh wow, you got a big one.” I swipe my hand over the flat gray surface, brushing some of the remaining dirt aside.
It’s flat. Rectangular.
Hold on, is there’s something carved into it?
I clear it some more, using both hands this time, until I finally realize it’s a…grave.
Francisca Girardi
1970-2007
She will be avenged
The wheels turn. Girardi is Giorgio’s last name.
Is this a relative? Someone who lived in the castello? But those dates are fairly recent.
Could this be the grave of his mother?
I frown. Why is she buried all the way out here?
And the lie about the fire… I glance back at the cottage.
Giorgio didn’t want me to find this place. But why? Is it the grave he didn’t want me to see? Or something inside the cottage?
Sophia settles at my feet and starts licking her paw.
I should respect Giorgio’s wishes, right? I’m already going to be in trouble when he finds out I came all the way out here. If there’s something personal inside, it’s his right to keep it away from me.
But he knows so much about me, and I still know so little about him. I eye the web-covered door. The desire to understand him burns bright within me. What we have now likely won’t last once I leave the castello and return to my brother, so is it really so wrong of me to want to gorge on everything Giorgio while I’m here?
I brush the dirt off my palms and stand back up. The door might be locked. I should probably check that before I waste more time thinking about whether or not I should go inside. If it is locked, I’ll take it as a sign that I’m not meant to go in.
The wood steps creak beneath my feet, and a bird breaks into a song somewhere up in the trees. The rusted keyhole is covered with a web that I brush aside with a stick I find on the ground. There’s a gap between the door and the doorjamb, and I can see that the deadbolt isn’t even closed.
So it’s just the big padlock keeping it in place. It looks pretty secure, but just to be sure, I reach over and give it a sharp tug.
The padlock falls open.
My brows rise up my forehead. Did whoever was here last forget to lock it, or is it just broken?
Well, no point in questioning my luck. I take the lock off and tug on the door. It’s a bit stuck, so it takes me a while to inch it open, and while I do, Sophia starts to whine.
“I’m just going to peek inside,” I tell her as I finally get the opening wide enough for me to squeeze in.
Sophia barges past my feet, and I follow her, careful not to get spider webs all over my hair.
Something crunches beneath my foot, but I have no idea what it is. It’s dark inside. Since the windows are boarded up, the only light comes from the open door behind me. A chill runs down my spine as I inhale the cool, stale air. God, this is creepy. While I try to get the flashlight working on my phone, Sophia does her own examination of the space, her paws pattering loudly against wood floor.
Finally, I get the light on and point it at a wall.
My jaw drops.
Oh my God, this place is completely trashed.
It’s as if someone has dropped a sledgehammer onto every surface, shattering windows, destroying the art hanging on the walls, and upturning furniture.
“Sophia, come here,” I say urgently, pulling on her leash. The floor is littered with shards of glass and splintered wood. I don’t want her paws to get cut.
She obeys me, coming close to my side.
We move cautiously through the room, trying to avoid the debris underfoot. The table and chairs in the center of the room are upturned and broken, and the sofa lining is spitting out feathers. The walls are pockmarked with holes and scratches, as if someone took a knife to them in a fit of rage.
Goosebumps erupt over every square inch of my skin as I take a step closer to one of the scratched-up walls. The scratches look like…
My eyes widen.
They’re words.
I’m sorry.
My heart pounds out an uneven rhythm. Who wrote that, and what are they apologizing for? Is it for destroying this place?
Or for something else?
Fear wraps around me, making my blood run cold. I need to get out of this place. What if whoever did this is somewhere near?
If there was ever a time to listen to my instincts, it’s now.
Pulling Sophia along with me, I make my way outside. With one final look at the cottage, I break out into a run.
We follow the trail back to the castello, the descending sun casting long finger-like shadows across the ground. The thick foliage scratches and whips at my arms, but I can barely feel it with all the adrenaline pumping through me.
After what feels like hours, we finally cross the edge of the forest, and the sky opens up.
I’ve never been so happy to see that tower.
Sophia and I don’t stop running until I’m through the doors of the castello. I’m sweating, and the stitch in my side is unbearable. I practically collapse on the floor of the lobby, clutching my side and panting for breath. Sophia scurries around me, licking and sniffing at my body.
“Martina?”
I crane my neck and see Giorgio standing on the staircase, his expression drawn in concern. “Are you all right?”
“N-no.” I wipe my sweaty forehead with my forearm and realize that I’m trembling. “I just came back from the woods.”
He hurries down the steps and lowers down in front of me, placing his palms on my knees. “What happened?”
“I—” I swallow. “I was walking Sophia, and she ran into the forest. I followed her. I’m sorry, I know you said not to go there, but I was worried I’d lose her. I ran after her along the path and found her at the old cottage, the one I asked you about.”
In an instant, his body grows tense, and his gaze narrows on mine.
I swallow. “I saw the grave.”
Something dark flickers in his eyes and tangles with an accusation. This is why he didn’t want me there.
“It’s your mother’s, right?” I ask, my voice dropping to a whisper.
“Yes.”
“I was curious. I…”
“You what?”
“I went inside the cottage.”
There’s a drawn-out silence.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” His words settle like flakes of ice inside my lungs.
I want to stop taking. I want to, but I can’t. Bracing myself for his next answer, I ask, “Who wrote on the walls?”
His palms tighten on my knees. “I did.”
