Diavola E-Book

Jennifer Thorne

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 439

Beschreibung

White Lotus meets Hereditary in this uproarious and unsettling dissection of a dysfunctional family and their ghosts, both literal and metaphorical. Perfect for fans of Grady Hendrix and Ronald Malfi Anna only has one rule for the annual Pace family vacations: tread lightly, and survive. It isn't easy when she's the only who doesn't seem to fit in. Her twin brother Benny goes with the flow so much he's practically dissolved, and her high-strung older sister Nicole is so used to everyone—including her blandly docile husband and two young daughters—falling in line that Anna often ends up chastised for simply asking a question. Her Mom is baffled by Anna's life choices (why waste her artistic talent at an ad agency?), and her Dad—well, he just wants a little peace and quiet. The gorgeous villa outside a remote Tuscan town seems like the perfect place to endure so much family time—not to mention Benny's demanding new boyfriend, Christopher. If her family becomes too much to handle, then at least Anna can wander off to a wine tasting or lose herself in an art gallery. That is, until strange things start to happen—strange noises at night, food rotting within hours, dreams that feel more like memories. Then, the unsettling warnings from the locals: don't open the tower door. But Anna does open it. And what she releases threatens to devour her family—that is, if her family doesn't tear itself apart first.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Your Flesh and Blood

Togetherness

Invisible Key

What Had Bothered Her

There is a Darkness in you

Pentimento

The Monster Role

Italian Blood

Do Not Open it

Triangle

What The Hell, Anna

So Nice of You to Help

The Trash

Poison, Rot

Things To Look out for

Like on a Boat

Girls’ Night

Florentine Woman

Ask for Forgiveness

That’s it, we’re Dead

Twin Complex

Thursday

The Anna Test

Spreading Stain

You See How Nice it is

The Sacr Ament of Penance

When You’re Around

Finale

Tuscan Hospital at Dawn

On The Back of a Beast

Infestation

Everything Becomes Mine

New York Normal

Spiderweb

Glad You’re Still Alive

No One But You

A Gracious Hostess

I am Going to Have to ask you to Leave

Fogged-Up Windows

Killer Dress

Why Did You Do It

Deal

You’ve Done This to Yourself

Welcome it Like a Friend

Acknowledgments

About the Author

“Jennifer Thorne scorches the petals right off The White Lotus with this supernatural downward spiral of gut-wrenching, teeth-baring terror. If you thought vacationing with your family was a living hell, look no further than Diavola as a primo esempio that there are deeper, darker levels to descent that would make even Dante blush. This isn't your mama’s Italian gothic, this is a literary garrote strapped right at your throat, and my God, does it ever squeeze.”

Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters

“You think your last family vacation was horrifying? Diavola is about to give you a run for your money. Tuscany has never been creepier.”

Liz Kerin, author of Night's Edge

“First, she took us to a terrifying British isle, and now to a terrifying Italian villa? Jennifer Thorne is the travel agent from Hell, and Diavola is an exquisitely paced, thoroughly entertaining thrill ride. The delightfully dysfunctional family dynamics draw you in, while the dread cinches tight around your ankles. Like any dish that bears its name, this book will make you sweat.”

Nat Cassidy, author of Mary: An Awakening of Terror and Nestlings

“A wholly unique, wicked twist on the classic haunted house story, Thorne’s Diavola will take you on a vacation like no other. I feverishly flipped the pages of this inventive horror novel, as enthralled by the family politics as I was by the ghosts.”

Lee Kelly, author of With Regrets

“Imagine The Exorcist meets The Haunting of Hill House in a creepy Tuscan villa with lots of atmosphere and a vein of dark humour running throughout. Brilliant!”

Gabriel Dylan, author of Whiteout

DIAVOLA

JENNIFER THORNE

TITANBOOKS

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Diavola

Print edition ISBN: 9781835410028

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835410035

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: March 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations,and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Jennifer Thorne 2024

Jennifer Thorne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To my family—who shouldn’t be reading this book—thank you for being nothing like the Paces

YOUR FLESH AND BLOOD

Anna kicked off the annual Pace family vacation with a lie. It was the only smart move, and she didn’t feel the least bit guilty about it.

Benny had wanted to maintain their usual twin-dependent status by meeting up on Friday and flying together to Florence from Newark, a compromise between New York and Philadelphia, but doing so would have involved her sharing a row with his newish boyfriend for the better part of nine hours, and besides the natural human inclination to avoid torture, Anna had better plans.

So she made her excuses—last-minute client meeting Friday afternoon, stupidly important one, ugh, her agency was such a pain, she really needed this vacation—and Benny rolled his eyes with her, not at her, a crucial difference.

Anna arrived in Florence early Thursday morning and stayed alone in a shoebox Airbnb apartment near Piazza Santa Croce.

In the afternoon and into the evening, she sat on a precariously thin half-moon balcony with her sketch pad stretched across her bare legs, trying to capture the soul of the skyline, until the wine she’d been drinking blurred the lines, and she set it all aside and went out to simply stroll.

La passeggiata, they called it. She liked it—the flow, the freedom, the cacophony of the people around her, and beauty absolutely everywhere she looked.

Friday was travel day for the rest of the Pace family, and although the Florence airport was miles away, she woke up feeling their arrival like a to-do-list item she’d been trying to ignore, a psychic tap-tap-tap on the shoulder. Hey! Remember us? Your flesh and blood? Don’t you care at all?

Mom and Dad’s flight from Ohio, via a changeover in Gatwick, landed at 7:28 A.M. Central European Summer Time—they’d forwarded her the itinerary—then they’d wait for Benny and the New Boyfriend, whom they’d not yet had the pleasure of meeting, and shuttle them in their rental car south into the Chianti region to the medieval hilltop village of Monteperso. Nicole and her circus would roll into town around the same time and make their own way over to the villa. A joyful, almost complete, Pace family reunion would be underway by lunchtime.

Anna doubted her absence would be felt all that acutely, despite what they were sure to say to her later.

She hit the galleries on Friday. L’Accademia. The Uffizi. Molto bene. Overwhelming in the best way.

She’d been careful not to tell the family when her fictional Saturday flight was arriving, which gave her time for a brioche and an espresso and one more stroll Saturday morning before she grabbed her shoulder bag and hauled herself out of Florence. She hopped a southern train into the town nearest Monteperso, then sat on a curb in the station’s parking lot and booked an Uber.

The driver, a young guy with mussed, curly hair and a sparse mustache, spoke a little English.

“You sure you want to go to Villa Taccola?” he said as he cut off another car on a sharp right turn out of town. “I could take you . . . anywhere else.”

“Should I be worried?” Anna asked, watching the landscape scroll past her window, one lovely postcard after another. Skinny cypress and squat olive trees, tidy lines of vineyard hills, beautifully crumbling walls, villages that had been clinging to their rocky brown hillsides for a thousand years or more. The occasional jarring modern sight: a massive satellite dish on a house, a fence plastered with ads for a summer funfair.

Her brain would filter those images out later, she knew. People tended to remember only the pretty parts of their vacations, and Anna was no different.

“No, no, I’m joking,” the driver said, but he watched her through the rearview mirror, eyes tracking downward, and she wondered idly whether it was him she should be worried about. She envisioned the possibility. Uber driver with a few of his local buddies, a different car parked down a dirt track, waiting to find her alone.

“Where do you live?” she asked him in Italian. Dove abita?

In the mirror, his eyes slid back to the road, just in time for him to avoid oncoming traffic driving too centrally on a switchback.

Her heart thudded with the near miss. She bit her lip, adrenaline pulsing upward.

He replied in Italian. “Not far from where you’re staying.”

Anna stretched. “What’s fun to do around here?”

“Everything is fun if you are fun,” he answered. At least, she thought he did. Her actual facility with Italian wasn’t nearly as good as her accent.

“Good point,” she said. In English.

Up ahead, she saw a small wooden sign too overgrown with ryegrass to read. A narrow country track stretched along it to the right. The driver turned so abruptly she nearly fell over, and she heard him chuckling from the front seat as she rearranged herself.

They passed a field where a gangly goat stood tied to a post, next to a sagging soccer ball. From the long grass beside him, an orange cat emerged, stretched its back, and lazily trailed the car. Anna craned her neck to peer through the back windshield, tracking its path along the road.

By the time she’d straightened again, they were there.

Villa Taccola.

“I can come back, take you out, have some fun,” the driver started to say as he stopped the car, but she hurried out, mumbling, “Grazie mille, arrivederci.” She slung her bag onto her shoulder and stepped through the iron gates of the villa.

Anna heard the car idle on the drive for a full minute before it crunched a turn and left her behind. I’ll keep a rock in my pocket when I go for walks here alone, she thought, even while knowing she’d never bother.

There were two excessively large SUV rentals parked just to the right of the iron gates, signaling that the gang was all here, but as Anna approached the villa, she felt entirely alone. Unnaturally so. There was something careful about the energy here. Not calm, exactly. More . . . preserved in amber. Crickets twitched their relentless song around her, unseen. A brown lizard on the sunny courtyard tiles lay so still that Anna assumed it was dead until it twitched at her approach. There was a perfect circle of dirt surrounding the house and drive, inside of which even weeds didn’t grow. Not well-tended gravel. Dirt. Remnants of dead plants poking up in places. The sky was solid cerulean blue and the day was hot. Hotter by the minute. Breezeless.

Anna slowed her step, allowing the sense of this place to wind tight around her. The sunlight and shadow, the isolation. Something else she couldn’t yet name. She’d have taken out her sketch pad and plunked down right there, cross-legged in the front courtyard, capturing her first impression of this six-hundred-year-old villa—the afternoon light stretching across the pale brown stones of the flat façade, casting shadows that looked like teeth—if she didn’t think she’d be caught. Somebody would spot her, take offense, mention it to the others, setting the combative script for the rest of the week.

Not this time. Anna wanted this vacation. She’d actually looked forward to it.

She set down her shoulder bag and looked around, making a mental sketch instead, marking the gently worn tile roofline, the square tower that rose elegantly from the western wall. There was a single tall window set high in the tower, thick curtains drawn, obscuring the view inside, but as Anna peered up, hand shading her eyes, she saw the fabric move like someone had been spying but had darted away to hide.

Hi, girls.

Anna wasn’t surprised her nieces were up there. If she’d been the youngest of the group and gotten here first, she’d have bagged the tower bedroom too.

In any case, she’d been spotted. Time to join the party.

She rapped on the front door. Listened for footsteps.

A movement at her feet startled her into stumbling. The orange cat. She’d nearly trampled the poor thing. A tom, she saw now, not even remotely neutered. He’d walked all this way from that field to greet her with a dance around her ankles, but apparently these ubiquitous, feral Italian cats were the same as American cats—as soon as she bent down, he slinked out of reach, no longer interested.

Anna opened the front door.

Her eyes picked out the old before the new, everything quotidian blurring past notice. She saw smoke-blackened wood beams, stone walls, a frayed wall hanging with a pastoral image woven into it—dancing nymphs dangling clumps of grapes from their joined fingers.

Anna walked through the large, recessed entry hall now doubling as a living room, and mapped a kitchen off to the right through a wide archway, as well as a dim corridor to the left, leading to bedrooms, presumably. There was an extension out beyond the living room, with steps descending into a brighter space—a contemporary build-out?

“Heya,” she called to the house, mostly out of a sense of obligation. She was constantly being accused of sneaking up on people. Her voice echoed faintly against the stone walls. Nobody answered. The villa sat silent, apart from a dull hum she couldn’t quite identify as insect or electric.

Someone’s in here, Anna thought. Listening.

She turned slowly, taking in the weathered wooden floorboards in the entryway, the stones lining the kitchen arch, the terra-cotta tile on the walls and kitchen floor. One of the ceiling’s long wooden beams had a large divot, as if something had bitten a chunk out of it at some point in the past five hundred years. A few items of furniture looked nearly as old as the beams. The rest, Anna suspected, was bought in one big trip to a home goods outlet: the living room’s beige sectional furniture and large, bland coffee table, a flat-screen television fixed over the great, gaping mouth of a fireplace. The kitchen had herbs and baskets of fruit and root vegetables hanging from the ceiling, pots dangling over the dining table that extended through the archway, but it looked to her like it was arranged for effect. More Epcot Italy than the real thing.

And yet there was something idiosyncratic about Villa Taccola. The whole house suggested pentimenti, original brushstrokes covered over by something else. The same subject in a different style. Past mistakes hidden by fresh paint. What mistakes had been made here? she wondered.

Anna peeked into the nearest of the bedrooms—bare, pristine, minuscule, a single bed crammed against a sloping wall. Obviously hers, so she dropped her bag down to claim it.

She flicked the bathroom light on and off, pointlessly curious—it was, you know, a bathroom—then tiptoed through the living room, wary of disturbing the quiet, and peered down at what indeed looked to be a modern addition in the back.

Well-designed, she had to admit, if jarringly contemporary, two stories of glass wall looking out on a stunning vista: those neatly lined vineyard hills, a church tower above a cluster of buildings in the distance, and much nearer, a pale blue square swimming pool, bright little figures dotting the water and the deck.

There they were.

Anna trotted down the stairs into the extension, taking in another line of open bedroom doors to the right, and set into that big glass wall, the door to a back patio where clothes had been hung out to dry. As she passed through a sitting area cluttered with her nieces’ books and toys and electronics, a movement caught her eye. She turned in time to see one of the bedroom doors click shut.

After Anna caught a startled breath, she snorted. What a warm welcome. And she was supposed to be the antisocial one? Maybe someone was changing clothes, didn’t want to be caught bare-assed. Oh lord, if Anna saw her brother-in-law naked, she’d never hear the end of it.

Stepping around the edge of the coffee table, Anna spotted a long tail, gray and ragged, and jumped back quickly so whatever it was wouldn’t scurry across her feet. A closer examination, breath held, proved somehow more disturbing—not a live creature, nor a dead one. A possum. Toy. Thing? Anna shook her head and left it where it lay, under the coffee table.

Outside the villa, that buzzing sound trebled, joining the rhythmic song of the crickets. Cicadas? Frogs? What did she know. She’d lived in the city too long.

Down past the patio, a path of sparse stepping stones led to a long wooden table for alfresco dining on which a skinny black-and-white cat had draped itself like a pelt rug, paying her no mind.

Farther down the path, Anna found a flagstone patio with a clay oven and loungers arrayed to take in the view. Waves of heat rose off the patio. Anna wondered whether they could just plop a pizza down on the flagstone floor and cook it that way.

She shaded her eyes to get the panorama effect of the grounds. This place was huge, by far the biggest vacation rental they’d ever stayed in. Must have been expensive.

I could get lost here, Anna thought.

She heard Waverly’s and Mia’s high-pitched shouts and splashes, their dad growling monosyllables like an ogre as she made her way down the path to the pool. At the pool gate, shaded by olive trees, she heard Nicole snap, “Do not splash in this direction, thank you.”

Anna’s hand froze against the latch.

Last chance. She could turn back, issue one more lie, say her flight got canceled, hang out in Florence, head elsewhere. Anywhere.

But somebody up at the house—not, apparently, the girls?—already knew she was here. She’d checked in to Villa Taccola, like it or not.

Anna clanged the gate shut behind her to announce her presence. Nobody glanced up. The girls were facing the other way in the pool, riding on Justin’s arms like a fairground ride. Dad was squinting over his glasses at a paperback called Strike Force Two with a big red 10% OFF sticker on the cover, and Mom and Nicole were discussing something requiring their full attention, judging by the lines in Nicole’s forehead. Or maybe her sister always looked that way these days. It had been a good seven months since Anna last saw her.

“I made it,” Anna announced, and when nobody turned, she bent down to wrap an arm around her mother’s shoulders.

Mom shrieked. Anna kissed her cheek anyway. Nicole reeled back, hand to her chest like she’d been shoved.

“Anna, you lunatic!” Mom laughed, fanning herself. “Why do you sneak up on us like that?”

Anna did the cheeks-lightly-grazing-air-kiss thing Nicole always went for, then turned to Dad, who propped his paperback carefully open on his lap before craning his neck to say hello.

“Did you have a good flight?” He sounded like a customs officer.

“Yeah, fine,” Anna answered.

And that was the end of that conversation.

“Girls, say hi to Auntie Anna,” Nicole ordered.

“Hi, Auntie Anna,” Waverly recited, swimming in the opposite direction.

Jaded by age seven, apparently. Anna was impressed.

“Get in the pool, Anna!” little Mia shouted, at five as yet unjaded.

“Let her get settled in first,” Justin said, hoisting Mia on his hip.

“You kidding? I’m boiling.” Anna kicked off her sandals, hiked up the hem of her dress and waded straight into the shallow end.

Waverly swiveled around, eyebrows raised. “Did you bring a swimsuit?”

“Of course.” Anna waded in a circle, feeling the water grip her thighs, ice cold.

“Why don’t you go put it on, sweetie, so you don’t get your nice dress wet?” Mom suggested. It wasn’t a bad idea, but she could see a different kind of judgment in her mother’s eyes when she turned to her, and a pinch to the corners of her sister’s smile that hadn’t been there a minute ago.

Anna remembered last Christmas acutely now. Nicole had gotten drunk, cornered her in the bathroom and told her to stop flirting with her husband, which was—sorry—ludicrous. Justin was nice enough and had been borderline attractive nine years ago at the wedding, but he’d dissolved into a dad bod before they’d even had kids, and whatever charisma he’d used to win Nicole over was either gone now or reserved for the nine-to-five of his sales exec job. Some people were into that middle-of-the-road Ohio guy thing, no judgment, but not Anna, and she’d told her sister as much, which had not gone over as well as she’d hoped it might.

Anna waded out of the pool without greeting Justin. He didn’t seem to care.

She spotted yet another cat, solid gray, as it slid under the bottom of the gate and straight to Anna, rubbing itself against her wet legs.

“Don’t splash,” Waverly shouted to Mia. Her little sister went slack, suspended by her Encanto floaties. “You’ll scare the kitty.”

This one really seemed to want Anna’s attention, so she bent down and gave it a pet. It felt dirty, bug ridden. She scratched it gently with her fingernails and it purred, arching.

“There are so many kitties here,” Mia cooed. “I love it.”

“I do too,” Anna said, as the cat slunk away again, disappearing in a blink.

“You like cats?” Waverly asked her from the side of the pool, her head resting on her skinny tan arms. She sounded surprised.

“Course I do,” Anna said.

“Why don’t you have one, then?”

“Leave your aunt alone,” Justin groaned, but Anna wasn’t bothered. It was a fair question, not a critique.

She sat down on the deck with her legs swirling in the water, considering. “I think you can like something without wanting to own it.”

Nicole muttered, “I’m not sure pets and Anna are a great combination,” not quite under her breath.

Anna’s eyes cut to her sister’s.

Nicole held her gaze. Am I wrong?

“You look rested, Anna,” Mom said, oblivious as ever to the tension. “Did you get some sleep on the plane?”

“Of course she did.” Nicole kicked her feet up on her lounger. “No kids. Heaven.”

Anna noticed a scowl pass over Waverly’s face before the wiry girl shoved herself away from the side of the pool and dove into the depths again.

Nicole wasn’t done. “What, did you drink wine, watch a movie, put your chair back and sleep?”

“I read a book, no movie, but yeah.” Anna felt like she was admitting to a crime.

The book was another lie, to be fair. She’d watched trashy reality shows for a solid six hours.

“I hate you,” Nicole said, closing her eyes. “I still haven’t recovered from our flight. Red-eye, and these two didn’t sleep a wink.”

“Did you not sleep?” Anna grinned, kicking a splash at Mia and Waverly that made them squeal with giggles. “You little devils.”

“Daddy slept!” Mia said, paddling back to him.

“Yeah, let’s not bring that up again,” he murmured to her with a wink.

“So are Benny and the boyfriend hiding from me or what?” Anna asked, peering back at the house. The villa looked much less elegant from this angle. The great glass extension blocked the original architecture, creating the effect of something amputated and replaced with the wrong prosthesis. The modern bit was far too squat for the rest of the villa, and the midday sun reflected uncomfortably against all that glass. In contrast to the blinding new-build, the stone tower loomed unnervingly dark, like a great shadow cast by nothing.

How did you even get to that tower? She hadn’t seen a stairway to it from the inside.

“They’ve gone to Pisa,” Mom said. “Christopher wanted to see it. He was adamant.”

“Have you met him?” Dad grunted to Anna from behind his paperback. “It’s Christopher. Not Chris. Full name. Christopher.”

“Who’s up in the house, then?” Anna asked.

“Nobody right now.” Mom smiled. “They’ll be back around six. Benny’s very excited to see you. Didn’t really want to drive that far, but Christopher was not taking no for an answer!”

So nobody was in the villa, rustling curtains, shutting doors.

Anna thought about making a haunted-house joke, it was there for the taking, but she didn’t want to freak out her nieces, so she said to Dad, “Yeah, I met Christopher. Benny brought him up to the city and we had dinner.”

“When?” Mom asked.

Anna shrugged. “A month or so ago.”

“You never told me.”

Anna didn’t argue the point. A lull hit the conversation, filled by that swelling ambient drone.

“Benny seems happy,” Nicole said.

Anna could sense her sister’s eyes boring into her through the dark panes of her glasses. A glare with a message: Don’t fuck this up for him. As if Anna were that powerful. And that malicious.

Anna bit back half a dozen caustic responses, then settled for, “He does, doesn’t he?”

Nicole flopped back against her deck chair, annoyed into submission by Anna’s calmness, and that was reward enough.

Mia swam to Anna’s dangling legs and raised her arms.

“You wanna come out, Meems?” Anna asked.

Mia nodded, her teeth chattering.

Anna hoisted her up, let her sit on her lap, soaking her dress. She didn’t mind. It cooled her off, but Mom tutted “Go and put your swimsuit on!” while Nicole groaned “Just watch, she’ll jump in fully dressed,” and Anna felt life force siphoning out of her like a caffeine crash.

“Good idea,” she said, setting Mia gently to the side with a wink. “Be right back.”

“Right back” was another lie, meant to pacify, to just get through the next hour and the one after that. Pretty much the name of the game for the next nine days.

Tread lightly. Survive.

She slipped on her sandals and slid away up the path.

“This is so nice,” Anna heard her mother say behind her. “Everybody together.”

TOGETHERNESS

Anna took an extremely circuitous route back to the house so she could view it from new angles. It did not turn out to be the best idea—the grass was knee-high in places, concealing pine needles and anthills, until that continuously arcing line where thriving meadow abruptly gave way to the dirt circle Anna had seen from the front, dead plants jutting from cracked soil. It surrounded the house in all directions, as if there were some pollution oozing from the foundation of the villa into the soil. By the time Anna made her way around to the front drive, her ankles were not only lined with scratches but bitten up. Red ants crawled on her toes. She kicked off her sandals and left them by the front gate, scraping the tops of her feet along the hot flagstones of the courtyard until she made it inside with only the corpses of scorched ants for company. Her damp dress steamed in the half-light of the entryway.

She must have taken longer than she’d thought. Nicole had beaten her back inside with the kids. The girls stripped off their swimsuits down in the extension and handed them off to Justin to hang on the line, while Nicole puttered around the kitchen, making them a snack. Waverly slunk straight into underwear and a sundress, but Mia ran around naked, crowing, “I’m naked! I’m naked!”

Anna smiled at her. “Yeah you are.”

“What was that?” Nicole poked her head out of the kitchen. “Did you say something?”

Anna shook her head and plopped down at the kitchen table. She watched a fly circle the open window over and over without finding its way out.

“Weird.” Nicole got out crackers, grapes, cheese. “You want some?”

“Obviously.”

Nicole rolled her eyes, but grabbed another plate and prepared it for her. “This house has funny, like, echoes. I keep thinking I hear someone talking when everybody’s outside. Or footsteps but there’s no one there.”

Anna chewed a few grapes, thought about the bedroom door closing on its own, considered saying something, decided against it.

“You’re losing it, Nic. Finally. Catching up with the rest of us.”

“Ha ha. Hilarious. I’m sure it’s something to do with the acoustics. Terra-cotta tile.” Rather than expanding on that theory, Nicole turned away, shouting, “Girls? Food!”

She flopped down at the table next to Anna, apparently exhausted by snack preparation. Anna felt the oddest urge to lean over and kiss her sister’s cheek.

Nicole gazed at her, plaintive. “Is it too early for wine?”

“Fuck no, you’re on vacation.”

Nicole’s eyes sharpened even as she smiled. “Do me a favor and watch your language this week?”

“Pour two wines. Say I talked you into it.”

The smile won the war over Nicole’s face. By the time the kids made it up the stairs to claim their snacks, she and Anna had vacated for the living room, glasses of Chianti Rufina in hand.

Anna observed more than listened to her sister talking. She loved watching Nicole get drunk. Nicole’s tipsiness was usually delightful. It happened hilariously quickly, and Nic was so much more human when she let herself get sloppy. Christmas had been a notable exception, and maybe that was why it had blindsided Anna so much.

It took Anna a second to tune back in and realize Nicole had asked a question.

“Your meeting?” Nicole repeated.

“Oh. Yeah. Ridiculous.” It wasn’t such a lie; it could have applied to any meeting at the agency at any point in the past ten years of working there.

“Who’s the client? If you’re allowed to say.”

Anna thought of the last big meeting she’d had. “Milton Foods. We’re doing a hot dog campaign. They’ve been clients for like fifty years, but now we’re trying to get people to eat more meat again.”

“Milton wieners are full of preservatives,” Nicole said, wrinkling her nose. “That’s why we don’t buy them. If that’s helpful.”

It wasn’t. “Thanks. That’s good to know.”

Anna hardly spoke in meetings. She was there solely to perform, a sort of party trick, and she knew it. She sat in the corner, facing front, with a digital pad, and in real time sketched the concepts being discussed for print and broadcast campaigns. Wendell Rook Silver was a very old, venerable ad agency. Nobody from the old guard remained among the partners, but they still operated as if the ghosts of the founders were watching over their shoulders, ready to toss them out the thirty-fourth-floor window if they stepped out of line. Anna worked digitally when she was at her desk, making renderings, mock-ups, storyboards for video campaigns, but in the room, they wanted to dazzle with old-school ad agency nostalgia. She was just glad they didn’t ask her to dress up as a 1960s secretary. It was fine. It was a job. She was good at it. Full benefits. What else was there to say?

“How do we get into the tower?” Anna asked.

Nicole raised her eyebrows, coy. She stood with an attempted flourish and wobbled as she walked to the woven wall hanging, pulling it back like a magician’s assistant. “Ta-da!”

Behind the nymphs, an oak door, not quite level with the ground. Thick. Ancient and battered. Anna’s eye was drawn to the decorative keyhole that sprawled under its rusted knob. It had some sort of design wrought into it, but mottled by age, it looked like a fungus.

Anna laughed. “Okay. Secret entrance. So who claimed the tower room?”

“Nobody,” came a voice behind her. “It’s off-limits.”

Anna slid over the back of the sofa, tower forgotten.

Benny reached her in two eager strides, but hugged her gingerly. “I’m sweaty, don’t get too close!”

“I do not give a shit.” Anna kissed her brother’s slick cheek and grimaced—truly disgusting.

Benny laughed, eyes crinkling. “I warned you!”

She wiped her face off with the back of her hand so she could turn to the boyfriend for whatever he expected. Hug? Double cheek kiss, like the first time she met him? Benny had giggled silently for a good ten minutes at the open horror that had gripped her when his boyfriend had swooped in twice that night.

This time, Christopher not Chris went for a rigid handshake. “Good to see you again, Anna.”

She shook back briskly, matching his voice for deepness. “Likewise, Christopher.”

Anna heard Nicole choke back a laugh behind her, then cover it up with, “Anybody want a glass of wine? Anna talked me into starting early.”

“Bad influence.” Anna shrugged. “That’s why you all invited me, right?”

“God no.” Benny winked. “It’s because you’re the only one who speaks Italian. Yes please to wine, Nicky.”

“Pisa was very crowded,” Christopher announced.

“Everybody wants a look at that leaning tower.” Anna glanced sidelong at Christopher and got the same impression as a month ago. Blond, elegant, chiseled. If he were an actor he would be typecast as a Nazi.

“It is impressive,” Christopher said, mistaking her attention for interest. “We took some pictures.”

He offered his cellphone.

“That’s okay,” Anna said. “I’ve seen it.”

“You’ve been to Pisa?”

“No. But. I feel like I’ve seen a photo of it somewhere?”

Benny swept past with a smile and a glass of Chianti.

“Ease up,” he whispered.

She could not imagine going any easier without lapsing into unconsciousness, so she smiled blandly at Christopher and glided past him to join the girls in the kitchen.

Mia was clutching the gray thing tight in her armpit. As she snacked, she pretended to feed it bites.

“Who’s this?” Anna dared ask.

“Blossom,” Mia cooed.

“Rhymes with possum,” Waverly grunted, glaring across the table at the stuffed animal.

Anna turned to Nicole, who shook her head and whispered, “Natural history museum. She picked it herself.”

“It’s . . .” Anna nodded. “Lifelike.”

“Yup.”

“It’s an abomination,” Waverly announced.

Anna coughed a laugh. “Good vocab, Wayvs.”

Nicole shook her head, more flummoxed than proud. “She just pops out with this stuff.”

Mom joined the crowd in the kitchen, freshly showered, and tutted over their wineglasses. “Kinda early, isn’t it?”

Anna poured her a glass of red. “Join the party.”

“I will be asleep by seven if I start now!” Mom took it anyway.

“Can I watch YouTube?” Waverly asked, pushing up from the table.

Nicole pressed her lips together for a very long beat before saying, “Okay,” sending the children and Blossom careening down to the extension, limb over limb, instantly fighting over whose turn it was to pick the video.

Anna served herself cold prosecco this time, went out to the front patio to reclaim her sandals, and traipsed through the house, past Mia and Waverly, all the way out the back and down the path to the outdoor dining table, which now rested in the long shade of a duo of cypress trees.

The afternoon held a shimmering quiet for a moment, pollen and bugs hovering in the summer glow, but then the crunch of feet on gravel announced Mom and Nicole’s arrival as they came out to join her, chattering about plans for the week.

“What have you guys done so far?” Anna asked when they sat down.

“Not a whole lot really,” Mom said—a little peevishly, Anna thought. “We drove down to that town for some groceries. Took a walk in the village, but there wasn’t much going on. They were having a siesta or whatever you call it here.”

They both looked at Anna.

She shook her head. “I have no idea what you call it.”

“Anyway, we didn’t want to do too much without you to translate. Shame you had to come late but glad you’re here now.”

There are apps, Anna thought. You could literally just type things into your phone and it would translate it for you, out loud, in Italian.

“We went into the little church in the village,” Nicole said.

“Was it pretty?” Anna offered. “Of architectural significance?”

She put on a faux-snooty voice so Nicole knew she wasn’t throwing her art knowledge around. That never went over well.

“I don’t know.” Nicole squinted. “I wasn’t really sure what I was meant to be looking at.”

Refreshing honesty from Nicole, but then, her sister was on her third glass of wine, so all bets were off.

“It has a very nice square sort of tower,” Mom said. “Romanesque?”

“Sounds like it. I’ll check it out.”

Anna considered the distances. How far to walk into Monteperso? That road was narrow and the drivers here were creative about their definition of a lane. The verge had looked like a sheer drop-off at points. She’d need to beg rides to get there safely.

“How is the villa at night?” Anna blurted.

Nicole and Mom exchanged a startled glance that made Anna lean forward, intrigued. Nicole blinked queasily, but Mom perked up with visible effort.

“Extremely comfortable,” she said. “Very quiet. And the night sky is just dazzling—you’ll see!”

Nicole caught Anna’s eye, parted her lips like she wanted to say something, but then just pushed herself away from the table and wobbled upward. “I’d better start on dinner. Always takes longer in somebody else’s kitchen.”

“I wish you’d let me help,” Mom sighed, starting to rise.

“You’ve paid for this whole vacation! I can handle a meal, Mom, honestly.” Nicole rustled Mom’s hair, easing her back into the chair.

Anna glanced over her shoulder. “Are we not going out?”

“The kids will be hungry soon,” Mom said, as Nicole retreated to the house. “We weren’t sure when everybody would come back, so we thought we’d stay put.”

“Dinner here sounds great,” Anna lied. “It really is gorgeous, isn’t it?”

Even as she said it, though, she felt dread swirling in her stomach, and not just at the prospect of Nicole’s cooking. We’ll stay put. Cement ourselves here.

Anna itched to go out, get out, if only for dinner. Not to be alone. She wanted to be with them. It was just . . .

She peered up again at the house. There was no window on this side of the tower. This side, with all the light, and the view across the hills. It bothered her. There must be a window. She just couldn’t see it.

Maybe they’d blocked it up sometime in the last six hundred years. God knows why they’d eliminate a natural light source.

How is the villa at night? You’ll see.

INVISIBLE KEY

They dined outside, the whole big reunited Pace family.

Anna took her brother in discreetly. Benny had showered and changed for dinner into a linen shirt she’d never seen him wear before. It looked more like something from Christopher’s wardrobe than his own. He was thinner than a month ago, his face more angular.

Anna and Benny didn’t look much alike for twins, never had. Benny used to get knee-jerk defensive when people commented on their differences growing up. “We’re twins! We’re the same!” He’d hug her tight around the waist as if willing them to become conjoined. Anna always thought it was silly to feel hurt about the fact that they were two unique individuals—even more so now, when he had clearly turned out to be the better-looking sibling. Benny wasn’t quite as pretty as Nicole, who still had that wholesome nineties supermodel thing going for her, but nearly. Anna alone in the family was sallow-complexioned and sharp-edged, no matter how well she ate or how much exercise she got. Nicole used to joke that Benny had stolen Anna’s nutrients in the womb.

Anna didn’t give a shit what she looked like most of the time, but she did prefer Benny with a little more weight on him.

Mom was still wearing her giant-brimmed poolside hat and Nicole a smaller version of the same thing, making them look like chorus members in a community theatre production of Hello, Dolly! Dad already had a sunburn on his neck, a deep red collar line. He’d be a human beet by the time they flew home, no matter how many times a day Mom nagged him to put on sunscreen. The girls sat cross-legged under an olive tree, cooing over the black cat who passed between them, allowing itself to be petted on its arched backside. When Nicole brought out the food and Justin the booze, the cat scrammed, glaring back at the adult assembly with open resentment.

Nicole had cooked an enormous pot of pasta with fresh ingredients from the local outdoor market and still somehow made it taste like an American TV dinner.

While Justin stood to wrestle the cork out of a bottle of Chianti, Anna caught a flicker of movement behind the glass wall of the villa. Everybody was out here, so it must’ve been a reflection. A bird flying past. No, something bigger. A shifting cloud?

Anna didn’t think so.

The evening was as cloudless as the day had been, and she understood angles, perspective. This shape was inside the house.

Anna let the discomfort of that thought ripple all the way through her, then turned her attention back to the table.

“Hope it’s all right,” Nicole said as everybody quieted into their meals.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Anna answered.

She swallowed her bite and drank a deep sip of wine before glancing up to realize that half the table was glaring at her.

“It’s delicious, Nicole, you’re such a chef these days,” Mom said.

“Glad it meets with your approval at least!” Nicole had stopped drinking an hour ago. She was sobering into a grouch.

“Shame Josh couldn’t make it,” Justin said.

Anna was gratified to see all the glares shift in his direction.

“They’re not together anymore.” Nicole managed to sound sympathetic, upbeat, and livid all at once. “I told you that, J!”

She shot Anna a husbands, what are you gonna do look.

“I knew that.” Justin shrugged, unaffected. “I just mean it’s too bad you split up. Would’ve been good to have him here.”

“And you managed to make it worse,” Nicole breathed.

“Yeah, I remember you two got along,” Anna said, reaching down the table for the bread.

“We all got along,” Mom said. “He was such a sweetheart. Still is, I’m sure. He’s not dead!”

“Not that I know of,” Anna agreed.

“Good for you, I thought,” Dad said.

Anna blinked. “Good for me for breaking up with him?”

“No. I thought he was good for you.” He leaned forward, looming over the table for emphasis.

“Four years,” Mom sighed. “We thought you two were headed for the altar, but apparently not!”

“Are you talking about Uncle Josh?” Waverly asked, eager to horn in on the grown-up conversation.

“Yes, and what we’re saying is that Josh and I broke up,” Anna said. “A few months back. I would like to extend my sincerest apologies to all.”

“Awww we liked him,” Waverly said, then shrugged. “Oh well.”

Anna grinned. “Exactly. Oh well.”

Nicole’s eyes passed between Anna and Waverly, her scowl deepening.

Out of nowhere, Mom let out a high-pitched “Hoo!”

She shuddered, hands clasped around her bare arms. Everyone turned to stare at her.

“Little chill!” she chirped. “Don’t worry. Eat. Eat!”

No one actually seemed particularly worried, but Anna at least watched until Mom recovered herself enough to sit up straight and take a sip of wine.

“You all right, Mom?”

“Yes!” She laughed breathily. “Just . . . time of life. Strange, though. Anyway.”

“So, why did you two split up?” Justin asked, voice rote, like he’d been rehearsing the question in his head for the past few minutes.

Nicole had turned to Christopher, noticing he’d pushed his bowl aside. “Is dinner all right?”

“No, it’s . . .” Christopher smiled with half his mouth, turning to Benny conspiratorially. “I ate all the vegetables. I’m keto. Two weeks into a carb fast.”

It took a lot for Anna’s jaw to drop, but it did now. Who the hell starts a keto diet two weeks before a trip to Italy? Christopher not Chris, that’s who.

Justin was still waiting for an answer.

Anna drew a deep breath. “Yeah, we just . . . I guess we just wanted different things.”

She grabbed her wineglass. It was empty. She sipped anyway.

“And what is it that you want?” Nicole asked her. “This is, like, the biggest family mystery, isn’t it?”

Benny raised a finger. “Uncle Augie’s gold stash.”

“Other than Uncle Augie’s gold stash, which never existed, by the way,” Nicole snapped. “Seriously, Anna, what specifically are your dreams? Your aspirations?”

To be left the fuck alone?

To shed herself of the lifelong feeling of barnacles burrowing into her skin, growing larger every day?

Anna smiled. “It’s an interesting question. I’ll think about it.”

Nicole shook her head, but Benny patted Anna’s knee, reassuringly. He was the empathetic sibling, the twin, he’d never ask questions like that—except that he did, all the time, just never in group settings.

“I’m finished!” Mia stood up in her chair like she was waiting for a medal.

“Me too,” Waverly added, less triumphant. “Can we go watch iPad?”

“No,” Nicole answered, drowning out Justin’s “Sure.”

Nicole turned her glare on her husband. Anna sensed the continuation of a long-running argument.

“What is the point of bringing them to Tuscany if they’re going to have their faces buried in screens the whole time we’re here?”

“Not the whole time,” Justin said weakly. He turned back to his meal, sensing, Anna guessed, that he’d already lost this round.

“They need to be present, they need to experience this.”

Anna was too curious to keep quiet. “What specifically do you want them to experience?”

Justin leaped on it. “That’s an interesting question, Nicole. You should think about it.”

Mia and Waverly were still waiting for the green light. Squirming. Mia reached down and scratched her ankle, and like catching a yawn, Anna felt her own ankles itch.

She looked down and saw a cloud of gnats feasting on all the exposed skin beneath the table. She kicked at them. It did nothing.

“What specifically? Okay.” Nicole drew a huffing breath. “Food, landscape, water, sky, art, architecture, culture, foreign languages, why does anyone go on vacation, Justin? No iPad.”

“So what do we do?” Waverly droned.

“Read a book.” Nicole turned away. Debate over, asked and answered.

“Make sure it’s in Italian!” Justin called to the kids as they retreated.

Anna laughed. He refilled her wine.

Down the table, Christopher was talking finance. God help Mom and Dad, they must have asked politely about his job and now their eyes were glazing over. Dad cleared his throat over and over, while Mom looked like she was trying hard not to blink. Christopher was an investment banker and Anna remembered from the last dinner she’d shared with him that he tended to hold forth about his work as if everyone read the Motley Fool every morning and understood what the hell he was talking about. Anna wasn’t sure how Benny coped.

But he was happy. He was. These two must have had more in common than geographical proximity, good looks, and mutual attraction. Or maybe that was enough for some people. Benny never did like being alone. He used to trail Anna around the house when they were little, begging her to play with him. On the nights Anna refused to let him sleep in her bed, he had night terrors, and she got the blame.

Having run out of financial news, Christopher turned to Anna. “Which room did you take?”

“The empty one.”

“You should have gotten here first, if you wanted your pick!” Mom got in.

“I like my room. I’d have chosen it anyway.”

Anna heard the girls laugh behind her, but when she turned, they weren’t there.

Nicole was right. Sounds carried strangely here.

But that thought itself suggested a pentimento. The truth plastered over with something comforting, logical, wrong.

“There’s another bedroom,” Christopher said, drawing Anna’s attention back to the table. This was what he’d actually wanted to talk about, she saw; the question about her room was his version of a segue. “There’s a room in the tower. Nobody thinks that’s weird?”

“That there’s a room in there?” Benny asked, teasing. “What, did you expect it to be a grain silo?”

He reached down to scratch at his ankles. Anna kicked to get the gnats away, which this time only seemed to make them hungrier. She pulled up her legs and sat cross-legged, her knee overlapping Benny’s thigh. Benny smiled at the contact.

Christopher barreled on. “Why is it locked?”

Dad set down his fork. “We used to have a condo we’d rent out down in Hilton Head. We used to put our, not valuables, but . . .”

“Personal items,” Mom suggested.

“. . . personal items in a closet we kept locked. Seems normal to me.”

“Yeah, but that’s a closet,” Christopher argued. “This is the best room in the villa.”

“How can you know that?” Benny looked charmed by how worked up his boyfriend was. Twinkly-eyed. Anna had never gotten the knack of that with Josh.

“It’s the highest point. It’s got the best views.”

Christopher motioned behind him without looking. Had he looked, he might have noted the lack of a window on the side of the house offering the best views. Anna, who did look back, got the faint sense of an outline, a window that wasn’t. She squinted, disoriented.

“Why is the key so fancy, then?” Christopher said to Benny. “What? It is. It’s a fancy key.”

Benny’s eyes crinkled like he was trying not to laugh.

“There’s a key?” Anna asked. “A fancy one?”

“We met the gatekeeper when we got here,” Mom explained.

“Caretaker,” Dad corrected.

“A nice elderly Italian fellow,” Mom said.

“Elderly,” Benny repeated, then whispered to Anna, “Yeah, he was younger than both of them.”

“He doesn’t own the house. It’s a British gentleman, I believe, who we’re renting from, but this local fellow looks after it, and he told us not to open that door.” Mom leaned forward, like she was sharing church gossip. “Pretty darn serious about it, but it took us a little while to figure out what he meant. Oh, I wished like heck you were here, Anna. He spoke very broken English.”

“Surprisingly bad,” Dad said.

“Surprisingly,” Anna repeated.

Benny’s eyes flitted to hers. He was still trying not to laugh.

“I thought this would be agriturismo.” Christopher produced beef jerky from nowhere and started unwrapping it while Nicole’s eyes bugged out of her head. “The peasants coming to make you breakfast and all that.”

Benny snorted up his wine. “‘Peasants’?”

“Locals, I meant locals.” Even Christopher laughed at that one. “Shut up!”

“Well, we thought that was the arrangement too,” Mom said, flustered. “But that was a wrong assumption, and that’s fine. Gives us a little more privacy, doesn’t it? And we can call him if we need him, he left his number.”

“He’s not coming back,” Dad said. “He shot outta here like he was about to miss his flight.”

Nicole frowned. “He flew away?”

“No!” Mom knocked on the table. “He lives in . . . how do you pronounce it? Monty Purse-oh?”

“Monteperso,” Anna supplied.

Everyone but Christopher “ooh”ed sarcastically.

“What?” Anna shrugged, perhaps a little wildly. “That’s how you pronounce it.”

“I’ve got this coworker nobody can stand,” Justin said. “Every time we go out for drinks and apps, he gets the bruschetta, but he says it ‘broo-sketta.’ Corrects the damn waitress, drives me insane.”

Anna got up, breathed deeply through her nose, started gathering empty plates. She felt the gnats following her around the table like a nibbling stream.

“Did you pay for agriturismo?” Christopher asked Dad. “You should complain. Get a refund. Part refund.”

“Not sure why you’re upset, Christopher,” Anna snapped, crumpling up his jerky wrapper. “I doubt anything they made would have been keto.”

Mom lit up, beaming at Anna as she walked away. “Well, that’s a good point, isn’t it?”

Anna climbed back up to the villa, arms laden with plates, her empty wineglass dangling from two fingers, the family’s miasma still clinging to her like a damp towel.

When she reached the kitchen and deposited her load, she considered opening another bottle of Chianti, but that wasn’t what she was craving right now.

She turned. Froze. There was a red puddle on the tile in the entryway. Someone must have spilled their wine. That sloppy already. She grabbed a bunch of paper towels from the kitchen counter to dab it up, but when she turned back, she couldn’t find the stain.

Trick of the light. So many tricks.

When she thought of the puddle, where it would have been, it seemed to grow in her mind. Seeping outward.