from kachelofen—German wood-burning stoves made of brightly glazed clay tiles. Stacks of logs could be found in every corner; the scent of burning birch and cedar and spruce lingered in the hallways. Chopping the wood, carrying and stacking it, and cleaning away the ash must have occupied Sal for hours each week.
The west side of the castle, where Dolores resided, my sleeping chamber on the south side, and the various shared spaces on the first floor—the grand hall, the salon, the wide central corridor—these rooms all had kachelofen. The rest of the castle sustained itself as it had since the thirteenth century, with fireplaces throwing heat and chamber pots poisoning the air. Parts of the castle were so cold that hoarfrost grew like moss on the stone walls and my breath crystalized to smoke. Kerosene lanterns illuminated the unwired areas of the castle, and I found them scattered in hallways and left on the landings of stairwells, positioned in the darkest corners by Greta.
Much of the castle had been uninhabited for decades, maybe longer, leaving the rooms in shambles, shut up and abandoned. The bolted shutters, the furniture covered in dust sheets, the cobwebs filling fireplaces, the bed frames without mattresses—these neglected spaces were in ruins. The scent of mildew filled the air, and I found whole swaths of ceiling had been eaten by water damage, then infiltrated by mold. When I opened the shutters of a sitting room on the second floor, hoping to let in a little fresh air, a pack of rats ran past my feet, fleeing the sunlight as if it were boiling oil. In another room—a huge ballroom filled with mirrors and cobwebs—I sat on a silk chair, only to disturb a clutter of spiders. They crawled from the crevices in droves, hundreds of legs climbing over my clothes, tangling in my hair.
Dust sheets covered furniture in some of the rooms, while other pieces had been left to the elements. So far as I could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to it. No system for preservation. Objects that seemed valuable—a pianoforte inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a Turkish rug the size of a truck—were left exposed, while an iron candelabra and an ugly bit of taxidermy had been wrapped with care. In any case, all of it would have to be assessed, cataloged by an antiques dealer, and restored. Or sold. It would be an enormous job, I realized, one that Luca, with his systematic approach to life and head for business, might enjoy.
Luca was never far from my mind those first days in the castle. Perhaps it was the fact that he had left Turin angry, or perhaps because we had been so close to repairing our relationship, but I wished he were at my side to see it all. He would have found my sleeping chamber romantic, the bidet fun, Dolores’s salon trippy. We could have stood at my window together and looked down over Nevenero, guessing which of the village houses had belonged to Nonna’s family or to my grandmother Marta. I wished I could talk to him, so that he knew how important our time together in Turin had been to me. He needed to know that the separation had been a stupid mistake and that whatever had been said and done in the past was forgiven.
I took out the phone and held it near an ice-covered window, testing for a signal, but there was nothing. I had wandered into the east wing, which was even more neglected than the other parts of the castle. It hadn’t, from the look of it, been inhabited for a very long time, perhaps because it faced the mountains, leaving it colder and darker than the other wings. A section of the roof had collapsed, showing a slice of black granite and gray sky. Cracked windowpanes seeped cold air, while the shutters, many broken and hanging from hinges, did nothing to block it. I walked for ten minutes, shivering without my coat, only to find myself back where I’d begun, leaving me disorientated and dizzy.
I had just arrived at the farthest corner of the east wing when I heard a strange sound at the end of the hallway. At first, I thought it was the wind, but when I listened more carefully, I could detect the fluctuations of a voice, then a second voice, behind a door. For a solid minute, I stood there, frozen in place, listening. There was a rise of strings and