actual accounting of what Vita had done is harder to tally, as the amount of destruction—and the amount of blood—gave the illusion of a massacre. The bodies of those slain had been hideously disfigured. A limb torn from one body lay near another. A foot ripped from its ankle stood upright in a shoe. Hands, heads, arms, legs—incongruous pieces of the human form were strewn about the room.
A sensation of numbness fell over me as I took it all in. I believe I may have fainted, for the next thing I recall is the hand of my husband gripping my arm to help me stand. Blood stained the floorboards black. It was so thick that, as we left the room, the hem of my petticoat grew crimson.
As Ambrose led me back to the carriage, I saw that a small crowd had gathered outside the stable. Some held torches. Others carried axes and cudgels. I gripped the arm of my husband, terrified.
“They will kill her, Ambrose,” I whispered, so the peasants would not hear me. “They will burn her alive.”
“That would be the answer to my prayers,” my husband said.
“Please,” I said, knowing he was more concerned about what the incident would do to the Montebianco name than what would happen to Vittoria. “For the children we might have one day. They will kill first one, then all of the Montebiancos.”
Ambrose sighed, considering what he must do. Sacrificing Vittoria did not harm him, but the idea of losing our future children was not easy to bear.
“These are peasants,” he said, grabbing some coins. “I know how to placate them.” He put me in the carriage and secured the door. I collapsed into the cushions, covering myself with a rug. My whole body shook with fear. Although I had insisted upon coming to the village, I wished that I had spared myself. The mind is like warm wax, the world like a brass seal pressed into it. Such imprints are forever stamped into us. I am eternally marred.
Finally, Ambrose returned to the carriage, pulling Vita with him. As we climbed the road back to the castle, I took her hands in mine. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was ill with horror, but I found my will to speak stronger than my disgust.
“Did you kill those people, Vittoria? Tell me the truth. Was it you?”
My child answered in quiet, respectful French.
Ambrose’s face hardened. He looked at his daughter, hatred in his eyes. “Why?” he said. “Why would you do such a beastly, murderous deed? Are you a human being? Or a monster?”
They startled Vita, her father’s words. They were the first and last sentiments Ambrose addressed to his daughter. Vita’s large blue eyes were wet with tears, but she couldn’t speak to him. Instead, she came to me and whispered her response in my ear.
“What reason did she give?” he asked.
I lay back in the seat of the calèche, my heart pounding in my chest. “They attacked her,” I said. “She came upon them when she was walking. They attacked her and she defended herself. They struck first, Ambrose.”
Father Francisco, who came to Nevenero to christen Vittoria after her birth, and who has followed her strange development with such loyalty these past years, will perform the exorcism.
He took me aside late last night, after we brought Vita home from the terrible ordeal in the village, to tell me he believes the devil lives in the girl.
“You are not alone,” I told him. “The villagers believe so as well, and they would have killed her had Ambrose not intervened.”
Father Francisco promised that everything would soon change. He would make the devil confess to what happened in Nevenero. “An exorcism will liberate the child,” Father Francisco said. “It will free her from the spirits that have so twisted her soul. And it will, Countess, liberate you.”
I acquiesced, but insisted that I be present during the ritual. I wanted to hold Vittoria’s hand in mine when they tied her down. I wanted to speak to her as they subjected her to their holy oils, their golden crosses, their prayers. I would stifle her cries when they branded her with hot irons. In my desperation, I thought I might offer her some of my strength. But it is not strength she needs. She is thirteen, no longer a child. After what I saw in Nevenero, I know she is strong, so very strong.
Vittoria needs God to help her survive. I hoped that I could be