with someone in the nearby villages of Pré Saint Didier or Palézieux. I could try to call Luca. I could try to get ahold of Enzo. It didn’t matter who I called. As long as I made contact with someone outside of Nevenero, they would surely get me a helicopter.
The trick was getting to the phone without anyone finding out. Dolores was aware that I wanted to leave, and there was no objective reason I should hide the call, but I felt an instinctive fear of being overheard, as if Greta or Sal would stop me. And so I waited until the middle of the night before slipping from my room. I didn’t turn on the lights, and I felt my way into the corridor, fingering my way along the rough stone walls, inching forward through the darkness. The stone steps of the stairwell had been worn down over the centuries and were so slippery that one misstep would send me tumbling headfirst into a deep, twisting abyss. Finally, I sat and slid the rest of the way down on my butt, like a child sneaking downstairs after bedtime.
I was just feet from the telephone nook when I heard the muffled sound of footsteps. Fearing that Sal had come in from the mews, I ducked behind a curtain, pressing myself against the window. Holding my breath, I looked outside. The world appeared fractured, distorted by the honeycomb pattern of blown glass. The shuffling came closer, then closer still. What would Sal do, I wondered, if he found me? What could he do? I was free to walk through the castle. There was nothing to stop me. Yet, I was sure that if he discovered me hiding behind the curtain, there would be trouble.
When the sound passed, I peeked out from behind the curtain and found not Sal but Greta shuffling slowly away. What she was doing there in the middle of the night was beyond me, but I had more urgent business to worry about, and I hurried into the alcove, where I fell into a velvet chair next to an old-fashioned rotary telephone perched on a wooden table. That there was a working landline telephone at all was a testament to the Montebianco wealth. Even if the village had been populated, and the service was paid for by more than a single family, it would have been a technical feat to get the wires all the way up to Nevenero, let alone to keep service in repair through the winter. However they had managed it, the important thing was that it was there. And it worked.
I picked up the receiver and listened. The tone beeped in intervals, insistent, waiting for me to dial a number. The only number I knew was for the Miltonian; I had called Luca there every day for years. A clicking tapped in my ear as the number registered, but I couldn’t get through. I was met with nothing but an incomprehensible recording in rapid Italian. Finally, I managed to reach an operator, and in a matter of seconds, I heard the jarring sound of country music under Luca’s sweet, somewhat querulous voice.
“Luca,” I said, feeling suddenly panicked, breathless. “Hello? It’s me. Bert. Can you hear me?” I glanced at the cuckoo clock in the hall. It was four a.m. in Italy. That meant it was about ten at night in Milton. I had no idea what day of the week it was, but from the sound of it, I guessed Friday.
“Bert?” Luca said. It was more a statement of disbelief than a question. “Where are you? Is everything okay?”
“Yes—I mean no,” I said, standing and walking into the hall to make sure I was still alone. “I need your help.”
I could hear Luca picking up the base of the phone and walking to the far end of the bar. I could picture it all perfectly—the whiskey shots with beer chasers all lined up on the bar.
“Where are you? You were supposed to be back by now. I’ve been so worried,” he said. “I’ve been calling that Enzo guy, but he’s not responding. Are you back home? Why would you just disappear like that?”
I felt a wave of love and gratitude wash over me. Even though I had caused him so much trouble, he hadn’t forgotten about me. He had been worried. He had called Enzo. There was one person in the world who had been looking for me.