vista of mountains, the peaks pale against the pinks and purples of the setting sun, struggling to take in the meaning of Eleanor’s memoir. If what Eleanor wrote was true, Vita was not the only one afflicted with this legacy. A creeping sensation of horror fell over me as I understood: this was who we were. Not just Vita, but the Montebianco family, all born after Leopold. At last I understood all the terror and secrecy around Vita. My grandfather Giovanni’s shame. The desperate measures Ambrose had taken to hide his child. The estate’s requirement that I stay in Nevenero. It all made sense. Vita was the expression of our darkest secret, her existence proof of the taint in our blood. She was part of me, her genetic code twisted into mine, a legacy that I would carry with me and—if a child were to ever arrive—pass down. I was descended from these creatures. The Icemen were my ancestors.
Twenty-Six
I rushed through the hallways of the second floor, Eleanor’s revelations thrumming in my mind. I pushed open the heavy doors, and walked into the long, narrow portrait gallery. It was afternoon, and a gray light fell over the room, giving the portraits a diaphanous, otherworldly appearance, as if they were not reproductions in oil, but the souls of my ancestors shimmering through the fabric of time.
The last time I had looked at the portraits had been the day I had pushed Dolores over the polished parquet floors in her wheelchair. I was startled by how much had changed. Then, I had been overwhelmed by the faces looking down at me, the luminous eyes, the traits that were so much like my own. I had gazed at each of these portraits, read the small brass tags, taking in their commanding presence, but I had never really known these people. Not their faces. Not their stories. Now I knew the murderess Isabelle of the House of Savoy and her goat herder husband, Frederick. I knew the strong, persistent voice of Vita’s mother, Eleanor. I knew that Ambrose had loved Eleanor so much that he had married her despite his fear of having children. I felt Eleanor’s feelings of repugnance at the sight of her daughter, Vittoria. I felt the tragedy of Vita’s education, the horror of her rape, the victory Eleanor had felt at seeing that her grandchildren—Giovanni and Guillaume—had been born with normal human features. I felt the loneliness of Giovanni and Guillaume growing up under the tutelage of Vita’s doctor. I understood what my ancestors had suffered, what they had lost. The Montebianco family stories were my stories now. For the first time, these people were really my family.
What would they do, if they were to peel from the walls and stand around me, these ghosts of the past? Would they be benevolent spirits, wrapping around me in a circle of protection? Or would they, like Ambrose, feel it their duty to stop the continuation of the Montebianco line? To kill me, the last living descendant of Leopold Montebianco, and be done with the family’s cursed legacy forever.
I searched the plates affixed to the gilded frames until I found Leopold. In the portrait, he looked every bit as strange and eccentric as Ambrose had described. Tall, lanky, and pale, he had a white cravat at his neck and a book in his hands. He had been painted in the library, and the vaulted ceilings rose behind him, showing the family tree with all the Montebiancos who had come before. Leopold was the opposite of every other man in the room, dreamy as a romantic poet, a Byron or Shelley, his large dark eyes liquid with emotion. The portrait was darker than the others, the paints thicker, as if straining to express the extent of Leopold’s saturnalia.
Vittorio, whose portrait was next in line, could not have been more different in appearance from his father, Leopold. While his father had been thin and introspective, Vittorio was hale, wide-shouldered, exuding power. With Vittorio came the beginning of the extreme whiteness of the Montebianco skin, the bright blue eyes, the hair rinsed of color. The traits—I now understood—that we had inherited from the Icemen. Then there was Ambrose, who was not quite as magnificent as his father, Vittorio, but not too shabby either, rugged from mountaineering, brow wide and tempered as a ram. Finally, I stopped before my grandfather’s portrait. He looked down upon me from his horse. His appearance sent a shiver through me—it