for him to say he loved her—and she found it so hard to say she loved him back? How long had she mourned for Zoe? Not long. What did she feel for her mother? Not enough. Couldn’t she love like other people? Was that her real problem?
He kissed her, and as the tips of their tongues touched, she thought: Of course I love him, more than anything else in the world.
When his hands felt under her T-shirt, and her fingers touched his arms and went to his chest—all in a tangle of blankets, crumpled shirts, and shorts, rather clumsily and very much her—some things didn’t seem to matter, others were more important, and she thought: Don’t let the snake control you.
She felt the panther fur at the back of his neck and the scales on her hands. She heard them rubbing together, and the sound thrilled her to the marrow of her bones. It was like a series of gentle electric shocks, a tender vibration that lasted a long time, much longer than usual, before the cold she feared came over her at last, bringing with it the transformation, and the end of something that hadn’t even properly begun.
Coiling and purring, they lay together on the battlements, unable to stay in human form. But for the moment it was all right, because it was their nature, what they had in common, and perhaps even their purpose in life, if they only wanted it enough.
CERTAINTY
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Iole was hurrying across the inner courtyard of the palazzo in Rosa’s wake. She impatiently brushed the cobwebs that had been clinging to the toolshed door off her face.
Rosa went ahead to the gateway leading to the front of the house. Her footsteps echoed under the vaulted roof, hardly muted by the fluffy patches of mold hanging above her like storm clouds. She had a pickax in her hands, but she quickened her pace in spite of its weight.
“Rosa! I want to be there if you’re going to wreck something!” In the tunnel, Iole’s voice seemed to come from all sides at once, although she was several yards behind Rosa. She wore loose linen trousers and a white turtleneck, and looked more grown-up than she did in her usual summer dresses. Her short black hair had an almost blue sheen as she ran out of the tunnel into the open.
A glance over her shoulder confirmed Rosa’s fears: Iole had Signora Falchi in tow. That was no surprise. Iole had seen Rosa in the courtyard through the schoolroom window, and had stormed out despite her indignant tutor’s protests. She had trailed Rosa to the shed, where garden tools and other implements were stored.
“Iole! Signorina Alcantara!” The tutor was flailing her arms excitedly in the air as she followed Iole, some way behind her. “Just for once, will you please listen to me!”
Rosa hurried on.
“What are you going to do with that thing?” Iole demanded.
Rosa did not reply. She pressed her lips together firmly. She might change her mind if she said aloud what she was planning to do.
She went around the southeast corner of the palazzo, along the untended path that led to the side of the property facing uphill. Four months ago, when Zoe and Florinda were buried, the weeds and shrubs rambling all over the path had been removed. In the mild winter climate of Sicily, some of them had grown back, though not as wildly as before. At this time of day, the shadow of the chestnut trees on the outskirts of the pinewoods farther up the mountain didn’t reach the east facade. At eleven in the morning, the sun was still too high. It shone with a dull glow in the hazy February sky.
As she walked, Rosa turned the pickax around in her hands to avoid grazing her leg on its rusty iron point. The tool looked as if no one had used it for years.
“Signorina!” called the tutor again when she, too, rounded the corner of the wall. She was determined not to be shaken off. “What on earth are you doing?” And, most uncharacteristically, she added a half-swallowed curse.
Rosa stormed toward the entrance of the funeral chapel. The small annex huddled furtively against the facade as if it had occurred to the architects of the palazzo, rather late in the game, that they had nowhere in the house dedicated to prayer and devotion. In fact, Rosa doubted whether anyone in the palazzo had ever prayed. A cast-iron bell