Page 40 of The Unraveling of Julia

The lights went on in the carriage house. Piero hustled out bare chested in his pants. Anna Mattia was on his heels, closing her robe.

“Help!” Julia ran to them and buried herself in Anna Mattia’s arms, trying to hold on to something, to feel something warm and human beneath her fingers, something soft and solid, andreal.

“Signora, Signora, is okay!” Anna Mattia rocked her like a child. “Is okay!”

“Please, please, please, help me,” Julia said, sagging to the ground.

Later, Julia stood in the dining room with Anna Mattia and Piero, ashamed, appalled, and unable to even speak. Everything was back to normal. The lights were on. Her laptop sat on the table, intact and open. There was no blue light anywhere. It looked as if nothing had ever happened at all.

Julia was losing her mind, bit by bit. It couldn’t have been a nightmare because she wasn’t asleep, unless she’d fallen asleep. It felt more like a dream, a vision, a spell, but it was horrible, so horrible. She never wanted to experience anything like that again, but she feared that she would, that it was inevitable as long as she was in this house, as long as Caterina was here somewhere and maybe even Rossi, too, all of the spirits alive and dead, all of them with her, all of the time.

Anna Mattia looked down, pursing her lips. Piero stood by the wall, his face in solemn lines. He held a pistol, which Julia knew couldn’t help her now.

“This has to stop,” she said, hushed.

But she didn’t know who she was talking to.

24

The Tuscan night was cool and dark, and the air was filled with sounds Julia couldn’t identify. She sat at the rusty table in the overgrown garden while Piero was searching the villa and Anna Mattia was closing up. They’d offered Julia to sleep at their house, and she’d accepted, but she wanted to call Courtney first. The call connected, and Julia said, “Hey, I’m sorry to wake you—”

“Honey, what’s the matter?” Courtney asked, alarmed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m kind of upset.” Julia bit her lip not to cry.

“What’s going on? Another nightmare?”

“No, I was awake, on the laptop.” Julia wiped her eyes and told her everything that happened in the dining room.

“Blue lights? Zodiac signs?” Courtney groaned. “Jules, come home.”

“Look, I know it’s crazy, and I don’t know why it’s happening, or what’s happening to me—”

“Sell that place. Get on a plane ASAP.”

“I can’t. Something’s going on here—”

“Yes, you’re losing your damn mind.”

I might be, I am, I feel it.“Look, I admit I don’t know what it is, but somethingishappening. I feel like this blue light is related to Caterina somehow. Remember, it came off the ceiling fresco, the portrait of her—”

“Is it a ghost? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I don’t know, I’m not saying it’s herghost, I’m saying it’s like herpresence, like it’srelatedto her. And the hoodie of the guy who killed Mike, it was blue, too, and I have to figure out what’s going on, I can’t leave here now. You know, everybody thinks Rossi was crazy. What if the blue light came to her, whether it’s Caterina or not? What if it was a vision of some kind?” Julia looked up, but there were no answers in the velvety black sky, shimmering with twinkling stars. “It’s about me somehow—”

“Jules, please. You’re scaring me. These dreams, they’re from PTSD. Please, why don’t you call Susanna?”

“No, no, no.” Julia knew Susanna couldn’t help. She didn’t think anybody at home could help. It was all about her, here, and she had to help herself.

“Then come home now. Sell the—”

“It’s not about the villa anymore. It’s about me, finding out who I am.”

“Even if it isn’t good for you?”

“Itisgood for me,” Julia shot back, but she knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. She was falling apart, maybe even going insane. She didn’t know where it ended, but she couldn’t stop it now, either.

“But you can’t stay, it’s destroying you!”

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