Page 54 of The Unraveling of Julia

She kept going, whacking away like a madwoman. Plaster chunks fell to the floor. More and more blue light shone through, electrifying her, filling her with its energy.

Julia whacked harder and harder. She felt stronger than ever, or maybe she was imagining it. She didn’t know if she was sane or crazy, awake or asleep, but she wasn’t stopping now.

The seam opened a hole. More and more blue light came through. She punched the poker through the hole, then used it like a crowbar, pressing it flat against the wall. More chunks fell down. The seam opened wider, cracking along its length, glowing like a bolt of lapis lightning all the way to the floor.

It was adoor—if it was real. If she wasn’t imagining it or having a vision. Or losing her mind or even entering a portal of some kind.

Julia dropped the poker, wedged her fingers in the hole, and began to yank on its side. She pulled and pulled, wrenching it open, its edgesjagged. The plaster cracked loudly, and she kept going.

She opened the door partway and peered inside. She found herself standing in a shaft of radiant blue light.

Caterina hovered in the darkness a short distance away.

Julia’s mouth went dry. They regarded each other, woman andpresence.

Abruptly Caterina whooshed away, whisking down a long, dark chute. She grew smaller and smaller. Her blue form glowed as if farther away. Julia had no idea how far away or where Caterina was. Everywhere around her was pitch black.

Julia switched on the flashlight, her hand trembling. She flicked it around and watched its jittery circle travel over alberese stone and crumbling mortar. The air smelled musty and dank.

She was in a tunnel. She touched the wall. It felt cold, clammy, and scratchy, so it was real, or felt that way. It looked ages old, maybe from medieval times. She shone the flashlight on the floor, which was dirt and gravel.

Caterina still hovered in the distance.

Julia felt drawn to her, to see what Caterina wanted to show her. The notion terrified and thrilled her. She shone the flashlight ahead. It illuminated nothing, paling in intensity compared with the brilliant blue light emanating from Caterina.

Julia started walking. She flicked the flashlight right and left. She was getting closer to Caterina.

The air got colder and colder. She sensed she was traveling under the vineyard. The tunnel shot forward into the blue light.

She was almost at the end of the tunnel. Caterina’s glowing form illuminated a solid metal door behind her.

Caterina vanished in an instant. The tunnel went dark except for the flashlight.

Julia gasped. She didn’t know where Caterina had gone. But shedidknow what Caterina wanted her to do. Caterina wanted her to open the door.

Julia aimed the flashlight at the door. Its circle of light skittered along its rusted black metal. There was no doorknob, only a rusted metal keyhole with no key. She felt a tingle of fear, not knowing what could be on the other side. She wondered again if she was in some kind of nightmare, or a vision.

She braced herself, then pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. She pushed it again and again. It gave way with effort, screeching. She shone the flashlight in. She saw vague black shapes and a back wall.

It was a room.

Julia cast the flashlight around and spotted a light switch, incongruously modern. She flipped the switch, illuminating the space.

She recoiled, horrified. It was a child’s bedroom, discolored by black mold. Against the left wall was a single bed with mildewed pink sheets and a coverlet. Atop sat at a moldy plush purple rabbit, pink bunny, and giraffe. The headboard, night table, and a lamp were white but spotted with mold. On the opposite wall was a moldy child’s dresser and a washbasin with a sliver of yellowed soap, a pink toothbrush, and a tortoiseshell comb. It must have been a little girl’s room because so much was pink. An old-fashioned chamber pot sat on the floor.

Julia crossed to a child’s desk blanketed with black mold. It held old Italian watercolor tins and brushes next to a stack of buckled watercolor paintings. She set down the flashlight and picked them up. The top one was of the vineyard, but it was thriving, its vines staked, rows pruned, and dark purple grapes hanging juicy and full. Julia guessed it had been painted by someone around eight or nine years old, but it was well done, as if the child had talent.

Julia flipped to the second watercolor, of a flock of fluffy whitegeese in a pen, which had to be the trashed one in the vineyard. The third watercolor was the villa itself, evidently as it used to be, clear of vines with its facade a warm amber and its shutters bright green. There was a fourth watercolor of a stone well that Julia didn’t recognize, with hills in the background.

The last watercolor made her heart stop. It was of a little girl with blue eyes, light brown hair, and a tragic downturn to the mouth. A self-portrait of a child in emotional agony.

Appalled, Julia put it together. This bedroom was a prison cell. A little girl had been caged here, maybe more than once, long enough to draw pictures and need a chamber pot. Rossi had put the girl down here, and that made Rossi amonster.

Julia’s mind reeled. She felt momentarily unsteady. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. Her stricken gaze fell on the comb next to the washbasin, and she went to pick it up.

Oh.Julia felt a tingling like static electricity. She didn’t know if she was imagining that, too. She didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.

She looked up and saw her own reflection in a small mirror on the wall, its backing silvered and black. Fragments of her own wide eyes and open mouth looked back at her, like moldy scraps of her own flesh.

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