Page 34 of The Villa

And for the first time in months, I want to write.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Don’t Kill Me (New Book?)

Hi, Rose! Greetings from beautiful Italy! Like I’d hoped, this change of scenery is really doing me so much good. How much? Well, I’m actually writing again! You might be the only person MORE excited than I am about that fact.

The only issue is that I’m not working on Petal right now. (I know it’s still due, and thank you so much for getting me the extra time on that!) I don’t know how much you know about Mari Godwick and the murder of Pierce Sheldon, but it turns out the house we’re staying in is the very one where that happened. Now, this is obviously a GOLD MINE for a mystery writer, even one who usually writes cozies, and I’ve gotten really interested in the case. Not only that, I think there are some interesting links to be made between the murder here in 1974 and Mari’s famous horror novel,Lilith Rising, that came out in 1976. I know that would be a VERY big change of pace for me in terms of what I write, but I genuinely feel like there’s something really cool here, something that has the potential to be big, especially with how popular true crime is these days.

Once I have something more concrete, i.e., pages, I’ll send them your way, but I just wanted to loop you in on what I was doing, and also make sure you won’t murder me if I send you a new book that’snotPetal10.

Best,

Emily

MARI,1974—ORVIETO

“Christ, I’m bored.”

Noel doesn’t say it so much as declare it, flopping back onto the low sofa in the drawing room, his face turned up to the ceiling as though he were addressing the chandelier. It’s a rainy night at the villa after a rainy afternoon, and a rainy morning before that. Which means they’ve all been trapped inside together for too long.

They need the space, Mari quickly realized, in order for the delicate ecosystem they’d built here to thrive. She’d spent most of the day lying listlessly in bed, looking over the pages she’d written, wondering why that voice that had seemed so vibrant just a week ago had suddenly stopped speaking.

Victoria’s story seems to have come to an abrupt halt, stranding her in the scene where she first meets the village reverend she’ll eventually fall in love with, and nothing Mari has done—long walks to think, glasses of wine to lower her inhibitions—has worked. The project has, like so many before it, stalled completely.

“Aren’t the rest of you?” Noel asks when no one replies to his announcement, and when he drops his chin to his chest, scanning the room, Mari feels his eyes land on her.

She’s curled on the sofa opposite him, her notebook by her side just in case Victoria regains her voice.

“No,” she says, flatly. At her feet, Pierce laughs, resting his cheek against her knee. His guitar sits idle next to him, a notebook open but no words written.

“Mari is never bored,” he tells Noel. “Whole bloody party going on in that head of hers.”

It’s a compliment, or meant to be one; Mari knows that, but it still irritates her when he pulls this shit, talking about her like she’s not there. And he’s doing it much more than usual around Noel. He’s eager to impress, she thinks to herself.

“We could go on a little adventure?” Lara suggests. As usual, she’s perched near Noel, not quite sitting next to him because if she gets too close, he might move away, and then her shame would be on display for all to see.

“What about Rome?” Lara continues.

That’s another tic she’s picked up, this constant questioning. Everything ends with a slight rise in her voice.

“Rome would also be boring,” Noel says, dismissing her with a wave. “And besides, I’m paying for this bloody place, I’m not going to put you all up in Rome, too.”

He draws theOout, the word drawled—Rooohhhhhhme—just in case Lara didn’t know he was mocking her, Mari supposes.

“Youcouldtry to write some music,” Mari says. “Which I believe was the point of this entire trip.”

It’s frustrating, watching Noel and Pierce nearly get stuck in on something only to grow distracted when Noel wants to go for a drive or take the rowboat out or swim in the pool or do any of a dozen things that won’t bring him or Pierce—or Mari, for that matter—any closer to their goals.

And there’s that studio space waiting back in London, that golden chance for Pierce that seems to be slipping further and further away.

Lately, Mari has begun to wonder whether, if Noel can propel Pierce to greater heights, it means that the inverse is true, too. Should this all fall apart, is Pierce going to be hit by the shrapnel of Noel’s failure?

But Noel just ignores her, like she’d known he would.

“We oughta go into Orvieto,” Johnnie says. “The old part.”

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