Page 64 of The Villa

I keep reading, my breathing loud in my ears. The first paragraph is just the basics, the story of the murder, who was there that summer, how they were all connected. It’s fairly boring, really, a dry recounting, followed by a series of bullet points with dates. There’s nothing coherent yet, nothing that actually feels like a book.

But I keep scrolling, and two paragraphs on the next page catch my eye.

The summer at Villa Rosato was supposed to relaunch Noel Gordon’s music career while bringing Pierce Sheldon along for the ride. The women who came with them were only there to look at them adoringly, tell them how talented they were, and provide the sex part of the “sex drugs and rock ’n’ roll” equation. The ever-powerful myth of the muse, right? But instead, it’s those women, Mari Godwick and Lara Larchmont, who left us with two truly iconic pieces of art. Is that tragic irony or poetic justice?

Maybe Lara Larchmont herself had the answer. If you’ve ever had a broken heart, you’ve listened toAestas, I’m sure! But look closely at the lyrics of the final track, “Sunset.” Boring title, killer song, and the last verse goes like this:

Your light has faded/but you still think that it shines

Your once-silver tongue/tangles over worn-out lines

You think the sun is rising/as it sinks closer to the sea

Boy, don’t you know? The brightest stars that lit your sky/were the ones you couldn’t see

How often are we bright stars in someone else’s sky, but they couldn’t find us with a fucking telescope, huh? And how do we not only find ourselves a new galaxy, but become supernovas?

It’s a different approach than I’ve taken. It’s definitely still a Chess Book, and I wonder if she just doesn’t know any other way to write after all this time.

But…

I missed that line inAestas. I’ve been so focused on Mari andLilith Risingthat I hadn’t even thought to look more closely at Lara’s writing. But Chess had found this, a lyric clearly referencing Noel or Pierce or—most likely—both ofthem. What other connections were there between the album and what happened that summer?

Beyond that, the bigger idea that Chess has identified—it’sgood. By zooming out to include LaraandMari, Chess has hit on something I hadn’t been thinking about, how the muses became creators. I want to keep reading, no longer to satisfy some dark urge, but because I’m interested in where she’s going with this.

But the Word doc ends there.

Which just pisses me off even more.

I get up from the computer on shaky legs, turning away before I remember to scroll back to where she had been working in the document. I can be sneaky, too, I congratulate myself, even as I wander out of the dining room in a daze.

Chess thinks I’m a loser.

Chess is stealing my book idea.

But also… I really liked what I read.

I’m trembling as I walk upstairs, and when I pass one of the hallway mirrors, my face doesn’t even look like mine. My skin is pale except for two bright spots of color on my cheeks, and my eyes are shining, my lips pressed together in a tight line.

If I raised one hand and covered myself in blood, I’d look just like Victoria on the cover ofLilith Rising, and the image stays with me, intense, visceral.

And then, suddenly, I know where to find the rest of Mari’s pages.

MARI,1974—ORVIETO

After a brief reprieve, the rain has moved back in, but for once, Mari doesn’t mind.

She’s claimed this little spot of the bedroom to write, and write she does, sitting at the desk every day as downstairs, Pierce and Noel get into petty arguments about music that still isn’t written, Johnnie broods and strums his guitar, and Lara merely drifts through it all.

But Mari is with Victoria and Somerton house and Father Colin, and she can sense the final web drawing tighter and tighter.

She’s going to call itLilith Rising, she’s decided, already imagining how the title might look on a book jacket. A tribute to her mother, yes, but also a fitting title for a book about women, power, betrayal.

Survival.

The only thing left is the bloody and cathartic climax, Victoria laying waste to all those who’ve wronged her. Mari can see it like a movie in her head, but she feels herself putting it off, almost like she’s not quite ready yet.

Rain patters against the window as she puts her pen down and stands, her hands pressed to her lower back. She’s getting thinner again, forgetting lunch, sometimes skipping dinneraltogether, and her stomach growls now, reminding her that it’s been awhile since she’s eaten.

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