by Rita Vetere
Esmeralda popped her head in the doorway, interrupting her sad thoughts. Serafina wheeled her chair around. She didn’t mind Esmeralda, who was more capable than the other nurses and always pleasant. Today, however, Esmeralda was not smiling.
“Serafina. You have a visitor. His name is Mr. Gromley. He’s from your granddaughter’s office, and he needs to speak to you.”
“From Anna’s office? What does he want?”
She wheeled herself over to the table by her bed to retrieve her dentures. Anna always reminded her to wear her teeth when she had visitors. Halfway there, she stopped. Cold fear settled around her heart like snow as last night’s dream returned to her, and just like that, she knew. Julia had looked so mournful in the dream, and Serafina was suddenly certain the man waiting to see her had come to deliver news of Anna’s death. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. Her old hands began to shake.
Esmeralda walked over and put an arm around her shoulder.
“If you like, I could stay with you while you see him.”
Serafina could only nod. She managed to retrieve her dentures and insert them, her heart slamming against her frail chest in anticipation. Esmeralda went out to the hall and returned a moment later. Mr. Gromley entered behind her, hat in hand. His face appeared grim.
“Hello, Mrs. Rossi,” he began. “My name is Ed Gromley. I work with Anna, and... Well, I’m afraid I have some bad news concerning your granddaughter.”
More words were spoken, but they melted together in a blur... “is dead”... “accidentally drowned”... “still searching, but no body has been recovered yet”...
“Where?” Serafina’s eyes cut to the man.
“Pardon?”
“Where did she drown?”
“She was working on the site where the hotel was to be constructed, on Poveglia,” he replied in an apologetic voice. “I’m so very sorry... This has come as a great shock to all of us...”
Tears rolled down Serafina’s shriveled cheeks, landing in her lap. Anna was dead. Anna, whom she had loved most of all.
She should have stopped Anna from going. She should have told her everything, but the pain of dredging up all those bad memories again had proven too much for her. Just as it had on the countless occasions in the past she’d been tempted to tell Anna the truth about what had happened in the old country. Anna had suffered so much, first with the loss of both parents, then the brutal rape she had survived. In the end, Serafina had sought to spare her the further misery of learning of her grandfather’s evil deeds. In doing so, she had succeeded only in sending Anna to her death. No good had ever come from that accursed island, and now the place where Alberto had carried out his mad deeds had claimed Anna.
She felt Esmeralda’s arm around her slumped shoulders and heard the words of condolence spoken by the man, Gromley.
“Please go,” Serafina told them, her voice barely a whisper. “I need to be alone.”
* * * *
Five thousand miles away, across the ocean, in her underground lair beneath the forest on Poveglia, Isabella turned to the decaying head still attached to the skeletal remains lying next to her. She spoke to it, caressing what had once been Anna’s face, and ran her tiny fingers through the wiry scraggle of hair remaining on the skull, much the way a child might play with a doll. The curse, the reason for her existence, the one focus of her being, coursed through her.
Isabella gave humble thanks to forces of evil for the gift she’d been given, for allowing her dark work to continue. She imagined the centuries stretching out before her. With them would come her victims, drawn to her like lemmings to the sea.
For the time being she would rest, until the one who remained hidden showed herself, the daughter borne by the woman whose rotting remains lay next to her. She would come, the next descendant. He had assured her it would be so, the other who resided within her—the barbaric executioner whose name was Revenge.
Epilogue
Toronto, Canada
Months Later
Denise Carrington checked the slip of paper on the passenger seat of her BMW and slowed the car. Peering out the windshield past the swishing wipers, she spotted a blue sign up ahead through a veil of rain. She turned into the driveway of the nursing home and parked in a spot close to the main doors. Before grabbing her umbrella and exiting the car, she glanced at the paper again for the name of the woman who had returned her call yesterday. Nervously, she tucked a strand of chestnut-colored hair behind her ear in an unconscious gesture.
The call from the woman at the nursing home, Esmeralda, had been the second disappointment Denise had experienced this week. She supposed it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but still...
She had a good life, she reminded herself. At thirty-three, and married to Stan, a wonderful man who loved her for who she was and treated her like a queen, she wanted for nothing. The auto body repair shop Stan had opened after their marriage had done very well, and now, eight years later, he owned a chain of them across the province. Last year, they’d been able to move into a palace of a house. He’d given her two beautiful children as well, Camilla and little Tommy, who were the light of her life. And yet, for the past seven years, since Camilla’s birth, Denise had become increasingly obsessed with finding her birth mother.
Her adoptive parents had raised her with love and she adored them. They were her family, and Denise wasn’t looking for a mother-daughter relationship in trying to find her biological mother. But the overwhelming desire just to see the woman, to learn about her roots now that she had children of her own would not go away. She had spent the past five years and twenty thousand dollars of Stan’s money trying to find her birth mother. Then, finally, last week, the investigator she’d hired had called with news.
She sat in the car, staring at the rain beating down on the hood, remembering how upset she’d been to learn that her mother, whose name she now knew was Anna LaServa, was dead. A drowning accident last summer, the man on the other end of the phone had told her. The only other living relative was her mother’s grandmother, Serafina Rossi. Her great-grandmother, she’d been told, was over a hundred years old and living in a nursing facility.
Denise had called the nursing home immediately and explained who she was. The woman on the other end had hesitated and then told her someone from the home would call her back shortly.
That was when the woman, Esmeralda, had called. Her great-grandmother, she told her, had passed away three months ago. Her possessions had been boxed, but with no other family to release them to, they’d been placed in storage in the basement of the facility for the time being. Esmeralda had asked if she wanted to pick them up, and Denise told her she did.
A bitter-sweet feeling washed over her as she popped open her umbrella, and hurried through the rain to enter the building. She had tried so hard and for so long to find her mother, only to learn of her unfortunate death less than a year ago. Still, she was anxious to retrieve the box of her great-grandmother’s belongings. Perhaps there would be photographs or other things that might help her to piece her past together.
* * * *
“This is everything.” The nurse named Esmeralda handed over two large cardboard boxes with the name “Serafina Rossi” scrawled across them.
“There are some things in there that belonged to your mother as well, I believe,” said Esmeralda. “After Anna died, Serafina asked that any personal items, photographs and the like, be collected from her apartment.”
“Thank you.” Denise lifted one of the lids to peek inside. She glimpsed lots of photos, and some papers, but decided to wait until she got home to examine them in privacy.
“Serafina never got over Anna’s death,” said Esmeralda. “She passed away only weeks later. It was as if she finally lost the will to carry on after hearing the news.”
Denise swallowed to keep tears from welling in her eyes. After thanking the woman again, she left.
Once back at home, Denise dragged the boxes over and set
tled herself on the chaise-lounge in the bedroom she shared with Stan. With the children not due home from school for several hours and Stan at work, she had the house to herself. Her hands trembled a little as she laid out the contents in front of her.
The first item she picked up was an old black-and-white photo of a stern-looking man standing ramrod straight next to an attractive woman with shining waves of long dark hair, a boy and a girl in front of them, holding hands. She flipped the photo over. On the back was written “June 27th, 1926.” The date seemed to indicate that the woman in the photo might be her great-grandmother, Serafina. On closer inspection she could see a gondola in the water behind the group in the photo. After rifling through some of the papers, she found a birth certificate for Serafina, indicating her great-grandmother had indeed been born in Venice.
She set the picture carefully aside and picked up some of the other photos. One of them depicted a young woman, sixteen or seventeen perhaps, wearing seventies-style clothing, and Denise knew from the striking resemblance she bore to the woman in the photograph she was looking at a picture of her mother. The year 1974 appeared on the back. She stared at the photo for a long time, knowing it had been taken the year following her birth. Her mother’s eyes appeared slightly sad and Denise wondered whether, at the moment the camera had captured her, she’d been thinking about the daughter she’d given up for adoption.
She sorted through the many papers, searching for a clue as to the identity of her father. Finding nothing, she returned her attention to the photographs. The older black-and-whites all showed Venice in the background. She had at least discovered that her mother’s family had hailed from Italy. One piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.
The idea of her Italian heritage pleased her. Just last month, she and Stan had talked about the possibility of taking a European holiday with the children next summer, and she’d been excited by the prospect. Now, she had even more reason for wanting to go. She’d never been to Venice before.
About Rita Vetere
http://www.lyricalpress.com/rita_vetere
Having visited Venice, Italy many times, Rita decided the hauntingly beautiful city would provide a perfect backdrop for the horror story she intended to write someday, something in a similar vein to the classic horror novels and films she grew up with. The story turned out to be Whispering Bones.
For Rita, there are few pleasures as excellent as sitting in a favorite chair reading a creepy little tale while the wind howls outside. She hopes Whispering Bones was that kind of experience for you.
Rita was born in Newborough, England and raised in Toronto, Ontario Canada. She currently lives in the Greater Toronto Area, where she is at work on her next novel.
Rita’s Website:
http://www.ritavetere.com
Reader eMail:
[email protected]
More from Lyrical Press
Where reality and fantasy collide
Ready for more?
Visit any of the following links:
Lyrical Press
http://lyricalpress.com
New Releases
http://www.lyricalpress.com/newest_releases
Coming Soon
http://www.lyricalpress.com/coming_soon
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29