Diavola

by Jennifer Marie Thorne

Friday was travel day for the rest of the Pace family, and although the Florence airport was miles away, she woke up feeling their arrival like a to-do-list item she’d been trying to ignore, a psychic tap-tap-tap on the shoulder. Hey! Remember us? Your flesh and blood? Don’t you care at all?

she felt entirely alone. Unnaturally so. There was something careful about the energy here. Not calm, exactly. More … preserved in amber.

She set down her shoulder bag and looked around, making a mental sketch instead, marking the gently worn tile roofline, the square tower that rose elegantly from the western wall. There was a single tall window set high in the tower, thick curtains drawn, obscuring the view inside, but as Anna peered up, hand shading her eyes, she saw the fabric move like someone had been spying but had darted away to hide.