If she can reach its doors, she will be safe. The Villa is on the hill, on the northwest promontory of the island. She feels it in her calves and hopes again she is going the right way. Now the path is moving upward, the grade increasing. The stuccoed walls loom, the bell tower hidden behind the overgrown foliage. There it is, a flash of white through the trees. A gamble that he makes it before the storm is upon them. A crack of lightning, and she sees the silhouette of the captain in the pilothouse, looking out to the turbulent seas ahead. From what she remembers, they are between the church and the artists’ colony, the four cottages cowering on the hillside, empty and waiting.Ī horn shrieks, and she realizes the ferry is pulling away. In her panic, she barely notices the pain. Her hair has come loose from its braid, flies unbound behind her like gossamer wings. A deep cut blooms red along her thigh, and the blood runs down her calf. The hem catches on a branch a large rend in the fabric slashes open, exposing her leg. The white dress, long and filmy, hampers her effort to run.
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