Suvereto had been unlike anywhere he’d seen before, up so high on the slopes of the hills overlooking Costa degli Etruschi, with its wonderful paved streets and stone buildings. He had been enthralled the first time he’d passed through the ancient wall surrounding the town, the streets narrow, the buildings tall, so high they’d blocked out the sun, keeping the inhabitants cool and enclosed whilst moving within them. The sounds too had been different, voices bouncing along the streets like ghost rumblings.
Despite his early enchantment, within a couple of days he had become disappointed with his Tuscan adventure. Other than when they visited the town of Suvereto, they’d stayed mostly at Castello de Luca, and although it overlooked the coast, he’d been restricted in his movements and not allowed to travel far. He had quickly begun to feel that his new adventure was becoming nothing more than a repeat of things at Cronly, only worse, because at least at Cronly he could escape to the familiarity of his room or his secret hideaway.
It was only when he met Silvia that things had changed.
Silvia was a year older than him and, unlike others, she’d showed no hesitation in becoming his friend. She’d been such fun to be with. It was as if the world had taken on a whole new meaning because of her infectious enthusiasm for life. She’d told him all about her plans to follow the Lord, and had trusted him with her most intimate thoughts. To Silvia, her beliefs had been wondrous. It had seemed so alien to how people from home thought about God. To them, He had been something to be feared but, to Silvia, He had been someone to be loved. Together they had explored the castello with far more fun than he would have had alone. His mother had seemed relieved he had found someone to keep him company, which had given her more time to concentrate on getting what she’d wanted from the bishop. He was a man, after all, and Mother had been accomplished in getting what she wanted out of men.
It was Silvia who’d explained to him how the dead dreamed. When people died, she had told him, they dreamed about the living, some becoming guardian angels to protect souls from birth and through life. She’d said that, when she died, she wanted to become a guardian angel. He had listened to her so intently, believing every word she had told him. She even looked like a guardian angel with her strawberry-blonde hair, making her stand out from her fellow Italians with darker hair. She’d told him this while they sat at the cliff edge. From that vantage point they had been able to see the trees all the way down to the coast. At the time, he had not known what he felt for her was love, being unfamiliar with such emotion.
Perhaps if they hadn’t been so consumed with each other’s company, they would have noticed certain things about the castello that they’d overlooked. A lesson learned when young stays with you forever. He had no intention of falling victim to that weakness again: not noticing important contradictions that could turn out to be significant in the end. At the time, neither of them had thought it strange that, despite the fact that no children lived at the cleric’s castello, there had been items there for them to enjoy. They had never thought to wonder why the rocking horse was in the room with all the windows, or why the bishop kept the best toys in his private rooms. Instead, they had accepted these toys and arrangements at face value, which had made their stay at the castello a bigger adventure than it would otherwise have been.
He had prayed with Silvia in the tiny church down in the basement, a room that was a smaller version of The Cloisters in Suvereto, with its curved walls and arches. He remembered the iron banisters on the stone staircase heading down, cold to the touch, and the steps, steep and narrow. Sometimes they’d giggled, hands over their mouths, trying to keep their silence all the way to the bottom. At first he had liked being down there with Silvia. Away from the intense heat of the afternoons, the air had been cooler there, more welcoming. He’d liked to listen to her pray, watch her go deep inside herself, kneeling below Jesus on the crucifix, at peace with her creator. Looking back, he knew even then how special she was.