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. She tries not to look down to the frothing water roiling against the rocks at the cliff’s base. It should be beautiful instead it feels oppressive, as if the vines might animate, twist and curl around her neck and strangle her to death. The arch’s skeleton has long since rotted away and the flowers droop into the path, clinging trails and vines that brush against her head and shoulders. Someone, years ago, built an archway along the arbor. It is cool inside this miniature forest the sky is blotted out by the purple-throated wisteria that drapes across and between the trees. A gray stone waist-high wall is all that stands between her and the cliffside. The path ahead is marked by towering cypress and laurel, verdant and lush. 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.

Her Dark Lies by J.T. Ellison