Page 43 of In the Garden of Monsters

He thumbed through it. “I found this book in the library. There’s not much in it, but I read something interesting. You remember the big vase in the middle of the garden?”

“Yes, it seemed important to me.”

“There are ashes of a woman inside.”

“I knew it,” I gasped.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “You did?”

“I told Jack I thought someone was buried there. I don’t know how I knew it.”

“Her name was...”

I knew what he was going to say.

“Julia,” we said in unison.

“Sì.She died on that spot one hundred years after Giulia Farnese married Vicino Orsini and came to Bomarzo. The Della Rovere family owned the property after the Orsini, and they buried one of their nieces there. She had loved the garden.”

I put a hand on his arm. “Remember when I told you I could hear someone calling my name?”

He nodded.

“I’ve seen ghosts too.”

Paolo gaped.“Fantasmi?”

I nodded. “They look like me.”

Paolo stared at a point on the floor as if trying to comprehend what I was saying. He drew a deep breath.“Reincarnazioni?”He began talking to himself in Italian and I only caught a few of the words, all a little incredulous, with a few Hail Marys thrown in for good measure. Finally, he turned back to me. “How can that be?”

“I don’t know if they are reincarnations.” The possibility unsettled me more than I cared to admit. I pointed at the journal. “Does the book say how the woman died?”

“Legend has it that she died from eating six cakes over the course of a week or so, each topped with a rotten pomegranate seed.”

I thought of all the ruby seeds that had dotted every dish I’d been served since my arrival in Bomarzo. They’d even dotted my body.

“Couldn’t anyone tell that they were rotten?” My question was more to myself, voicing the doubt that gnawed at me.

Paolo didn’t have an answer, nor had I expected him to. It seemed too implausible that pomegranate seeds would kill the poor woman. The idea of them being rotten was too convenient of an explanation for her death. Then it hit me.

“Wait, six seeds?”

Paolo nodded.

“Like Proserpina.”

He traded the history book for the journal and opened it. “Giulia also writes of another story the local peasants told of theboschetto—about it being haunted by the spirit of a woman who died in a cave surrounded by pomegranate bushes. I think this must be the story Ignazio was referring to when we first came to the wood.”

I wondered if her name was also Julia. “How did she know all this?”

Paolo shrugged. “Stories of this nature are often passed down from generation to generation. If I were to tell you all the legends of my village, you would be just as amazed.”

“What else does Giulia write about?” I looked at the journal in Paolo’s lap.

“She was in love with Aidoneus.”

“Does she say that in the journal?”

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