Page 76 of In the Garden of Monsters

“There’s nothing there,” Paolo said.

Lillian disappeared behind one of the giant’s legs. “He’s not so impressive in the dark,” she said, shining her light up to where his manhood should be.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the giant’s face. Would it blink again?

A plaintive meow sounded behind us. I tore my gaze away and found Orpheus sauntering up to us, his white fur aglow in the moonlight. He began winding around my legs. I reached down and picked up the little beast. His very presence made me feel better.

“Keep watch for me,” I whispered in his ear.

He immediately pushed his forehead into my chin and rubbed his cheek on mine before giving me a little lick with his rough tongue. Giving him a soft squeeze, I set him down to keep up with my companions, who had already started down the path again. I had no intention of being left behind in the dark. I was glad to see the little cat follow.

We passed the moss-covered tortoise, the Pegasus fountain, and the nymphaeum, heading toward the amphitheater where Paolo had recited lines from Ovid. If dimly, the moon gave enough light to our surroundings to leave eerie shadows as it filtered through the trees. It was cold, quite cold, and I was glad I had brought my heavy cloak and wore my thickest socks. The air was still, with not even a whisper of a breeze caressing my cheeks. Aside from the sound of the stream, the garden itself was silent. Not a bird stirring, just us crashing through the dark space, avoiding fallen branches and rocks.

The path was edged with a tangle of bushes and trees in the space between the nymphaeum and the theater. Lillian swept the beam of her flashlight across the bushes and woods. There were dozens upon dozens of pomegranates. None of the bushes had been there earlier in the day. How had they sprung up so fast?

One of the fruits had fallen to the ground at Lillian’s feet. She grabbed it and chucked it into the darkness. The wind immediately kicked up, rocking the trees around us, whipping my hair into my eyes and mouth. Orpheus yowled at my feet. I picked him up and hugged him close.

As we passed through the amphitheater toward the Casa Pendente, a growing sense of dread began to rise within me. We were moving ever closer to the statue of Ceres. My last encounter with the turtledoves and the fire was still too fresh in my mind.

“Do you see that?” Lillian had stopped abruptly, and I almost ran into her. We had reached the edge of the little clearing where the tilted house stood. Orpheus leaped from my arms and ran into the bushes.

I peered past her and saw a faint green glow emanating from the ground-floor window of the leaning house.

“Dio mio,”Paolo blurted, extinguishing his flashlight. Lillian did the same.

“We should go back,” I whispered.

“We’ll never know what is going on if we don’t investigate,” Lillian insisted. She sounded as excited as I was afraid.

“It’s too dangerous. Whatever forces are at work here are much stronger than us,” I cautioned.

“Andro’ io.”I’ll go.Before Lillian or I could protest, Paolo was already heading toward the house.

“We can’t let him go alone,” Lillian said, grabbing me by the arm.

As we neared the leaning house, I began to feel short of breath. My heart drummed inside my rib cage. Paolo had already reached the top when we approached the bottom of the Casa Pendente’s short staircase. As his feet found the landing, the green glow winked out, leaving us in darkness. I almost screamed, but Paolo switched on his flashlight and trained the beam into the tiny, slanted room. He took a step forward. Lillian and I hurried up the stairs and followed him.

The room was empty, save for the moss streaked across the concrete below the front-facing open window, moss I hadn’t noticed when we dined in the tiny room.

Paolo walked across the slanted floor to the little adjacent room on the left. He shone the flashlight inside, then turned back to Lillian and me.

“Niente.”

“Nothing? How could that be?” Lillian asked. She crossed the room in a few wobbly steps to see for herself. The space was empty, with no sign that we had dined there a few days before.

A thud above our heads froze us in place. Our gazes swiveled toward the concrete ceiling. We waited, not daring to move, for another sound to come. Goose bumps rose across my neck and arms, and my heart felt like it was clawing to get out of my body. After many excruciating moments, I motioned Lillian and Paolo toward the door. As terrifying as it might be that someone—or something—was above us, it would be far worse if we ended up trapped inside the tiny room. They turned off their flashlights, and we made our way as quietly as we could down the stairs and back to the clearing, where we turned toward the leaning house.

The green glow had returned, shining through the second-floor windows, growing brighter, brighter, brighter, until I had to shield my eyes with my hands to block out the blinding light. Then it vanished, and we were again plunged into utter blackness. I pulled Lillian close, and she held me, soothing me like a child. “Shh, you’ll be okay, Jules,” she whispered.

It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust once more to the dim light of the moon. The house’s windows were black rectangles against the whiteness of the carved stone exterior. We watched the house in silence for a good five minutes, until Lillian’s restlessness got the better of her.

“We can’t just stand here all night. We came here for a reason—let’s find out what that green light is.Andiamo.” She patted me on the shoulder, flipped on her flashlight, and headed toward the stairs on the other side of the house that led up to the top of the hill and the second floor.

And Ceres. And the Mouth of Hell.

No!I wanted to scream at her.Don’t go!But she was already turning the corner, her flashlight bobbing as she walked. Paolo was on her heels. I sprinted to catch up with them.

At the top of the stairs, my heart racing, I looked for Ceres ahead of us, a mere sixty or seventy feet away, but it was too dark, and bushes obscured the statue of the goddess despite her closeness. To the left of the house, the moon lit up the weedy vase-lined promenade with Neptune at the far end.

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