Page 2 of My Dark Fairy Tale
I sang along to the song on the radio in my passable Italian and tapped my hands on the hot steering wheel as I enjoyed the open road leading me through the scenic route to Florence.
As if offended by my lack of singing talents, the car let out a sudden, ferocious growl followed by an ominous bang. Black smoke belched out of the hood and curled through my open window.
“Dammit,” I cursed, pulling over to the side of the road as the engine sputtered and made a series of tumbling noises.
The music cut off as soon as I turned off the car, leaving only a quietness that existed in every countryside the world over: crickets, birdsong, and the shush of the breeze through long grass. No sounds of cars.
And no sight of them either.
I could see most of the road in either direction, losing sight in sections as the hills dipped and swelled.
But there was nothing.
I was alone in the Tuscan countryside, where I knew absolutely no one, and with only a textbook understanding of the Italian language.
“Why?” I whispered, closing my eyes to beat back the sorrow that seemed to shadow every waking moment of my life since Gemma died. “Why?”
The first day of my dream trip had already devolved into a nightmare.
I sucked in a deep breath to brace myself, then coughed as the noxious fumes from the car scorched down my throat.
There was nothing for it, though.
I couldn’t just wallow there as the sun set and night threatened. Even though Italy was fairly safe for tourists, camping out on the side of the road was not safe for anyone, let alone a twenty-three-year-old foreigner.
So I rubbed the tears lurking in my ducts with a fist and then marched to the trunk for the tool kit the rental representative had assured me was inside. I wasn’t sure if there was anything my meager knowledge of cars could do with a smoking Fiat, but my only recourse was to try.
Twenty minutes later, I threw the oil-coated rag to the asphalt and dropped to the gravel with my sweaty forehead in my hands. My skin was tight across my face, a sure sign I was getting a burn from the hot sun even though it was dipping low over the horizon and casting long, slightly sinister shadows now. I’d checked the coolant system, as my trusty internet search had suggested, and the oil, but it was hard to tell which might be the problem. The car wasn’t smoking anymore, but I wasn’t confident I should drive any longer.
Still, if someone didn’t come along soon, it was either drive a hazardous car or sleep in it in the middle of the countryside, a plum prize for any human traffickers that might be lurking in the night.
I told myself to stop being so paranoid, but it was my father’s voice in my head, and it was hard to quell.
Italy isn’t safe,he always said whenever I spoke of my trip.Go to England or France, Spain even, if you want some heat. Italy isn’t a good place for a young woman. Promise me you won’t set foot on that godforsaken land.
I winced as I thought about him seeing me then, half smeared in grease, with a burn on my forearm from the overheated engine.
My phone battery was at 18 percent, and I cursed myself for not charging it on the plane ride over. I looked up my location on the map and nearly threw the phone into the golden grass field in frustration when the page wouldn’t load.
“Okay,” I said slowly, leaning my head back against the warm car to stare at the cerulean blue sky, its beauty mocking me. “Don’t freak out.”
I was beginning to freak out.
Of course I’d justhadto take the road through Val d’Orcia instead of the highway straight through to Florence. Of course I’d justhadto rent the little red Fiat because it was so cute and totally matched my lifelong vision of driving through Italy.
Of course this would happen to me.
I tried to manifest, to stay positive, but I’d always been unlucky.
My parents and Gemma even called me Jinx because if something could go wrong for me, it usually did.
Gemma said I must have been very, very bad in a past life.
So I tried to be good in this one. I volunteered at the suicide helpline, went to church, bought groceries for my elderly neighbor in Ann Arbor, always left change for the homeless, and tried to say only kind things when I said anything at all.
It didn’t make a single bit of difference.
And honestly, sometimes, watching Gemma live her happy-go-lucky, responsibility-free life, I’d often wondered if it was worth it.
