‘It’s her, my mother-in-law. She followed me. She’s spying on me,’ the young woman said. ‘She frightens me.’

As she shrank back in terror, she did not see what was happening. Costantino searched for something in the hovel. Then, head down like a maddened bull, he rushed out into the funereal veil of rain. A piercing scream rent the night.

Never once during the rest of her miserable life did Giovanna forget that scream. High and shrill, like the shriek of a wounded owl, it tore through her soul every time the ghost of murdered Martina returned to haunt her. Or the ghost of Costantino in the living death of forced labour, or the ghost of the drunkard Brontu Dejas, more dead and wretched even than the murderer.

Endnotes

1.

Ispina triste, from which Christ’s crown of thorns is said to have been made. In Sardinia the leaves of this plant are used for medicinal purposes. [Tr.]

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2.

The huge prehistoric stone towers with tomblike tunnels that still dotted the countryside. [Tr.]

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