The shadows became sharper. Some of them were moving, flying onto the grenadier’s shoulder; others waited on the edge of that realm of grey and evanescent shapes, standing still around her like a circle of guardians.

That was when she first heard the ticking, vibrating through the air like a volley of pebbles thrown onto the gravel, then falling quiet.

Lucia wasn’t alone. She turned around and peered into the mist, its shape and consistency shifting endlessly. The noise picked up again, then quickly died down. It was coming from the statue, just a few steps from where Lucia stood.

It was the sound of teeth. Chattering teeth.

Lucia looked closer at the outline of the monument and noticed the figure crouching at its base. She had never seen that familiar form so hunched, filthy, and thin, as if it had been missing from the world not just for a day, but for weeks.

“Mom!” she shouted, running to her. She huddled against her and hugged her. But she was cold, and she smelled different.

“Mom?” Lucia called again but received no response. Her mother’s teeth kept chattering.

Lucia swept her mother’s hair away from her face, and as she did so, her own mouth fell open in a silent scream. Her voice, sucked back inside her body, failed her.

Down in the gorge a few meters below, Lucia’s friends were shouting, too, but she didn’t even have time to wonder why.

-35-

-35-

There were police cars keeping watch outside the local hospital in Travenì. Teresa and Marini had just arrived in town when they received the call from Hugo Knauss, informing them that a woman had been found severely disfigured and in a state of shock.

The victim was Lucia Kravina’s mother. The little girl’s father could not be reached; Lucia herself had been the one to find her.

An ambulance had been sent from a village at the foot of the valley, but when the on-call doctor saw the severity of the woman’s injuries, he had called for an air ambulance to take her to the hospital in the nearest city. They were waiting for the helicopter now.

“She hadn’t been home since the day before, but her disappearance wasn’t reported,” Knauss told Teresa. “The family had been on the social services’ radar in the past because of the parents’ addiction problem. But it looked like they’d recovered from it. At least the mother had.”

“And the girl?” asked Teresa.

“Doctor Ian is looking after her.”

Teresa remembered the elderly village doctor. It was a relief to know that the child was with him.

“Has the mother said anything?”

“No. She was catatonic when I saw her, and I can understand why. She must have been through hell and looked the devil himself in the eye. Jesus Christ.”

Teresa agreed.