I don’t know where I was running. Sulle Scale, maybe, though I knew they would look for me there first once Lithodora went down the steps and told them what I had done to the Arab. I did not slow down until I was gulping for air and my chest was filled with fire and then I leaned against a gate at the side of the path—you know what gate—and it swung open at first touch.

I went through the gate and started down the steep staircase beyond. I thought, no one will look for me here and I can hide a while and—

No.

I thought, these stairs will lead to the road and I will head north to Napoli and buy a ticket for a ship to the U.S. and take a new name, start a new—

No. Enough.

The truth: I believed the stairs led down into hell and hell was where I wanted to go.

The steps at first were of old white stone, but as I continued along they grew sooty and dark. Other staircases merged with them here and there, descending from other points on the mountain. I couldn’t see how that was possible. I thought I had walked all the flights of stairs in the hills, except for the steps I was on and I couldn’t think for the life of me where those other staircases might be coming from.

The forest around me had been purged by fire at some time in the not so far-off past, and I made my descent through stands of scorched, shattered pines, the hillside all blackened and charred. Only there had been no fire on that part of the hill, not for as long as I could remember. The breeze carried on it an unmistakable warmth. I began to feel unpleasantly overheated in my clothes.

I followed the staircase round a switchback and saw below me a boy sitting on a stone landing. He had a collection of curious wares spread on a blanket. There was a windup tin bird in a cage, a basket of white apples, a dented gold lighter. There was a jar and in the jar was light. This light would increase in brightness until the landing was lit as if by the rising sun, and then it would collapse into darkness, shrinking to a single point like some impossibly brilliant lightning bug.

He smiled to see me. He had golden hair and the most beautiful smile I have ever seen on a child’s face and I was afraid of him—even before he called out to me by name. I pretended I didn’t hear him, pretended he wasn’t there, that I didn’t see him, walked right past him. He laughed to see me hurrying by.