Strange, but despite the gnawing fatigue, the nausea, the throbbing head, the misery, somewhere deep inside Carter felt somehow relieved. It was as if he had been suffering for weeks and weeks from some virulent infection that at long last had lost its grip on him. The fever had finally broken, and the contagion purged.Yes, he had been laid low and felt truly dreadful, and perhaps there was more suffering to come, but inside he knew the worst of it was over. The most important thing to do now, he told himself, was to leave at once and put this place behind him. And so, taking a deep breath, he staggered back to his hotel to get himself cleaned up and his bags packed.

When the bus rumbled out of Roccasale later that same morning, Carter never so much as looked back even once. Instead he settled into a seat in the back of the bus, closed his eyes, and tried his best to forget that he had ever been foolish enough to go there in the first place. Depressed and exhausted as he was from his misadventure with Elena and the previous night’s binge, he soon dropped off to sleep.

When he came to much later, his mouth wide open, Carter sat up and saw that the landscape had drastically changed. Gone were the gently rolling hills, and now the mountains rose all around as the bus motored along the winding road through the valley. Carter gave a yawn and stretched his arms out in front of him. By now his head felt a little better and his stomach not so queasy; it would not be long before he would want something to eat. He opened his daypack and pulled out his map to see if he could figure out where they were. As he traced the route on the map with his finger, he thought back to the morning. His first inclination upon awakening on the piazza had been to travel straightaway to Rome and board the first available flight to America. All he had wanted to do was escape and go home. Had it not been for the pocket watch and his promise to deliver it safely to Castelalto, he would have done so without a second thought. Instead he decided to delay his return a day and to honor his pledge to Giancarlo. Once that was accomplished, he vowed that he would depart at once and leave this land forever.

Carter turned from the window and looked around inside the bus. Besides himself there now remained only three or four other passengers. These few got off at the very next stop. With only one passenger left, the bus driver looked up at him through his mirror, and his assistant, whose job it was to collect the fares, gestured for Carter to come up front.