Nina went to the sink, for there was no time to fill the bath, and opened the faucet. She let the water run over her hands, waiting as it grew ever colder, ever more numbing. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to scoop some soft soap from the jar and rub it over her forearms, her face, and her hair. She found a rag and began to scrub, dipping and rinsing, again and again, running her fingers through her hair until her ringlets lay flat against her scalp and the terrible metallic taste in her nose and throat had been washed away.

“That’s enough,” came Rosa’s gentle voice. “Now go change.”

“What did you say to the children?”

“That you dropped the lamp and cut yourself on the broken shade. I don’t think they could see how bad it was in the hall. And I couldn’t think of a better explanation.”

“How will we clean it up?”

“We can soak up the worst of it with sand. Papà keeps a pail of it with his tools. Just spread it out and scrape it back into the pail. Then we’ll empty it into the stream. Soap and hot water should be enough to clean up what’s left. I’ll deal with the mess down here, and you can clean upstairs.”

Nina changed into a fresh dress and apron, balling up her bloodstained garments and hiding them under her bed, and then she set to work. It wasn’t long before the door to the children’s room creaked open a few centimeters. Without looking up she knew it was Carlo.

“There’s so much blood on the floor. Will you be all right? Rosa said you cut your finger.”

She sat back on her heels and tried to smile for him. “I’ll be fine. It wasn’t a bad cut at all. It looks much worse than it is.”

“What was that noise? It sounded like someone fell on the stairs.”

“It was Nico,” she said, the lies flowing from her mouth like honey. “He heard me drop the lamp and he tripped coming upstairs.”

“Did he hurt himself?”

“No, not one bit. Now please go back to bed, or you’ll be too tired to pay attention at school tomorrow.”

She scrubbed and scrubbed, and after a while she began to hope she’d got out the worst of the stains. But there was still the matter of the droplets of blood on the walls. Likely they would have to sand them down and then give everything a fresh coat of whitewash.