A mouse, I thought. Or maybe it was house creaking as it warmed; wood expanding, the sunlight on the eaves. I wouldn’t let my mind go towards an alternative.

I held the bottle under my elbow and struggled with the plastic lid. It wouldn’t budge. I put it in my mouth, gripped with my teeth and tried to turn the bottle. At the exact moment the seal broke, I felt the air displace behind me and a voice barked a command I did not understand.

I dropped the bottle and it bounced on the floor, spraying my legs and ankles as it spun. I turned to see who it was who had spoken and my eyes focused on the closest thing to me: the barrel of a gun; a shotgun. My eyes made their way up the barrel. At the other end was an elderly woman, her eyebrows thick and bushy, her face set in a determined grimace. She was standing in the frame of the internal kitchen door, wearing men’s trousers tied at the waist with a piece of rope and a checked shirt beneath a leather waistcoat. Bullets were strung on a loop around her shoulder.

The bottle stopped spinning. The water pooled. My heart was beating so hard I thought it might burst from my body. I could not think of a single word of Italian. I was so frightened, my mind had shut down.

The woman shouted something at me. Her voice was gruff, like a bear.

‘I don’t understand,’ I replied shakily. I showed her my hands, turning the palms towards her so she would see they were empty. My fingers were trembling – she must see how they shook, she must see how scared I was. ‘Take what you want,’ I murmured, gesturing. ‘Take it, but leave us alone.’

The woman said something else, the same bark, like an order.

‘I don’t understand. No parlo italiano!’

Two butterflies, oblivious to the danger, came in through the open door and spun a dance in the pale air. My toes clenched. The floor was slippery and cold from the water. If the old woman shot me, I would fall into the puddle. I imagined my blood mixing with the water, turning pink, fragments of bone and flesh like meat. Woman shot in cold blood. Woman found murdered in seaside villa. Would I become one of the villa’s ghosts if I was killed here? Would I be forever trapped amongst the DeLuca ancestors? And it was such a beautiful morning; I didn’t want to die!

‘Inglese?’ the woman barked and I hung onto that word like a lifeline.

‘Si, si! Inglese.’