She decided to leave the interior of St Mark’s for another time. She wasn’t in the mood for anything religious. Granny was quite religious, but Aunt Lettie had never been. Caroline herself had found it impossible to pray after the recent events in her life and the horror of 9/11. So she went behind the basilica to where she could get a view of the Bridge of Sighs. After standing on the little bridge looking down the canal, she decided to head for the Rialto Bridge. Aunt Lettie had sketched that area several times. After a few wrong turns, she reached the Rialto, stopping along the way to look in the enticing little shops. There was a shop that just sold pens. And one that just sold marbled paper, or masks. How could they keep going? She wondered. Did lots of people in Venice buy marbled paper? Or puppets? What a fascinating place, she thought. I’d like to get to know it better.

That made her question just how long should she stay here. It was obvious that she’d never find the locks for her keys, if they came from Venice in the first place. So should she just concentrate on a suitable site to scatter Aunt Lettie’s ashes? Was there a law against dumping ashes in a canal? Maybe she could hire a water taxi and scatter them into the lagoon. But not yet. After she realized she was hungry, she stopped to have a ham and cheese panino before resuming her quest. Aunt Lettie had sketched the market at the Rialto. Was there a place she particularly loved? It was hard to tell from the sketches. Caroline wondered about the young man in the first sketchbook. Well, no use looking for him. He wouldn’t be alive now! Probably a gondolier who rowed her around. Some of them were rather good-looking!

Eventually she gave up and went back to the pensione, had a rest, then went out for an aperitif and dinner. She returned home, feeling rather mellow after more wine than she would normally have drunk. Opening her shutters, she stood at her window, staring out into the night. From the distance came the sound of laughter, a voice singing, the splash of oars. A whole city full of life that did not include her.

“What do you want of me, Aunt Lettie?” she asked into the darkness. “Why did you bring me here?” Why hadn’t she written a simple little note before she died? She was always so calm, so practical. Dear Caroline, I should like my ashes scattered in Venice, a city I once loved. That would have been so easy. Instead she’d given an impossible quest with keys that would fit any lock in the city. “And a ring,” Caroline reminded herself, glancing down at her hand. “And glass beads. And two sketchbooks.”