The Aura (19 page)

Clarke’s question unnerved me. For him to even think that I had something to do with Rebecca’s death made me nauseous. I knew he thought I was hiding something. I was, but I couldn’t tell him about the aura over Rebecca. Maybe I would tell him if I had to. Perhaps then, he’d realize I was a nutcase but I wasn’t a murderer. This aura sighting ability was ruining my life in so many ways.

“Thanks for the information about Gary,” he said, ending a long silence. “I’ll follow up.”

I boiled the kettle but forgot to make the tea, went to my bedroom to find a sweater and then couldn’t recall why I’d gone there. I turned on the television and remembered I’d left the water running for a bath. I felt as though I was losing my mind.

All at once, I had a cogent thought and grabbed my laptop. I pulled up the British Airways site and found an available seat on a flight leaving late the following day. The price, on such short notice, was prohibitive, but I bought the ticket anyway. I had to go back to Florence, back to the hill where this had all started. Maybe if I did that, something would change. The aura sightings would go away. My life would return to some semblance of normality.

I sat on the sofa until the early hours of the morning, then got up and packed a carry-on case. I dressed for work, and got to the office early, intent on finishing some important drawings for Josh before I left. As soon as they were done, I went to find him. Finding his office empty, I wandered the corridors looking for him, until Laura told me that he and Alan were out on a site visit and wouldn’t be back until late afternoon. Disappointed to miss him, but glad to avoid Alan, I wrote notes to both of them explaining that I would be away for a few days. I knew Alan would probably fire me, but my job was a minor casualty in this escalating battle. I took the Dockland Light Rail out to City airport, feeling as though I was running out on Nick and Aidan.

Four hours later, I walked down the airplane steps at the Florence airport. My heart rate slowed as I took a few deep breaths. The smell of fuel and warm asphalt accompanied me as I followed the other passengers to the air-conditioned terminal building. Cigarette smoke mingled with perfume and aftershave and the scent of leather and grease. The Italian language flowed around me and through me, transporting me away from London and the office.

Dad was waiting for me in his old Fiat and I threw my bag on the back seat before folding myself into the tiny car. He looked well, better than I had expected. He drove quickly, changing down through the gears until we reached the freeway. Even at this hour, the A-1 was filled with cars. He weaved in and out of both lanes, driving like a true Italian. When someone honked at him, he leaned on his horn and muttered under his breath. It was only when we reached our exit that I was able to breathe normally again.

“Trattoria Lucinda?” he asked, already taking the left hand turn towards my favorite local restaurant. There the owner gave me a big hug and led us to a table on the covered patio. It was warm and full of noise: cicadas, children and the chatter of Italians enjoying their evening. My father kept the conversation light. I was grateful for that. Mostly he talked about the book he was writing on Italian gardens. He told me he was planning a trip in the spring to Villa Taranto near Stresa.

“The gardens are beautiful,” he said, while I dug into my pasta amatriciana. “They were created by a Scotsman in the 1930s. I’ve been looking at photos of the dahlia collection, which is stunning. So many colors. There is one I like especially. It made me think of you, sort of an ivory, creamy color.”

“Thanks Dad, plain vanilla, is that what you’re saying?” I smiled to soften the words, but wondered about his choice. Was that really how I came across to people?

“Don’t be daft,” he replied. “I was thinking elegant, refined, calm.”

“Thank you,” I said, surprised and happy.

By the time we got home, I was tired and ready to go to bed. It was comforting to sleep in the bedroom I’d used ever since I was a kid. It looked as it always had. Above the yellow-painted walls, the vaulted ceiling was decorated with pale blue and yellow flowers. A fan hung from a black iron rod screwed into a plaster rosette and a wire looped along the ceiling and down the wall to a switch set in an ornate brass plate. A previous owner had added electricity to the house back in the nineteen-forties, running wires up the walls rather than break into the three hundred year old plaster. The wires were covered with white silk that had yellowed with age and had become as much a part of the décor as the old ceiling frescoes and terracotta floor tiles.

Opening the French windows, I stepped out on to the balcony. The sky was clear and with stars but I couldn’t see the gardens in the darkness. Living in London, I was used to constant light, from street lamps, traffic, billboards. Here, once the sun set, it was dark apart from a few lights that twinkled on the other side of the valley. The cool night air raised goosebumps on my arms and I stepped back inside, and pulled the heavy damask drapes.

***

“I’m going for a walk,” I told Dad the next morning. We’d made toast and coffee and were sitting in companionable silence while he read
la Repubblica
. His Italian was almost perfect. Mine was good, just a little rusty.

“I’ll come with you,” he said, putting the newspaper down.

“I’d rather go by myself, Dad. I won’t be long and then we can do something together. I just want to walk up the hill to look at the view.”

He looked at me with concern.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” I gave him a kiss on the cheek. Just a quick walk and then we can go to the market and buy something good for dinner tonight.”

It was a pleasant day, with just a hint of a chill in the air. Sky blue, dry, not hot like the last time I’d come up the hill with my father. My loafers crunched on the white gravel. I heard the muted hum of traffic on the A-1 in the distance. Out of breath when I reached the top, I put a hand on my side to quell a cramp. My legs felt heavy from the exertion of the uphill climb. When did I get so out of shape? Since the run in the park when I saw Sophie, I hadn’t been out again. Physical exercise had fallen to the bottom of my list.

Winding through old olive groves, the white gravel road had originally provided access to a small farmhouse nestled just on the other side of the hill. The owner had long since died or moved, and the farmhouse was derelict. The olive trees were abandoned and untended, with small green olives hanging from their unpruned branches. At harvest time, the villagers would come up to gather a bucket or two, but for the most part the fruits would be left to shrivel on their stems.

I walked to the spot where my mother had got out of the car and talked to me. Closing my eyes, I remembered the moment when we’d hugged, tasted again the saltiness of the tears I had shed, and imagined I could smell my mother’s perfume. I knelt down, feeling the sharp points of gravel digging into the tender skin on my knees.

“I’m with Toby now.” That’s what she had said.

My throat closed up and my chest ached. “Toby,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry. I miss you every day. If you can do anything to help me, please do it. I can’t take this any more.”

I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and rocked back and forth, memories of Toby mingling with thoughts of my mother. I missed them both so much. A crow cawed loudly. I opened my eyes, alarm trickling down my spine. The bird screeched again, flapped up to a higher branch, and folded its wings. In the sudden silence, I heard footsteps. Just a few yards away, passing through the shadow of an ancient olive tree was a figure dressed in black, a hood concealing its face. I jumped to my feet, ready to run.

The apparition kept coming, emerging into the sunlight. I saw that it was a nun. My heart pounded. Was this another visitation like the one from my mother?

“
Mi dispiace
,” the nun called out in Italian. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I didn’t expect anyone else to be up here.”

She came up to me and took my hand. “
Sono Chiara. E lei
?”

“My name’s Kate.”

Hearing my Italian, she smiled.

“Thank goodness. I don’t speak English. Will you come and sit with me?”

She led me to the grassy area under the trees, set a basket on the ground and took out a bottle of water. “Here, have some of this.”

The water was cool and fresh. I felt my heartbeat slowing back to normal.

“I’m with the convent down in the village and I came to pick some herbs,” she said. “We make tea with the wild chamomile that grows up here.”

The nun was in her sixties maybe, with dark brown eyes that twinkled under untended eyebrows. Her skin was peachy and soft and she seemed unaffected by her walk up the steep hill, in spite of her heavy black robe and head covering.

She waited until I had finished drinking. “Do you want to tell me what it is that distresses you so much?”

I shook my head. The nun was real, but I still felt dizzy and discombobulated.

“I just need to rest for a minute or two,” I said.

Sister Chiara patted my hand. “I’ll go pick my herbs and you rest here. Then we can walk down together.”

She picked up the basket, walked a little further up the gravel road, and disappeared over the crest of the hill. I lay back, smelling the warm, crushed grass, listening to the busy drone of insects in the trees. Although I was exhausted enough to fall asleep, I forced myself to stay awake, to think about the sequence of events that had brought me back to this place. My mind jumped from one thing to another, like a rock skimming the surface of a lake. I thought of Aidan, but tried to push away the fear of what might happen to him, of Rebecca who was dead, and of Sophie, drowned like my brother Toby. My mother’s words echoed in my head. “Toby wants you to be happy.”

A susurrus of cloth pulled me back to the present. Opening my eyes, I saw that Sister Chiara had returned and was settling herself on the grass a few feet away, pulling her robe down over dark stockings and heavy black lace-up shoes. The basket at her side was filled to the brim with small white flowers that looked like daisies. The distinctive scent of chamomile filled the warm air under the tree.

“How are you feeling, dear?” the nun asked. Her voice was like her skin, soft and smooth.

Sitting up, I crossed my legs in front of me. “Better, thanks,” I said. “I think the water helped. I hadn’t realized how steep that hill is.”

The Sister’s eyes were dark and penetrating. “I think it was more than the climb that upset you,” she said.

The thick, olive-laden branches above us cast filigreed shadows on the grass. I traced the pattern with my finger.

“I’ve been having some problems recently,” I said. The words came out almost against my will. I had no intention of confessing all to this nun, however kindly and caring she seemed to be. While I was passionate about churches, I was less than enthusiastic about the religions they represented. An afternoon spent contemplating architectural details or gazing at an ancient fresco on a wall was my idea of heaven, and I knew the history of all the major churches in Tuscany. But I had never connected with a formal religion, with priests and confessionals. Everything I knew about nuns came from
The Sound of Music
.

“You can see things you don’t want to see?” Sister Chiara spoke very softly.

I stared at her. “What?”

“Are you having, let me think how to explain it, visions?”

“How on earth did you know?” I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around my legs, holding tight to myself, disconcerted by the nun’s insight.

Sister Chiara shook her head. “I’m not sure. I can just tell when I look at someone what it is that burdens them. I’ve been able to do it since I was a child. Ultimately, that is what made me go into the convent. I found it hard to be out in public, seeing so many people weighed down by their affliction, whether it was sorrow, or pain, or guilt. Life in the convent is sufficiently secluded that I don’t have to face it every day. And of course, not everyone has a burden that I can discern.” She paused and sighed. “If I could help, perhaps I would have chosen to stay outside in the world and put my gift to some use. But all I can do is see. So I choose to pray for those souls instead.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it. The nun’s obvious pain at being unable to help in a more concrete way reflected my own.

“Maybe I should join a convent too,” I joked. Sister Chiara smiled.

I picked a few blades of grass and shredded them into tiny pieces, trying to gather my thoughts, which were as splintered as the fragments of green in my hand.

“When did it start?” Sister Chiara asked.

“About six weeks ago. It took me a while to realize what was happening. I can see auras that predict death. The first time was here at my Dad’s house. I saw the air rippling over Francesca’s head. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but she died a week later.”

“Francesca Brunetti?”

“Yes, did you know her?”

“Only slightly. Her cousin belongs to my order and Signora Brunetti visited the convent occasionally to bring fruit from her garden. She carried a heavy burden, with the loss of her son and her husband. May she rest in peace.” The nun made the sign of the cross over her chest.

“Did anything specific happen that may have triggered this ability to see auras?” she asked.

“I saw my mother right there.” I pointed at the place on the road where the car had stopped. “I talked to her and she hugged me.”

“I’m not sure why that would…”

“Because she had been dead for six months when I saw her,” I said.

“Ah.”

“Right.”

“And her death was a great loss to you.”

“Yes. I miss her so much. We all do.”

Sister Chiara turned her face up to the sky, as though sunbathing. After a long silence, she looked back at me. “Was there someone else? Another loss?”

I hesitated, unnerved by the nun’s ability to laser in on the very thing I’d been thinking about as I lay under the old tree.

“My little brother, Toby,” I said finally. “He died when he was very small. I was too young at the time to truly understand the sorrow my mother had to endure. I mean, we all mourned him, but it was worst for my mother. I remember that she cried a lot of the time. She gave up working on her cookbooks. When I saw her…”