« First of all, come in, and then we'll talk about it. Come on in.»
Greta would have liked to have a peaceful existence so much, perhaps with Ernesto, but she could not even think about it, at least until she managed to shake off the ghosts that constantly besieged her, at every step of her life. Giacomo was right, only that was her real problem.
Greta had already made up her mind. She would leave for Sicily the next morning.
She had a blank sheet of paper in front of her, where she had started writing a letter for Ernesto.
"Dear Ernesto
maybe you were right last night: the Martana island causes really strange thoughts in its visitors, and so it was.
Maybe I was just waiting for an excuse to cling on to, maybe I have been thinking about going back to Sicily for a long time. However, it does not matter how I got to that. I just have to go.
I will take with me the rose you picked on the Bisentina island, and all the things that I discovered and found together with you. I will take them with me in the hope that they will help me overcome all my fears and the ghosts that hide behind them. I will take them with me because one day they will bring me back to you, here, in your heavenand if one day, near or far, I will come back ... it will be to stay.
I just wish you wouldnt forget me: it would be the greatest pain you could give me. Maybe remember me as a madwoman who ranted about her fears, and the shadows shesaid she felt inside, but never let other faces stick onto mine, suffocating it.
Sweet ferryman of my most beautiful thoughts, I say goodbye to you, and I will not hold you back any further.
I love you, and will love you forever.
Greta"
She wrote those words quickly, without thinking too much, and without thinking too much about what she was doing.
She should also have written a note for the notary De Fusco: she knew perfectly well that she was behaving once again as unconscious. She was nearly thirty years old, but she felt empty like a newborn baby: all her experiences, her emotions, her past had only passed by her leaving only some faded traces of pain and remorse. She wanted answers and wanted to give them. She knew only too well that only by closing a chapter and returning to a clean page would make it possible to start over.
She didn't know how long it would take to get rid of her dreams, from the fears that had grown inside her, to bleed the poison that was slowly flowing into her veins mixed with blood.
She was not even sure that she would succeed. But it was worth trying.