“Not exactly a subtle statement,” I murmur.
I told myself I came because the cabin was closing in on me—papers everywhere, screens blinking at me like accusations, too much waiting and not enough control. I needed quiet. Geometry. The illusion of a place where thoughts can settle.
The garden offers that.
But as I walk through the gate, I admit what’s really drawing me here: the sculpture. The wheel. The thoughts of Fortuna that have brushed against the edges of my mind ever since I filed the complaint—snippets from Varro and Cassius, Laura’s offhand mentions, the way Flavius said “good place to talk to ghosts” as if half-joking and half not.
I don’t know what I’m looking for. Maybe just proof that it’s only metal and stone.
I walk slowly around the plinth, counting my steps.
Eight along the front. Six along the side. Eight behind. Six again. Clean symmetry. A grid to hold myself inside for a moment.
The sculpture draws me in despite myself. The welds imply movement—robes mid-sway, a wheel balanced just at the edge of beginning to roll.
I trail my fingers along the rough stone, stopping short of touching the metal. It feels like a boundary I shouldn’t break.
“I filed the complaint,” I say, absurdly grateful to speak the words aloud. “Everyone but Flavius says it’s too risky. Too naïve. Too… something. But I did it anyway. I don’t know if that’s bravery or hubris.”
The herb beds release a faint scent—rosemary and something lemony. A bird calls once, twice, then goes still.
“I don’t need a miracle,” I say. “Just a sign that I didn’t completely misinterpret the world.”
The air shifts.
At first, I think it’s just a breeze, but the temperature doesn’t change. Instead, the warmth seems to draw inward, as if my body is a vessel being filled. The soft rustle of leaves dulls until I can see movement without hearing it. Sound thins like stretched fabric, leaving only the space beneath it.
I freeze, hand still on stone.
For a moment I think: panic attack. I assess the symptoms my therapist taught me—heart rate faster but not frantic, breathing shallow but steady, fingers tingling only from tension. No dissociation. No familiar slide.
Instead, the air feels dense. Focused. Like the moment in a theater when the lights drop and everyone holds their breath.
“Sophia Vitale.”
The voice vibrates through the stone, through the air, through my sternum. Not directional—just present.
I hear Flavius’s voice in my mind—good place to talk to ghosts—and for the first time, I believe he meant it literally.
I turn.
She stands on the far side of the wheel.
At first she looks like the sculpture seen from another angle—planes of metal and shadow. Then the negative space betweenthe metal begins to shimmer, heat-haze gathering shape until the suggestion of a woman forms.
Her robes appear to shift though the air is still, formed from gold and shadow and something like falling coins. Hair, if that word applies, moves with no wind, reflecting light from nowhere. Her face is the vaguest part of her, a suggestion more than a portrait.
But I know she is looking at me.
Every instinct screams run. I make myself stay.
“I’m hallucinating,” I whisper.
She laughs, the sound layered, amusement wrapped around something older.
“Your mind is many things, child,” she says, “but fragile is not one.”
“Don’t call me—” I start, but my voice fails. “You’re not real,” I manage.
