FEBRUARY 14, 1986/Camden, Maine

In this world, there are only two pure actions: love, and vengeance.

I've  experienced the first only once in my long life. It was a platonic love, a brotherly love, but an intense and fulfilling love nonetheless.

The second? It's intertwined with the first, and will be executed soon.

I bury my hands in the pockets of my blue wool pea coat. Maine is frigid and snowy, so unlike my native Italy. Cold used to bother me, used to chill me to my core, but that was lifetimes ago. Now it's only a minor bother, because I'm tantalizingly close to my mark. What passes as blood in my veins simmers and mixes with my rage.

Fresh snow falls in fat, fluffy flakes, making the little historic downtown here a picture-perfect postcard—and allowing me to go outside in the daytime. Unlike others in my clan, I'm perfectly fine during the day if the sun's not high and bright, so Maine in winter is an excellent assignment for me. 

There's something about this place that seems frozen in time, as if it was perpetually stuck in 1946, not 1986. Something stagnant and traditional, provincial and insular.

Today there's a local winter festival, and the streets are packed—or what passes as packed in these parts. Families laughing and eating caramel apples, young couples with feathered hair and intertwined hands, teens in roving packs wearing various shades of neon. It appears the entirety of Camden is here, walking in the middle of Main Street. Vehicles are prohibited for the afternoon, which means it's easy to get lost in the crowd.

This, combined with the gray, sunless sky, makes for perfect hunting.

My targets pause at an ice sculpture. They're about ten feet from me, and I hang back at the next booth, one that's selling postcards and lobster-themed knickknacks. While I pretend to scan the racks, my glance slides to the right.

Thomas and Gabrielle Ransom. They look like any other couple in their sixties here on the coast of Maine. He's wearing a blue fleece jacket, chino pants, duck boots. She's wearing a similar outfit but in red, and her sensible, silver bob is tamed with a matching headband. They look as though they shop frequently at L.L. Bean, where I'd stopped on my way from New York.

I'd even purchased a wool sweater and a pair of boots, figuring I'd need to look the part in this backwater if I ended up at a bar or restaurant. No Armani suits here.

Thomas leans into his wife's ear, whispering something that makes her face light up. She laughs, a sound similar to wind chimes on a breezy day, and rests her hand lightly on his chest. His smile is triumphant, as if it was his life's mission to amuse her.

Fated mates are all the same, the world over. I've seen more than a few in my time, and always found them insipid.

"Um, sir, just to let you know, those are three for a dollar."

I snap my gaze to the young clerk, who has a thick Maine accent and pronounced her last word as dollah. I smile tightly and she beams in response. "Thank you."

"Not a good day for the winter fest, ayuh?" she asks, trying to make small talk. The clerk is about twenty, has long, wheat-colored hair, guileless blue eyes, and a prominent, buck-toothed smile.

I shake my head and quickly select three postcards, not wanting to cause undue attention to myself. Try to blend in. "Could be a little warmer."

"You from around he'ah?" 

Her accent is thick in a New England way, and it's unusual to my ear.

"Visiting from New York."

"All that way, wow. We don't get too many outta staters here, at least not in the winter. Most of our tourists left after the leaves changed and fell."

I look deep into her eyes and smile, giving her the full force of my charm. I also lie like a rug. "I'm interviewing for a position at the local academy, so I thought I'd spend the weekend here to get a feel for the quality of life."

She stammers for a moment, obviously pleased. "If you'd like a local guide, I'd be happy to... I mean, if you don't know anyone here, I'd... well, you know."

"That would be lovely."

She opens and closes her mouth several more times. I gently extract a dollar from my wallet and leave it on the counter. "I'm staying at the Hawthorne Inn. Shall we meet tonight at, say, seven? For dinner? Perhaps you can give me the highlights of Camden."

"Yes, of course, oh goodness. I'd love to. I'll see you there, mister...what is your name, anyway?"

"Matteo. But you can call me Matt."

I look to my right and notice the Ransoms have shifted. Their backs are now to me, and I worry they're about to walk away. I cannot lose sight of them. Not now.

"Matteo. Oh, whoa. That's an interesting name. Sorry, I'm just nervous, I mean, I don't meet many people from New York. I'm Amy." She babbles some more about her job, or school, or something. I'm not listening.

Instead, I'm focused on Thomas Ransom.

"There she is, my little girl." He stiffly hugs someone, but I can't see who because his sturdy body obscures the person in front of him.

"A pleasure to meet you. I look forward to tonight, Amy." I wink and glide away, scooping up the postcards and slipping them into the interior pocket of my jacket. She will certainly be helpful in my quest, in more ways than one.

But I can't linger. I need to know who Thomas is embracing. I move away from the postcard booth and toward the ice sculptor. There are a handful of people clustered around the artist, who is shaving the block with a sharp, shiny knife.

"Working with the ephemeral really allows me to focus on the process," the bearded sculptor says to no one in particular. Almost everyone nods, and I do too. I'm always mindful of blending in.

Thomas and Gabrielle are only two steps away, but they don't notice me. Their instincts are dulled from years of normalcy, which is unfortunate. Back in his prime, Thomas was one of my kind's most brilliant minds.

Gabrielle air kisses the cheek of the person who was in Thomas's arms.

"You look so pale, Evangeline." Her tone is flat, bored, and accusatory.

I slip around a family wearing bulky, puffer jackets so I can get a better look. My hearing becomes sharper when I hear the name.

Evangeline. The daughter. If she's here, her brother John has to be close by.

Casually, I stand behind the boisterous family, who are now oohing and ahhing over the sculptor, who has taken out a chainsaw.

"It's going to get a little loud," he calls out, as he pulls the cord. The acrid smell of gasoline fills the air, as does the hellacious noise. I despise sounds like this. Lawnmowers, power tools, motorcycle engines. They all make me edgy and surly.

No one budges, so I can't, either. I slip a few steps back, angling for a view of the girl.

At a faraway booth, the voice of an opera soprano cuts through the noise. For a moment, I'm unsure if I'm hearing an audio hallucination, a moment from my past. I scan the festival, and see that indeed, a local opera company has put someone on a makeshift stage. It's the song Addio del Passato from La Traviata.

The notes, combined with the grind of the chainsaw, bore into my brain. A rush of emotion fills me, remembering that day back in March of 1853 when I saw the premiere in Venice. How that had been the first thing I'd done in years, the first time I'd gone out since Damiano was murdered.

I swallow a mouthful of bile and focus on the task at hand.

Vengeance.

And then, like a shadow, everything around me closes in. I stare at the woman in front of Thomas and Gabriella, and my cold skin prickles.

Her long, red hair is like a blazing sun amidst this gray and white landscape. She's wearing a Victorian-inspired black wool coat, that's nipped at the waist and flared at the bottom. It has  fur—perhaps faux, it's hard to tell—around the collar. Everything else on her is black: her gloves, her pants, her boots. Only her face and hair are visible, and her lips are as scarlet as her hair.

This is the Ransom daughter? My research back in Italy must have been faulty, because I thought she was merely a child, years younger than her brother. But what could one expect from only telephone calls and letters? That's why I'm here, in Maine. To find John Ransom myself.

The Council has put its trust in me, and I can't let them down. And of course, this is for Damiano...

"Have you heard from John?" Evangeline asks.

Thomas visibly winces, and Gabrielle's mouth thins. 

"He won't be coming. We'll talk about it later. Not here. Not now," Thomas says in a curt, almost rude, tone.

Evangeline sighs and licks her lips, a gesture so alluring, so sensual, that it gives me another idea. Perhaps if I can't find John, I can lure him to me.

With his sister.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: What do you think of Matteo so far?

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