Roughly 20 years later in 1940, Earl and Rose's bodies were identified in a Milan bombing. The information thoroughly shook Veronica.

It was a rainy day in Naples off the coast about 30 miles from the city in Henry's estate, when the phone rang to bring the news about the bombing.

Rain heavily tapped the windows, and the sky was dark and gloomy. Henry sat across from Veronica at the kitchen table.

"Why are you so torn?" Henry admonished.

Veronica, with a look of amazement, gasped, "They were our friends!"

Henry laughed, "Don't you remember when Lucy Dunham passed from tuberculosis? Her husband Edward was properly torn. It's life! Then, Edward passed away from the same illness, having been living with her."

Henry waved away at Veronica who dabbed her wet eyes.

"Let's move." He proposed.

Veronica sniffled before speaking: "—why? Where too?"

Henry's chair squeaked under him as he moved to get up. "Let's get out of here! All there is are ruins from the wars and ghosts to haunt us."

Turning to the window, he pointed to a spot on his imaginary map. "Let's go to New York."

Still crying a bit, Veronica quietly mumbled, "We haven't been back to the United States since the transcendentalist movement." She scrunched her handkerchief. Henry rotated his head to peer over his right shoulder. "Are you scared about going to see what the colonists did to your sacred land during the westward movement?"

Veronica slowly tilted her head, easing it into a somber head shake. "No. Well—" she hesitated, "Maybe. I don't know—I've heard..." Veronica didn't continue, rather, she trailed off, thinking about the things she'd heard instead of voicing them. She couldn't ignore what day it was anymore, pretending she'd have time to travel. "Well..." She dabbed her nose again. "I'm still deeply sorry about ruining your copy of Because I could not stop for Death."

Henry, this time, fully turned around with his hands behind his back. Before saying anything, he curiously gazed at Veronica's quivering body. Two paces and Henry was above her.

"I—I'm s-sorry..." Veronica said weakly. She couldn't bear to look up. "Do it...D-do it now...please." She wavered, remembering his fit of rage when he saw her spill his cup of wine onto Dickinson's pages.

Veronica was in such a state when she spilled his dinner on his desk—she was rightfully filled with enough anxiety to bring someone to their death. Henry's shadow from the lamplight crept up on her till it covered her face.

"S-sir! I'm terribly sorry. Deeply scorned for me! I'm just as good as a familiar of yours!"

His face was sullen with utter amazement at the scene, and as he pushed softly passed her, he lightly laid a finger on a curly 'f' of Dickinson's handwriting, tracing the blood that seeped across.

"What." Henry's voice was never quieter. He took a deep breath in to calm himself, letting out a cut-up breath. "What were you doing." He gulped, trembling at the idea. "At my desk?"

"Just tidying, master."

"JUST TIDYING?" His yell, although enclosed in a small room of his study surrounded by hundreds of thousands of literary masterpieces since the dawn of man's literacy, ran out into the rest of his manner, echoing and reverberating against the cold and collective marble.

"Don't you ever come in here again, do you understand!"

Veronica nodded, tears streaking down her face, "Yes."

"I said do you understand?"

"Yes, sir I understand."

Henry paused, letting Veronica's tears hit the gold tea tray she carried. They splattered with a pitiful ring.

He yanked her by the collar, dragging her to the shelf: "Do you see these works?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Do you feel them?"

"Yes, sir!"

He pressed her harder into the wall. "If you see them then read the titles!"

"De optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula—" she stumbled over the words, her Latin accent was atrocious!

"Utopia!" He finished for her in a perfect tone the ancient world would have spoken it.

"T-t-Thomas! Moore!"

"These are all first editions!" He hissed into her ear, rubbing his teeth on her outer lobe. He pulled her away reaching at the top shelf for more papers. "If you're so inclined to read Dickinson's poems, I suggest you take the copies!" He crumpled the pages, letting them fall into a mess beneath them.

"You understand the difference between first editions and copies, don't you?"

Veronica, too anxious to answer only nodded.

"Good..." He continued. "Now get out!" He spat.

When she flinched instead of moving, Henry hissed into her ear, grabbing her harshly by her hair. "Do you honestly want to know what it was like to be under a slaveholder who came back from a religious awakening?!?"

"n-n-no, sir. . ." Veronica leaned away. Henry then took a big step, striding across the library with Veronica in tow.

"I'll see you to the door then!" He swung her out, and, holding both sides of the sliding doors, reminded her: "You are never to set foot in here again with those dirty hands of yours. No! In fact, don't even so much as look at my literary treasures with those hell-bound eyes!" He shut the door rather abruptly, slamming it with the sound still echoing moments later.

Henry, now having been several years since the incident, stood over Veronica's shaking body at the kitchen table. He laid his limp hand on her shoulder affectionately.

Veronica jumped, startled by his touch. "It's okay," Henry reassured her, "It was just a poem. I have a couple of others of hers." Veronica lifted her chair to wrap herself in Henry's embrace. He stroked her hair, feeling her heart still steadily beating and her hot wet tears soaking into his shirt.

Henry looked up glancing at the clock. Its hands smoothly etched across the face. He let his arms down, but when she didn't let go, Henry pried her off of him.

"I haven't been transparent with you, Veronica." She held tighter to Henry's waist, knowing what was coming. "Please, don't make this hard."

She sniffled—her tears coming back. Veronica buried her face into his chest, inhaling one last breath of him.

Veronica's tears weren't for her love for Henry—in fact, the remembrance of his most recent infliction on her washed away any love she had once held for him—but for her life.

"If I had let you love me, you'd be able to go to heaven." Veronica's tears stopped at his words.

"W-what?" She breathed.

Veronica couldn't believe what she was hearing. She ran through all the possible outcomes regarding her contract. "I—I could have earned my soul back, but you hurt me so you could keep me here!" She didn't have to hide her love for him all these years. Henry had manipulated her!

"Please don't be mad..." Henry whispered.

"That's exactly what you want me to be!" She pushed him away. "You! You!" She couldn't get her words out she was so irate. "You—you're so selfish!"

"Veronica..."

"—you don't care for me at all! You want me to stay here to bid your doings! Why can't you find someone to replace me if you're so desperate for a familiar!"

Yes! Yes! Be mad at me!

"Do you know how hard it is to rewrite a contract?" He hissed.

"H—Hard?" Her jaw dropped, "How dare you throw away my soul because of your worry for inconvenience!"

"That's exactly what it is! You are a huge inconvenience!"

Veronica shook her head, incredulous. "I don't believe you." She said through the tears that wetted her mouth.

"Well, you better believe it because it's true!"

Veronica rushed out through the door, leaving it open as she entered the rain. Outside, the clouds were melting away as the sun's rays filtered through the holes in the sky. "Where do you think you're going?"

Henry's anxiety peaked: what if she crosses over when he's not there?

Stumbling over himself, Henry sprinted out to follow Veronica to his garden, following her footsteps onto the gravel road. He could see her in the distance as she kept running.

Everything was still wet and cold from the rain, and the sky was grey with a few arms of the sun reaching through.

Henry called out, the ends of his coat flying out behind him, "You can't outrun death, Veronica! Wherever do you think you're going?"

They both ran several miles, breaking all sorts of records when Veronica finally came up to a cliff. She stumbled, almost going straight over the edge.

"Veronica!" Henry ran up beside her, seeing the last bit of the sun dip beneath the sea...