XI
Umbrae et Manes
‘Shadows and Shades’
“What do you remember of the estate?” Phoebus asked his sister while they sat in the back of the wagon as it drove along the via Aurelia. The coast was passing slowly by to their right, and the rolling green hills and forests of Etruria to their left.
Calliope smiled, but it was a different sort of smile, sad and weighed down by something. “I remember playing there in the grass by the river, near the lady with flowers in the field.”
“I don’t remember a lady with flowers playing with us,” Phoebus said.
“She was there, I’m sure of it.” Calliope played with a piece of straw and leaned back to look up at the sky. “What about you?”
Phoebus looked out over the hills as if trying to see the estate. “I remember running through the vineyard and riding
