And those mortals who did find us during the daylight hours, unless they exposed us to the sun at once, were doomed. For example, outside Palermo she had slept in a cellar far below an abandoned house, and when she had awakened, her eyes and face were burning as if they had been scalded, and she had in her right hand a mortal, quite dead, who had apparently attempted to disturb her rest.
"He was strangled," she said, "and my hand was still locked on his throat. And my face had been burned by the little light that leaked down from the opened door."
"What if there had been several mortals?" I asked, vaguely enchanted with her.
She shook her head and shrugged. She always slept in the earth now, not in cellars or coffins. No one would ever disturb her rest again. It did not matter to her.
