Read Accabadora for Free Online

look.
    â€œDon’t try to be smarter than you are, Coleddu. You only noticed because the dog survived. If he had died, you can be sure the old boundary line would have died with him.”
    The old woman went on fingering the tightly tied nut of basalt while her eyes moved from the objects to her visitors. It was as if she were waiting for something. Salvatore Bastíu suddenly came to a decision:
    â€œPorresu will pay for this.”
    â€œYou can’t be sure it was him that was responsible.”
    â€œWhat clearer proof can you want?” Salvatore said angrily, pointing at the objects but being careful not to touch them. “This is what they’ve done, they’ve cast a spell on me to steal themselves a metre of land!”
    Bonaria Urrai shook her head gently and said nothing more, but her thin fingers went on playing with the stone.
    Forgotten beside the fire until that moment, Maria said:
    â€œI’ll call the dog Mosè!”
    Nicola, Salvatore and Bonaria turned to her in surprise.
    â€œIt’s not his fault, I want to keep him.”
    Seeing the eager light in the girl’s face, the old woman smiled despite herself.
    â€œSo you can, as long as you look after him yourself.”
    Maria nodded, accepting a permission she had never actually asked for. A dog intended to die as a curse needed no excuse me or thank you. She continued to sit by the fire nursing the puppy, while the Bastíus were ushered to the door in a silence heavy with plans. When Bonaria returned and the two were alone, she went to sit with Maria by the fire. Silently moving her lips as if chewing, she threw the round stone, the cord and the bag one by one into the flames. What could burn, did, and the rest was lost in the ashes, its significance fading.
    â€œI wanted to burn those things too, Tzia. Fire purifies everything.”
    Maria spoke softly, stroking the dog as she watched. The old woman raised her eyes to look at her, then stood up with an air of firm finality.
    â€œCome on, it’s late: Christians inside and animals outside. Put him out, then go to bed, because tomorrow it’s school for you.”
    Bonaria shook out her apron while Mosè distrustfully watched Maria open the door to the yard. Soon the little girl was asleep, but the old woman went on sitting before the fire in thought, her eyes fixed on the gradually dying embers. The round stone lay like a still heart in the midst of the ashes, its porous surface blackened by the fire, but far from purified.

CHAPTER FIVE

    THE ONLY THING THAT BONACATTA, ANNA TERESA Listru’s eldest daughter, had in common with her sister Maria was her black eyes. Strong as an ox, she had worked for eight years as a servant in the house of Giuanni Asteri to save up for her trousseau, and now, even though she was wearing the most fashionable skirt in her wardrobe, she was sitting in the living room with no more grace than a ruined nuraghe .
    Members of both the engaged couple’s families were sitting on the edges of their chairs and raising their voices, as they tentatively sipped malmsey wine and laughed loudly at things that in normal circumstances they would hardly dignify with a smile. Skirts rustled along the invisible boundary between the two families; the sisters and cousins of the bride-to-be were serving amaretti and fortified wine with the falsely timid smiles and lowered gazes of well-brought-up folk. Only Maria’s curiosity kept her eyes level with her tray as she could notresist weighing up her future in-laws. They were not rich, no, because no seriously rich man would ever marry the daughter of a widow with no property. But neither were they poor, judging by the ritual gifts they had brought for the bride-to-be: a medal of Our Lady of the Assumption on a gold chain, an antique ring and a large ugly pin for the headscarves that Bonacatta never wore, drawn as she was to the new fashion from the continent. Maria was sure that not even