The first witch had a bad cold. Her voice was thick. “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in—in—in—.” The witch sneezed. The sneeze dislodged her witch’s hat and it plummeted to the floor, nearly spearing Claude, the tubby gray longhair who was impersonating the witches’ familiar. The hat didn’t have far to go, since the witch was seated. Claude slumbered on. Like a magician producing a vanished handkerchief, the first witch pulled from her cardigan sleeve a …
Prologue II: San Miniato, Tuscany, Late spring, 2015
The old man drowsed in the shade cast by the grape arbor, his soft snores harmonizing with the buzzing of bees overhead. His stork’s legs extended in front of him, crossed at the ankles over sandals. His knobby knees showed below his khaki shorts, white chest hair above his open collar. What hair he had left on his head was the same white, but barely visible beneath the cap she made him wear. His mottled hands draped over the chair arms, and sometimes his fingers twitched until Giulia wondered …
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Prologue I: Tehran, Spring 1979
Thunder and lightning. The rain fell harder now. It washed the smoke from the air and brought a clean, metallic scent, but it made the two figures harder to see at a distance. The shorter of the two figures staggered under the weight of the crate they carried between them, but ducked its head and stumbled on. When they reached the trash bin, the taller one braced against the box to improve its grip. The heavy lid was already open, gleaming in the floodlight, and after some awkward jostling, the …