AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Vitari shivered beside Francis, bundled up in a coat, blowing into his hands. “I fucking hate England. Why is it always so cold in this country?”
“It’s winter?” Francis suggested.
“You getting sassy with me, Padre?”
Francis smirked, but it was cold. But they wouldn’t be there for long. In a few hours, they’d be back on a plane to Italy, back on the farm, back living L’ dolce vita. But for that to happen, there was one last thing they needed to do. Together.
“Ready?” Francis asked. Earlier in the day, they’d bought a cheap lighter from a nearby store. Francis set one gas can down, and took the lighter from his pocket now.
“I’ve been ready for this for fifteen years. Light this shithole up.”
Francis flicked the lighter and locked the flame on, then glanced up and down the street. At 3 a.m., nobody was around. All the houses were dark. Stanmore’s grounds were large enough to shield the nearby houses from the flames. Nobody was going to get hurt. But Francis hesitated. It wasn’t just about burning it, this place and its old ghosts loomed over them. Its horrors almost too large to burn.
“What if we get arrested?” he asked, gaze lifting.
“Padre. Give me the lighter.”
Francis handed it over, sighing his relief now it was in Vitari’s hands.
Vitari eyed the little flame, then Stanmore’s boarded up windows. Someone had spray painted RIP on the left-most window’s rotten board, which seemed fitting. This was a cremation, of sorts.
“You want to say something?” Vitari asked. “Something religious?”
Francis grimaced. “Fuck Stanmore.”
“I was thinking more like a prayer, but whatever.” Vitari snorted and tossed the lighter over the fence.
Flames sizzled the icy dead grasses, and for a moment it seemed as though Stanmore would refuse to burn, but then the flames caught a splash of petrol and roared, sweeping up the front of the house, over the boarded windows, and whooshing into the overgrown ivy and decaying roof. The speed at which it went up stole Francis’s breath.
Vitari pulled him back from the surge of heat and out of sight under an opposite tree, and from there, they watched, hand-in-hand, as Stanmore burned as though Hell itself had reached up from the depths and devoured it.
Sirens interrupted their moment, but they’d seen enough, hopping back into their rental car, passing the fire truck on their way out of town.
“I hope they don’t put it out,” Francis said, tracking the truck in the side mirror.
“They won’t.”
The more miles they got under them, the more Vitari’s soul felt at peace. This had been Francis’s idea to come back and burn it, and initially, he hadn’t wanted to venture anywhere near the bad memories, but now it was done, he could close a door on it for good. He’d needed it, like Francis had known.
“Do you miss England?” Vitari asked, after Francis had been watching the dark countryside scroll alongside for too long without saying a word.
“No. Italy is my home. Our home.”
Fuckin’ right, it was. “What about the Church? You miss that?”
Francis’s soft smile grew. “You’re my church.”
He was sweet, so this was probably a good time to tell him a secret. “So, don’t get mad, Padre…”
Francis’s eyebrows lifted.
“What?” Vitari asked, adding an innocent shrug.
“I hate it when you start a sentence like that.”
Vitari laughed. “Hey, have you forgotten that time in Colombia, when you said, ‘Don’t get mad, but I called your psycho-father and told him everything’?”
Francis groaned. “I said I was sorry.”
