Hazel managed three more steps up the hill before she had to stop and rest again. Her calves were burning from the steep climb and her hair had tumbled from its carefully arranged chignon and was now plastered to the sides of her cheeks like sideburns. Boy did she regret these heels as a travel choice. This hill was like Mount Everest, and she was pulling two wheelie cases the size of small children. She looked at the directions on the paper again to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake. If she had to walk one step further, she might possibly sit down right here on the hill and cry.

The cafe guy had agreed that it was an easy walk, right? She’d asked him that specific question. Is it an easy walk? And he’d agreed. At least she thought he’d agreed. He’d nodded enthusiastically, anyway. She felt like she had been walking for hours. She hadn’t even registered her surroundings because she’d been way too busy looking down, trying to figure out the map. She was also fiddling with her stupid phone which refused to get a signal or connect, even though it was telling her quite frantically, well, frantically in her mind anyway, that she had messages. They were probably messages from Liz and maybe from slimy Samuel, and she couldn’t get any of them.  She cursed the cafe guy, the absent taxi drivers, her mother and anyone else she could think of. Did they have any idea how hard it was to walk on cobblestone streets in heels while trying to work your phone and dragging two fat suitcases that kept nipping painfully at your heels?

Hazel confirmed that she had the right house, number “#22”, and was admiring the large garden and imposing iron gate in front of her when she heard Indigo’s voice.

“Beep, beep.”

She couldn’t possibly be hearing Indigo’s voice because Indigo wasn’t here. She was coming next week. They’d discussed it in depth and decided that it would be best if Hazel came on ahead. She’d have the opportunity to scout out what work needed to be done and make some plans before she had to deal with her crazy mother. But, here she came, driving up into the little driveway at the foot of the fence. Wait! She was driving a car. A car that could have picked her up at the train station a half hour ago.

“Beep, beep?” Hazel released the handles of her large suitcases and put her sweaty hands on her hips. This day just kept getting suckier and suckier. “Beep, beep, Mother? Seriously? You knew what time I was getting in. You had all of my travel details. If you were here, then why didn't you pick me up at the station? And what are you doing here, anyway?”

Indigo flung open the car door, and her peasant skirt billowed out from the seat like an escaping bird. “Oh, I deleted those emails you sent me, Hazel. They're always so boring. They’re full of numbers and details and blah, blah, blah.” She jumped out of the little Fiat Panda, presumably rented, and floated over to give Hazel a bone-crushing hug. Hazel struggled in her grasp, but Indigo ignored her efforts to escape. “I left you five messages, sweetie,” she said.

Hazel extricated herself from her mother’s patchouli grasp and looked down at her phone in dismay. Yep - five messages. So nothing from Liz or Slimy Samuel after all. Just her crazy mother leaving her crazy messages. She sighed and repeated, “What are you doing here, Mother? I thought we’d agreed. You’d give me some space to figure some stuff out first, and you would come next week.”

“Oh but that just seemed so grumpy of you, baby. I knew you probably didn’t mean it. You’ve just been upset with losing that stupid job and everything. Of course, you wanted me to be here for you. I mean you haven’t seen your Mama in two weeks!”

“It’s been one week, Mother. And I did mean it.” She sighed and looked up at the rusting, iron gate. Creeping vines covered the towering, steel columns. A rusty mailbox was half-secured to one of the stone pillars, dangling dangerously and sadly while spilling wet, sales brochures into the gravel ditch at the edge of the tarmac road. There was a huge padlock on a thick, iron chain which held the gate together. It looked as if it had been there for years and didn't look as though anyone had ever opened it. She turned to Indigo, “So why haven’t you been inside yet?”

Indigo picked up her cases from the hill and started to pull them away from the iron gate. The house sat on a large corner lot, and she passed the car and followed the tall wall toward the rear of the house. “Oh, I’ve been inside. I just went the easy way. There’s a backdoor that’s open. No one has that key,” she nodded toward the iron padlock.

“No one has the key?” Hazel called after her and then ran to catch up, swearing under her breath as her heel caught in the ditch and she felt her ankle twist. “How long has this house been empty?”

“Only since your Daddy’s cousin died a few weeks ago. She used the back door too. Apparently she locked up the front gate years ago. She was quite the loner it seems.”

“Who was this person, Mother, and why did she leave the house to you? Can you explain all this to me?”

“Sure, honey bunny. But let’s get you a cup of tea first shall we?”

* * *

As they climbed the crumbling, brick steps up to the back door, Hazel felt a sense of foreboding creep into her body. This house was huge. When her mother had said an Italian house, she had pictured a cute little cottage somewhere in a field surrounded by vineyards. She had not imagined a villa.

The back door opened directly into the kitchen. Leading out of the kitchen into the rest of the house was a long hallway. The ceiling was at least nine feet above her head, and she gasped in delight. Delicate floral frescoes, faded but beautiful, covered the entire hallway ceiling and she could see that they stretched into the rooms to either side.

“Let’s have a tour!” Indigo said as she unceremoniously let go of the handles of Hazel’s suitcases and they thumped to the floor. “This is the kitchen. It might need some work.”

Hazel looked around, and her foreboding swallowed her. This was a kitchen? It must have been last updated in the 1940’s. The cabinetry was a peeling blue laminate, and doors were swinging on hinges. The stove looked like some ancient torture device, and the fridge was as small as the one she used to have in her dorm room. But, Hazel also immediately picked out the gems. Probably the original dark green and black, mosaic floor felt cool under her stocking feet; the heels hadn’t made it past the door. The centerpiece of the kitchen was a large, battered, but well-loved, oak table that looked to seat at least eight. A deep, white porcelain sink sat below an expansive window that looked out over a giant fig tree in the back garden. There were treasures here. Hazel felt the first stirrings of excitement.

The rest of the house was in pretty much the same state - which was basically a disaster full of sweet surprises. A layer of dust covered every inch of the grand living room, but an imposing marble-fronted fireplace made Hazel drool. She itched to rip the sheets off of the covered furniture to discover what was beneath, but she had plenty of time for that. There was a crystal chandelier in the ornate dining room, three oversize bedrooms on the second floor, and a third, yes a third floor, with two more bedrooms and an additional bathroom. Not only that, but there was a small staircase leading to a real, honest-to-goodness, widow’s walk. This wasn’t a house - it was a mansion. And it was going to be a lot of work. Hazel wasn’t sure how much cash her relative had left in that bank account her mother had mentioned, but she would need to sit her mother down and have a serious conversation about allocating funds. This house was going to take a lot more than she had initially imagined.

Her cousin, or second cousin, or whoever the lady was who had owned this house, had used one single bedroom over the past few years and that room was well lived in. Apart from that room, the house had been closed up, and it showed. In some places the mildew was creeping up the walls, and there was a distinct smell that made you wonder and worry about what you were breathing into your lungs.

Back in the kitchen, Indigo was putting on a pot of tea. Aside from the state of disrepair, the kitchen was surprisingly clean and homey. It smelled like lemons.

“She lived in the kitchen. She was always cooking. It was her passion.” Indigo said as she poured two mugs of milky tea.

“Who? Dad’s cousin?”

“Oh... yeah.” Indigo put the mugs on the table and then fluttered around uncomfortably, opening empty cupboards and wiping needlessly at the spotless counter. She was avoiding Hazel’s eye. Hazel’s Indigo alarm bells went off in her mind. Indigo was hiding something.

“You knew her?” Hazel asked. Indigo hadn’t originally mentioned knowing anything about this mysterious cousin. According to her, it had all been a surprise.

“Only when I was young.” Indigo grabbed a broom from the corner and started sweeping the shiny floor. “I was here once when I was young.”

“You were here? At this house?” This was news to Hazel. “I thought you said it was some distant cousin that you didn’t know?”

“Well, I was confused. It was the grief; you know? It got me all upside down. You need to be more sensitive.” Indigo put down the broom and sat in front of her tea, pushing a cup toward Hazel with a stern raise of the eyebrows. Sternness didn’t work on Indigo’s face; she just looked constipated.

Here we go. She prepared herself for a classic Indigo conversation. “Grief for whom, Mother? You aren’t making sense. You need to explain this to me a bit more clearly. Whose house is this, and what do they have to do with us?”

A phone suddenly burst into song, and they both jumped, Indigo’s coffee spilled onto the back of her hand. She winced and lifted it to her mouth to lick it off. Hazel grabbed her phone and glanced at the screen. The word Liz jumped out at her, and she quickly swiped at the green accept button.

“Liz?” There was nothing on the other end, just static. She held the phone away from her face to check the signal. It looked like it was full. She'd been waiting for Liz to call her since yesterday. Why was her phone acting up? “Liz? I’m here, Liz! Can you hear me?” Nothing. Disconnected.

She slammed the phone down on the table in frustration. “Darn it!”

“Some friend she is!” Indigo mumbled from behind her cup.

“What?” Hazel picked up the phone again and checked the signal. Yep. It sure looked like it was full. Why was nothing working?

“Liz. I thought she was your friend.”

“Of course she’s my friend, what are you talking about?”

Indigo got up to pour herself another cup of tea. “Well, I know that my friends would never fire me. My friends are always there when I need them.”

Hazel decide to turn her phone off and restart - maybe that would help. As she went to press the power button, she noticed her battery, two-percent. Maybe that was the problem. Where on earth had she put her plug? “Oh? And which one of your friends has helped you lately, exactly?” She crossed to her carry-on which she had dumped on the floor by the back door and started digging through it for her charger. “The last time you needed help was when you were getting thrown out of that apartment last year, remember? The apartment you were sharing with Sunshine or Rainbow, or whatever her name was? I don’t remember her paying her share of the rent then. I think that was me, if you recall.”

“Well it may have been you, but it certainly wasn’t Liz,” Indigo sniffed. “As I said, some friend.”

Hazel took her charger to the only socket she could see in the room and realized she was stymied again. Of course, it was a different plug - why hadn’t she thought of that? She was trying to remember if she had packed her only converter when her mother’s words sank into her brain.

“Liz, Mother? Why would Liz cover your rent for you?” Her mother always did this to her. Got her all turned around and way off of the original subject she wanted to discuss. “Wait a minute. Why are you changing the subject? Are you going to tell me who owns this house, or what?”

“Excuse me…,” Hazel and Indigo turned to the back door to find a very lanky, Italian youth (maybe still a teenager) standing there with a brown leather backpack hanging from his hand. “I think it would be me. I think I own this house.”

Hazel dropped the charger and turned to her mother who shrugged, looking completely unconcerned.

“I don’t know who that boy is,” Indigo said.