Arcadia Burns
Page 33
She didn’t believe a word of it. “Imagine that!”
He hesitated, and then said, suddenly very serious, “I’d like to give you all this, if you’d like to have it.”
She stared at him, openmouthed. “The sun? The moon?”
“The island. Well, the moon as well if I could get my hands on it.”
“Just like that?”
“You said you liked the villa. My mother loved it, and you once said that you could see why.”
“I do like being here. But what about you? I don’t want to have an island where you never come to visit me.”
“I always liked Isola Luna, and that won’t change.”
“The weird seventies look of the villa?”
“Throw out what you don’t like.”
“I like it all. Especially the record collection.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I’m in love.”
The sun sank lower, and the moon moved on. The flickering haze in the crater faded.
“It will be dark soon,” said Alessandro.
“Not up here.”
He stroked her hair and kissed her.
“Not with you,” she whispered.
Never with you.
Later, when they were halfway down the mountain, Alessandro’s cell phone rang. He answered it, with a guilty expression. Rosa watched him as he listened.
After only a few minutes, he thanked the caller and ended the conversation.
“That was the hospital.”
The moon was hovering above the volcano, and the sun had disappeared behind the rocks. Shadows lay on the slope.
“Fundling.”
Back Ad
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KAI MEYER is one of Germany’s most successful authors, with millions of books sold worldwide. His novels have been translated into thirty languages. The British edition of THE FLOWING QUEEN (published in the U.S. as THE WATER MIRROR) won the 2007 Marsh Award for Best Children’s Book in Translation, and his historical novel THE VOW was turned into a movie by celebrated German director Dominik Graf. Kai lives in Germany. You can visit him online at www.kaimeyer.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
CREDITS
Jacket photo © 2013 by Hendrik Jaques Lombard
Jacket design by Michelle Taormina
COPYRIGHT
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
ARCADIA BURNS. Copyright © 2010 by Kai Meyer. Translation copyright © 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Meyer, Kai.
[Arkadien brennt. English.]
Arcadia burns / Kai Meyer; translated from the German by Anthea Bell.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: “When Rosa Alcantara becomes the head of a Sicilian Mafia family, she must contend with her family’s sordid past and the secrets that keep haunting the present” —Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-200608-0 (hardback)
[1. Organized crime—Fiction. 2. Vendetta—Fiction. 3. Shape-shifting—Fiction. 4. Sicily (Italy)—Fiction. 5. Italy—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M57171113ard 2013
2012019041
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
13 14 15 16 17 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First U.S. Edition, 2013
Originally published in Germany in 2010 by Carlsen Verlag.
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062092977
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East–20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com