19
He related the same tale Max had told me, but it was from a different perspective. In it, the Padre Superiore got called in to moderate the conflict between two rival witches. He was still the leader of a pack of Benandanti, and a witch had cursed him such that he could never change completely back into a human. Listening to it was like looking at a mirror image of a famous painting: all the familiar elements were there, but in the wrong places.
By the time Giancarlo finished his tale, the food on my half-empty plate had grown cold, and the wine in the bottle was almost finished.
“Do I need to tell you how the tale ends, Bellissima?”
I shook my head and tried to organize my thoughts so he wouldn’t know I’d heard a different version of the story. “The pieces are easy enough to put to
