Clelia

Clelia lies in a grand, half-furnished room where a priest, a gaunt woman, and Count Helion circle her bed, her flushed cheek and tangled black hair the only signs of life beneath the pulled-up blanket. She answers the Count's questions, orders, coaxings, and even his barbed 'I thought you loved me' with a silence so complete that one eye glittering with tears becomes her sole reply. Her refusal to speak makes her the still center of a household already whispering about possession and old devils.