That night Marco dreamed of Fagnano. He stood on his way to the mountains and climbed the mountain. It was summer, it was hot, but it was a pleasant temperature. He passed by the apartment they had rented, but his car was not there. He continued to climb to the top of the mountain.

He passed by the old villa, which was hidden by high walls. He had the curiosity to look at it, so he turned around. He found a huge iron gate and, from the bars, managed to look inside.

He saw well-groomed hedges and huge fruit trees, large enough to almost cover the construction. Then he heard a voice and footsteps.

"Who are you?" asked a beautiful girl with long raven hair on the other side of the gate.

"Mark."

"I am Martha," the girl said, stretching out her hand over the bars.

Marco was a moment's interdicted.

"Are you going to shake my hand or leave me like this? It's not nice."

Mark shook her hand. She was warm and pleasant to touch, then left her and she withdrew her over bars.

"Do you live here?" asked Marco.

She shrugged her shoulders. He was about Marco's age. She was really beautiful.

"This was my house."

"Was it?" Mark asked.

"It was! You don't have a house you left behind? This was my house!"

Marco was a little upset by that series of abrupt statements, but then she smiled.

"Do you want to come in?"

Before he even answered she opened the gate, which moved slowly. Mark walked one step, looking shyly inside.

"Do you know we're in a dream?" he asked.

"Better. Dreams may seem awfully real, but they don't kill anyone."

Mark then entered. Marta headed to a small table, where there were colorful glasses, different types of drinks and two chairs.

"It's nice here," Marco said.

"That's not always the case," Marta said. "What do you drink?"

"Orange."

She poured it over. He sipped it. It was good, fresh and downsizing.

"What about the villa?" Mark asked.

Martha smiled.

"The villa is always there. It's behind the trees. If you want, I'll show you later."

The villa had little of the construction that Mark had seen. The windows were whole; the bricks gave it all the nuances of the carparo, but also the tenuous red on the entrance. Mark was astonished.

"Do you like it?" asked Martha.

"When I saw it, it wasn't so."

"It's an old house. All the ancient houses have a thousand souls, a thousand breaths within them."

Marco climbed the three steps leading to the entrance.

"Please, we're not coming in yet," Martha said, and he went back.

They took a walk along the entire perimeter of the house.

"Your name is Martha and then?"

"Marta. We are in a dream, aren't we? Then I'm just Martha. So, the house, we said. This is where the servitude quarters, the kitchen and the service entrance are there."

"Are there people inside?"

"There's no one left. Remember. There's no one there!"

To Mark it seemed a strange statement. Why did he repeat it?

"At the entrance there is a large hall of representation, above there are the bedrooms and under a huge cellar."

Mark smiled.

"Why do you tell me these things?"

Martha looked at him with infinite sadness.

"You'll need them."

Marco was very frightened.

"What does this thing mean? I want to get out of here!"

He threw himself on the huge gate to try to open it, but he injured his hands. Martha came up slowly.

"The things I told you I discovered on my own."

Marco covered his hands with his sleeves and grabbed the gate again, getting more wounds.

"Open this door!"

"I can't. The house opens the doors and closes them," Marta said calmly. "Let me see your hands," she said, gracefully opening them to him.

"They're not deep cuts. It's better that way," she concluded.

Mark became prey to a dread and a deep sense of helplessness.

"This house has a thousand souls, a thousand stories and tells them. Believe me she tells them very well, but it's a house, she needs people and she's been alone, so alone, for so many years. I don't know how many of us were trapped in here, but the house decided to look for its own inhabitants. We live in our homes by day and at night we have to listen to the stories of the house."

"Until when?"

"It's the house that decides to let you go. Maybe when he doesn't have anything to tell you anymore, or he doesn't find someone else to have new stories to tell."

"It's crazy. You're crazy!"

Martha blamed the blow.

"When you're there, in the real world, you'll try to tell you what's happening to you. But they won't believe you."

"I have to get out!" said Mark angrily.

"Then have her tell today's stories. When he's done, he's going to leave you alone for tonight."

"And what should I do?"

"We must enter."

"You're crazy! I'm not going in."

"The gate key is located just after the entrance, on the wall on the right, but you have to take it yourself. I can't. Whoever takes it comes out."

"I don't enter."

"I will help you. I asked the house to take you on the first night, to explain everything. Then you will be alone."

"You're crazy!" Mark said, touching his head.

"Open the door. You'll see the key right away."

Actually, the key was there and it was possible to catch her. When Mark immediately stretched out his arm, a hand came out of the darkness and pulled it in.

"Mr. Pietro Rigila you keep running away. You leave me no choice. Dinner will also be skipped today."

Mark made just in time to see a nun and then felt the whip's lashes on his body. Martha came in calmly. Then the nun grabbed him and dragged him into what was supposed to be a dormitory. At least twenty bunk beds occupied the room.

"I'll allow you five minutes to settle down," said the nun and walked out. Martha came in calmly. He was still trying to breathe normally and was crying.

"Where did I come?"

Martha stroked him and sighed.

"I know, I know. Breathe."

"Who was that?"

"The villa was an orphanage, I believe in the 18th century."

"What am I doing here?" Mark said weeping.

"The villa is not human, it does not understand feelings. He doesn't know what pain is. It only knows its loneliness. It tells its stories. They're not always good stories and it tells them like that."

"And how do you talk to it?"

"You can't. Who speaks at the houses? After so many years you understand. That is it. Come out."

"And the nun?"

"The nun is a character in the story," she opened the door. "See? There's no one there."

As soon as they left the room Mark turned around. The dorm was gone. Then he turned around and saw a woman in a bed and a girl standing next to her.

Mark approached slowly. The woman was in pain, then turned to Martha, who was crying.

"Are you crying?"

"That's my mother. The last day. I had reduced her like this because the house had taken me for a few years."

Mark looked at the woman standing. She was still young, she looked unkempt, her eyes absent, but he recognized her.

"You are Martha. The madwoman of the country."

She wiped away her tears.

"I'm just Martha! And this is just a bad dream. We have to get out. We must let the house tell another story," Marta said as she opened the door. Mark followed her.

Immediately they were in an environment that was familiar to Mark. This time, at the scene, there was an elderly gentleman lying down.

"Grand!" he said as tears began to fall.

"Mark I'm sick."

"Rest Grand so you can pick yourself up. Don't worry."

"My Mark I see monsters. What monsters! They don't leave me alone. And my garden. I wonder how it will be reduced."

"Grand do not worry. As soon as you're better, you're going back to the garden."

Martha led him kindly out.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Prostate cancer. He saw the monsters because it had attacked his kidneys and they didn't work anymore. Poisoned blood hallucinated him."

"We must continue."

"What happens if we stop?"

"The villa will tell today's stories all in the same time and, as you see, they can be hard to bear. We have to go to the stories."

They opened another door and found themselves in a lush forest.

"What is this?" asked Mark.

"The villa doesn't always tell stories that happened here. They may be stories that have happened to its inhabitants, but elsewhere, dreams, more often nightmares. The house doesn't know the difference, it only knows strong emotions."

At one point Marco froze.

"I remember this nightmare."

"What's going on?"

"I will meet a kind of gorilla, half man and half ape, but very skilled in the fight. He is going to have a sword. A very thin thread of iron, with a sharp ring at the tip."

"And then?"

"He's going to give me another one and then he's going to attack. I've never been so beaten in my life!"

"Does he beat you to death?"

"No, I defend myself, too well, but from the bush comes a man who grabs me, lifts me, turns me over and the gorilla pierces me from the back."

Martha made an expression of pain.

"Is there any way to avoid it?" Mark asked.

"I never did," she said.

At that moment he felt an inhumane verse. Shrubs were broken down and they found themselves in a clearing. The beast-man was there. Immediately he took two swords and threw one at Mark.

"Please, no!"

The other threw himself hard. Marco pared the first two lunges. Then there was a hail of kicks and punches. Marco managed to parry many of them, he returned some, but the ones he took were hammered on the bones, instead the other did not seem to blame his blows too much.

In the end, even though he knew everything, he could not avoid the man who came out of the bush. He felt the ring pierce his left kidney, then his stomach, to his heart.

He found himself on the ground, pushing himself with his feet to the wall of the corridor of the villa.

"I'm dead. I'm dead!"

"You're not dead!"

Mark felt the pain of every single blow. Even the fatal one. He passed his hand on his back and looked at her, expecting to find her full of blood, but there was not.

Martha grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him.

"You're not dead! The villa knows death. I don't know why, but it is. You will suffer, but you will not die."

"I can't do it!"

"We must continue. Otherwise the villa will tell its stories all together. Believe me, no one's ready for that."

At that moment, at the end of the corridor, the exit appeared. Martha sighed with relief.

"What does that mean?"

"Enough stories for today. Let us go out. You are going to wake up in your bed. You had better stay there. Today was hard."

They left the house and then from the big gate. When they were out Martha greeted him with all the fingers of her right-hand open, except her little finger. He tried to do the same, barely succeeding.

"How do you do that?" he asked her.

"Training."

He finally gave up and greeted her in the usual way.

"Tomorrow I won't be there. I am done. Remember what I told you and it's going to be easier. Don't try to escape or it will be terrible.