The Villa Quotes
"It’s funny how such a little thing can form a lifelong bond."
"People have no taste, then. A Deadly Dig was my favorite so far."
"My life is most definitely not on the Powered Path these days."
"It's the sense of pride I feel when I manage to get on the right train is probably way out of proportion, but I don't care."
"That’s the magic of Chess. Just when you’re kind of over her shit, she does or says something genuinely kind, genuinely lovely, something that makes you feel like the sun is shining right on you."
"For the first time in more than two years, I actually feel like myself again, the cobwebs clearing out, the sense that whatever has been weighing me down is finally lifted."
"It's not just the way the place looks. It's how it feels."
"Just when you’re kind of over her shit, she does or says something genuinely kind, genuinely lovely, something that makes you feel like the sun is shining right on you."
"It’s amazing, like an actual fairy tale or something."
"I’ve done it. After months of being trapped in my house, trapped in my own body, I am somewhere new, and the thrill of it races through my blood like champagne."
"Mistress Mary, quite contrary," Noel sings to himself, and then he surprises her by suddenly putting an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.
"Come, my new compatriots!" Noel nearly shouts. "Welcome to Villa Rosato, and the beginning of it all!"
"This place will be good for him, Mari thinks. Noel will make him focus on actually producing something."
"Lord, it’s ghastly," her mother said, tilting her head back to look up at the place, and Victoria made a sharp tsk-tsk sound.
"Mama," she chided. "You’ll hurt its feelings."
"If only we had never come here, if only we had stayed in London, if only I had never walked through that door …"
"The wine that had tasted like peaches and honey on my tongue last night tastes like furry garbage this morning."
"Going to run some errands and try to get whatever fucking goblin is currently hammering inside my brain out of there."
"Chess is paying," I type, and then delete it. Why the fuck should I give any kind of answer, any kind of excuse?
"In the nearly fifty years since the so-called ‘Villa Rosato Horror’"—
"I found there was, inside me, an invincible summer."
"No, that summer ate her the fuck up, too, man. She’s just better at hiding it than the rest of them."
"Instead of eating, praying, and loving, I became interested in the link between a horror classic and the real-life horror that unfolded at the villa where I was staying."
"I think there had been a part of me afraid that if I didn’t start it then, I might never do it, that I’d get too busy with life, with a baby, with the other Petal books still under contract."
"Anyone can write these kinds of dark, twisted books. Think of this as a fun little exercise you did to get limbered up to work on Petal #7, okay?"
"Books were a business, after all, and Rose was smart, and probably right, and whatever that book might have been, it was now sitting on a flash drive that I’d misplaced somewhere in the house."
"I’m sorry," I say, instantly wishing I hadn’t brought it up, but Giulia only shrugs again. "I told you, it ruined her life. Took it in the end."
"Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop writing about it, though. Not with those ten thousand words sitting on my computer and my brain actually feeling like it’s firing on all cylinders for once."
"I’m writing about it, actually," I say. "Already have a couple of chapters."
"It’s something, I know it is. And it’s not that I don’t want anyone to read it. It’s that I don’t want Chess to read it, specifically—and I can’t really explain why."
"I’m just surprised, is all. I never thought you’d want to do nonfiction."
"She told me, and I quote, ‘If you’re this interested in yourself, Miss Chandler, maybe you should move to memoir rather than fiction.'"
I’m not sure Lara wants to have the baby, Pierce," she says, and he shakes his head. "I’ll talk to her. She’s just freaked out right now, but she’ll see that this is what we need, the three of us.
She’s free now," he says, and he actually smiles a little as he says it. "This world was rough for her, you know? She was sweet and delicate, and it was just too much.
She’s made her own bed, Mistress Mary," he finishes, "and I suggest she lie in it.
"It was just the littlest bit closer. Testing the waters, maybe, seeing how she’ll respond, but Mari just pulls her hand back from his with a flustered sort of laugh, and he gives an easy shrug, hands shoved in his back pockets."
"It’s very clear your heart belongs only to Pierce. Shame John-o there hasn’t quite picked up on that yet."
"Because if you don’t, you’ll drown just as surely as Frances has."
"It feels like forever, feels like my body is turning itself inside out, but finally, it ends."
"You were covered in blood. Reaching out. And it was like you were so tall, and I was so small, I was crouching at your feet."
You lied to me," he insists. "Which means I spent seven years of my life with someone, thinking we wanted the same things when, clearly, we didn’t. Seven years. So, excuse me if I want a little return on my investment.
"I was looking up at you and all that blood and thinking, she’s inevitable, she’s inevitable, like this fucking drumbeat.…"
"There wasn’t much time, but Victoria knew she had to hide the diary. If she didn’t, if someone found it, it would damn her."
"God, I’m a psycho, creeping around on her laptop, thinking she was … well, I don’t even know what I’d thought. But this is clearly a Chess Book."
"How often do you ask yourself if you’re reaching your highest potential?"
"Holy fuck, this bitch is going to sell T-shirts that say 'Don’t Be an Emma.'"
"Your light has faded/but you still think that it shines. Your once-silver tongue/tangles over worn-out lines."
"How often are we bright stars in someone else’s sky, but they couldn’t find us with a fucking telescope, huh?"
"The women who came with them were only there to look at them adoringly, tell them how talented they were, and provide the sex part of the 'sex drugs and rock ’n’ roll' equation."
"When most people think of Villa Rosato—if they think of it at all—they think about the murder of Pierce Sheldon in 1974."
"Sometimes we don’t really know we’ve won until we see the reflection of that win in the loser’s eyes."
"Despite my anger, a horrified laugh bursts out from me at that last line."
"I was hoping you might come down. I feel like I never see you anymore."
"Nah, don’t tell me that’s not what it is. I can fucking well see it, can’t I?"
"Get a fucking hold of yourselves, both of you!"
"You think the sun is rising/as it sinks closer to the sea."
"Sometimes, the only way out is through. And, as much as she hates it—Christ, how she hates it sometimes—she does love him."
"It’s a house like any other. The only thing this has in common with what happened all those years ago is that both times, people got stupid on vacation."
"It’s a good day, all in all, and Mari will be glad for that, after."
"But what happened when Emma, who was so used to things going her way, lost two of those three things? She couldn’t handle it. Complete life meltdown."