And she's standing there.

Twenty-three.

Twenty-three years that Renata Dimenticato endured perpetual torture.

Twenty-three scars she carries on her body.

The twenty-third hour of the day. An hour to midnight. She appears. Holding her torch, glowing fire illuminating, gleaming off blood, open wounds, seeping scarlet sins. Illegitimacy, as the torch lights her cheek. Disobedience, as it passes across her forehead. Adultery, one, two, three gashes on her chin. And they never faded.

Blonde hair, coarse with time, intricately done up, pins sticking out at ungodly angles, broken bones in a bird's nest, tied off with a braid, crossing her head like a bridge, falling apart and rotting. Grotesquely paralyzed by her, what would you notice if her torch dropped? If it fell into the water, rippling and leaping back like it too, was fearful? If fire took hold of the water, like oil, and burned the water to ash?