Prologue

*This prologue describes the town in which most of the main characters live in.

Looking down on small Portabella, Italy what would you see? Many old, tall shops, for shopkeepers live above their shops, and antique signs that labeled and marked each shop with a sort of a proud state. Now this town was very old, built in 1650 as it was, and the townsfolk lived as though they were in the 1700’s. Continue down the wide cobblestone roads until you come to the center marketplace. Here, all the holidays were celebrated with many small stalls filled with foreign merchants, artists who displayed recent artwork, entertainers who preformed for a small pay, and the beautiful fountain. This fountain was made by the most famous sculptor in 1650 as a town present. It was in the shape of a circle with designs so small and detailed; travelers thought it wasn’t made by human hands. The water flowed out of the platform-like center and next to this breath-taking fountain was the town well. Around the town was a forest, filled with little brooks, trees as far as any eye could see, and a little cottage, remote and separated from town. This was the home of Healer Virginia, an extraordinary woman who was very old and could cure anything or anybody. She was getting old and lonely, so she had an apprentice, faithful Fidelia, who loved Healer Virginia as if she was Fidelia’s mother. Looking at this town as a whole, you might think Portabella as an old antique town with people too proud or too stubborn. But if you read in between the lines, you will see a town that loves and supports each other and doesn’t think old ways are old, just different than the way people do things nowadays.