The Ghosts of the Garfagnana

By Paul Salsini

The focus this time is on the Garfagnana, the rugged area of Tuscany that seems both eerie and mysterious.

This was the place with a bridge built by a devil in the Middle Ages (well, of course it was), a mountain that contains a witches’ coven, an underground cavern where voices can be heard, a village that had been flooded when a dam was built (the villagers were evacuated) but whose church bells can be heard under under the lake on cold winter nights.

The stories are interconnected, but span centuries, from medieval times to the present. There’s one about a young monk who was murdered by another in revenge but doesn’t seem to want to leave the monastery. Another about a statue that moves and cures people. One about soldier who returns from “the other side.”

My interest in the musical theater creeps in. There’s a village that goes to sleep for a hundred years (“Brigadoon! Brigadoon!”), a teenager who sings songs from “Hamilton,” and a theater major out to disprove the legend about ghosts in theaters.

They were all fun to write and, I hope, to read.

New from Paul Salsini: The Ghosts of the Garfagnana.