La Ragazza

Disclaimer: This was a story I written impulsively on a burst of inspiration after I watched a certain detective drama. The story update priority will be below my main line of stories (The in-captivity storyline) unless a lot of readers request otherwise. Chapter 1 was mostly mysteries than mind control. Without further ado, enjoy...

---

John Winston and Paulina Winston was a newly married couple on honeymoon. They choose to spend their honeymoon at some tropical island somewhere in the Mediterranean, the island offered a white sandy beach with a green hilly backdrop, the 'back to nature' experience was the thing that sold the destination to the couple. It was not a disappointment when they reached their place with the travel agencies, the tour guides, a black-skinned young woman, was telling them that the place was previously a private island of someone but they were seldom on the island before they decided to open the whole island to the public. A lot of travel agencies compete to promote this island and her travel agency won the right.

They looked over the villa where they would stay for a week. It was a decent villa with complete furniture. The beach was accessible by walking few minutes down the hill from the villa housing. Across the villa's backyard was a track directly connected to the forest. The tour guide assured them that there were not any wild beasts in the forest. Overall, it was a prime location. After telling the couple some basic information about the island, she left them.

--

John went to the beachside bar while Paulina stayed at the villa to rest.

"Give me your house special." Asked John to the bartender, a neat-looking middle-aged man with brown tanned skin.

A few minutes later, the bartender finished concocting his house's special. Looking at its appearance, John could tell that it some mixture of margaritas.

"You came alone in this island, sir?" asked the bartender while John tasted his drink.

"No, I am with my wife on a honeymoon vacation."

A frown appeared on the bartender's face, "I bet the travel agencies didn't tell you the taboo in this island beforehand."

"The island's taboo?"

"Widows Peak, was the real name of this island, this was a nice place but not without any danger."

"Widows Peak? That sound unlucky for island name," said John

"Yes, and just like its name suggests, in the season of witches, it's possessed a danger to married couples."

"The season of witches? What is that and when it would happen?" Another man interrupted their conversation, he was a skinny man wearing glasses.

"I believe you guys had heard about Walpurgisnatch? The night of the witches..." The bartender continued with his story.

John and the skinny man nodded in response.

"Some said it happened together with Halloween, another said it happened with Easter, etc, but in this accursed land, the season of the witches happened just the time you guys arrived here."

"You married couples should not go out at night of the crescent or full moon until the dawn where the silver mist dispersed."

"And you should run away if you meet La Ragazza if you don't want bad things to happen to you or your loved one."

"La Ragazza?" John asked.

"It is Italian words for 'the girl' but in this context, it's referring to the witches..." the brown-skinned man answered, he spoke the word 'witches' quietly.

"Why I know this? because I could be considered a keeper for this island, my family was the boat operator that ferries the owner of this island for generations before I opened this bar, I know this island better than the tour guides."

"Mr. Bartender..." called the skinny man.

"My name's Luigi Fernando, feel free to call me Luigi or Fernando.."

"Sir Luigi, Why it was dangerous for married couples in the first place?" John was curious and concerned.

"La Ragazza like to play trick to married couple, manipulating them on her whim, and bring miseries to people."

"Mr. Luigi, have you ever met the witches on this island?" the glasses guy asked.

The bartender shook his head, "Fortunately, never, my family had stayed away from the taboo all this time, it was a story told by my great grandfather and always told to his descendant, the story was words of warning."

"What about the island's owner?" The glasses guy asked again.

Luigi Fernando shook his head, "I don't know, she always came alone and not on the time of the season of the witch, only once that she comes together with her male companion in the season of the witch, it was the first time after she bought the island from the other owner and the last time she came with a male companion, after that she either always came here alone, or accompanied by other women."

"So, the existence of 'La Ragazza' and the island's taboos are on the level of urban legend I assume?" John questioned, he felt a bit relieved that the story the bartender told was on the level of non-sense.

"Believe it or not is up to you, I already warn you for your well-being."

"Thanks, Mr. Luigi, I appreciated the folklore and your warning, but I couldn't let that La Ragazza or whatever ruining my honeymoon." Said John before he left the beachside bar.

--

That night, John was cuddling with Paula in their room, he already put the story of La Ragazza and the island's taboo behind his mind. He was also not bothered to tell Paulina about it. John was tired and went to sleep first, while Paulina still stayed awake.

According to Murphy's third law, if something bad can happen, it will certainly happen. Tonight, the crescent moon was hanging in the night sky. A faint mist began to envelop the island, but even with the mist blanket, the scenery she could see from her villa's balcony was still breathtaking

Comes...

Comes...

The night is calling...

Paulina began to check whether her hearing had a problem or not, but she could hear a woman's voice, the voice was talking, singing, and laughing. Paulina was like her husband, she didn't believe in superstition. So her first decision was to check where the voice comes from. Without walking John up, she brought up her flashlight and went out from the villa.

Here...

Come...

The voice was guiding her, when she got her awareness back, she was already in the middle of the forest and strayed away from the known forest track.

"Is someone there?" Paulina heard another woman shouting. Soon, she could see the figure of the woman, she was a tall and leggy blonde bombshell in a bikini. A weird sight to be found in the forest and in the middle of the night to boot.

"Hello, my name is Bella, nice to meet you, do you know the way back?" Bella asked

Paulina just realized that she didn't know the way back herself.

"Unfortunately, I don't know. " Paulina shook her head.

"So, how do you got here?" the pretty blonde asked.

"By following some woman's voice."

"Same then, I was making a video for my channel at the beach, and then I suddenly heard an enchanting woman's voices."

"Thought the sound was near and I began to follow it, but then I found myself lost in this forest."

QUACK QUACK QUACK...

Paulina began to feel scared; she didn't know if the last was a woman's laughter or the crows' cries. Either way, it was creepy. Meanwhile, Bella jumped in fear, she then hugged Paulina's arm tightly.

"Staying here will not save ourselves, let's just walk in the direction where I'm come from and try to backtrack." Suggest Paulina. Both began to walk in the direction Paulina suggested without knowing whether they went deeper into the forest or walking to the outskirt.

The mist began to thicken that even Paulina's flashlight unable to penetrate it.

Found you...

The voice was so loud that it like it was said right beside her, Paulina turned around but she found nobodies. Not even Bella, the girl who held her arm and stuck close to her was now missing.

"Fuck!" She couldn't help but cursed, she knew that the situation had turned in a bad direction now. Her first instinct was, of course, to flee.

Paulina ran away from where she stood without minding her direction. She thought that she was quite lucky that she found herself in a place with fainter mist after running for god know how long. Her leg felt weak, she was exhausted.

The forest was scarily silent; no bird's chirping nor cicada's cries. The only sound she could hear was the running stream of the nearby river.

"River! I'm lucky! If I follow this, I will probably reach the beach." said Paulina weakly as she was out-of-breath

But her happiness was short-lived as Paulina felt someone was blowing a breath on her nape. She turned her neck slowly, bracing herself to whatever horror stood behind her.

Tag! You are in!

--

John woke up in the morning feeling refreshed. He looked toward his side and didn't find his wife anywhere in the bedroom.

"Honey?" He went downstairs and saw the loves of his live munching on some cookies snack.

"What's up? Do you want some, dear?" She offered John the plate of cookies.

John approached her, giving a good morning kiss on her forehead before he picked a cookie from the plate.

"Hmm...these gingerbread cookies are good, where did you get this?"

"Oh, I packed this before from home, don't you remember?"

"Really? I thought we only packed those potato's chips."

She chuckled, "Of course not."

She munched another cookie. John was caught off guard when Paulina suddenly giving him a surprise kiss on his lips, her tongue was snowballing the chowed cookies to John's mouth. They were interlocked in a messy kiss for few minutes before his wife stepped back.

"Will this only end in kisses, hon?" John unbuckled his bed's robe.

"Hold your horse, stud, the sun was just rising." Her fingernail traced on John's chest teasingly.

"Let it just end in kisses for this morning, see you at the beach later." She walked away from the room.

--

John was stopping at the beach-side bar again.

"Another one like yesterday, please, Sir Luigi." Ordered John to the bartender.

"So, how was your first night on the Island, Mr. John?" asked the bartender while he giving John the drink he ordered.

"I don't think I gave you my name yesterday, how do you know my name, Sir?"

"Pardon me for my rudeness, but it was easy for me to know your name by asking the tour guide, you remember that I said I could be considered the keeper of this island, it was not an empty title."

"This in-house special is free, consider it as my token of apologies."

"Don't mind it, Sir Luigi, it was uncouth of me to not introduce myself properly yesterday."

"John Winston, Attorney, at your services." John introduced himself with a bowing gesture.

"Answering your question, I had a well-rested sleep last night."

"How about your wife? Yesterday was a night with the crescent moon, I noticed that the mist was particularly thick, did your wife stayed in the villa with you?"

"Uhm...probably? I went to bed with her last night, and when I woke up, she was still at the villa, so I don't think she walked out from the villa last night."

"Well, if you said so."

"Oh, John, you are here, I have been looking for you!" Entering the beach-side bar was his wife, Paulina, she was wearing a blue-colored bikini top, and a bikini thong that vanished between her bubble butts.

"Did you like what you see, hubby?" He was indeed surprised by what his wife wearing, they are on the beach, so wearing a bikini was given, but he didn't know that his wife has this kind of bikini packed for their honeymoon. His wife really went all out in teasing him since this morning.

"Is she your wife, Sir John?" asked the bartender while he checking the woman from her toes to head.

"Let me introduce you to my wife, Paulina."

"Luigi Fernando at your service, ma'am." The Bartender replied courteously.

"Thanks for the drink, Sir Luigi, I will excuse myself first." John and his wife walked away from the bar.

---

Luigi Fernando looked at the beach from his bar with worries, the sky was sunny and bright but he couldn't help to be anxious. The island was once rarely visited resort island before the owner decided to open it to the public a year ago, this was the first time the island was opened to the public in the season of witches. His family was running a ferry business for a long time, and before the island was public, only his family that was brave enough to ferry people to this island that was once called Widow's Peak. The ties and familiarity with the island made the owner trusted them as the island keeper when the owner wasn't present. The curse of knowledge, he was familiar with the island legend and unpleasant stories unlike the tourist outside that happily playing with water and sunbathing.

As modern aged people, he didn't want to believe in stories and legend, but his great grandparent took the stories seriously, his grandfather said that the legend was real, and his father always warned him about it since he was a young kid, he couldn't help to not take this matter seriously and even if other legends outside there weren't real, he needed to believe that the stories regarding this island were true.

His bad feeling proven to be true when Barbara Delgado, the tour guide, ran toward him in hurry.

"Fernando, we have a problem!!" said Barbara with a worried tone.

"Take a breather first, Barb." Barbara took a deep breath as suggested by the bartender.

"Tell me what the problem, Barb?"

"Someone is missing! The last time people saw her was last night."

"Last night you said!?" He was alarmed.

"Crescent moon, thick silver mist, says Barb, is the missing person was a married person?"

"I don't think so, she came here with her friend, another woman, her friend said that they are just a friend and nothing special."

Luigi frowned, those don't match up with La Ragazza's legend.

"Okay, let us search her in the forest, the only possible place for people to lose their way in this island is that wood."

"The wood was perfectly safe, right? The owner said that there aren't any wild beasts in there."

"Should be, aside from small critters, and snakes that burrowed under the ground that we couldn't account for." The man replied, "and we should hope that she didn't meet La Ragazza last night."

"La Ragazza? The witches in the legend? I would worry more for the snakes than our urban legend! If something happened to that girl because of the snakes, it can doom my career and this island's reputation as a tourist destination!"

Luigi Fernando could only offer a dry smile for Barbara, he knew that a lot of people nowadays didn't believe in superstition and urban legend, he was also always hopeful that he could be as confident as them to said that the legends weren't real.

"Alas, we better go now, The longer time we didn't find her, the bigger the risk the missing woman will face, and you should ask several other men whether they want to volunteer to help us or not."

"Should we? Can we just keep it between the two of us?"

Fernando looked at Barbara with a stern look and retorted, "If you want to spend all day long in the forest until nightfall, sure...but I know that I don't want it for sure."

--

Barbara managed to invite several men to volunteer, Luigi was surprised and pleased to know that his recent acquaintances like John Winston and the skinny glasses guy came to volunteer, their attitude showed that they were good persons.

They searched the forest for hours before they spotted the missing woman sat silently while rubbing her pussy non-stop near a waterfall pond in the forest.

When they found the woman, she was no longer in her right mind, she didn't remember her names, and thought of herself as a water nymph, she was aggressively attacking the men and begging for their dick.

"By the God in heaven! This must be La Ragazza doing!" exclaimed Luigi Fernando.

"Sorry." The deranged woman was knocked out by another man, he was tall with a stout build. From his simple getup of green-colored t-shirt and army pants, people will guess that this man was in the corps.

"Is she the one we seek, Miss Delgado?" asked the army man

"Blonde hair, bountiful chest, yes, she is our missing person, Bella Dolores," Barbara answered.

"Sorry that I need to say this here, your vacation will probably be ruined." Said the army man, "Nicholas Connor, CIA, we have some situation here, I hope your gentlemen and ladies willingly cooperated with me."

---

Luigi and Barbara gathered all people on the island's biggest building, the previous owner's old manor. The new owner didn't demolish the building and keep it as an all-purpose building, Luigi's family held the copy key for the building. One of the perks as the Island's keeper he said.

Nineteen people were currently in the manor hall.

"Thank you for being here cooperatively, let me introduce myself first; Nicholas Connor, CIA." Nicholas was now dressed up in a black suit and pants.

"We have some sticky situation here, one of the tourists here was clearly being a victim of CIA-level intelligence mind control."

"I was sent here because we got a report that certain criminal was having a vacation on this island, the thing is I can't disclose who they are because even the CIA didn't know their appearances and real names as they work with code names, but I assure you that they are a dangerous person."

"One of you is the criminal I seek, and I will interrogate you thoroughly, the quicker we done, the quicker you people can back to your vacation."

"So, you suspect that the criminal was in this room? And who gives you the right to detain us? I don't give a shit whether you are CIA or not." A goth girl retorted.

"Spoken like a true criminal hiding their guilt." Nicholas fished the gun under his suit and quickly opened fire. The bullet was accurately hit the floor few inches before the girl

"This is a warning shot, I will not hesitantly put a bullet on someone I suspect as a criminal to save the others from being the victim of their notoriety."

"This...this is all the witch doing! La Ragazza wanted to mess with us." Luigi said groggily, it was rare for the man to look that scared. The tension and uneasiness of the room were increasing.

"Calm down, Sir Fernando, it's probably our criminal doing and took advantage of the island legend," Nicholas said.

"Sir Nicholas, I see that you have a bias on sir Luigi Fernando, did he not included in your list of suspects? He was acting more suspicious than I." said the Goth girl with a snarl.

"I have done a background check on him, and I am sure that he has a clear background, and not our criminal, in another hand the rest seventeen of you were shady people with their record of dirty deeds."

The room then heard someone clapping, it was the skinny glasses man, "Great...this was a good inspiration for writing material."

All the eyes on the room shifted toward him.

"Ahem...let me introduce myself, Geoffrey Raylight Martin, a humble story writer at your service." The name Geoffrey Raylight Martin gave a surprise to the people in the room, he was a quite famous novel writer.

"I suggest that we cooperate with Sir Nicholas with our best of abilities." Geoffrey said, "but from a writer standpoint, did you not consider there might be a plot twist in this story of us? For example, what if Sir Luigi is the real criminal, or there are more than nineteen of us on this island?"

The statement sent the people in the room murmuring.

"Mrs. Barbara, did you confirm that there were only 15 people in this batch of tourists?" asked the CIA agent to the tour guide.

"Yes, there are only 15 of you, the next batch of tourist will only arrive a week later, there only a few ferries that travel to this island, so I'm pretty sure that there is only 15 tourist in this island, and 4 non-tourist, Sir Fernando can be my witness for this."