“The Correnti ,” Beno said. “Essi vivono torrent. They are born in the meltwater of the true mountain, and they die when the river reaches the sea. They have no lungs, no blood. They are the torrent’s will made flesh.”

Marco learned the truth the night his grandfather, Old Beno, took him to the stone bridge during the first autumn storm. The gentle stream that giggled through the village all summer had transformed. It was a roaring, muscular beast, flinging white fists against the boulders.

“It means,” he says, “they choose to be memory. And memory never dries up.”

The outsiders still do not understand the phrase. They think it means “they live wildly.” But Marco, now the oldest man in Altafiume, knows better. When a child asks him what essi vivono torrent means, he takes them to the bridge at sunset, points to the dark shapes playing in the rapids, and smiles.

Marco’s hands trembled. “What do they want?”