Damn. That's a difficult one. I looove the prose in this — it's realistic and poetic without being overbearing, and very grounded in spite of all that. Doesn't feel magical, but that's good for the story you're trying to tell. It's great at capturing that dying-small-town mood, and in an interesting setting too — an abandoned Italian village. Needless to say, I really appreciate the mechanical construction of the writing.
My problem is with the ending; I have a hunch you know this already, but it felt really rushed and jarring to me, and not in a good way. My suspicion is that you ran out of time for the contest and just hustled together an ending, which I can understand but is still a tad disappointing; I was looking forward to learning more about Isabella and what her whole deal was. Very interesting, dynamic character you built up in just the few short paragraphs we spent with her.
I'm upvoting because I liked the magical-realism writing that much, but I really wish this was expanded more than it currently is.
