I sink to the ground in the darkness of a lonely alleyway, and only then do I realize how lost and lonely I am, and most of all, what I have done.
“Si pirdi?” I hear a woman ask if I am lost. I speak only a little Sicilian; we mostly spoke English at home because my mother is from the States.
Well, was.
Dead now.
“No, grazzi,” I say without looking up—I don’t want her to see how young I am. I am lost, but not in the way that woman expects. No one can ever know what I did tonight and who I am, otherwise I’ll vanish faster than I can say the word lost.
“You’re not from here,” says the woman in English. It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
“Iu sugnu,” I say, telling her I am from here. I was born here, but I don’t belong.
“Comu ti chiami?” she asks, and her hand finds my forearm. I don’t want to be touched, so I flinch and jump up. God damnit, why can’t you the fuck leave me alone?
My eyes wander up, just enough to see half of her face, otherwise hidden in the darkness and shadowed by a black hat. She is a beautiful lady, classy, with narrow eyes, dark hair, and a golden cross necklace dangling on her neck. Two other women are with her, lingering in the back.
My gut doesn’t like it, and my eyes widen. I need to get away.
“Are you in trouble?” she asks me.
“No,” I say and bring more distance between us.
Her eyes linger on me.
“Here,” she says, and walks up to me. I want to run. She grasps my hand and places a red, pearl bracelet in it. “In case you ever are.”
I stare at her.
“Who are you?” I asks.
“A nobody,” she says. “Coming to equalize what was never meant to be.”
A shudder runs over my arms.
I stare at her before my eyes wander to the bracelet in my hand.
I have heard it before.
To equalize what was never meant to be.
She is a myth.
A well-told one here in Sicily.
My father once told me about her.
I stare at the pearls. It’s hard to tell what it is in the darkness, but there is something engraved on the pearls.
I look up.
But she is gone.
Vanished into the many alleyways of Palermo.
And so do I, slipping on the bracelet.
Queens, New York
