MYSTERY AND SECRETS IN SICILY
Lorenzo’s handnever left mine as we walked a few miles away from the Villa in the sunset. As we walked up a stone driveway, I notice an all-stone villa standing in front of us. It’s two stories towered over and would provide much needed shade from a Sicilian roaring sun. We walked through overgrown grass towards dilapidated stone steps which led into the open front door. He ushers me inside the isolated and abandoned villa. Vines growing over the windows and shutters and across the sprawling stone walls.
“What is this place?” I ask.
He nods his head to “Marcelli” etched into a marble slab hanging limply on the wall.
“Marcelli,” I read.
“Your family home,” he says softly.
A concerned expression crosses his face as he glances over me pensively. He places his hand against the small of my back, ushering me inside through the open doorway. We are immediately met with the musky and stale smell that comes with an abandoned home. I am careful not to step on broken glass on the floor. Shards of glass broken from fallen mirrors and glass entry doors. I stood in amazement at the home before me. Everything is there. Furniture. Old potted plants. The marble walls and columns are covered in dust but undamaged.
“Come on.”
He holds my hand tightly and leads me into the next room. A full library with built-in bookcases aligning the walls. Each shelf still full of books. Their spines all covered in a thick dust. Our shoes echoed through the room against the tiled floor. My fingers grazed across the books occupying the shelf.
“No one stole anything?” I ask.
“Not from the Marcellis,” Lorenzo huffed.
“You make them seem like gods.”
“Not gods, but respected.”
Something glistening from the moonlight catches my attention. I wander into the next room. A full dining room untouched by human hands in decades. A full chandelier hung low from an intricately painted inlet ceiling above a dining room table. The china cabinet with a full set of china. Bottles of wine lying loosely on the ground. The room had a large boastful window. A corner of it broken with dirt and debris from the outside below it. Probably the work of a windstorm. The tiled floors were bare and the paint nearly non-existent. The furniture still held the warmth of family. My family.
As we walked up the grand staircase, it felt like it was out of a fairytale. It curved upwards and met with the upstairs in two separate entrances. As I walked into another room, it’s been greatly damaged by a storm. A bed was covered in broken glass from the window across from it. A pewter silver cross sits proudly untouched on the mahogany wood vanity. The wood still housed thick dust covered photographs in frames.
“I think this was your great grandparent’s room,” he says, almost tentatively.
“it’s like time stopped,” I whisper.
“Si,” Lorenzo agrees.
I turned around to face him, the dust covered photo frame grasped firmly in my hands.
“So, when you heard my name was Marcelli, did you know who I was?”
“I didn’t know for sure until Maria talked about your Nonna,” he says, his demeanor softened and hesitant.
“They just left?” I ask.
“After Carlotta left, things just went downhill for the family.”
“Did she have siblings?”
“One brother, Thomasso, but he passed away shortly after Carlotta left with Armando.”
“So, they lost both of their children,” I whisper.
“There’s something you need to see,” Lorenzo says.
I followed him down the dark hallway until he reached an open door. He stepped aside and motioned for me to enter. As I enter, I’m met with the room perfectly preserved safe from the dust and elements of storms blowing inside. The cream fleur-de-lis wallpaper peeling from the moisture of the pools of standing water from a leaking roof above my head. The wood shutters on the windows holding on for dear life. A white canopy covered brass bed stood in the center of the room. Still made with a dusty pink bedspread. My fingers grazed against the painting of the virgin Mary in the brass footboard. My feet accidentally kicks loose stone across the floor as I walk over to the vanity across the room. Tears well in my eyes as I see her hairbrush sitting on the wood vanity. Holding the silver handle in my hand I look into the dust covered broken mirror. I am looking into the same mirror she did.
“She sat here and looked in this very mirror, contemplating her entire life. She looked in this mirror when she discovered she was pregnant with my mom,” I say, the realizations overcoming my entire being.
I opened the small drawer of her vanity and there, lay a small book inside. “Romeo and Juliet” was faintly seen through the years of neglect to its fabric cover.
Romeo and Juliet.
The tears fell down my cheeks freely. Lorenzo ran his hand across his beard before lightly massaging the back of my neck with his fingers.
“It must have been hard to leave your family,” he whispers.
“She was so scared. She was pregnant with my mom, and she was so scared, but she never said why,” I say, breathless through tears.
I stood up, grasping the book and her brush in my hands tightly.
“I scoured her journal for any answer. I don’t know why Marcelli was a secret. I don’t know why she told me to be safe here. I read it front to back so many times, but she never once says why it was so dangerous for them to be together and raise their baby. She said that their families were rivals and that they would never allow them to be together,” I say, my brows furrowing in copious confusion.
“Yes.”
“I need to talk to your Nonna. I need to know what happened to them.”
“There’s something I need to show you first,” he says softly, his expression darkened.
“What?”