Prima le Regole
1390 Words
Nonna Maria didn’t speak again until we’d finished our tea. When she finally rose, her chair scraping the floor, she moved with the quiet efficiency I remembered from long ago — no wasted steps, no hesitation.
She didn’t lead me to the stairs. Not yet. Instead, she fixed me with her pale green eyes, sharp as mountain glass.
“There are rules here,” she said. The words landed heavy, like the driver’s warnings had on the road.
“Don’t pluck the flowers that grow against the fortress wall — they don’t belong to us. Don’t whistle after dark — it calls what shouldn’t be called. And if you hear your name at night, even if it sounds like someone you love, you do not answer. Ever.”
Her voice dropped, as if the walls themselves were listening. Only when she saw that I understood did her shoulders ease.
She stepped closer, her eyes softening, wet-leaf green. “Seven years,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Too long.”
Before I could answer, she reached for me, pressing a kiss to each cheek, her skin cool, her braid brushing my temple. Then she pulled me into her arms, and for a moment the stern figure who had laid down rules like a soldier was gone. Her embrace was fierce and warm, smelling of wool, bread, and the faint bitterness of mountain herbs.
“I’m sorry,” she said into my shoulder. “First the rules, then the greetings. Prima le regole… poi i saluti. You’ll understand why soon enough.”
When she drew back, she took my chin gently in her hand and looked me over the way a gardener inspects a young plant. “You’ve grown tall. Too thin — we’ll fix that. And you have your mother’s eyes… but your father’s mouth. Stubborn.”
I smiled despite myself. “And what else do you see?”
She gave a small snort. “Hair too wild, like it’s been chasing the wind. Hands too clean — we’ll fix that too. And that look you get when you think you’re clever.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You’ve barely seen me in seven years and already you know everything.”
Her expression softened into something almost wistful. “When you’ve known someone from the time they fit in your arms, Misia, you don’t forget a thing.”
The name — that old pet name — slipped out so naturally it made my chest ache. No one had called me that since the last summer I’d stayed here, when I was ten. I had almost forgotten how it sounded.
⸻
We went back downstairs. The main room was warm from the hearth, its walls lined with shelves crowded with jars of dried herbs and bundles of plants hanging from the rafters — sage, lavender, rosemary, and something sharp and unfamiliar that made my nose tingle. Copper pots hung above the hearth, catching the firelight in warm flashes.
Nonna Maria ladled soup from a blackened pot into two earthen bowls. The broth was thin but fragrant with garlic, wild fennel, and bay. She set a round loaf of bread between us, tearing it with her hands and giving me the larger piece.
As I dipped my bread into the soup, she watched me over the rim of her spoon. “Your father wrote that you’d come to me for the winter,” she said. “That Rome was… not the place for you just now.”
I kept my eyes on the soup. “It’s just until spring.”
Her gaze stayed steady. “That’s what he said. But what do you say?”
I hesitated. I could tell her about the whispers at school, the neighbours’ sidelong glances, the way the street seemed smaller after Mother’s passing — as though the city itself had turned its back on me. I could tell her how Father, still in his mourning black, had begun working later and later, leaving me to eat alone.
Instead I said, “I needed… air. Rome felt heavy.”
Her eyes narrowed, not unkindly. “Mountains are not lighter than cities, Misia. But they are honest. Here, what presses on you is the wind, not the weight of other people’s tongues.”
⸻
When the soup was gone, we cleared the table. She showed me how to bank the fire for the night, pushing the embers into a low mound and covering them with ash so they would last until morning. She sprinkled a pinch of coarse salt into the hearth before stepping back.
“For luck?” I guessed.
“For keeping out things that have no business crossing a threshold,” she replied. “Bread, salt, and fire — the three guardians of a house. Let one go cold, and the others will fail.”
The words stirred a memory from that last summer — a night when I had crept to the kitchen for water and found her crouched by the fire, whispering into the flames. She had been holding something small in her hand — a sprig of rosemary, perhaps — and when she threw it into the embers, it sparked green before dying away.
When she saw me, she told me to go back to bed. The next morning, I found a thin trail of ash across my windowsill. I’d forgotten about it until now.
⸻
She bolted the door, checked the shutters, and handed me a stub of candle. “It gets dark quickly here. Keep this lit until you sleep.”
The stairs creaked under my feet as I went back up. The candlelight threw a soft gold over the walls, making the knots in the wood look like watchful eyes.
In my room, I set the candle on the bedside table and pulled off my boots. The quilt was heavy, stuffed with wool, and smelled faintly of cedar. I ran my fingers along the crucifix above the bed — the wood was worn smooth where countless hands had touched it.
I sat on the edge of the bed, listening. Somewhere below, I could hear Nonna Maria moving, the faint scrape of a chair, the dull thud of a log placed on the fire.
When I lay down, the quilt came almost to my chin. The candle flame swayed gently in a draft I couldn’t feel.
It was only after I began to drift that I heard it — a sound so faint I thought it was part of my dream.
Misia.
The voice was low, coaxing. My eyes opened, and the candle’s flame trembled.
Misia.
It sounded like her voice. Like Nonna Maria’s.
The sound came again, soft as breath, from the direction of the shuttered window. My mouth went dry.
Then came the faintest tap on the wood — once, twice — as though a fingertip traced the edge of the frame.
The voice didn’t come again. But the tapping did — light, patient, and impossibly slow.
I lay frozen, counting the beats between each tap, telling myself it was a loose shutter, or a branch caught in the wind.
Then, just as the silence stretched thin enough to break, it came — a low, drawn-out whistle. Three notes, falling like a sigh.
Then, just as the silence stretched thin enough to break, it came — a low, drawn-out whistle. Three notes, falling like a sigh.
The same sound the driver had warned me about.
My breath caught in my throat. I curled tighter under the quilt, the sound still hanging in the air, as though it were waiting for me to answer.
I didn’t.
The tapping stopped. The whistle faded.
But the quiet did not return to stillness. Instead it leaned close, pressing on the walls, heavy as a held breath.
The candlelight quivered, bending once, twice — and then steadied again, as though something unseen had withdrawn.
Only then did I hear it: the faint scrape of nails against stone, moving away, climbing toward the upper ridge. Each drag a little higher, a little farther.
When the last sound faded, the silence it left behind felt worse than the noise.
I lay rigid under the quilt, eyes wide open. If sleep came for me at all, it was not a mercy but a theft.
- Writer
