Hedera Helix

Sicily | 1943

Dry, cracked fingers wrapped around her throat. She was pushed up against the glass of the double-doors, which nearly broke open from the force. His speed was unlike anything Corrado had ever seen, which is why he reacted later than he should have.

Corrado repeatedly punched the corporal as hard as he could in the kidneys, then proceeded to knee the man in the same spot until his grip on Rosalie’s throat loosened enough for her to break out of.

Ripping both of her arms upwards, she knocked away the Corporals hands, then swung her fist as hard as she could through the air. Her knuckles broke against the taller man’s jaw, sending a piece of his tooth, and a clump of blood, flailing through the air.

Dropping down to one knee in response to the punch, he shook off the formidable blow, and lunged again.

This time Corrado was ready for it.

Diving forward with every ounce of strength he had, Corrado wrapped his arms around the man’s waist, and tackled him to the ground. The crashed through one of the overflowing work desks, scattering hundreds of death records and other sensitive documents across the already unorganized floor.

Corrado tried to choke the Corporal from behind, but he was too big, and too strong. He easily broke free of the boy’s hold, and elbowed him in the mouth. Rosalie could hear the snap from the window, and feared that her brother’s face was badly injured.

The Corporal rose first, brushing off dust from his uniform.

Corrado stirred slowly on the ground, clearly suffering from severe pain.

“There’s nowhere for you fascists to hide,” the Corporal said, as he stalked forward, “You will tell us everything you know about what you found inside of that violin. That is, if you want to live.”

“We’re not fascists. And I won’t be telling you anything,” Rosalie said.

“We’ll see about that.”

In the blink of an eye, ignoring the searing pain in his knee, the Corporal sprung over the overturned mess, and once again reached for Rosalie’s neck.

A pressurized pinch filled his abdomen with pain as he struggled to hold the grip on the girl’s throat. His head teetered down, and his eyes saw what was preventing him from squeezing.

A six-inch brass letter opener was protruding from his stomach, and dark blood ran across the shiny, metal blade, and dripped onto the papers beneath his boots. His right hand gripped the opposite end of the opener, and blood seeped through his fingers. Rosalie used this unintended moment to jostle herself free from the man’s reach.

The Corporal yelped out in hateful pain as he tried to yank the blade out. Being dull, it struggled to wiggle free. As the pain increased, and the loss of blood evolved, he began to lose his balance. Tipping forward, he reached his hands up to brace himself against the wall, but the wall he fell upon was actually the splintered double-doors.

The abrupt introduction to his weight caused the integrity of the door frame to collapse. The Corporal’s body fell through, and slammed hard into the courtyard below.

Rosalie attempted to reach for the man, but she was too slow.

The broken body with a brass letter opener sticking out of its stomach was quickly swarmed upon by soldier’s, friars, and civilians. Their heads then all quickly craned upwards, and each one of them saw the same scared face of a teenage girl.

Quickly backing out of the frame, hoping that her image in the doorway appeared as a dark silhouette to the people below, her heart thumped as loud as helicopter rotors in her chest, and her breathing nearly consumed her ability to think.

“What did you do?” Corrado asked in a daze while sitting up from the document littered floor.

Rosalie stuttered on her tongue as a flurry of American, British, and Italian voices shouted amongst each other in the courtyard below - trying to make sense of what just happened.

“Is he dead?”

“He was pushed! I saw it!”

“There’s a dagger in his chest!”

“It was the girl! She was standing in the broken doorway! She must have pushed him!”

“Lock down the church. Do not let her escape!”

Rosalie was frozen in panic. She just killed an American soldier. But it was in self-defense, and she didn’t mean for him to fall from the glass doors. That part was unintended. But the Americans wouldn’t believe her story. Why would they? It was over. For the first time since their crusade began, she truly felt the weight of failure.

The sacred door with the broken knob suddenly kicked open. A bandaged, sweaty, and out of breath Sergeant McLaughlin - dressed in plain clothes with a rifle slung over his shoulder- stood before them. The urgent, and dire look on his face was far from comforting.

“You need to come with me. Now!”

Rosalie knew that if they stayed in this room, their lives would be over. The choice was simple.

She raced to the table where the Captain had been sitting, and retrieved the two pieces of scorched bronze. Turning to Corrado, she yanked him to his feet, and quickly examined his bloody face.

“Your nose is broken, and your lip is split.”

“Can’t feel a thing.”

Always knowing how to make her smile in the toughest of times, Corrado grabbed Rosalie by the arm and together they fled from Father Gioacchino’s private quarters. With the majority of the soldiers focused on shutting down the perimeter exits and the rest flocking to the second floor bedchamber, they were able to make their way down a back corridor which flowed into a narrow, spiral staircase. At the base, an old wooden door opened into the terrace.

The exterior part of the door was partially covered in Hedera Helix, which stretched, and snapped as it was pushed forward.

Stepping outside, one-by-one, they each kept their spines leaned up against the stone wall. Their position was covertly covered by thick olive tree branches with an extremely luscious canopy. Unfortunately, this was the extent of Garret’s plan.

“Alright, now what?”

“What do you mean now what?” Corrado asked, “You brought us down here.”

“Why are you helping us?” Rosalie asked.

“Captain Lynch, and myself, both agreed that your mission is far too grave to sideline. He has instructed me to escort you both to Mount Etna, and help you in any and all ways possible.”

“How can you just leave the rest of your army? Won’t you be considered a deserter?” Corrado asked.

“I’m not deserting, Corrado. I was tasked to undergo a top secret mission by my commanding officer. I will regroup with the rest of my battalion in Catania once they’ve pushed their way through the rest of Sicily. Our invasion plans have us crossing over the Messina strait to continue our push north through Italy. Hopefully by the time they arrive in Catania, you will have successfully completed your mission. Until then, I promise to aid, and protect you both with my life.”

“What will happen if your fellow Americans catch you helping us?” Corrado asked.

Loud, and pissed of voices bellowed from Father Gioacchino’s chambers.

“Lets not stick around and find out,” Garret said, “I was hoping one of you would know how to get out of here. A secret door or something.”

Corrado nearly lost his mind, and his rich Sicilian accent spilled across his cursing.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You broke us out without a plan to actually break us out?”

He stepped to Garret, ready to throw a few more punches, but was cut off by Rosalie.

“There is a way,” Rosalie said, “But neither of you are going to like it.”

“We have no choice,” Garret said.

Leading the way back down the dirt stairwell through the camouflaged passageway built into the rear wall of the terrace, Rosalie brought them back into the choir’s storage room.

they passed through the archway, and Garret stopped to read the hand-carved inscription in the stone.

“Disciplina,” he said, slowly, “Did I say that right?”

Rosalie sniffled her amusement at his attempt to speak with an Italian accent.

“Close enough.”

“Why are we back down here, Rosie. There’s no way out. It’s a tomb. Filled with crates, and instruments,” Corrado said.

“Don’t trust your eyes, brother. Garret, help me with this.”

Garret made his way over to Rosalie, and the large metal shelving unit she was standing in front of. He stepped lightly, taking care to not catch his foot on the incredibly uneven ground.

Mimicking Rosalie’s grip on the opposite end of the shelf, he slightly bent his knees, and firmly latched his fingers around the cold metal.

“On my count. Lift, and walk towards the center of the room. The floor drops down two feet, so be careful when you step to the right. Ready?”

“On your mark,” Garret said.

“One…two…three.”

Together, they lifted the rack clean from the floor, then shuffled their feet away from the stone coffin lined wall. Luckily, this specific rack only had a few tambourines and small flutes on the shelves, making it easy to maneuver.

Carefully lowering the rack back down to the sandy floor, Rosalie stepped back to the wall, crouched down, and inserted her hands behind the bottom coffin. Using all of her body weight, she began pushing the coffin to the right into a hidden, hollowed out chamber inside of the side wall.

“Rosalie! What are you doing?” Corrado cried out.

A loud knocking of stone on stone echoed throughout the underground crypt, then a sharp hiss of pressurizing air snapped at their skin. The dank aroma of rats, sewage, and human waste assaulted their nostrils as they depressingly stared at the dark tunnel which magically appeared before their eyes.

The two young men both recoiled from the vile scent, using their hands and shirts to block the noxious toxins.

“I told you. You weren’t going to like it,” Rosalie said.

“How do you know about this passageway?” Corrado asked, with his fingers pinching his nostrils shut.

“While you were practicing your altar boy duties upstairs in the church, father told me that the convent held all different kinds of ancient treasures. So naturally I went snooping, and inevitably found the stairwell down into the crypt. It didn’t take me long after to discover the passageway. I always wondered where it went. I guess I’m about to finally find out.”

Rosalie got down on all fours, then crawled through the opening. Standing up on the other side, she peered down the mysterious corridor, then back to Corrado and Garret who were both waiting for the other to go first.

After two hours of sloshing through miles of rancid sewer tunnels, and seeing more than enough rats to last multiple lifetimes, they finally emerged on the outskirts of town near The Church of The Holy Spirit. Their objective was to get to the religious destination, Grande croce Gesù redentore. From there, they could use the elevation, and clear views of Sicily to map out the best, and safest route. But they still needed to find a violin.

Corrado knew this church better than Rosalie did, so he used the seven-thirty morning mass as cover to sneak inside of the church through the back door. Five minutes later, while Garret and Rosalie mingled with the crowds of church goers entering and exiting the church, Corrado exited with a leather violin case clutched in his right hand.

Under Garret’s persistent recommendation, they fled west down Via Bertani, and took refuge in one of the abandoned homes off the road. While scurrying through the tunnels, Garret had insisted on waiting to make the move out of town the following day. The word of the siblings' escape, and responsibility for the Corporal’s death would surely be spreading like wildfire throughout the town, so it made sense to let the initial buzz die down.

Luckily, this particular section of the town had a very small military presence, due to its lack of residents. So it made finding a place to take temporary refuge easy.

Once inside, they agreed on remaining as quiet as possible, and to light no fires. In the morning they would make their way to Grande croce Gesù redentore, then begin their journey to Caltanissetta.

Corroado, eager to play the notes on the music sheet, discovered that the home had a cellar. He invited his sister, and Garret to join him below ground - where the sound would be harder to escape - and played for them the song his father intended for him to play.

The song lasted for just about three minutes, and it had Garret, and Rosalie in near tears.

“Wow,” Garret said, “You have incredible talent with that instrument, Corrado. Now am I remembering correctly. Did you say that you wrote this song?”

“I wrote the original.”

“What do you mean?” Garret asked.

“This rendition is not my own. Our father wrote this.”

“Give yourself more credit than that, brother. You wrote it. Father just tweaked it.”

“But why? Why go through all of the trouble of altering the notes, adding additional arpeggios, and changing the composition of the appoggiatura? Why do all of that, on top of hiding a secret message telling us to go to Saint Agatha’s church? There must be a reason. This version of the song has to mean something.”

“I don’t disagree with you. Nothing with our father is insignificant. But right now we all need to rest. If tomorrow is the day we begin our exodus north,” Rosalie said, looking to Garret, “We’re going to need our strength.”

“I agree with Rosalie,” Garret said, looking down at the wristwatch he acquired back at the convent, “It’s a little after twelve in the afternoon. We should begin barricading the windows, to ensure no passing soldiers find this place desirable, or worth searching. After that, we’ll find some food then settle down for the evening. The earlier we head out in the morning, the better our odds will be for escaping town. Are we all in agreement?”

“Yes,” Rosalie said, while she inspected the six barrels of fermenting red wine.

“Corrado?” Garret asked.

He was delicately returning the violin, and its bow back to the security of its molded, leather case. He latched the two brass clasps shut, then faced the Sergeant.

“I could eat.”

Garret grinned, and nodded, then mounted the staircase that led back up to the first floor of the house.

The clanking of wine bottles paused his ascension up the steps. He turned around on the creaking wood, and saw Rosalie approaching the bottom step with a dusty bottle of wine in each of her hands.

“If we’re going to eat, we’re going to need something to wash it down.”

Garret wasn’t a huge fan of the idea of beginning the day with a hangover, but considering everything that had occurred over the course of the last ninety-six hours, nothing in the world sounded better than the consumption of alcohol.

“I’ll find us some glasses.”