Rocca di Cerere

Sicily | 1943

The three hour bike ride from Caltanissetta passed faster than they expected. The road to Enna was quiet, save for two local farmers transporting wheat, an elderly man on rickety bicycle hauling olives, and Garret’s need to transform a tree into a urinal. Garret found it odd that they failed to encounter any military convoys - allied or enemy - but he chose to rejoice at the small win. Clearly the enemy was on a full retreat, and his fellow brothers and sisters in arms were the cause.

A few sporadic gunshots rang out in the distance, but the duration of their echoes made it impossible for Garret to determine where they were coming from. He was however able to spot distant columns of black smoke from the fiery remains of the allied advance towards Catania.

Ascending the winding dirt roads to the hilltop town, they were each individually able to absorb the breathtaking views of Enna, and the surrounding towns below the ancient plateau.

Wheat fields stretched for miles in all directions, while emerald green, silver and diamond patches of grass, woodlands, and olive tree groves provided the perfect amount of natural contrast - adding an incomparable value to the landscape.

Garret tried to count the number of golden towns that poked out of the ground like precious, earthly gems, but his gaze was distracted by black curls fluttering in the light-breeze, and the most intricate pattern of freckles reflecting the afternoon sunlight.

Rosalie was about twenty feet in front of him, and like him, was taking a long moment to rest her legs from pedaling uphill - enjoying the majestic view of her home. Aida was in the lead, continuing to push through the pain of the next inclined curve. They were nearly at the top, and Garret could see the fringes of the mist emanating off of Etna’s peak.

Craning her head across the rolling peaks, her eyes melted into Garrets who embarrassingly tried to shift his intrusion with a frantic head bobble - which nearly made him lose his balance.

“Stop staring, Sergeant. Keep pedaling,” Aida yelled down to him, from the elevated road above.

Rosalie giggled, then used the palm of her right hand to cover her mouth from blurting out an embarrassing laugh. This made Garret stumble harder, and even worse, his cheeks gushed with blood, and glowed like two bright red orbs.

“Come on soldier,” Rosalie said, fighting back a barrage of giggles as she began pedaling.

Shaking off the embarrassment with a few hearty laughs, he refocused his mind back on the mission, and powered his bicycle up the next hard, inclined bend in the road. He didn’t like the feeling of being vulnerable. He knew it could lead to improper decision making. He knew it was dangerous - for both of them.

With each painful thrust of his throbbing legs, he made a pact with himself to refuse to act on the emotions he knew were already brewing. Unfortunately every time he looked forward, he saw Rosalie’s dancing, black curls, bewitching him from behind. It was a pact he was afraid he wouldn’t be strong enough to honor.

Once at the top of the highest elevated provincial capital in Europe, they were greeted by the Santuario di Papardura sanctuary, confirming their entry into the city. Aida continued to lead the group through the tight streets, and Garret noticed a few shop windows showcasing oddly decorated robes with tall, white, pointed hoods. The sight made him stumble on his pedals, and he nearly buckled his handlebars.

Rosalie heard his distress, and swiftly turned around to offer her assistance.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m good. It’s just those outfits in that window. What are they exactly?”

Garret recognized the hoods the moment he saw them, and he was confused to see them in this part of the world.

“They are the ceremonial robes worn by the citizens of Enna during holy week and during Madonna of The Visitation on July second. The outfits are a passed down tradition from the cult of The Mother Goddess which spread throughout Sicily during the Roman Empire,” she said, as she watched Garret’s facial expression contort from horror and shame to wonder, and curiosity, “Do you recognize them?”

“I do. But where I come from, those hoods mean something very different.”

“What do they mean?”

“Something a lot more evil.”

Rosalie wanted to press him for more information. She desired to know more about Garret, and the world from where he came from, but her mother was keeping them on a tight schedule. which was for the best.

“No more conversing until we reach Rocca di Cerere. We must not underestimate the capacity of our hunters. Rosalie, ride next to me. Garret, take up a position behind us and keep your head on a swivel for anyone or anything out of the ordinary.”

That was easier said than done, because everything here was out of the ordinary for Garret. Without leaving him a second to challenger her orders, Aida took off down the narrow road, closely followed by Rosalie. Garret hoped that her head would slightly turn around to make sure he was following.

She did not.

The disappointment fueled his heart, and his tired legs began pedaling with a fiery determination to reach the gravitational embrace of Rosalie’s energy.

Keeping his focus on their surroundings, with Rosalie’s safety his main priority, Garret assessed every single human being they passed by until they reached the opposite end of the city.

Thanks to the clear lack of communications, the scattered German and Italian army patrols still lingering in and around Enna were focusing all of their attention on gathering supplies and weapons for their evacuation of Sicily rather than scouring the town for any enemy bicyclists.

Stopping at the base of an old fortress, Aida dismounted her bicycle and leaned it up against a waist-high stone wall. Rosalie did the same, and Garret followed along shortly after.

“Are we here?” Garret asked, leaning his bicycle up against Rosalie’s.

“Yes,” Aida said as her head shifted from left to right, evaluating the anxious German soldiers arguing and piling wooden crates into the beds of multiple Fiat trucks in front of the old castle, “We must walk the remainder of the way. We will come back for the bicycles after.”

“Where are we going?” Rosalie asked.

“To see the Mother Goddess,” Aida replied.

Following Aida’s hasty pursuit, Garret tried to refrain from acting as a sight-seeing tourist but his heart could not stow his mouth from trying to talk to Rosalie.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Rosalie turned around, and saw Garret gazing at the high-walled fortress, “Castello di Lombardia. It’s one of the largest medieval castles in all of Italy.”

Garret continued to walk and marvel in silence at his ruse because he secretly knew every inch of the castle, as well as the exact square footage. It was a targeted stronghold the allies were planning on commandeering and fortifying to help orchestrate the rest of the invasion across the island. Enna geographically sits at the center of Sicily, offering a strategic, and elevated staging ground to continue advancing north.

Rocca di Cerere, however, was a location he had not been made aware of, and lost his breathe the moment his eyes took in the impossible, cliff side view of Enna, smaller, picturesque farming villages, crisp, rolling knolls, and of course, the most astonishing portrait of Mount Etna and her snow-capped peak.

Climbing over the rusted railing, Garret carefully ventured out onto an arrowhead shaped slab of yellowed rock, and sat down at its point - letting his legs dangle beneath him. Rosalie was admiring the view from her own solitary position along the railing, trying to absorb what beauty she could before venturing deeper into the abyss. Aida was consulting a middle-aged couple on the level of German and Italian army resistance in and around the area, as well as which northbound roads were being used for their retreat.

A faint rustle startled him, then a firm hand pressed down onto his left shoulder as Rosalie used it to brace herself as she sat next to him. Allowing both of her legs to dangle beneath the rock, her right leg and foot continually brushed and bounced off of Garret’s left ankle and shin bone- providing them fleeting moments of innocent intimacy.

His heart fluttered at her most welcomed intrusion. His brain rushed to find the right words to say without sounding weird or too eager, but she beat him to it.

“It’s beautiful.”

Garret could hear the pain in her voice, regardless of how hard she fought it from escaping.

“You can cry now,” he said softly.

Rosalie looked into his eyes, and found the release she was looking for. Melting into Garret’s chest, Rosalie cried the tears she had been damming ever since they lost Miceli. They were heavy, and there were a lot.

To ensure the sensation of feeling protected, Garret lifted his left arm, allowing her to melt even deeper into his abdomen, then wrapped his elbow around her shivering body and held her as tight as he could without squeezing.

A few seconds became a minute, which quickly became several. Rosalie continued to cry, and Garret continued to hold his embrace. Finally backing her burrowed face out of his dampened armpit to breathe, Rosalie dried her swollen eyes on the long sleeves of her black shirt.

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

Jokingly fingering the waterlogged section of his shirt, Garret attempted to lighten the mood, “If this isn’t grounds for calling me by my first name, then I don’t know what is.”

Rosalie giggled, and accidentally snorted out a modest blob of snot from her nostrils. This made both of them laugh and convulse out loud - which was dangerous considering the perch they were sitting on was quite high above the Earth. That didn’t stop them.

They continued to laugh, and Garret offered a piece of his own sleeve to wipe her nose. This brought them close enough where Rosalie could feel Garret’s breathe kiss her freckled cheeks. Garret, remained a gentleman and pulled away from her before any potential mistakes had a chance to be made.

“Your mother,” Garret started, while looking back to see her still talking to the couple, “She said we would be able to see the mine from here? That the statue would show us the way. Do you have any idea what she was talking about?”

Rosalie swung the backpack from her spine to her lap. She un-clipped the two brown buttons keeping the top flap closed, and removed the puzzle box. Placing the backpack and puzzle box down behind them, she held the Mother Goddess symbol in her hands.

Peering back and forth from the relic and the volcanic skyline, she decided to hold it up, and peer through the arched arms of the woman with one eye, using the carved head as an indicator. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she continued to scan the horizon and the lower hills that surrounded Mount Etna.

“What are you looking for?” Garret asked.

Finding nothing that made any sense, Rosalie allowed her frustration to seep out, and she plopped her hands, along with the Mother Goddess relic, into her lap in an act of defeat.

“I don’t know. Something. Anything that makes sense.”

“May I?” Garret asked, with his left hand held open.

Rosalie saw no harm in allowing him to look, because she was sure he wasn’t going to find anything, so she surrendered the relic.

Garret examined it in his hands, then began scanning the landscape the same way Rosalie had done, hoping to notice the clue she had overlooked. After a few long, diligent moments of scanning and surveying, Garret was unable to spot any shadow, knoll, depression, road, river, or pond that was a clear indicator of the mine’s entrance. He even flipped the relic on its side and upside down. Nothing.

“I knew this wasn’t going to work,” Rosalie said.

“Don’t lose faith so fast. The Monsignor gave you this for a reason, Rosalie. It was the last thing he did before he died. Your mother. She knew that this represented The Mother Goddess, and of its connection to this location. Maybe she can show us what we’re doing wrong.”

Rosalie used the bottoms of her palms to wipe away a few more tears, “Corrado would have loved this.

“Let’s finish this for him,” Garret said, handing the statue back to Rosalie.

Carefully leaning back, Garret allowed Rosalie to return the relic back into the backpack. She then used both of her hands to slide her lower-half away from the edge. Once she was at a safe distance to turn, and stand, she rose to her feet and climbed back to the safe side of the iron railing.

With Rosalie out of harm's way, Garret began sliding backwards on his rear-end.

His right index and middle finger suddenly became wedged in an oddly placed half-moon crevasse, and he cursed himself for always finding a way to injure himself. With a few well angled wiggles, he was able to free his fingers. Wanting to curse the rock, he noticed something strange about the curved opening hiding within the shadows and weeds.

“Rosalie…,” Garret said, without taking his eyes off the rock, “Let me see the relic.”

Rosalie quickly climbed over the railing, retrieved the Mother Goddess from her backpack, and handed it to Garret.

Nearly laying down on his stomach, Garret carefully inserted the relic - moon side first - into the rock. It sank as deep as the statue’s bosom, yet clicked into an airtight fit. Rosalie had also sunk to her stomach and was ear to ear with him on the mysterious rock.

Their synchronized heavy breathing bound them together in the moment, allowing Rosalie to see, “The spiral,” Rosalie said, in amazement, “Mom was right.”

“Right about what?” Garret said, trying to keep up.

“The spiral carved into the abdomen of the Mother Goddess is a symbol of life’s journey, and all of the twists, turns, ups and downs. The straight, flowing line at the end represents the destination. Completion. Resolution.”

Garret looked again, this time using the end of the straight line as a guiding line. With the assistance of clear visibility, save for a few planes which were flying at an altitude impossible to identify, he was able to spot the faint outlines and silhouettes of a large town at the base of Mount Etna.

“Adrano,” Rosalie said, “It’s the only major town in that direction. And it sits at the base of Mount Etna. If we were to find a mine connected to the mineral properties of the volcano, we’d find it there.”

“I think someone’s looking out for us,” Garret said.

Rosalie smiled, agreeing with Garret without saying so.

With their new plan set in motion, Garret removed the relic from the rock, and Rosalie once again returned it to the safety of her backpack. They then each mounted the rusted railing, and climbed over.

To both of their surprise, they were greeted by a frantic Aida who was sprinting towards them - leaping over the jagged terrain as she dodged the barrage of bullets.

Neither Garret nor Rosalie could see who was shooting, but Garret was able to catch a glimpse of two bodies laying in a pool of dark blood on the road just below the entrance to the visitation platform they were standing on. It was the couple Aida had been collecting information from moments ago.

“Run!” Aida screamed as she continued to hurdle herself towards them.

“Run?”Garret said, “Run where?”

Bullets began pounding into the rock around their feet, forcing Rosalie to take control. She grabbed onto Garret’s arm, and forcefully yanked him in the direction of the cliff side where they had just been sitting.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Garret said as he removed the pistol from his waistband, preparing himself to return fire the moment he caught a glimpse of the shooters.

A rocket from a German Panzerschreck suddenly filled the air. Garret traced the smoke trail, and saw that it was shot from the road below Rocca di Cerere’s entrance. It landed about fifteen feet away from them, nearly taking out Aida. Luckily, her momentum continued to push her forward. The rock however, began to rumble, and splinter from the sudden explosion.

Garret could feel the shift happening beneath his feet, then flinched when he heard the second rocket. Landing only ten feet away, the entire site began crumbling. Other visitors of the site were fleeing in a desperate panic, and Aida was still running towards them, except she was limping, and her face was dripping with blood. She tried to yell out to them, but the cracking of the ancient stones drowned her out.

The third rocket rose into the sky, leaving Rosalie no choice but to grab Garret’s hand and hold it as tight as she possibly could.

“Trust me,” she said, as the world around them erupted into a fiery blaze of shattering rock and bullets.

Wanting nothing more but to kiss her, he squeezed her hand with all of the love and hope inside of his heart, and together as one, jumped as the cliff crumbled away from their feet.