Salve Verba

Sicily | 1943

“Parole…what? What the hell does that mean? And what do you mean by, your song?” Garret’s questions were firing at random as he tried to simmer the flames of his growing concern and ignorant curiosity.

“I wrote it,” Corrado said, turning towards Rosalie,“I wrote it for mom the week before she and father left for Africa. It’s a song about Miceli. Mr. Bova helped me write the violin chords at the shop during slow hours.”

Corrado’s expression fluctuated oddly as he continued to study the familiar symbols etched into the corners, and lines of the handwritten notes.

“But these strange runes mixed in with the notes don’t make any sense,” he said, “They appear to be mutated versions of my notes and clefs, but if I were to try to play them as they appear, the music would sound horribly out of tune. Also, the order of the verses is incorrect. This layout has no flow to it. Then you have these jumbled groupings of random letters beneath each verse.”

Hearing Corrado say it out loud helped reinforce her theory.

“What did you say?” Rosalie asked.

“These runes don’t make sense, and the order-”

“The letters,” Rosalie said, cutting him off. “What did you say about letters?”

“Beneath each verse, look.”

Rosalie took the sheet back, and placed it under a direct beam of sunlight. She looked beneath the versus and found what Corado was talking about. Groupings of random letters, followed by a dash and a single letter were scribbled nine times onto the page. She knew what these letters meant, and she knew how to decipher the code, but she couldn’t help herself from melting into the swelling memories of her unique childhood.

When Rosalie and Corrado were nine years old, Corrado told one of the boys in Rosalie’s class her deepest secret. Knowing his song was in the wrong, and having a background in military communications, Clement sided with Rosalie and helped her create a system in which she could pass along secrets in a code Corrado couldn’t understand.

“Salve Verba is latin for Parole Ricci,” Rosalie began, “Which in English, translates to Curly Words. My father came up with the name when I was seven,” she continued as she twirled her right index finger through her thick, tangled vines of black curls, “Corrado told one of the boys in my math glass that I thought he was cute, and that I wanted to be his girlfriend. It was definitely the most embarrassing moments of my life”

“No I didn’t -”

“He read my diary,” Rosalie said, cutting Corrado off mid outburst.

Garret, and Father Burgio both raised their eyebrows at the sweating boy with disappointment.

“We were eight,” Corrado mumbled.

“So, to ensure that he never revealed any of my secrets again, father helped me create a secret alphabet that only those who knew how to decipher it could understand how to use it. We named the alphabet Parole Ricci. Or, Curly Words.”

“So that’s what all of those strange letters in your other diaries were? I always thought you were going insane. I was worried about you. I told father about what I found, but he would always defend you. I guess that makes sense now.” Corrado said.

“You continued to read her diaries?” Garret asked.

Corrado shrugged, and stepped back. He knew no one was going to back him on this so he just shrugged and gave a young boy’s excuse.

“I…I was curious. I was only nine.”

“I will take your confession later,” Father Burgio said.

Rosalie giggled at the redness consuming her brother’s face with embarrassment.

“I forgive you, Corrado. You were right, we were young.”

She gave him friendly nudge, then stepped passed him

“I need some air.”

Corrado was left alone inside of the house with the tall priest, and the armed American paratrooper. Both of whom were staring at him intensely, shaking their heads in disapproval. Skin crawling with awkwardness and shame, Corrado raced outside to rejoin Rosalie.

The two other men shared a quiet laugh among themselves, then followed the boy outside.

“So do you know what these letters mean? Are they written in your secret alphabet?” Corrado asked.

“I believe so,” she said.

“Then that must mean father wrote this music sheet himself. How he knew the notes to my song is a mystery, considering Mr. Bova was the only other person who knew them. But if he did in fact write this, then the chaos must be significant, or else why take the time to make it. Maybe if we can figure out what your alphabet says, we can make sense of the rest.”

“Can you tell us the code?” Garret asked.

Rosalie refrained, and took stock of everyone’s flickering eyes. Her shoulder’s trembled, and her knees fluttered as the weight of being the key locked her inside of a pressurized cage. She needed this to work.

“I need a fresh piece of paper, and something to write with.”

Father Burgio stepped to the rear of the supply truck and moved a few of the crates around until he removed one from the bed. He dropped it down into the overturned dirt and used a small pry bar to pop open the lid. He reached inside and removed two journals and a packet of led pencils, and handed them all to Rosalie.

“I don’t know if the journals are empty, but maybe you can find a clean page in one of these.”

Rosalie used her thumb to quickly shuffle through the pages of the journals. The first one was completely filled, but the second one was only a quarter filled. She turned it over, and tore out three pages.”

“It’s quite simple actually,” she said as she began to write out the nine groupings of letters, “When you write your secret, you write the letter that comes after it in the alphabet. For example, the first grouping of letters on this page is U I S F F - O. If we apply Parole Ricci, the translation is T H R E E - N. The second grouping spells out O J O F - B, which translates to N I N E - A. Group three is P O F - T, which translates to -”

“O N E - S,” Corrado said, cutting her off, “The groupings are indicating the order of the versus.”

“That’s not all they’re indicating,” Rosalie said as she turned the paper around to reveal her discovery to the group - enjoying the bewilderment on each of their faces.

Beside each row of random letters, were nine translations, along with nine key letters that were circled and respelled out at the bottom of the page.

S A N T A G A T A

“Sant Agata? Burgio asked.

“Who is that? Or, what is that,” Garret asked.

“The Church of Saint Agatha,” Burgio said, “It’s one of Sicily’s holiest churches.”

“Where is this church?” Garret asked.

“Caltanissetta. On foot, I would say it’s around thirty kilometers north east from here,” Burgio said.

Garret did the quick conversion in his head. He was quite gifted when it came to academics. He was always first in all of his classes, and it aided in fast tracking his promotion to Sergeant.

“Roughly nineteen miles,” Garret said.

“If we leave now, and hustle, we can get there before the sun sets,” Corrado blurted out, excitedly.

“I can’t let you do that, Corrado. At least not yet. If Father Burgio’s assessment of the church is correct, then that means it’s seven hours in the wrong direction. We need to head south-west so we can regroup with my platoon,” Garret said, turning to Rosalie, “I’m sorry, but the discovery of a hidden chain of clues changes everything. If what you said about your Nazi hunters is true, then the discovery of a secretly smuggled music sheet must not be taken lightly. Let me help you. We can ensure its safety by handing it over to the United States military. Our code breakers will dissect the sheet, and uncover all of its secrets. It’s the safest place for it. Our defenses can only stretch so far, and with Hale’s death, a seven hour hike through Sicily with limited ammunition would be suicide. The soldiers we ran into here would not be the first. The island is crawling with scattered German and Italian patrols. We need more help. It’s like you said, Rosalie. Trust. I need you to trust me. I need you all to trust me.”

Every fiber in Rosalie’s being instructed her to fight Garret on his authoritative decision, but deep down she knew he was right. The journey would be incredibly dangerous on foot, and considering the amount of lingering threats, it was only a matter of time until they were caught, or killed. Still, she was reluctant.

“Our father sent the violin, and its secrets to us, Sergeant McLaughlin. Do not make the mistake that we are taking this situation lightly.”

Corrado stepped to his sister’s side, slightly puffing out his chest to help reinforce her stoic point of view.

“Yet, you are right,” she said, causing all of the air to balloon out of Corrado’s swelled lungs.

“What,” he said, coughing, “Rosie, we can’t go back to Canicatti. We need to get to that church. Father entrusted us with this task. Not the Americans. I need you to trust me, Rosie. We can’t go back.”

“We have no choice, brother,” she said, “We won’t make it on foot. Not with these weapons.”

A lone gunshot cracked in the distance, scattering the birds from their high perches. Father Burgio gurgled an inaudible sound, then collapsed. Blood gushed, and squirted from a hole in his lower neck, soaking the grass around his holy body with the darkest crimson liquid Rosalie had ever seen.