The Sicilian summer moved forward relentlessly, thick with a heat that seemed to liquefy the horizon. On August 3rd, the air vibrated with a festive tension: it was time for Lughnassad, the ancient harvest festival that Belinda loved to honor as a moment of gratitude for the fruits of the earth and of life. This year, the celebration was held on the vast terrace of Franca, Agata's mother—a magical place overlooking the sea, where the scent of salt air mingled with that of blooming jasmine.
Belinda and Franca, both exceptional and tireless cooks, had spent the entire day over the stove. The kitchen was a fragrant battlefield, a laboratory of culinary alchemy where traditions merged. They had prepared mountains of eggplant parmigiana, the slices carefully fried and layered with thickened tomato sauce and fresh basil; there was meat slow-cooked in sauce for hours until it became as tender as butter, and then the star of the show: the arancini. They had made hundreds of them, golden and crispy, some filled with the classic meat ragù, peas, and carrots, others more modern, with mortadella and Bronte pistachios—a tribute to Franca's Catanese roots.
Agata's entire family was present: the sisters, the fiancés, and cousin Antonio, alongside Elia, Belinda, and their star, Azzurra. The evening had begun under the best of auspices. Music filled the space, colored lights hung from the terrace railings created the atmosphere of a village feast, and karaoke was already testing the singing skills of Marco and Cristian amidst laughter and thunderous applause.
Everything seemed perfect. The table was laden, voices overlapping in a cacophony of Sicilian joy. Azzurra, sitting next to Agata, laughed at a joke from Antonio while taking a hearty bite of a steaming arancino. Suddenly, the rhythm of the evening shattered.
Azzurra's eyes widened. A piece of stringy cheese—one of those inviting strands of provola—slid too quickly down her throat, becoming lethally stuck. The girl stopped laughing. She tried to swallow, but the morsel wouldn't move. She tried to cough, but no sound escaped her lungs. Panic, like a silent predator, descended upon the table.
"Azzurra? Sweetheart, what's happening?" Belinda screamed, jumping to her feet. Azzurra did not answer. Her hands flew to her throat—the instinctive gesture of someone losing the battle for air. Silence fell over the terrace like a shroud, interrupted only by the karaoke music that continued to play, grotesquely, in the background.
Franca was the first to intervene. With the strength of desperation, she thrust her fingers into the girl's throat, trying to hook that invisible enemy, but the cheese was slippery and deeply wedged. Azzurra shook her head, her eyes turning vitreous, and her face began to turn a terrifying shade of dark purple. Belinda tried in turn, shaking her, striking her between the shoulder blades, but to no avail.
"Elia! Elia, please! Do something!" Belinda cried out, turning toward her husband, her face transfigured by pure terror. It was the face of utter despair—the face of a mother watching her daughter slip away on a banal Saturday in August.
Elia leaped to his feet. He moved the women aside with a strength he didn't know he possessed. He grabbed Azzurra from behind, circling her waist with his powerful arms. He positioned his clenched fist just above her navel and performed the Heimlich maneuver. One sharp thrust, upward. Nothing. Azzurra was now an inert weight in his hands; her skin was bluish, oxygen a distant memory.
Elia did not give up. He threw all his weight and his will into a second thrust, violent and precise. A harsh sound tore through the air. The piece of cheese was expelled, flying onto the terrace floor. Azzurra drew a breath that sounded like a rattle, then exploded into desperate, saving sobs.
The tension dissolved into collective weeping. Azzurra, pale as a ghost, was laid onto a lounge chair, but for the rest of the evening, she wouldn't touch another bite of food; the mere thought of swallowing made her tremble. Beside her, Agata remained petrified in her chair, tears streaking her olive-toned face, unable to move a muscle, terrified by the thought of having almost lost her "sister."
To try and restore a modicum of peace, the young people decided to serve lemon sorbet and melone rosso—that fresh Sicilian watermelon whose ruby color seemed to want to reinvigorate their spirits. Shortly after, the black sky over the Strait was illuminated by a beautiful firework display, an explosion of lights that reflected their colors upon the calm sea.
While everyone else watched the colored lights, Belinda stayed apart, clutching her gold amulet tightly. She felt a subtle anguish gnawing at her heart. She had escaped another danger; another shadow had tried to snatch her daughter away at the peak of the festivities. Later, when everyone had gone and the house grew silent, Belinda went down into the garden, under the silver light of the full moon.
She knelt on the bare earth, offering a silent prayer to the Goddess, the Great Mother who governs the cycles of life and death. She burned a pinch of incense and let a few drops of wine fall onto the soil, asking for protection. But as she looked at the moon, one question continued to echo in her mind, cold and persistent: was the debt to the dark forces that had bound their destiny to Shimmy truly paid in full, or would life continue to demand interest in the form of fear?