As the Wheel turned, the months flowed by with an almost surprising serenity. From Imbolc to Litha, life in Catania proceeded at a placid rhythm, marked by Ostara, Beltane, and the lunar cycles. Belinda spent her days dividing her time between the Villetta (the little villa), where the "Il Faro" (The Lighthouse) business was taking shape, and family commitments. The domestic tranquility was a balm, a reward for the emotional purification she had achieved.
Life passed serenely, amidst school, work duties, and one celebration after another. The Il Faro workshop was now fully operational, and Belinda worked with the local embroiderers, the rhythmic noise of the sewing machines replacing the echo of old obsessions. Elia tended to the citrus groves and the logistics of the small, nascent brand, while their love matured, solid and concrete like the dry-stone walls he had repaired.
In the midst of all this productive quiet, summer arrived, bringing with it the intense scent of jasmine and the heavy heat. The family's focus shifted to Azzurra's birthday; she would turn five on August 29th.
Erica, being Azzurra's dedicated great-aunt, marked the occasion by sending a medium-sized, colorful, and fragrant package from London with a note that read: "Shimmer and Shine, sparkling and glittering is the only thing you have to do!"
The courier rang the doorbell of the Villetta on a hot August morning, a few days before little Azzurra's birthday.
"How time flies..." sighed Elia, watching his daughter as he opened the gate for the courier.
He didn't even have time to sign for the package before it was already half-opened by the impatience of Azzurra, who had inherited the same impetuous fire from her mother, Belinda. Azzurra placed the box on her lap, then tore off the ribbon with one hand and ripped apart the paper with the few teeth she had, with a ravenous gaze that would have frightened anyone. Indeed, no one dared to stop her at that moment.
She opened the colorful box, which had a rainbow drawn on the packaging, and inside she found a beautiful battery-powered doll, depicting a belly dancer, an odalisque with large blue eyes and a long violet ponytail. She wore a golden diadem on her head, and her dress changed, via a mechanism that magically transformed the skirt into pants.
Erica had always been careful to give Azzurra the most spot-on toys according to the child's tastes and age. Azzurra, for her part, gave everyone great satisfaction: it was a joy for the eyes and a balm for the heart to see her big smile and look of happiness when she unwrapped a gift. For Azzurra, it was love at first unwrapping!
From that moment on, Azzurra and the doll became inseparable. This was strangely unusual, given that at that age children tended to tire quickly of toys. Belinda thought it was a passing phase and that sooner or later she would move on to new games.
The doll sang a little song that repeated: "Shimmer and Shine oh oh oh look how many toys I've got!" or it said: "Shimmer and Shine oh oh oh shine with me!" or other phrases that seemed harmless, just a game. Azzurra immediately named her "Shimmy."
The first oddities began slowly, creeping in like a blade of grass between the cracks in the floor. Belinda and Elia noticed that often, late at night, they would hear Shimmy's metallic little voice in the distance.
One evening, after dinner, Belinda was in the study embroidering the final motif for Litha. She was about to turn off the light when she clearly heard Shimmy's refrain coming from Azzurra's room. "Shimmer and Shine oh oh oh shine with me!"
Belinda headed to the child's room. Azzurra was sleeping soundly. The doll was on the chair, perfectly still.
Belinda picked up Shimmy, shook her, pressed the small button on the back: no sound. The doll had a motion sensor that needed to be activated, but the child hadn't touched it and she herself hadn't turned it on. She decided sleep was playing tricks on her. She took out the batteries and placed Shimmy on a high shelf.
But the voices did not cease.
The next morning, Elia was the first to wake up. While preparing coffee, he clearly heard a cheerful and repetitive melody that seemed to come from the kitchen. It was Shimmy's song. Elia went to check. He found the doll sitting on the table, perfectly illuminated by the sun, humming softly. The batteries, which Belinda had removed the night before, were back in their place, in the compartment on her back.
"But how the devil is that possible?" Elia muttered, feeling a cold shiver despite the August heat. He looked at the closed kitchen, the doll inanimate a moment before and now strangely animated. He immediately took it away, removed the batteries again, and threw them into the trash.
The element of disturbance became more insistent. Shimmy wasn't just noisy; she was possessive. Azzurra began to isolate herself from the rest of the family, preferring long conversations with the doll sitting on the bed.
One afternoon, Azzurra was sitting on her bed playing with Shimmy. She talked to her very often, and the doll always repeated the usual phrases, but that day, the conversation deviated in a subtle but unsettling way.
"Shimmy, shall we play with the sandcastle?" Azzurra asked.
The doll, without any switch being touched, replied in her mechanical little voice, but the tone was slightly distorted.
"Shimmer and Shine oh oh oh, castles are useless, walls always fall down."
Azzurra frowned. "But walls are beautiful, Papa Elia always fixes them."
The doll just kept repeating in a loop until Azzurra gave in. "Shimmer and Shine oh oh oh, look only at me."
Belinda began to worry seriously, not about the doll itself, but about the influence it was exerting on her daughter. Azzurra's open smile grew rare. The child had become pale, with dark shadows under her eyes, and often talked in her sleep, repeating verses of the little song.
When Belinda found an unsettling drawing by Azzurra – a black rainbow with a doll in the center that had her daughter's eyes – she decided enough was enough. This doll, which came from London, did not bring joy; it carried a strange, cold energy. It was the antithesis of the Wheel, which was meant to bring light and growth.
"This thing has to go," Belinda declared to Elia one evening, looking at the phone with which she was about to call Mattia. "It's as if it brought Grandpa Giovanni's shadow with it. Not the obsession with gold, but the obsession with control."
She contacted Mattia. The conversation was tense. Mattia, in London, didn't understand the panic. It was just a doll.
"No, Mattia, it's not just a toy. It talks by itself, I take the batteries out and I find them back in, and it's changing Azzurra. You have to take it back. You need to have it analyzed. I will ship it to you, it's the only way to get it away from Azzurra without traumatizing her."
Mattia, hearing the desperation in his sister's voice, agreed, albeit skeptically. Belinda prepared the package. It wasn't a package for a gift, but a domestic exorcism. She used the old ribbon that had wrapped Il Faro's metal box, the same one that had marked the end of her suffering. She put Shimmy in the box, making sure to wrap her tightly in the raw fabric from the workshop.
The courier returned the next day. Belinda handed over the heavy package, containing Shimmy and her unsettling melodies, to be shipped to London, far from the Villetta and Azzurra's dreams.
As the courier's car drove away along the dusty lane of the citrus groves, Belinda heard, carried by a very brief gust of wind, a faint and distorted whisper, distant and metallic, that seemed to mock her: "Scintillare e brillare... oh oh oh, you can't hide it..."