Sicilian October arrived with a sweetness that tasted of forgiveness. Gone was the vengeful heat of August, replaced by a golden warmth that seemed intent on healing the earth's wounds. At the Villa, the rhythm of the days had returned to the rustle of fabrics and the steady stream of messages from London. Mattia and Erica were finally home, back in their dance studio. Belinda smiled as she watched the videos they sent: Mattia, his hips tracing flawless Caribbean rhythms; Erica, as lithe as a reed, teaching belly dance and transforming every movement into a hymn to life. The masters of rhythm had returned, and it seemed the shadow of Notting Hill had been sucked away by the swirling motion of their steps.
Belinda was in her workshop when her phone vibrated. The name on the display was a powerful call from a life that felt as though it belonged to another era.
"Arianna?" she answered, a knot forming in her throat.
"Beli! Listen, Lake Como is beautiful, but I looked at it this morning and realized it tastes of nothing. No salt, no volcano. I took a flight. I'm at Fontanarossa—come pick me up before I start speaking dialect to the flight attendants!"
When Belinda reached the arrivals terminal, she spotted her immediately. Arianna towered over the crowd, a presence that could not go unnoticed. She was exactly as Belinda remembered her, only more intense. Where Belinda was petite and demure, Arianna was a lithe reed, incredibly slender and even thinner than her friend. Her olive complexion was very dark, almost amber, providing an almost surreal contrast to the cascade of deep mahogany hair—dark and vibrant—that fell over her shoulders. They had been friends forever, daughters of those neighboring villages that chase one another along the Ionian coast, raised among black pebbles and the scent of orange blossoms.
Belinda paused for a moment, struck by her friend's wild beauty. "Bedda fimmina!" she exclaimed with all the love she felt—using the Sicilian tribute to both strength and beauty.
Arianna burst into laughter, dropped her suitcase, and swept her into an embrace that smelled of the wind and freedom. "You're still my little Beli," she whispered, holding her tight. "But you smell different. You smell like someone who has won a war."
The next morning, before the sun could even peek over the horizon, the two friends loaded their fishing rods into the car. Nonna Anna lived on the next street over in her little house filled with hanging herbs, and the entire neighborhood was silent. Belinda and Elia had found their own balance, but that morning, Belinda needed only Arianna and the sea.
They arrived at the Riviera beach while the sky was still a tender violet. The air was crisp, but one could feel that the October sun would soon begin to warm the world. They settled onto the pebbles, their feet still bare despite the season. Arianna, her mahogany hair gathered in an untidy ponytail, handled her fishing rod with the mastery of someone who had never forgotten her roots.
"My father always said that fishing is like teaching children," Arianna said, casting her bait far out into the deep blue. "You must have patience and never jerk the line. You have to wait for them to come to you."
Belinda cast her own line and sat beside her. The sun began to rise—a blade of gold that transformed the surface of the sea into a shimmering mirror. The warmth began to caress their shoulders, and in the silence rhythmic with the waves, Belinda began to tell her story.
She spoke of the doll, of Shimmy's voice, of the fear she had seen in Azzurra's eyes, and of the rite of the stones. She spoke of how she had feared the "Great Rewriting" might truly erase their happiness.
Arianna listened, her eyes fixed on the float bobbing in the distance. Her slender silhouette made her look like an elegant shadow against the morning light. "You know, Beli," she said after a long silence, "at school, I've learned that stories are never truly erased. They can only be corrected. You didn't destroy the past; you just added a footnote so powerful that it made the rest of the page insignificant. You were right to call Mattia and Erica. Dance is the best medicine against the rigidity of evil. Evil is immobile; life moves."
"I was afraid I wouldn't live up to Nonna Anna's protection," Belinda confessed, finally feeling the sun's heat warm her skin.
"Nonna Anna lives on the next street, but her shadow is long, I know," Arianna replied with a smile. "But you are different. She is the earth; you are the thread. She stops things; you unite them. Look at this sea, Beli. It's the same one we looked at as girls, when we dreamed of escaping our little coastal villages. I escaped to Como, but every time I look at the lake, I search for this blue. I never find it."
As they spoke, Arianna's rod gave a jolt. With a swift, sure movement, she began to reel in the line. A small silvery fish darted out of the water, reflecting the sun's rays. Arianna took it gently, looked at it for a moment, and then threw it back into the sea.
"Why did you do that?" Belinda asked, surprised.
"Because today we aren't here to eat, but to release," Arianna replied with a mischievous glint in her eye. "And besides, he's too small for the two of us."
They laughed together, and it was a laugh that seemed to permanently clear the air. They stayed there for hours as the October sun climbed high, turning the water crystal clear. They talked of lives suspended between North and South, of Arianna's exhaustion with the schoolchildren, and of her craving for freedom that drove her to live like the wind—without lasting ties, save for her land and her lifelong friend.
"Come visit me in Como sometime," Arianna suggested. "It would do you good to see a different horizon. There, the mountains embrace you in a strange way; they make you feel protected, but also small."
"Perhaps I will," Belinda replied. "But for now, I feel my home is here. I've only just finished mending it; I can't leave it just yet."
They returned to the Villa around noon, their skin smelling of salt and their eyes full of light. Elia was waiting for them on the veranda with coffee ready. Azzurra ran to meet Arianna, enchanted by this "red-haired aunt" who looked as if she had stepped out of a storybook.
Before returning to her workshop, Belinda paused to look at the sea from the window. She took up her notebook and, beneath her reflections on the Equinox, she wrote:
"The sea of the Riviera never betrays. You can move away, you can forget the taste of salt, but it stays there, cradling your secrets until you are ready to take them back. Arianna has returned like the long wave of October: she does not destroy, she smooths the pebbles of my soul."
She finally felt at peace. The battle against the shadows had ended—not with a cry, but with a whisper of waves and a laugh between friends.