Page 68 of The Sicilian Inheritance

Agata took something out of her pocket and popped it into her mouth. It could have been another pill or a jelly bean.

“That cave is where I discovered the first image I ever saw of Astarte. And right down the road from it, in a tiny abandoned stone house, is where I discovered your relative’s diary.”

“Wait. You’re the one who found Serafina’s diary?”

“I did. You have seen it?”

“I found it in Giusy’s apartment.” Somehow I didn’t have it left in me to lie. “Why did you give it to Giusy?”

Agata sighed. “Oh, Giusy! Our relationship is so complicated. She works so hard. Tries so hard. But she has a darkness to her. When I was first discovering things about Astarte, the goddess, Giusy became completely obsessed with everything new that I learned. It made sense. Giusy’s husband used to beat the hell out of her. One time he kicked her ankle so hard it shattered. The doctors put it back together and she walked with a cane for many years. Sometimes she still does even though she is healed. Maybe it is a reminder to herself or to other people in town that she is a survivor. The idea of Astarte made her feel like she had some power in a world where she had none. But she took it too far. We let her take it too far.”

“What do you mean?”

“That is when Giusy’s husband disappeared.”

“I thought her husband left her.”

“Oh, no. He is gone.” She said this with the certainty of someone who witnessed the act of removing him from this earth with their own eyes.

“Did she kill him?” I asked carefully.

“All I can tell you is there is no way he could have survived. We did what we had to do to protect her. He would have killed her if we hadn’t,” Agata said sadly but without remorse.

I remembered Giusy saying that she made sure her husband wouldn’t return. I wanted to know more, but I was exhausted and needed to keep the focus on Serafina. “So why did you give Giusy the diary?”

“She told me she had talked to a relative of Serafina Forte who might come to the island and maybe they would find it useful. That is you, by the way.”

“Actually, it was my aunt Rose she talked to. But whatever.”

“I was fascinated by the diary. I grew up hearing about Serafina as a cautionary story. What happens when a woman is left alone to her own devices, how quickly she loses her honor. Finding her diary was like a gift to me, a reminder of the importance of the work that I do, the importance of women writing their own histories and legacies. That is why I wanted to show you this place.”

“But why would you give the diary away?”

“I gave the diary to Giusy in a moment of weakness. She knows how to say the right things to make me afraid of her. But I kept many of the pages.”

The ripped-out pages, the words that might help me prove that Serafina had been given the land fair and square, the ones that might reveal who murdered her.

Agata continued. “In Caltabellessa they say your great-grandmother was a witch and a whore, but she was really a doctor, a healer, and a woman mostly abandoned by her husband as he sought his fortunes in America. She saved the lives of countless people in that village. She probably saved hundreds from being completely wiped out by a terrible flu with the precautions she put in place for cleanliness and germs. She was a hero and they murdered her. I was the one who found the police report too.”

“Then you know who murdered Serafina?”

“I do not. After I found the diary, I talked to some of the older women in the town. Some say Serafina’s lover did it to save himself. Some believe it was the family of her lover’s wife or maybe even the wife herself, even though I can’t imagine that. But I think they’re all wrong. I think the simplest answer is always the best. I believe it was Serafina’s cuckolded husband. I believe he returned home because he heard the rumors, and he murdered her so that he wouldn’t have to bring her and his shame to America.”

I shivered in the damp cold.

Agata made her way to the back of the room. Her arm went deep into a hole I hadn’t noticed before and she brought out a large box that she unlocked with yet another key.

“I keep things in here. Things I want to be safe. I think the university searches my rooms sometimes. Or maybe I am just paranoid. I like to keep my important papers among the stories of these women.” She handed them to me with a flourish. “The missing pages of your relative’s diary. The ones that I kept.”

I immediately tried to make out the words in the dim light.

Agata lowered herself to the floor and stretched her thin body along the stone. She closed her eyes, ready for sleep.

“Let’s go back.” I rolled up the pages so I could shove them in my back pocket and grasped her forearm to try to lift her to her feet.

“Maybe we rest here?” She gazed up at me. From this perspective she looked like a small child and I had an immediate urge to tuck her into bed.

I managed to drag her to her feet and then to the door. An image of the Virgin Mary was carved into it. I said a silent prayer to her that I would make it out of this grave and back home to my daughter. I finally prodded Agata into the tunnels. She mumbled which way to turn, and I had no idea if any of it was right or if we’d be trapped in an endless maze beneath the city forever, but finally I found the stairs leading to the door.

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