| Romance Fiction posted September 11, 2025 | Chapters: |
...10 11 -12- 13... 
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Anna's Discovery
A chapter in the book Yesterday's Dreams
By The Sea Chap 4
by Begin Again
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By the time Anna and Luca returned from the market, most of the guests had finished their meal and gone upstairs for a rest. Plates sat pushed aside, the courtyard slipping into the quiet heat of the afternoon.
Rosa was waiting. She came out of the kitchen with a platter of pasta glistening in olive oil, bowls of tomatoes and cucumbers, and bread still warm from the oven. "Sit, sit," she urged, bustling around the long table. "You must eat. In Sicily, no one leaves the table hungry."
Luca pulled out a chair for Anna before dropping into his own. "She means we don't let anyone leave until they've eaten for two."
Rosa swatted at him with her towel, her earrings swinging. "He jokes, but it is true. When he was small, he hid olives in his pockets. I washed a dozen shirts with stains. Disastro."
"Betrayed by my own mother," Luca sighed, though his eyes danced.
"By your own laundry," Rosa corrected, setting cheese by Anna's plate. "Eat. The sheep that gave this milk knew what they were doing."
The pasta smelled of garlic, the tomatoes of sun and salt. The bread broke open in soft clouds. With her first bite, Anna felt her shoulders loosen. After the strangeness of the garden at Saint Lucia, the rhythm of lunch — the scrape of chairs, the clink of glasses, Rosa's humming — was a relief.
"This vine," Anna asked, glancing at the grape leaves above them, "did your husband plant it?"
Rosa's hands stilled. "He did. He said a house without shade forgets to rest. In October, I make jam from the grapes and curse him for leaving me more work — but I thank him for the shade."
Anna thought of Elizabeth coaxing morning glories up a trellis in her tiny yard. "My grandmother would have liked this."
"Your Elizabeth," Rosa said softly. "Yes. I think so."
A shadow crossed the gate. Isabella stood there with a basket on her arm, a red scarf at her throat. She leaned against the stone, her smile pleasant but her eyes sharp.
"Back already?" she asked. "The market usually holds people longer."
"For lunch," Luca replied evenly. "My mother insisted."
"Of course she did." Isabella's smile tilted toward Anna. "You'll learn, American, Rosa's lunches are famous for kidnapping. You sit, you eat, you forget where you were going."
"I'm enjoying where I am," Anna said carefully.
"Good. Then Sicily will keep you for a little while." Isabella's tone carried just enough edge to sting. She shifted her basket. "Luca, my aunt's basil — come by later."
"After I wash the plates you promised to help with," Rosa cut in.
Isabella's lashes flicked. "Zia will be disappointed."
"She always is," Rosa said, flicking her towel. "Later."
Isabella dipped her head and moved on. Luca chuckled. "She likes everyone to know she has a garden of basil."
"And opinions," Rosa muttered. "Eat."
When the bowls were nearly empty, Rosa rested her chin in her hand, as if shaping the afternoon in her mind.
"This day, you must go to Antonio Libri. The bookseller. He is odd but kind. His shop is full of things that waited too long for someone to love them again." She tapped the table. "The past has a way of revisiting from time to time."
"Mamma sends all her strays to Antonio," Luca said. "So she can mop in peace."
"And they always return with stories," Rosa insisted. She brought a bowl of figs, their ruby centers glistening. "Take an umbrella if the sun bites. And if you get lost, listen for the sea — it will point you home." She laughed, "Or ask — everyone knows La Casa sul Mare."
Anna thanked her. Rosa kissed the air beside each cheek and shooed her toward the lane. "Go before I find more food. You need a little fattening, my child. Do they not feed you in America?"
Luca laughed. "Mama, leave the girl alone." He let his eyes move to Anna before adding, "She looks very pleasing to the eye." Seeing her blush, he carried the dishes to the kitchen, leaving Anna with a warm feeling.
*****
The morning had softened into afternoon. People pulled the shutters halfway closed, blocking the sun. Beaded curtains lifted now and then when a breeze came through. Two boys kicked a ball down a side street; an old man shook his newspaper each time it hit the wall. A woman leaned from a balcony to call for her daughter, her voice carrying across the stones.
Bells marked the hour, then the silence returned.
Anna let herself wander, keeping track of her turns — a tile with blue fish, a stairway painted with flowers, the bakery that smelled faintly of oranges. She paused at a shrine in a wall — a saint's faded face, a saucer with coins, a sprig of rosemary. Her chest tightened. People left these offerings to steady their lives, to ask for protection or comfort.
Elizabeth would have lit a candle there. Margaret would have called it clutter.
Further along, she slowed at a fruit stall where a woman stacked peaches into neat pyramids. The vendor caught Anna's eye and smiled, pressing one into her hand. Anna tried to offer the woman coins, but she shook her head. "For your walk," she murmured. The fruit warmed Anna's palm, and she carried it as if it were more than food.
She lost her bearings once. A man carrying a bundle of reeds over his shoulder came toward her. His steps were heavy, but he stopped when she called softly, "Excuse me."
He turned, squinting at her, then babbled in Italian, his hands moving as much as his mouth. She caught only a few words but heard him say, "Americana dagli Stati Uniti."
Anna tried again. "The bookshop — Antonio Libri?"
The man waved one hand as if to apologize and called out to a boy chasing a ball nearby.
"Si, Papa," the boy answered with a respectful nod before trotting over. The man gestured toward Anna and spoke again, his tone warm and animated.
The boy smiled at her. "Papa Gambini says to tell you he is sorry he cannot speak the language of the beautiful lady, but he asks that I help."
Heat rose in Anna's cheeks. She nodded to the old man. "Grazie."
The boy grinned. "The bookstore? Old things. Boring." He gave a quick chuckle. "But if that's what you want — go down two, then left. Look for the sign shaped like a stack of books. You cannot miss it."
"Thank you," Anna said, touched by the exchange.
The boy darted back to his ball, and Papa Gambini shifted the reeds on his shoulder with a satisfied nod before continuing down the lane.
She followed the directions until she saw it — a wooden sign shaped like three books standing side by side, their spines tilted but proud. The black letters, though faded, still read Antonio Libri.
The bell over the door gave a single chime as she stepped inside. The air was close, the kind that came from a room shut too long. Books filled every surface, their covers faded and corners bent, stacks leaning as if one more would topple them. Some had spines so cracked that the titles were nearly gone. A gray cat slept on a pile of maps, its paw twitching in a dream.
"Un momento," a man called from the back.
Anna moved slowly, letting her hand hover over spines she could not read. A tray of prayer cards sat on the counter, saints painted in fading gold. On a chair, a child's primer lay open with an ink blot spreading across the page.
She almost missed it. Someone had shoved a worn leather journal sideways between two larger books, hiding its spine and making its pages jut out as if begging to be read. The cover was scuffed, the corners frayed, the kind of thing most people would pass over without a second glance. But something held Anna still, as if the book had been waiting for her.
She bent to straighten it. A cold chill ran through her, like an icy finger pressing against her skin. Across the page, in large, deliberate letters, were the words —
The soldiers are coming.
Her pulse jumped. She brushed the dust away and read more —
He warned me, and I feel it in the silence of the streets. I look at her tiny face and tell her to be brave, though I am not. I carry another life inside me, too small to run, too innocent to fight. One child I will hide in the wall — the other I must carry with me, wherever they take me. I pray Elizabeth will understand, and that at least one of them will live.
Anna's throat closed. She snapped the book shut, heart pounding, then turned it over with trembling hands.
Property of Sophia Rossi.
The name blurred, cleared, then blurred again as her eyes filled with tears. She clutched the journal against her chest. For a moment, the floor seemed to shift beneath her, as if the whole room had tilted.
Was it possible? Could this worn journal hold Sophia's secrets?
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