Crimson Feathers

sette.

Fucking. mind. blank. 

I was halfway through my Anthropology essay but had now hit a roadblock. I was really enjoying the new found freedom that being a first-year university student brought, and the courses I chose were keeping me entertained for now while I decided what I wanted to do. But does anyone ever really know what they want to do? A few less essays to write would be great.  

I looked over at Nonno's notebook sitting on my bedside table. I hadn't said anything to anyone about my discovery of Evalina. Mum asked if I was coming down with something at the dinner table, as I was quieter than usual instead of chatting excitedly about my day. I just said I was frazzled after finding a dead chicken at the back of Nonni's garden. I knew it would be ages before anyone would wander down that way, and if the chicken hadn't been taken away already by the foxes that visited from the nearby scrub, it would be so decomposed that no one would be able to tell what had happened to it. I just couldn't look my Mum in the eye. How much about her parents did she know? Did she know anything? 

I reached for the notebook and flicked through it absent mindedly. Maybe the rest of my essay will appear in here, I thought sarcastically to myself. Just as I was about to close the book, I noticed a little tear in the inside back cover. I peeled it back to reveal a tattered black and white photo. It was a woman, stunning, she reminded me of Sophia Loren. On her lap were two children, a girl and a boy who both looked to be about 10 to 12 years old.

I turned the photo over and my heart skipped a beat. There, written in my Nonna's jagged cursive handwriting, said "Evalina Puro e lei bambini, 1957"

How was this possible? The woman in the photo looked like she was in her late thirties, but judging from the news article I had found, Evalina had died in her twenties. And 'her children'?  A news headline flashes in my head 'Ghost Gives Birth'. No, really...

What the fuck was going on? More secrets?