Alessia sat on the floor with her back against the old lathe and plaster wall cradling Silvio’s head against her chest. She was crying while gasping for air and her nose was running so badly it was starting to drip into the mop of dark curls on her son’s head.

  Lying huddled along the floor was a familiar position for her, she had spent many nights in her room or crouched at the top of the stairs leaning against the bumpy, smoke stained plaster walls.

  Usually, it had been during on of her parent’s fights if you could even call it a fight. When anyone got angry in this house it had always been Nonna Conti and whomever she was upset at usually stayed silent if they knew what they were dealing with.

  The old woman would rage and threaten without relent for hours at a time. Her fear of being the subject this anger had terrified Alessia into a lifetime of submission to the old woman.

  How could this happen? Her mother had placed the curse and now they were shooting through their windows and lighting the whole goddamn street on fire.

  The terror of so many nights past in this house had come flooding back to Alessia but this was much worse. She felt helpless and alone save for Silvio. This had to stop; she had to leave before she was burned alive or shot dead on the streets.

  “Mama, why are they shooting at us? Why do they come like this Mama? They are not afraid of you and they are gonna hurt us.

  There was no answer from Nonna Conti’s bedroom. Alessia could hear the shouts and yells from neighbors along the street as they tried to deal with the fire.

  “Fatevi indietro, restate indietro …it’s ok to burn, it’s not spreading….Non spostare la macchina...you will drive right over the flames…leave it ….let it burn”

  After a few moments Alessia felt sure that the shooting had stopped and they had gone. She could not believe that the girl from the farm could be doing all of this. Silvio had said they were barely any older than he was. They must have help and who ever it wasn’t at all afraid of them.

  She stood up after pushing Silvio aside. “Go back to your room Silvio and stay there.” Her son looked back at her with a mixture of fear, anger and embarrassment.

  Alessia saw that he was confused and unsure about what he should do next. “Don’t go outside Silvio. Everyone is blaming us for this. Don’t go outside. Wait for me in your room. Now go”.

  She turned and crept into her mothers bedroom. The room was dark and the row of flames flickered and danced outside alongside the parked cars. Alessia saw at once the crude purpose of the flames. No one would dare to try to pull their car out of the tightly packed street to pursue the shooter if it meant they had to maneuver on top of the flames.

  She felt as just as trapped as the vehicles behind the burning line of fire. No one was coming to save her and she had no where to go.

  Her mother was standing behind her old desk. She was still dressed in her day clothes and she was leaning heavily on both arms as she stared old the window. The flames projected an ominous pattern of dull oranges and yellows upon the ceiling. This could be hell thought Alessia, it might as well be, nothing could be worse than a lifetime trapped with he mother.

  “Mama, you have to stop this. You have to lift the curse…..”

  There was no answer from her mother, she just kept staring out the window.

  “Mama, are you listening to me, Mama…” the old woman slowly lifted up her left hand and held it up at Alessia but did not look at her, she was fixated on the street outside.

  Alessia crept up to the window from the side and risked a glimpse out onto the street. She realized too late that the floor was covered in glass and she felt the pinch as a long shard of glass cut into the bottom of her big toe.

  She ignored the pain for now, the scene outside was worse than she could have imagined. As she looked through the shattered windows out onto the street she saw that several of the older men had somehow fashioned makeshift torches using whatever they had at hand.

  At least five or six of these men were on the other side of the street, it was hard to tell from her hiding spot along the inside wall. They were standing along the sidewalk holding up burning rags wrapped around old umbrellas or walking sticks.

  They had pulled the rags on the end of their sticks along the burning mess on the street to create their torches and now they stood, side by side, staring up at their house. The torches were held in front of their faces to hide their identities, and they stood together as a group.

  “Oh Jesus Mama, they are warning us now. They are going to run us out of the house or worse. They are gonna kill us Mama, I just know it.”

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  “No, non oseranno…. they won’t dare”.

  Alessia stared at her Mother, she wasn’t sure if the old woman was really answering her or just trying to convince herself, but she knew that she was seeing fear, real in fear in her mother for the first time that she could ever remember.

  Paul had driven all the way across town back to the cab yard in Allston with an angry silence suffocating the interior of the old cab. He had not spoken after his initial question and Alanah had not bothered to answer him. In her mind it was pretty obvious what had happened back there and she couldn’t really explain what had happened.

  “Fuck Paul, it’s bad enough with him not saying anything so please don’t you start as well or I’m going to jump out and friggin’ walk home…. wherever the hell that is.”

  Paul gripped the wheel tightly in his hand and is body stiffened and then relaxed slightly as he let out a long slow breath through his lips as if he was blowing out a candle in slow motion.

  Alanah was just about ready to start in on him again when he finally broke his silence.

  “Why…. why did you start shooting? That was NOT the plan. I was NOT in place for you to be shooting. You had NO goddamn cover and all it would have taken was ONE car…just one car to block us in and then what?”

  “Look I…”

  “No, you don’t understand, even just one unexpected car, taxi, delivery truck…whatever and we can’t get away. Those streets are way too tight. I don’t care if it was two in the goddamn morning… you should not have started shooting”.

  “She was up there Paul, Amos heard her watching us, listening to us in her room. I didn’t want to just tag her door with her watching us like we’re just a bunch of kids and I was just pissed off at what she had done to Amos so I just kinda….. freaked out.”

  “I wanted to do something quick so I decided to shoot up through her windows into her ceiling and it’s not like anyone got hurt or anything.”

  After there was no answer from Paul she went on. “I think it was really effective, It got her attention and I bet we scared the hell out of her.”

  “Her heart started racing and you woke up two others in the house. They were crawling on the floor upstairs as we left”. Alanah looked over at Amos but that seemed to be all that he was going to offer on the subject and she was pretty surprised that he even had that much to say.

  “Look, I understand. I do, I really do but when we change the plan…that’s when we fuck up and we can’t afford to fuck up.” Paul reached back and rubbed the back of his neck for a few moments before he needed both hands on the wheel again to turn the big car down the next street.

  “Anyway, it’s ok, that is the last of em’, no more dangerous runs into their territory anymore. If they haven’t got the message by now then they are never gonna get it.”

  “So what do we do now?” Alanah asked the question with both a bit of apprehension and relief in her voice.

  “We wait, there is just one more thing to do to really amp up the pressure on the old woman but trust me, this one is gonna be easy.”

  Paul and Alanah were both surprised and happy to see that Jim was waiting for them outside of Paul’s house. He had been stretched out across the bench seat in his truck cab, enjoying a novel in the warm June night. At least he had been, but he had fallen asleep and he was just waking up when Paul pulled up onto the gravel driveway in his Jeep.

  “Jim, it’s great to see you, is everything all right? How is the farm and Simon and Andi?”

  Jim climbed stiffy out of the cab of his truck and gave Alanah a hug while answering all of her questions at once.

  “They’re fine, no issues at the farm, no issues with me other than worry. I got tired of waiting to hear from you so I thought I’d just come out and catch you as soon as you got back. There’s also somethin’ else I wanted to discuss with you, it’s pretty important actually.”

  Jim had brought rolls, butter and some cooked sausage which they all shared as they sat at Paul’s table. He was careful not to tell Jim too much about the earlier events of the night fearing that Jim would really not approve of the risks they were taking.

  Instead, Paul had quickly shifted the conversation to get Jim to speak freely about what was on his mind.

  “I’ve done a lot of readin’ and I made a bunch of calls. I really didn’t believe in anything like curses or nothin’ like that before but since I’ve seen what has happened to Amos I’ve changed my mind.”

  “A lot of people I’ve spoken to just think this is all just nonsense but I’ve found a couple of folks who don’t doubt what I’ve told em’ at all.” Jim leaned forwards and looked directly at Alanah.

  “Look, Amos is still in there. He is getting smothered by the curse but the Amos we know is still in there. We’ve got to help him stay in place as long as he can before he slips away completely. He needs us to constantly remind him of who he is, who he was. He probably won’t respond or show you that he knows but it’s gonna help. It’s gonna help a lot.”

  Alanah had sat up in her chair, her face had become very serious. “But then what, how long can we keep doing this before it’s too late?”

  “I don’t know, no one does but it’ll help, it will slow everything down and there’s a better chance that when we can get the curse reversed he’ll still be there.”

  Jim could see that Paul and Alanah had a lot of doubt and so did he to be honest. The boy sitting at the table looked like Amos but that was it, He might as well have been a store mannequin at this point. “Look, the other good news is that the curse can be reversed. They all can but it’s not easy but we gotta’ keep trying.”

  Alanah leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. To her this was another grim reminder of how little she had left in the world. “I barely know Amos. We don’t have any photos together and we’ve never even celebrated a birthday together. I don’t even know his birthday…Jesus.”

  “Hang on Alanah….I mean to be fair, you have done a lot with Amos but not all of it has been good memories for you two. I think you should take him back to your building. Show him around your place. Remind him of all that he created for you both.”

  Jim shifted on his chair. “I don’t know him all that well either, but I knew his Dad before and that gave me an idea. Since he doesn’t get tired I thought I would come an’ take me with me for the morning. I’ve got a good idea about how I can connect with the old Amos from years past.”

  “That’s just as well then.” Paul yawned and stretched his arms out over his head. “It would be good for you to take Amos out for the morning. Alanah and I need to get some sleep and then we’ve got one last errand to run but don’t worry, this one is real simple but it’s gonna be very effective.”