I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what people are saying.
But there is one thing that I know: I need to be alive to return.
The sunlight was soft, spotting the ground of the barn with a number of shades of yellow and brown. The three horses whinnied and huffed, woken by the light hours before. The air was warm, not overly humid, and birds chirped serenely outside. Summer was about to end, but Autumn had yet to set in.
Adalina grudgingly applauded the man (boy?) on being somewhat invisible. She couldn't see him sleeping in the place, at all. But he'd spent almost three months in her father's farm, and Adalina knew his favorite hiding spot, not that he hid much. He was simply a natural wallflower, and even Adalina's mother was somewhat surprised by how he simply seemed to fade into, and even from, the background.
"Signore Tonno," she called rigidly. Despite him being quiet, hard-working and terribly helpful, she had never seen him smile fully. She didn't trust people she had never seen smile, not even once. Furthermore, when he spoke, he kept his hands neatly folded and never raised his voice, always a soft murmur. It was this, more than the accented Italian he spoke, that told her he wasn't from there. She didn't quite know where he could come from, as he did seem to have some of their ancestry- the shape of his eyes and the rounded cheekbones- but he didn't speak as an Italian. Adalina could well remember how her relatives were always loud and gesturing wildly, it was a part of them.
Tie down an Italian's hands, and you made them mute.
This... boy might have italian ancestry, but he hadn't been raised as one. Her father more than once said the brat did act like one, but she had no idea what he meant by that. The boy was almost always saying the wrong words, really, and she was always irritated with him- if only he knew how italians spoke with their hands as well with their mouths, maybe he'd learn something and be easier to understand.
Not that she wanted to understand him.
Now if only she could figure out why her father grinned so stupidly when she insisted on that. "Signore Tonno! If you don't wake up and come out, I'm going to drop a whole bucket of water on your head!"
The rustle made her turn her head. His tangled brown hair came into view, and she wondered when he would stop being so weird- no one but he was stupid enough to sleep behind the horses inside the stall. The flat look in his eyes made her glare.
"Signore Tonno," she called, her voice laced with sarcasm, "If your highness is ready, please to grace us with your presence at the breakfast table," and she exaggeratedly twirled her hands and mocked a bow. The man- brat- blinked slowly at her.
"Good morning to you too, signorina," he murmured softly, standing shakily and blinking the sleep out of his eyes, "I'm sorry for taking so long."
She pushed down her unease at how... malleable he seemed, easy to bend out of the way. That was the kind of person she detested- those who easily abandoned their own convictions so as to not break, or to not die. Like the word sleazy- it slithered up one's throat and down the tongue to flop wetly onto the ground and slither away like a vermin. That was what she was convinced Signore Tonno was, a sleazy, cowardly and deceiving man.
He twitched his lips lightly at her, a disgusting parody of a tiny smile, as if he knew what she thought of him and found it amusing, and she glared back at him.
Really, she thought with distaste, what kind of person was named after a tuna fish, of all things.
...
Breakfast was what it had always been: Her father animatedly telling stories of his work, her mother boisterously making sure everyone ate, her four siblings laughing in answer to her father's stories, and everyone gesticulating wildly as they spoke loudly.
Except for the wallflower, Signore Tonno.
Adalina tried, really tried, but the more she watched the boy- because a brat that young wasn't, couldn't, be called a man- the more she became irritated by how he simply seemed as if he was observing their antics, as if he was watching an interesting play. He acted more like an outside observer than a participant sitting at the same table, and it made her eye twitch.
And her irritation is what probably fueled her next actions.
Once her mother had graciously collected the empty plates, beaming at the unspoken praise to her food, and Adalina quickly excused herself before pulling a fast one and taking hold of one of Signore Tonno's ears and pulling.
She had never been more satisfied than the moment he squealed like a girl under her hands.
Her father was laughing loudly as her youngest brother encouraged her with a mischievous grin. Her sister was giggling- she would deal with her later- and her other two brothers looked simply dumbfounded. She hummed before dragging the protesting boy with her to the barn.
He looked more disheveled than she had ever seen him when she forced him to sit on the hay he so liked to sleep in, and seemed to be holding himself back from protesting. She scoffed.
"Say it," and she was treated to a strange, shocked gaze. It was more emotion than he had shown in the said three months he'd spent under her father's care, "You're pissed, so say it." Strangely enough, the feeling that she might be playing with something dangerous and out of her league came only once the words were out of her mouth. It faded as the boy blinked and understanding seeped into his eyes. He stared at her, mouth falling open slightly, and eyes wide in some kind of disbelief.
And then he began to laugh. Adalina was furious, and she prepared to hit him, before she noticed the slightly hysterical edge to his laughter. She lowered her hand and waited.
"I'm sorry," he gasped, and finally she could see a bit of his italian blood peeking through in the exaggerated wave he gave her along with the apology, a wave of a hand that meant I didn't mean any offense, "Sorry, I just..." his hands gestured shyly, and she finally saw what her father had been talking about.
The boy's gestures practically screamed that he didn't quite know how to interact with people. Adalina rested a hand against her cheek in some sort of exasperation, feeling more and more like calling the brat an idiot.
"I'm sorry, signorina, I just..." and something in the way he flapped his hands around told her more about him than his words ever could. I'm lost, it told her, her hand dropping from her cheek as she narrowed her eyes, letting the boy's words wash over her as she observed his gestures, This isn't my home. I don't know how to go back to my home. But I need to go back.
She released a startled breath that made him quiet down. "You do know we speak with our hands, right?" he nodded, almost confused, "Now I get why papa says you're sorta Italian. You don't notice, but you speak with your hands too. Less than most of us, but you do."
"Ah," he said eloquently, but she could see he had caught a bit of what she meant. She watched as he lowered his head and examined his hands quietly. "I... see." He clenched his hands and lowered them over his knees, and she understood I shouldn't be talking this much. I shouldn't be read this easily.
"If you don't want to be read easily," she answered him, "Then you have to pay attention to your body, too. You have to make sure you're saying only what you want to say." She huffed, "At least one good thing of you acting like some kind of ornament penguin: you know how to observe people," it was strange to talk this eloquently without using much of her hands, but she now knew he wouldn't understand otherwise. "Observing people and how they act is the best way to learn how to talk with your hands."
Adalina couldn't help but be surprised by the smile she received in return for her attention- a smile that, although didn't seem the happiest the boy could make, was a true smile she hadn't seen before. It lit up the boy's entire face, making her blush, and it was almost like standing on top of the tallest tower and reaching for the sky- peace and serenity all rolled into happiness.
...
They should have known.
They should have all known, especially her father. He was the one that worked for the mafia. he was the one who didn't speak about his darker jobs.
He was the one who sometimes appeared with money without a clear origin.
When the men came, they were swift and to the point. Adalina had watched, numb, as her father was first tortured for the location of money, then killed. Her mother had taken the rape and torture with dignity, but she died as well.
Her older brother was the stupider of the five, and died protecting her.
Adalina didn't fight. She didn't scream, didn't run. But when they dragged her outside, bloody and beaten, she looked up and saw flat autumn eyes looking at her. Signore Tonno was hidden in the nearby forest, outside the men's sight, eyes locked with hers.
It was strange to find some sort of comfort in him, if only because his eyes didn't burn with pity or something of the sort. Adalina could think nothing was wrong, looking into his eyes. Before she could wonder why he wasn't trying to save her, or why she didn't feel all that betrayed, she saw her sister unconscious on his shoulder, and her two younger brothers terrified and hiding their faces in his clothes.
He was watching her, she knew, and committing everything about her, about her parents, about her murderers to memory. He was fierce, but either he saved the three siblings in his hands, or he died trying to retrieve her.
She smiled.
Signore Tonno didn't close his eyes even when the girl's blue eyes shone with a last tear and she fell forward with a bullet hole on her forehead.