The early morning quiet was slowly disrupted as the firetrucks wound their way through the tight streets of the North End. The sirens grew louder and more persistent with the different departments overlaying their distinct wails on top of each other creating a shrill blanket of noise.

  Narrow streets and brick building bounced and amplified the sounds throughout the neighborhood and soon most everyone was awake and wondering what the disaster was.

  Fire engines with their sirens making their signature long, slow, continuous rise and fall in pitch created the most amount of dread in the North end.

  Streets were over crowded, building and townhomes were almost always attached and very old. A lack of modern building standards allowed these types of structure to easily catch aflame and quickly spread the destruction to their neighbors.

  Within minutes of the arrival of the sirens, the streets around the Rosetta bakery started to fill with onlookers and gawkers who wanted to understand where the fire was and why it did not seem to be spreading.

  There was however, a lot of smoke. The first firemen on the scene had broken the ground floor windows to release heat and toxic gases. Copious amount of thick black smoke had poured out of the building but very little heat was coming from the building and there were no visible flames.

  The smoke smelled horrible, this was most unusual for a non-industrial building and the first responders were unwilling to go inside without full masks and a self contained breathing apparatus.

  While they waited for additional fire crews the crowds watching increased in number and they soon noticed that the firemen could not open the doors and neither could the baker who had called them in the first place. Somehow the doors were now locked from the inside and his keys which had worked the previous evening could only work the lock but not open the door.

  As the crowd shifted to watch the firefighters try the side door a number of people noticed the newly formed scar on the brick wall.

  “Hey, look at that on the wall. You see what written there? “Dio mio....it says The Curse Will Hurt You All.”

  The focus quickly shifted from the smoke pouring out of the building to the blistered and scarred bricks on the wall. The crowd became much more excited and animated and soon everyone who had a phone was calling someone, no matter that it was not even yet five in the morning.

  Alessia got the call just minutes after the message was discovered. It would have been sooner but it took multiple attempts to reach her and Nonna Conti shouting down the hall and thumping her walking stick on the floor to wake Alessia.

  As she sat up in bed she tried to orient herself. Her phone had just finished ringing and her mother was pounding the floor and yelling for her. While she fumbled for the phone atop her nightstand she called out to her mother.

  “Jesus mom, what do you want ….I just went to bed…I’m so tired”.

  “You phone…some is calling, answer your phone, it will be important.”

  “No one is calling now Momma, it’s four in the morning…”

  The trill of her ringtone ended her sentence. She grabbed the phone but didn’t recognize the number but she no choice.

  “Yeah, what is it……?”

  The voice on the other end was excited and high pitched. It was the daughter of one of the older women who frequented the bakery and took in all the gossip. It did not take her long to track down Alessia’s number so she could be the first to give her the news.

  Alessia was first shocked and then frightened when she heard what was written on the wall. There had been no sign of the boy since her mother had cursed him, but someone was targeting la Famigilia and they were doing a very good job of it.

  Shit Mama…what have you done…they are not coming to you how you thought they would. They’re not on their knees, they have their fists out and they’re looking for you.

  “Alessia, Alessia…what is it? Who is calling. What do they want?”

  Even though she was exhausted Alessia was wide awake now. She grabbed her old red robe from the dressing table and walked down the worn uneven floor to her mother’s room.

  The old woman was sitting upright in her bed with her walking stick in her gnarled, bony hand.

  “Who called, what happened?”

  “Someone locked up the Rosetta Bakery and set fires inside. They used something to burn a message to you on the side of the building.”

  “How do you know? How do you know the message is to me?”

  The excitement and focus her mother had taken from the curse had not abated much at all but now, for the first time, Alessia saw flickers of doubt beneath the hooded eyelids that were recessed so deeply into Nonna Conti’s ancient face.

  “Somehow they burnt The Curse Will Hurt You All into the bricks. Everyone is talking about that, no one even notices about the fire now.”

  The old woman considered what she had just heard. She stared ahead at Alessia. Her eyes were vacant and unfocused and Alessia briefly wondered, secretly hoped, that her mother had suffered a stroke.

  What a relief that would be. She could put her in a home, sell everything and leave and never come...

  For a while there wasn’t a response and then she spoke. “I need to know more, you go now and see what is happening, what the people are saying. Make Silvio go too but stay apart. I will talk to you both separately when you return.”

  Alessia hesitated, she was tired and she would be mobbed by onlookers who knew her as Nonna Conti’s daughter.”

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  “Go, go now. Don’t wait Alessia. They are afraid of the curse. They are afraid of me. Don’t forget that. They are afraid.”

  Alessia stared at her mother. She wasn’t sure who was more afraid. It did not seem like the boy and the girl were all that afraid. Maybe they were but this behavior was unexpected. Who could know what they were thinking?

  She turned and started off down the hall.

  “Silvio, Silvio get dressed. I need you to do somethin’ for me. Come talk to me in the kitchen”.

  A short while later Silvio eased up on his bicycle and walked the rest of the way up Salem Street because of the crowds of people lining the narrow sidewalk and the haphazard jumble of fire trucks, police cars and supervisor vehicles that clogged the street.

  A thick, greasy black smoke still billowed out of the building. All six windows on the front of the building had been broken open behind the bars and still the smoke poured out of the building in constant, steady plumes. The fire crew had managed to break open the front door but according to the commentary that travelled up and down the groups of onlookers, they shut it soon afterwards due to the smoke.

  Even with the personal breathing apparatus, no fireman was willing to go into the building. The lack of flames, heat and anyone in imminent danger had lowered their sense of urgency.

  The issue now was the smoke. No one knew what could be causing it or what health risks it might hold and so they decided to wait until the HAMZAT specialist would arrive to deal with the situation.

  As Silvio jostled amongst onlookers, he had to check his urge to go though pockets or feel for wallets. He was not here to steal or lift valuables and besides he remined himself he was on his home turf. After all, these were his people his community right?

  “La vecchia strega, it’s all her fault.”

  “She has lost control...”

  He had been brought up to believe that you are loyal to the community and la Famigilia and they will take care of you. That all sounded fine except that all now his community seemed to be really angry at his Nonna Conti and he was sure that anger would soon turn on his mother and then himself.

  “Why are we now cursed…?”

  “La Famigilia needs to do something soon. Look at their bakery now? Who’s ever gonna eat from the Rosetta now?”

  Silvio kept his head down and his mouth shut. He was never going to defend his Nonna. If they decided to lynch her, then he would gladly hold the front door open while the angry mob poured into the house.

  He realized that he had to be careful here. People were going to talk, they were going to exaggerate and speculate and because Nonna Conti was involved, everyone would.

  Whether they wanted to or not, soon he and his mother would get soon swept up in all of this and he knew that the old woman was already forcing his mom to do her dirty work with this stupid curse.

  He was a shrewd boy. He was able to size up a situation and pick his side using both knowledge and intuition. His grandmother was making a mess of whatever it was she was trying to do. This much was obvious. People were getting angry, people were talking and it would soon get very serious. It had to. Nonna Conti was the losing side here, he would join the other side, whoever that happened to be.

  “Alessia, Alessia….you’re finally here. What has your mother done? What is this curse?”

  The questions came rapidly, one after another. Almost everyone had turned from the building which was still smoking like an old locomotive struggling up a hill, to look at her.

  She was suddenly very self conscious. She was wearing sweatpants and her nightgown with her old red robe onto and old slippers on her feet. Alessia had always been the beauty, the one certain to turn heads and make other women jealous. Now in the very early morning she just looked like an exhausted housewife confronted with an emergency.

  She started to back away from the crowd on the sidewalk. There was just too many people starting at her, shouting at her. Behind them stood the Rosetta bakery which should have been well lit and baking it’s first run of rolls and loaves by now.

  Instead it was dark and ominous. Sooty black stains covered the brick above the windows and a think black smoke seeped out from behind the main door as if the smoke was getting ready to flow past and beak the door down at any moment now. It was becoming a ruin. Right before their eyes and this was an unbelievable thing to witness. Had her mom really caused this?

  “What did she do Alessia?”

  “Why did she do this to us. Why does she want to hurt kids Alessia?”

  This was a nightmare. She knew she had to leave, she just couldn’t handle talking to this crowd of people now, not dressed like this with the neighborhood bakery burning away in the background with emergency lights flashing everywhere.

  “Why did your mother do this to my bakery? Why she did this to me?”

  The baker who had discovered the smoldering building had just been directed to Alessia’s presence and he had started to wade across the street ignoring fire fighters and a band of yellow caution tape while yelling at Alessia.

  Alessia started to edge away at a faster pace and was attempting to gauge whether or not she should turn and make a run for it when a strong hand grabbed her arm from behind.

  “Va via, Va via. Lascia stare questa povera donna.”

  She recognized Giorgio’s voice as he shooed people away and shamed them for bothering her. At the same time he spun her around and pulled her roughly down the sidewalk as he stalked towards his car.

  As they hurried away some people recognized Giorgio and started to yell after them.

  “è anche colpa tua....it all started with you Giorgio….this is your fault too.”

  “Come on ….Don’t look back, don’t speak to them. Come with me, we’re gonna get out of here.”

  Alessia heard the slight slur in his voice and smelled the sourness of a late night of drinking on his breath. He lurched slightly from side to side as he got closer to his older Audi sedan.

  It had been a flashy car once but years of neglect, careless driving and more likely drunken driving had taken their toll. The car had seen much better days but right now it was a relief for Alessia to climb inside the battered vehicle as Giorgio made his way to the driver’s side.

  He started to tear into her as soon as the car started and they had driven off leaving the onlookers behind.

  “Goddamn it Alessia, no more bullshit. Stop fucking around with this cursing shit. Did you talk to your mother? This has gone way too goddamn far.”

  “Giorgio, you know my Mama, what I gonna say to her that’s gonna make her stop. You know her, once she gets offended or gets some idea in her head. She won’t let it go. Not ever.”

  Giorgio braked hard in the middle of the street. As the Audi screeched to a stop Alessia checked her side mirror and saw to her relief that the flashing lights were a good distance behind them. The street was as close to being as deserted as it should be this early in the morning.

  Anyone who wanted to see what all the fuss was about had already made their way down the street. The rest were just trying to sleep and to ignore this drama the now plagued the usually quiet early morning neighborhood.

  “Alessia, you listen to me. The Capo for this neighborhood is gonna want to talk to you.”

  He leaned over and shook a meaty finger in his face. His eyes were wide open, bloodshot and intense. Giorgio stared at her unblinking for many seconds.

  “Alessi. This has got to stop. DO YOU HEAR ME? Make it stop Alessia, make it stop!”

  She started back at the big man. Alessia was still startled by his intensity. It was unnerving and more than a bit worrisome.

  Oh Mama, what the hell have you done here……

  “Ok, ok Giorgio. I will do what I can.” She held up her hands in an imploring fashion but to no avail.

  “NO ALESSIA, this is embarrassing us. Make it stop….NOW”.

  He hefted his bulk forwards as he reached across her lap to wrench on the handle to open her door. “No go, go back to your mother and tell her it has to stop. It has to stop NOW.”

  “Ok, OK. I get it.” Alessia got out of the car and slammed the door and turned to walk the short few blocks back to her mothers home.

  He yelled out after her “Stay close by, keep you phone on, the Capo will want to talk to you today.”

  “Jesus Christ……” She did not look back as she continued walking the few blocks back to her home. Her mind was racing with everything she had just seen and heard in the last hour.

  She also had noticed that, for as mad as Giorgio was, he wasn’t willing to drop her of at her mothers house. That said a lot. They might be mad at Nonna Conti but they still feared her…. at least for now anyway.