Stay with me, mystery, suddenly stay silent and dark, it is as you are that I love you, not explained by clarity, stay at the window open in space, closed to intimacy. Without you, life does not happen, light does not rise, without saying what it is or what we are, and it is beautiful not to know.
Belinda woke up with a start. The words of the poem vibrated in her ears like a song, and the image from the dream was still sharp and disturbing: a woman seated on the front steps of the house with a vitreous, absent gaze, dressed in rags, very tall and almost skeletal. The only garment she wore that seemed to be in excellent condition was a typical Sicilian shawl, one of those embroidered by hand. Her very long white hair touched the steps on which she was sitting. She was ancient but beautiful. The image of her hands remained imprinted upon her waking, hands that were slender and long with white fingernails.
The memory made her get up. She immediately went to the living room, which still carried the faint scent of myrrh from the night before. The Grimorie was there, on the chest of drawers, and the unknown symbol was still etched onto the linen fabric. The elegant, dark scratch was not an error, but a mark, the signature of a presence that had participated in the rite.
Belinda took the Grimorie and carried it into the morning light. She quickly flipped through her texts on esotericism, searching in vain to identify the glyph. It was not a Wiccan, Greek, or Roman symbol. It was archaic, perhaps linked to the Earth or to the cult of Death and Rebirth. While her rational mind struggled, the poetic voice of the dream whispered to her: not explained by clarity. She understood that searching for a definition in a book was betraying the message. That sign was not meant to be deciphered, but accepted as a stamp of authenticity, a mysterious initiation left by a force she could not, nor should, control.
The thought of the woman in the dream returned. She was not a figure of bright magic, but a shadow of pain, of untold history. Dressed in rags, she embodied the suffering and poverty of past generations, those mothers who were bent but never broken. Only the shawl, embroidered and precious, was intact: the art, the wisdom, the feminine heritage that survived despair. She was the representation of the Crone, the Old Woman of the Triple Goddess, in her rawest and truest aspect.
Belinda picked up the Red Notebook, her Mirror Book. With the utmost care, she recorded the dream in every detail: the woman's height, the vitreous eyes, her position on the steps (the foundations of the house), and the singular beauty of the shawl. Then, she took the Lemon Wand. Not to cast a spell, but for an act of divination. She touched the page of the Notebook, concentrating the energy of the branch and asking for understanding, not an answer.
There was no sudden light or voice. There was only a profound sensation of truth, a calm awareness: the mystery was her protection. Life was not defined by rational clarity, by Elia's control, but by coexistence with the shadow and the inexplicable.
When Elia returned for lunch, he found Belinda unusually quiet, her gaze lost beyond the window, though she smiled at Azzurra who was playing on the rug. He asked her if everything was alright, if she was tired.
"Yes, I'm a little tired," Belinda replied, looking at him with a newfound serenity. She had learned her first true lesson in magic: listen much and speak little. She did not tell him about the symbol, nor the dream, nor the woman dressed in rags on the steps. The secret, now, was no longer a burden, but her reserve of power, her window closed to intimacy that connected her to the infinite.