Aunt Ida spoke with such a tone that would not allow any negative answer.
"Elio, did you hear what I say?"
"Okay." he replied and proceeded towards the stairs all grim faced.
He stopped right beneath the wooden ladder and began yelling her name.
Despite her brother's yells, Gaia was not answering.
Then Elio, even more upset, decided to climb up the stairs. In the semi-dark room of the attic he was feeling anxious. Step after step, the journey to the attic seemed never-ending. As soon as he arrived with his head underneath the hatch, he began yelling his sister's name. But again, no one replied. He forced himself to walk the last steps. And then something from above grabbed his arm.
Elio stayed still, with his eyes shut and the terrorised look on his face.
"Got ya!" yelled Gaia, who had noticed that Elio was in awe.
"Get away from me. You scared me. You should've answered."
Gaia did not take the bait as she was intrigued by what she had found, and said:
"This attic is packed with odd things. Come over here. Look at this..."
Elio finished walking up the stairs and followed his sister, who was browsing through old pictures.
"This is so funny." she said, passing the pictures to Elio.
"What is funny?" asked Elio.
"What?" asked Gaia. "Do you not recognise him?"
"Who?!" asked again Elio.
"It's dad!" exclaimed Gaia.
"Dad? You're right. I didn't recognise him dressed up like this. He looks a little bit like Libero. They're basically wearing the same clothes!"
Finally, after a very long time, he smiled. Gaia, in the meantime, kept looking at the other pictures.
"Have you seen this one? I think it's a very young Libero. He seems so serious and sullen that it doesn't even look like him."
The picture portrayed a pale and frail child with a blank stare in his eyes.
"He looks so alienated" commented Gaia.
In the picture, he was standing in the garden and was holding in his hands his toy cars. The photograph had been taken at dusk with the sun setting behind him. Libero was alone in the picture, however there was a second shadow running along his.
Elio spotted it and worriedly said:
"Can you see this shadow?"
"Which one?"
Elio began feeling nervous.
"This one here. Do you not see it? This shadow does not correspond to anything" he said, pointing his finger at the picture.
"This? It's the shadow of the tree."
Gaia was not really convinced either, but she tried to reassure her brother.
Elio did not want his sister to think he had gone crazy, and decided to switch topic of discussion.
"We have to go downstairs. Aunt Ida made me come here and call you. She needs your help."
"Are you staying in here?" asked Gaia as she was jumping towards the stairs.
Elio thought that there was not a chance that he was going to stay there on this own.
"No, I'm coming with you" he replied.
Gaia found her aunt busy making dinner and began helping her out.
Elio was about to lay down on the couch when he heard Ida's voice.
"What are you doing? Come and help us. It's not time to rest. Set the table, please.
"Where's Libero?" asked Gaia.
"Surely he's closing up the stables." replied Ida. "Elio, if you are finished, could you go and call him over here?"
"I'll go." offered Gaia smiling.
"No, I need you here. Let your brother go."
"Yes." Elio tiredly replied, who was unusually hungry.
He stepped out of the front door and looked around for his cousin, who was sitting on the tractor in the field and watching the sky.
Elio walked towards him and had the impression that everyone in the family had gone deaf: he called him several times, but Libero did not answer.
"I really hope it's contagious. At least I'll be able to lay down and I won't need to listen to anyone's orders. " meditated Elio.
He had to walk right under the tractor to have an answer.
"Why are you yelling?" asked Libero.
"You should come inside. Dinner's ready" replied Elio.
"Come on up." said Libero, as if he did not hear any of the words Elio was saying.
"Up there?"
"Yeah, up here. I'll show you something."
Elio climbed up the tractor and sat down next to him.
"Look how beautiful it is." exclaimed Libero, pointing at the sky. "A few years ago I could not see it."
"What?" asked Elio as he tried to spot what he was referring to.
"The sky." repeated Libero.
"The sky?"
"Yeah, the sky. It's a beautiful thing. But most of the times in our lives we don't raise our heads up. And I don't mean just to check the weather, but to contemplate it, in silence, in the same way we contemplate the sea. It's just that it is easier to admire the latter; that's why it's appreciated more often. Have you ever stopped and admired the sky?"
"No."
"You should. It lifts you up and makes you look at things in the right perspective."
Elio, amazed at his cousin's profundity, stayed in silence with him and looked at the sky for a while.
From blinding white to smokey grey, the clouds were floating between two strips of sky. The strip beneath them was lead grey, the strip above them was deep blue, illuminated by the last glares of the sun that was setting. The edge of the clouds looked golden, as if they were brightened by light of another world, as if they were there to illuminate a past life. The white ones were thick like firm peaks, the grey ones were squiggled like a child's scribble.
Amongst all of them, one can be easily distinguished. It was unicorn shaped and was standing against the white background as if the grey animal were running in the white celestial meadows. Just like a fresco painted by Tiepolo1, that natural infinite roof
