In Notting Hill, summer was synonymous with intense but serene work. Mattia and Erica ran their dance school, and the routine served as a balm for the soul—the perfect antithesis to the Sicilian volcanism Mattia had distanced himself from. Their life, though hectic, was permeated by an authentic joy, bolstered by the presence of the small almond saplings in the garden: the "Seeds of the Return" from Great-Aunt Teresa, which had survived the English cold.
Mattia knew the package was coming. He had spoken with Belinda, listening with growing incredulity to the tale of a doll that spoke on its own, whose batteries mysteriously repositioned themselves, and which whispered haunting phrases to Azzurra. Mattia had promised to take it, but he had rationalized the situation as his sister's stress or a particularly strange electrical malfunction.
He was on the phone with Samuele, discussing a new choreographer, when the courier rang the bell. It was a package from Sicily, unusually large and heavy.
"One moment, Samuele, the object of my little sister's desire has arrived," Mattia said, forcing himself to keep his tone light.
When Mattia lifted the box, its weight caused a stir of unease—not because of the contents, but because of its nature. It was a dead weight, as if it contained lead or something dense and raw. The box was sealed with obsessive care, wrapped in a coarse, durable ribbon: the linen used for the prototypes of Il Faro. Mattia did not find it to be a good omen.
Erica entered the living room with tea. "Has Azzurra's doll arrived? Are you ready for the technical analysis of this plastic 'spirit'?"
Mattia placed the package on the table with a shiver. "This must be it. It's not the weight that scares me; it's the smell. It reeks of stale air and earth, despite being cardboard. Sicily is sending the scent of the past."
Mattia took a utility knife and sliced open the package. Inside, wrapped in multiple layers of raw linen to prevent any movement or activation, lay the ballerina doll: Shimmy.
Mattia picked up the cold, plastic odalisque. With its gaudy purple clothes and oversized blue eyes, it was patently a toy, not a demon.
Erica took Shimmy, more interested in its nature than Mattia was. "She's the antithesis of Teresa, Mattia. Teresa was freedom within the body; this is slavery in plastic," Erica whispered, analyzing the doll's expressionless face. She immediately sensed an unnatural coldness, a dead weight, even though the doll was switched to the OFF position.
"Alright, let's test it," Mattia said. He was a dancer, pragmatic, and he wanted the explanation to be simple. "There must be a defect in the sound board."
He tried to turn it on. He pressed the activation button, and Shimmy started up with her cheerful, pounding melody. "Shimmer and Shine, oh oh oh, sparkle with me!"
Mattia turned the doll off, removed the battery compartment cover, and set the two batteries aside. "See? Off and deactivated. All sorted. Now, let's have that tea."
But the doll did not want to wait.
That night, the calm of Notting Hill was shattered. Around two in the morning, Mattia woke with a start. He heard the music. It wasn't loud, but it resonated through the Victorian house, drifting up the stairs like a subtle echo.
Mattia got up and went to the living room. Shimmy was on the table. She wasn't moving, but the song started and stopped erratically, like a broken record.
"Shimmer and Shine... oh oh oh... you can't..."
Mattia approached and switched it off. The button was already in the OFF position. Despite this, the doll resumed speaking immediately—a recorded voice that seemed to emanate from a strained mechanism.
"The walls always fall." The phrase, used by Azzurra, was a deep, metallic whisper that made Mattia's blood run cold.
Mattia felt the same panic Belinda had described. He grabbed the doll and took it into the kitchen. He opened the battery compartment. The two batteries he had removed and left on the marble counter were now perfectly repositioned in the slot.
Mattia was no longer a skeptic. He was terrified.
As Mattia struggled to remove the batteries again with trembling hands, Shimmy sang intermittently: "Shimmer and Shine, oh oh oh..."
When Mattia finally managed to unscrew the panel and pull the batteries out, the doll fell silent. Mattia let out a sigh of relief, placing the batteries in the sink.
He turned back toward the living room but froze on the threshold. Behind him, from the dark kitchen, came a horrible sound: a sharp click, like a mechanism winding up. And then Shimmy's distorted voice, louder now, filled the empty space—without batteries, without being turned on—a voice that held nothing mechanical within it.
"YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THE INHERITANCE, MATTIA. BURN IT ALL."
The package had barely entered London, yet its work was already done. The dancer, who thought he had danced far away from his past, realized that the past had finally caught up to him.