The Duomo had always loomed.
It didn't welcome.
It watched.
Florence's grand sentinel—too massive to feel friendly, too intricate to feel real. Its shadow fell over centuries like a second sky. People admired it. Photographed it. Lit candles near it. But no one ever touched it.
It wasn't made for intimacy.
It was made to endure.
But today, Elisa didn't come to be inspired.
She came to find something.
Something deliberately hidden.
---
She stood beneath the right wing of the cathedral, just before noon.
The bells had not yet rung.
The plaza swirled with light and noise—tourists in colorful coats, pigeons clapping their wings, vendors selling gelato despite the chill in the air.
But Elisa moved through it like someone in a dream.
Focused.
Certain.
Sketchbook in hand.
Pages marked.
The corner of one still stained with Rafael's charcoal—smudged across her wrist like a whisper that hadn't faded since the night before.
She hadn't slept.
She couldn't.
Not after seeing it.
Not after feeling it.
---
Her mother hadn't been chasing beauty for beauty's sake.
Not really.
It wasn't just the domes or windows or golden mosaics that had pulled her forward.
It was something beneath all that.
Something older.
Quieter.
Buried.
Hidden.
---
Elisa flipped open the sketchbook.
There it was again—her mother's detailed drawing of the Duomo.
Impossibly intricate.
But the upper-right arch…
something was different.
The pencil had stopped.
Not faded.
Stopped.
And beside that faltering line—
A small etching.
Not drawn in ink.
Pressed into the page.
A plus sign inside a narrow V.
An arrow. A mark.
Like someone leaving a sign not meant to be seen immediately.
Like a message meant to wait.
---
She turned toward the actual cathedral wall.
The real thing.
White-green marble.
Lines carved with centuries of care.
She'd walked past this side countless times since arriving.
So had everyone else.
But now she realized—
No one ever looked at it from this angle.
No one had ever stood precisely where her mother must have.
She followed the sketch.
Counted the grooves in the columns.
Traced the negative space between statues.
Then—
there.
A thin vertical crack.
Running down one of the inlay panels.
Not a fault.
Not a fracture.
A design, disguised as damage.
Invisible from most angles.
But at exactly this spot—
with the sun hanging just right above the rooftops—
There was a shimmer.
A flicker of gold.
Not reflection.
Light from within.
---
Her breath caught.
She stepped back, then forward again.
Each time the gold disappeared and returned.
It wasn't something on the surface.
It was behind it.
Inside.
---
She turned to the nearest guide—an older man explaining flying buttresses to a group of tourists in accented French.
"Excuse me," Elisa asked, stepping forward. "Do you know if that part of the cathedral has ever been restored?"
He paused, confused. "Which part?"
She pointed.
He squinted, then shrugged. "Ah, no. That's a sealed arch. Original structure, as far as I know. One of the few never touched in modern restorations. Odd space."
"Empty inside?"
"That's what the records say." He adjusted his scarf. "No relics. No entry point. Just… a hollow."
He turned back to his group, already mid-sentence.
But Elisa wasn't listening.
She didn't need permission from an archive.
She had a crack.
---
That night, they returned.
The city had quieted into a hush—streetlamps flickering, windows closing, scooters gone silent. Clouds clung low above the rooftops, and the cathedral glowed dimly in the distance like a ship lost at sea.
Elisa carried her mother's sketchbook in her coat.
Rafael carried two flashlights and a collapsible ladder borrowed from a friend who owed him nothing and asked no questions.
They crossed the plaza together.
No words.
Just a shared pulse.
A quiet urgency.
---
"You're sure about this?" Rafael whispered as he held the ladder steady against the base of the wall.
"No."
"You're not going to fall?"
"Probably."
"Great," he muttered.
But he didn't let go.
Not once.
---
At the top, Elisa braced herself against the cold stone.
She traced her fingers along the seam of the marble.
It was there.
The crack.
A gap, no wider than a whisper.
Her hands were trembling, but she reached into her coat and pulled out the sketchbook.
Turned it to the page.
Aligned the symbol with the wall—
And pressed the corner of the book into the vertical seam.
Nothing happened.
Then—
Click.
Not loud.
Not mechanical.
Just a soft shift.
Like something… releasing.
---
A piece of the wall slid inward—just slightly.
She yanked her hand back in time for a panel the size of a brick to slide outward.
Dust bloomed into the air.
And inside…
A hollow.
Small.
Dark.
At the very center—
wrapped in faded red ribbon—
was a scroll.
A single wax seal stamped at the top.
The plus sign.
The same symbol her mother had left over and over.
---
Back on the ground, Elisa held it in both hands.
The scroll was lighter than she expected.
But the moment she touched it, she felt the weight behind it.
"This is hers," she whispered.
Rafael didn't take his eyes off the ribbon.
He was shaking his head, slowly.
"Your mother didn't want to be remembered."
He looked at Elisa.
"She wanted to be found."
---
They didn't open it.
Not there.
Not in the shadow of the Duomo.
Not while the night still held its breath.
Whatever was inside…
It had waited years.
It could wait one more night.
---
Her phone buzzed.
____________•••____________
One Plus
You are one plus away from revealing what she couldn't say aloud.
____________•••____________