Chapter 18
Were I not on the island of Lesvos in hopes of hunting and killing monsters, I would be thoroughly enamored of it.
After taking trains to Istanbul and then the Ottoman coast, I got on a ferry across the Aegean and around the coast of Lesvos to the capital, Mytilene.
It’s the birthplace of the poet Sappho, a favorite of the clubs I used to visit.
I had hoped to go directly to Sigri, but boats to that harbor are fewer and I cannot bear delay. Not now that I’m at last closing in.
Mytilene is a charming city built into the hills hugging the port.
Ships go in and out, and the sound of hammers is as constant as the salt breeze.
Though perhaps this island was once sleepy, it’s experiencing a growth spurt.
There’s a tightness between my shoulders I recognize as anxiety on behalf of the entire city.
I’ll forever associate increasing local prosperity with the potential for horrific murders.
Doubtless Inge would already be consulting local census and tax records to assess a general risk level.
Thoughts of her fill me with a longing fondness, but a brief wish for company is immediately replaced with grim resolve.
The team can never be whole again, but Dávid will be avenged.
First, I kill Diavola. And then I destroy her partner.
I lug my heavy bag around the busy harbor, inquiring with everyone who looks remotely nautical whether their boat is going to Sigri.
Before long, I’ve secured a spot on a boat carrying supplies around the coast. Doubtless Dávid would know what type of boat it was.
He contributed so many details and so much knowledge.
Once again my thoughts drift toward imagining how different this trip would be if we were all together.
How I wouldn’t have to worry about logistics because Inge would already have secured our passages and memorized the geography of the island.
How Maher would have pulled me back when I got too intense or internal.
How I could have been standing in the middle of my dearest friends as we came to the end of the journey they joined me on.
But I’m here, alone, because of that journey.
On a hill in the distance is a castle. In the morning light the stonework looks rosy pink, a cheery defender of the harbor and coastline. It’s gazing outward, ready for threats from the sea. Did it ever notice the monsters already within?
Do any of us, though?
My spoken Greek is embarrassingly mediocre and my Turkish merely passable, but everyone is friendly and helpful.
I’m joined in my wait by Thomas and Eleni, a brother and sister in their early twenties.
They’re returning home from visiting family in the city.
Hearing their happy, easy chatter makes me miss Pieter as I’ve never missed him before.
In my mind, he’s only ever been a child.
But what would it have been to grow up with him?
To split the burden of our parents’ strangeness between us?
To share experiences and secrets and memories?
Perhaps I would have hated him. My father’s favoritism could have driven a wedge between us.
But perhaps he would have been my best friend.
And with Pieter living, our father wouldn’t have doomed us all by chasing supernatural means of reclaiming the dead.
Dávid, Berend, my mother, and so many others would never have crossed paths with darkness they were incapable of fighting.
Perhaps I’d be married, with a child or two of my own.
Or I’d be a teacher at a boarding school like the one I spent so many happy years at, with a woman as my “roommate” and companion.
Or I’d be a doctor, advocating for women’s right to education alongside one of my heroes, Aletta Jacobs.
And when I had time, I’d stop at home for a meal with Mama and Papa and Pieter, and we’d laugh and talk and be a family.
I can’t clearly picture those versions of myself, though. I don’t want to. It hurts too much.
Even if I could have had one of those lives, Diavola and her accomplice would have still been out there sowing destruction and heartbreak across the continent. No one would have connected the victims to the perpetrators, and they’d be free to continue forever.
That’s Pieter’s legacy. The one I’ll hold on to. His life wasn’t the cause of so much heartbreak and death. His life is what will lead to the ending of two monsters.
“Ready!” the captain shouts. Thomas and Eleni help me onto the boat.
“What have you got in here?” Thomas says with a laugh as he hauls my heavy bag.
“Books.” Which isn’t entirely untrue. I’ve copied pages out of several sections of my father’s notebooks, but it only filled two books.
The rest is filled with holy water, communion wafers, garlic, wooden stakes, and silver knives.
The silversmith I commissioned them from knew Mama and offered me several new pieces for her collection, all of which I spitefully refused.
But I did wonder if Mama’s obsession with silver started when she was bitten.
In addition to weapons, I have a few changes of underclothes and blouses, because even when hunting monsters, I prefer to be clean and well-groomed.
Once I’ve settled onto a bench tucked against the side of the boat, I watch with fascination as the captain and his two sailors prepare for the voyage.
Thomas helps where he can, and even Eleni seems familiar enough with all the various ropes and sails to be of use.
Open ocean sailing is a necessary skill when living on an island.
In Amsterdam we live with the water on our own terms. Though I suppose the dancing houses, slowly sinking into the land we tried to tame, are evidence that water always wins in the end.
Thoughts of dancing houses and my nightmares make me miss Mama. I fight that old fear, that twinge of anxiety that without me she’ll die. I’m doing what I need to. I’m doing what I should have done years ago, and could have, too, had she not hidden the truth from me.
The captain maneuvers carefully out of the busy harbor, and then the sails catch the wind, propelling us parallel to the rocky coastline. Mytilene quickly disappears into the hills. There are smaller scattered villages, but most of the population is centered on access to the harbor.
The water is the most perfect deep blue, lightening to a luminescent aqua closer to shore.
I breathe deeply of the salt-tang air and nearly lose my hat.
Please walk along the harbor and let the wind tangle your hair, Diavola whispers.
She wanted to imagine me in Helsinki. I’ll bet she never imagined me here.
We pass a huge bay as we race along the edge of Lesvos to the opposite end of the island. “If you stay through the summer,” Thomas yells, struggling to be heard over the wind, “these bays are filled with flamingos.”
“Really?” I’m delighted. I’ve only seen drawings of them.
“Yes, but they’ll disappoint you.” Eleni puts on an exaggeratedly severe frown. “They aren’t pink.”
Thomas matches her frown, but his is an offended expression. “They’re still flamingos. And she doesn’t have any of those in Amsterdam.”
“How did you know where I’m from?” I ask.
“Your accent. Plenty of sailors from all over the world in Mytilene. But actually, that was a guess. It was either Dutch or German.”
“You guessed correctly!”
He beams, pleased with himself. The wind pushes his dark hair back from his forehead.
He and Eleni both have pleasant faces, long straight noses over perfectly shaped lips, and wide eyes downturned at the corners to give them a slight melancholic look, combated by their bold, expressive eyebrows.
Their skin is olive-toned, and I envy their ability to have so much of it bared to the sun.
I’m as covered as I can be, one hand perpetually on my hat to keep it from flying off.
“If I stay too long on this beautiful island,” I say, “I’ll be as pink as your flamingos aren’t.”
That earns me a hearty laugh from them both. I learn that they were visiting an uncle in Mytilene. Thomas is debating moving to the larger city and taking up a trade. Eleni tries to hide it, but it’s obvious the idea makes her sad.
“What about you?” I ask her.
“I love where we live. I love knowing every home, every road, every face. I love sleeping in the same room my mother and her mother slept in. It makes me feel held and connected.”
“That’s a beautiful inheritance.” Though I, too, live in a home belonging to my mother’s family for generations, I’ve never felt held by them.
Perhaps because my own mother was an aberration, breaking with their traditions and legacy.
If they were still around, they would doubtless reject her—and me, too.
Living in their home feels more like defiance than connection.
I wonder how it would be to feel as settled and content as Eleni. But then I remind myself of her sadness at the prospect of losing her brother to a bigger life. Progress is just another word for change, and change inevitably creates loss.
“Are you from Sigri?” I ask.
“No,” Eleni answers. “We’re from an inland village, but it’s much faster to go around the coast than to cut across the island. Prettier, too.”
An inland village is exactly where I need to start. Running into them was a stroke of good fortune. Before I can ask for more details about their home, Eleni points to the mountain we can see from this side of the island.
“Olympos. No gods up there, though.”
“Fewer trees here,” I remark.
“That’s true,” Thomas says, “but we do have petrified ones.”
“Petrified?”
“A forest of rocks.” Eleni smiles. “Thomas loves rocks, because that’s all he has in his head.”