Chapter 18 #2
I let them settle into a familiar routine of teasing, feeling homesick for my imaginary life with Pieter, and go back to watching the coastline. When we’ve passed another bay and Thomas informs me Sigri is around the next curve of the island, I make my request.
“Could I travel with you two to your village?”
Eleni tilts her head. The movement makes my breath catch. It’s not as elegant or inhuman a gesture as Diavola’s, but it’s nearly the same. “I thought you were going to Sigri,” she says.
“No. Like you, I’m trying to get to that side of the island faster. I’m researching for a book I’d like to write.”
Thomas’s face lights up. “You’ve come to the right place. Did you know they call Lesvos the Island of Poetry? We had Sappho, Alcaeus, Aristotle. The very first novel was written here, too. Lesvos has been nurturing writers and artists for thousands of years.”
“And musicians,” Eleni adds in a dry voice. “Don’t forget that Orpheus’s head came here after it was cut off, and resides on the island to this day.”
“Really?” I ask.
“No,” she whispers dramatically, “but don’t let anyone know I told you it isn’t actually true.”
“What is your book about?” Thomas leans closer. “History? Geology?”
“I’m more interested in folktales. Ghosts. That sort of thing. I’m traveling to different regions, collecting stories from locals so the tales aren’t lost.”
Eleni juts out her chin. “We keep our own stories here.”
My wording was a mistake. I need to get her on my side.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that you won’t preserve them.
I meant…well, I’m just interested in finding connections.
We tell the same types of stories all over, but with small differences.
For example, I was recently in München, Germany.
They have a creature known as a nachzehrer.
” I try not to think about the wet rhythm of his chewing, but I’ll never be able to forget it.
“Unquiet dead that come back to drain the life of family members they left behind. Much like the vampire of other regions, the best way to deal with it is fire, or staking it to the ground so it can’t escape its grave. Like your vrykolakas.”
Eleni startles and narrows her eyes. But Thomas looks excited. “How do you know about those?”
“From stories my friend told me.” The word “friend” is definitely too strong for the olive oil merchant, but they don’t need to know that. He’s my mother’s friend, which sort of makes him mine, doesn’t it? “He’s from Lesvos.”
“What’s his name?” Eleni asks.
“Georgios Papadelis.”
“What!” Thomas exclaims, jabbing his elbow excitedly into Eleni’s side. “Everyone will be so happy! You must come with us now.”
I look from one sibling to the other. Eleni has softened and shares some of Thomas’s enthusiasm. “How is he?”
Oh, dear. They actually know him. I scramble for an update that is both honest and implies I know him better than I do.
“He’s kind. My mother doesn’t get out much, and he goes out of his way to visit her.
He’s also a very persuasive salesman. I have more olive oil in my kitchen than we know what to do with. ”
“That’s Georgios!” Thomas slaps his knee. “He left when we were young. One of his brothers—our uncle—still lives in the village, and his other brother is in Mytilene, where he arranges the shipments of oil. Do you remember Georgios’s magic tricks?”
Eleni sticks out her tongue in displeasure.
“They mostly revolved around stealing our noses. Eleni used to cry. She thought it was real.”
“I did not! I just didn’t like him grabbing my nose.”
I feel more than a little guilty for exaggerating my connection to Georgios now that I know he means something to them.
At least I could tell them the truth about how good he is to my mother.
And I’m glad they have no way of contacting him quickly.
By the time any of them can get a letter to him asking about the Dutch woman who came to visit, I should be long gone. One way or another.
Fortunately, before I have to make up more tales of fun-loving Georgios, my very good friend, the captain shouts and points to our destination.
The water in the sheltered curve of Sigri is the clearest I’ve ever seen.
I nearly fall over the side peering down and watching the fish there.
There’s an old Ottoman fortress standing guard, surrounded by short, weeping green trees.
Unlike the castle in Mytilene, this fortress is in bad shape.
A whole section of the wall has fallen, and it looks like much of the interior structure has collapsed or is unstable.
The late afternoon sun streams through holes that shouldn’t be there.
“There was an earthquake ten years ago,” Thomas says, following my line of sight. “Many places are still recovering.”
“Did it damage your village?”
Eleni stares intensely toward the hills. “It shook a lot of things free.”
“But no one died,” Thomas adds. “We’ve always been lucky.”
He helps secure the boat to the dock and then we disembark. A cousin or friend—I’m not sure; they all have the easy familiarity of growing up together—is waiting with a horse and cart. After hugs, Thomas and Eleni introduce me to Marios and I’m loaded into the cart.
Though the wooden wheels jar and jostle along the rocky path, my many hours of travel catch up to me.
My head dips. I startle awake to find night has fallen around us.
The stars spin overhead. More stars than I’ve ever seen, a great hazy spill of them so bright it almost hurts my eyes.
I turn to ask Eleni if it’s always like this, but it isn’t Eleni next to me.
Diavola’s eyes swallow the light, rejecting it. There has never been a blacker color than the depths of them eating away at the whites.
Panicked, I look for Thomas. No one is driving the cart.
It’s only Diavola and me in the entire universe.
The land drops away around us. The darkness presses in as the stars begin swirling.
The icy scent of her fills me until I’m dizzy with it.
She leans close, and I can’t help but remember being cradled in her arms. The way she carried me from danger.
“Little Fox,” she whispers, “who will you be if I’m gone?”
I close my eyes, wanting her to kiss me. Wanting her to kill me. But when I open them, Diavola isn’t there anymore. It’s just me and the darkness and the stars. They have no messages, no place for me among them. I’m a creature of emptiness, not of light.
A wave of despair so heavy I can’t bear it pulls on me. I let out a gasp of a sob.
I jolt awake. Eleni is next to me. Thomas and Marios are driving the cart.
The late afternoon sky is just the sky. There are no stars or monsters or devastating questions.
I turn and look ahead of us. The hills crowd in like old friends, but behind them I see a hint of the mountains where I’ll find the lost town.
Where I’ll find Diavola’s grave. Where I’ll find the answer to her question about who I’ll be when she’s gone.