Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
The night drew in gradually, a lilac dusk that deepened to claret as the moon slid out among the stars.
Skye wandered to the far end of Joy’s garden, a glass of wine that she’d been nursing for hours in her hand, and stared out at the molten sea, its hush barely audible beneath the low hum of voices behind her.
Then a new sound: steady footsteps on dry earth.
There was no need to turn around; she knew who it was.
Andreas came to a stop a few feet behind her.
“Do you want to be alone?” he asked.
Skye smiled to herself.
“I was just thinking what a shame it is,” she said, “that nowadays, people tend to spend more time staring down at devices than they do looking out at the world around them. I mean, why gaze at a six-inch screen when you have the whole of the night sky?”
“It is a good question,” he agreed, moving to stand beside her. “Instead of trying to expand our minds, we are allowing them to shrink, be muddled by nonsense.”
“You can see so many more stars here than in England,” she went on.
“My dad taught me the basic constellations, but I can’t remember a single occasion since childhood when I’ve had time to stand still and simply take them all in.
It’s overwhelming to have visibility this good.
In England, there’s so much light pollution—especially in London. ”
She stalled for a moment, cursing herself inwardly for allowing this nugget of information to slip out, though if Andreas had registered the revelation, he didn’t remark on it. He was still gazing upward, chin raised and shoulders rounded.
“It was the Greeks who gave most of the stars their names,” he said. “Do you think it was because they were curious or because they lay around on their backs a lot?”
Skye raised an amused brow.
“Shall we be generous and say both?”
He gave her a sidelong look.
“You are already starting to think like a Greek.”
“What can I say?” she replied. “I’m a good student.”
“The best teachers always are.”
They both turned as a shriek rang out, just in time to see Victoria picking herself up from where a chair had deposited her on the ground.
Skye laughed, unable to help herself. Of all the guests, Victoria had been the most enthusiastic at the makeshift bar, and Adam’s repeated attempts to dissuade her had so far proven unsuccessful.
“Someone is going to wake up with a sore head tomorrow,” Andreas remarked.
“And a sore bum by the looks of things,” Skye said. “But I think we can let her off. It is a party, after all.”
Andreas pulled a face.
“What?” she demanded.
“This is a small gathering,” he said gravely. “Not a party.”
“This is plenty party for me.”
“éla, there is no music, no dancing.”
As if on cue, Victoria started singing, loudly and with little adherence to any kind of melody. Andreas winced, shaking his head as Bruno began to howl along.
“The dead will begin to wake up soon,” he said.
Skye felt the featherlight brush of a shiver run up her spine.
“I think we might’ve already woken them,” she said. “Someone buried that saber for a reason, and they might not take too kindly to us having dug it up.”
“It was not us.” Andreas folded his arms, drumming his fingers against a bicep. “And I do not think that even a ghost would scare Dusty. In Greece, we would say that she is skliró karydi—a tough nut.”
“I think she’d appreciate that,” Skye said, raising her voice to be heard over the caterwauling. “I heard you two squabbling earlier over the best way to pour cement.”
Andreas’s brows knitted together.
“I have offered my help, but I cannot force her to accept.”
Skye took a sip of her wine, so warm now that it tasted vinegary. Andreas had refused all offers of alcohol, though he had polished off every scrap of leftover food—including Skye’s salad, which he’d deemed “poly kali.”
“That means ‘very good,’ ” Mia had confided. “Klodi taught me.”
Greeks were indeed natural teachers. Skye had gleaned as much through the few interactions she’d had with people in the village when those she spoke to appeared compelled to impart some nugget or other of wisdom during every conversation.
Andreas was chief among them, schooling her on language, local history, and cultural quirks.
They talked often, though they hadn’t yet ventured beyond the surface level of friendship.
To delve any deeper would invite questions, and Skye had long since raised that drawbridge.
She had no intention of revealing more than was absolutely necessary.
“I hope Dusty doesn’t lay her foundations down too soon,” she said. “That saber was such a fascinating find. If it were me, I’d want to keep digging for more.”
“Perhaps there is more to be found,” Andreas mused. “Not only in that garden but in all the houses. Nobody has touched them since the war ended.”
“Apart from you,” she reminded him. “You were working up here for weeks before we arrived.”
“Correct,” he agreed. “But it was only after you came that we found something.”
The bundle in her fireplace. Skye had thought about little else since their discovery.
“Did you sneak another look at the letters earlier?” she asked.
Andreas unfolded his arms and rubbed a hand across his jaw.
“No,” he said, his tone pensive. “It is not my place to do so. They belong to you.”
Skye supposed they did, though it felt wrong to possess another person’s innermost thoughts and feelings, their hopes and dreams, their expressions of love.
“Will you read me the one you opened?” she asked. “It doesn’t have to be tonight, but soon?”
Andreas glanced up, and she followed his gaze across Orion’s Belt and the W constellation of the vain queen Cassiopeia, before trailing her eyes down to the Great Bear.
The beauty of it, the wonder, made her emotions unravel as if dropped like a ball of wool.
She looked away, back toward the glow of the small house, where the inhabitants of her strange new world were silhouetted in the half darkness.
“éla,” Andreas said with the softest touch on her elbow. “Let’s go.”
He strode down the garden, and she followed him, aware of multiple sets of eyes on them as they passed the small group.
“Back in a sec,” she called to Joy, ignoring her friend’s bemused expression.
Outside, they made their way across the dark hillside to the truck, where Skye climbed into the passenger seat.
With a soft click, the glove compartment dropped open, revealing the stack of letters nestled inside.
Andreas took the top envelope and carefully unfolded its pages.
Skye shifted to face him, one leg curled beneath her, the gear stick nudging her knee. Above them, the evil-eye pendant swung gently from its gold chain, no longer blue but dulled by night.
Andreas sat back, cleared his throat, and began to read:
30 October 1940
My dearest K,
Two days ago, as the dawn began to wash clean the sky here along the spine of our country, Italian troops came from Albania to the Greek border and began their attack.
The war has come as we feared, but our resistance is stronger than the will of theirs to succeed.
There is disorganization, weakness, and a lack of discipline from their soldiers, while we, alongside the Hellenic Army, crush them as we might a fig between our teeth.
The men here say that Metaxas refused to yield when told to do so by the pig Mussolini, that he shouted for war.
Afterward, men ran into the streets of Athens, the cry of “no” on every street, an echo that chased around the columns of the Acropolis, finding its way into the proud heart of every citizen.
It is as I told you—our people will not take the knee, they will not bend, nor will they cower.
Our heads are held high, and we will honor their bravery by continuing to fight.
Michalis and I have embedded ourselves with the same unit, each given a uniform and a rifle.
We were accepted with the papers that the brothers prepared for us, and as Zephyr and Atlas assured me, there was no demand that we be trained at any camps.
“We are freedom fighters,” I told them, and they put up no argument.
When we heard the sound of explosions on the first morning, your brother-in-law began to shake, all over his body, the teeth inside his mouth rattling as though they were pebbles inside a jar.
Do not tell your sister this. She must not worry.
I will remain close to Michalis, protect him from harm, show him that there is no cause for terror, not from these weak men who try to come.
Perhaps I will capture one for you, an Italian to tie up on the hillside with your goats.
I think of you often, my dearest Kat. I imagine that I am stroking your hair, kissing your lips, touching your body in all the forbidden places.
I wish that I had a photo of you. Do you have a picture that you could send here to me so that I might keep it close?
There is no way to know yet how long it will take for us to push back our enemies, throw them from the highest peaks of the Pindus Mountains so that their bodies shatter against the rock, though I want you to know that I miss you.
Every moment. The taste of you, the way my body is ignited when it is beside yours, that fire that spreads between us.
It is thoughts such as these that will focus my mind; make me the sharpest, smartest, and truest soldier; ensure that I survive and come home to you.
I must go now, for soon we move once more toward the battle. Write to me, Kat. Give me the company of your words in place of your body until we see one another again.
S