Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-four
“Are they human?”
Skye had directed her question to Andreas, but it was Mia who answered. Joy had called on the middle sister, arguing that their resident vet was the closest thing they had to an expert.
“Some look as though they definitely aren’t,” Mia said thoughtfully, “but I can’t be sure. A few are quite dense, which makes me lean toward animal. The only way to be certain is to have them measured and tested.”
“I’m not sure we should even touch them,” Skye said. “Whoever buried them would probably hate the idea of us having dug them up.”
“You didn’t,” Joy pointed out. “It was the storm.”
Andreas, who’d arrived of his own accord to deliver a set of paint samples, was bending over the exposed grave, hands on his knees and a stoic expression on his face.
“The bones are on your property,” he said, turning to Skye. “I think it is only right that you decide the next steps. We can fill in the hole, no problem, or I can ask someone from the police authority in Chora to collect the remains and conduct some tests.”
“You think we should call the police?”
“I think that we can, but also, we do not have to. éla, it is your decision.”
Joy gingerly stepped over a puddle.
“I guess it comes down to whether you want to know or if you’re happy to let sleeping bones lie,” she said. “If it was me, I know what I’d do.”
Skye looked at her with quiet interest.
“I’d want to know,” her friend confirmed.
“Hey, guys.”
They all spun round to see Victoria approaching from the side of the house, immaculate in lilac leggings and matching crop top, her hair pulled back in a swinging ponytail. Adam trailed a few paces behind, looking sunburned and slightly disheveled in a crumpled shirt.
“We saw you out of our bedroom window,” she said. “Figured you’d found something.”
Andreas moved aside so they could peer down into the hole.
“Oh my God.” Victoria gasped. “Are those— Is that part of a skeleton?”
Adam crouched only to slip. He pitched forward, both palms splaying in the mud.
“You klutz,” Victoria chided.
“I’ll go and wash up.” Adam bounced back onto his feet. “Get my camera while I’m at it. May as well get a photo of these—that’s if it’s OK with you, Skye?”
“No worries,” she said distractedly.
“I wonder if there is any kind of grave marker?” Joy mused. “If these are human bones, surely whoever it was would’ve had a monument of some sort?”
Andreas turned over one of the fallen stones with the toe of his boot.
“Most of these were part of the wall,” Skye said, “but you’re right, we should have a look.”
She, Mia, and Andreas moved among the stones, checking each one for a name or date, but none showed any sign of an engraving.
“A secret grave, then,” Victoria said in awe. “Maybe the bloodstain on that saber Dusty found belonged to whoever is buried here?”
“Or whatever,” Mia cut in. “It could easily be animal.”
“A sacrificial lamb,” Victoria cried. “Or a chicken!”
Mia frowned.
“They’re definitely not bird bones—that I can say for certain.”
Adam returned with his camera, and they all moved to allow him space. Skye’s fingers toyed with a fraying thread on her shorts, as if the right decision might unravel with it.
“You look troubled,” Andreas said, coming to stand beside her with his back to the others.
“I am,” she concurred.
“What is the thing that is worrying you the most?”
Where to start…
“I don’t want to do anything disrespectful,” she said. “Do you think the locals would be angry with me if I did agree to have the bones examined by an expert?”
Andreas gave her question proper consideration.
“No,” he said after a beat. “Greeks, we are nosy. It is in our nature.”
“What would you do?” she asked.
“For me, the knowledge always wins. If it happens that the bones are human, there is no reason why they cannot be buried again in the right way.”
“You mean these weren’t?”
A series of lines dappled his forehead.
“There is no casket,” he said. “No sign of anything wooden inside the soil.”
“So they most likely aren’t human, then?”
The shutter of Adam’s camera clicked. Skye glanced up, only to recoil slightly at the flash.
“Most likely,” Andreas agreed. “However…” He paused to retrieve his phone from his jeans pocket and activated the compass function. “Ah, it is as I thought.”
“What is?” she said, standing on tiptoes so she could see the screen.
“In Greece, it is customary to bury the dead facing east.”
A shiver passed through Skye.
“And that grave is facing…?”
“East,” he confirmed.
They looked at each other.
“Will you call them for me?” she said. “The police, I mean.”
Andreas brushed his fingers lightly against her arm.
“Nai,” he said. “I will do it now.”
She watched him stride away with his phone to his ear, heavy workmen’s boots sinking into the rain-softened earth.
He’d been her first thought upon discovering the bones, and somehow he’d appeared before she could even call, the familiar purr of his truck’s engine easing the knot of tension she hadn’t realized was there.
“Have you two developed some sort of psychic connection?” Joy had joked, at which Skye had laughed a little too hard.
Adam, who had finished his impromptu photo shoot, was squinting down at the screen of his digital camera, scrolling through the images he’d taken. He should really go into the shade, Skye thought, wincing at the sight of his burned cheeks and forehead.
Victoria clearly agreed.
“Your pink bits are turning purple,” she chided, steering him toward home. “We’ll catch up with you guys later.”
They both waved to Andreas as they passed, but he was too intent on his conversation to notice.
“He on the phone to the cops?” Joy asked Skye. Mia had returned to the hole and was on her haunches, peering at the bones.
“I thought it made sense to know for sure what we’re dealing with,” Skye said. “Though it still makes me feel uneasy, the idea of removing them.”
“You’re a history buff, aren’t you?”
“You could say that.”
“Well, then.” Joy tipped her head to one side. “If every archaeologist who stumbled across a pile of bones simply up and left them there, we’d have huge gaps in our understanding of the past. Hell, we wouldn’t even know what dinosaurs were.”
“That reminds me of that joke from Jurassic Park,” Mia said, turning to face them. “What do you call a blind dinosaur?”
Joy grinned.
“Go on, then.”
“A Do-You-Think-He-Saurus.”
“Bloody brilliant,” Joy crowed.
“What is so funny?” Andreas asked, coming toward them. Skye wasn’t sure if he’d understand the joke, but after having furrowed his brow for a moment or two, he smiled.
“Very good,” he appraised. “Very clever.”
“What did the police say?” Skye asked.
“That they will come to remove the bones later today or perhaps tomorrow. Do you have some cover or something?”
“I’ve got an old sheet of tarp over at mine,” Joy said.
“Do you think we should tell the police about the saber, too?” Mia asked. “Dusty hasn’t done anything with it yet, as far as I know.”
Skye glanced at Andreas, who shrugged.
“It’s probably a good idea to show them,” she said. “Then they can decide if they want to take it away for testing.”
“Good idea.” Mia bounced upright. “I’ll go and get it now. You coming, Joy?”
Skye and Andreas remained where they were, watching the others walk away.
The sun, having been upstaged by the storm, was now reclaiming the sky, beating down with the fierce urgency of a drum.
Moisture hung heavy in the air, disturbed only by a nervous wind, while the ground beneath them seemed to crackle as it rapidly dried in the heat.
Skye shielded her eyes with a hand.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “about the letters we found. Do you think it’s possible there’s anything in them that would give us some clue about this grave? Have you managed to read any more of them or…”
Andreas rubbed the back of his neck, offering her a sheepish smile.
“Not all of them,” he admitted. “However, I have translated one more for you. I did it today while I was trapped at home during the storm.”
He slid a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and took out two folded sheets of lined paper.
Skye felt a lift in her chest, light and sudden.
“This one is different,” Andreas said.
Was she imagining it, or was there a note of warning in his tone?
“Different how?”
“You will see,” he said, pushing the pages toward her.
Skye’s gaze flickered once more to the open grave. Here it was again: death. Not a memory but a marker on the path ahead. If she wanted the truth about the past, she had to follow it. The letter trembled slightly in her grip, the first step into what waited ahead.