Phaedra and Esther had stood alongside them at the small grave on that bleak morning, heads bowed, faces set. Katerina had already weighed them down with one secret. Now she had burdened them with another.
When February arrived, it did so with news. The British had listened to the plea of the Greeks and would allow humanitarian aid to pass the blockade. At last, food would come. Too late to save the hundreds who had perished on Folegandros, the rumored tens of thousands who’d starved on the mainland. Too late to save her sister. Katerina yearned for her baby, yet Leni’s absence was the boot on her throat.
She no longer feared the enemy, not their guns or bombs. It was sorrow that terrified her, grief a parasite that was consuming her from the inside out.
“I must leave this place,” she said.
Dafni and Ingrid turned abruptly to face her. They were sittingas they often did in the garden of Katerina’s home, a pot of herbal tea curling steam into the still air. It was March, yet spring was nowhere to be found. Winter had become an enemy, holding hostage the season of hope.
“What are you talking about?” Dafni replied. “Leave and go where?”
“To the mainland.”
Ingrid lowered her cup.
“Éla, you cannot,” Dafni chided. “It is forbidden.”
“Let them shoot me,” Katerina said. “I do not care.”
“That is exactly what they would do,” Dafni said. “But they would rape you first. Beat you. Make an example of you.”
Katerina raised her eyes to the muted sky.
“There is nothing here for me,” she said quietly. “My parents are gone, my sister is dead, my child is dead, my heart—” Her voice snagged on the word. “My heart has turned to ash. If I stay here, I will die.”
“No.” Dafni reached across and took her hand. “You will not die, Kat. You will live.”
“I need to see him,” she said firmly. “I must find Stefanos. I must tell him about— He is the only one who can save me. The only person I have left.”
“You have us,” Dafni said urgently. “You have Ingrid, Phaedra, Es—Kostas. Your parents will return when the war is over, and—”
“They are gone,” Katerina said. “I can feel it.”
“Even if you could escape this island, you do not know where to find Stefanos. He could have been captured or be hiding or even killed.”
“He is alive.” Katerina met her gaze. “If he had died, I would have died with him. No. He is alive, and I will find him. No matter what it takes.”
Ingrid stood to refill their cups.
“Your husband,” she said. “He is a soldier?”
“He fights for freedom,” Katerina said, puffing out her chest. “For Greece.”
Ingrid nodded.
“It is probable that he will be on the mainland,” she said, stumbling slightly over the words.
“The mainland!” Dafni cried. “There is no way to reach it. You must forget this nonsense.”
But Katerina was looking only at Ingrid. She saw how the woman’s focus had drifted, her ice-blue eyes locking on to an unseeable future.
“I can help you,” she said.
A surge of heat flooded through Katerina.
“What do you mean?”
Ingrid sat down, folding her hands in her lap.
