“No.” Skye practically shouted the word. “Please, Mum. Leave it to me to sort out.”
Cassandra MacKinnon launched into another tirade, but her words were breaking up. Skye moved away from Adam and Victoria’s house, passing her cracked front door and heading up the hillside beyond, where she slipped, scrabbled, and almost fell to her knees. The signal was lost, her connection to her mother severed, and through her ragged breaths, Skye tapped at the screen, blocking first Cassandra’s number and then Martyn’s. Only then was she able to breathe normally again, though her dash up the stony slope had left her chest burning. She had done it again, the thing her mother had so callously accused her of doing wheneverlife became tough. But this time, Skye had not run away out of selfishness; she had run out of necessity.
Mindlessly, she continued to climb over tufts of grass and sand-blasted hulks of rock. The sun beat down against her shoulders, dappling sweat across her neck and back. There was nobody in sight, though she felt pursued. She saw a narrow ridge a short distance ahead and half fell to the ground below it, blinking away dust as an image of the village and sea beyond swam into view. She saw the roof of her house with its missing tiles, the glint of a faraway attic window, the pale walls and chipped blue paint. Her phone was still in her hand, and for several still minutes, she contemplated hurling it as hard as she could down the mountainside. What was it, in the end, if not a portal to the past?
Skye shut her eyes as a memory swirled, the image tarnished by shame. She pressed the heel of her hands against her temples, a scream building that she released through gritted teeth. She could hear him now, the ominous tone of the quietly furious, his mouth set as he crouched beside her, a cup and spoon in hand.
Behave like a baby, and I’ll treat you like a baby.
Skye shied away now as she had then, a whimper escaping as she once more felt the hard edge of the spoon against her lips, the cold smear of pureed food on her chin, the mocking taunt ofOpen wide. The trembling began, every part of her quivering. Skye curled into a ball, dropped her head onto her knees, and began to weep.
Eleven
Skye did not join the others at the taverna.
She stayed where she was—in the dirt, staring but not seeing, listening but not hearing, thinking while trying her hardestnotto remember. There was a distance between her and Martyn now, but she couldn’t rid her mind of him, couldn’t silence the sense that he was coming for her. His message—three words that would seem innocuous to most people—represented the firing of a starting pistol. Martyn Lockhart was on the hunt, and he wouldn’t stop until he found her.
Aware of movement on the slope below, Skye looked down and saw the ginger cat Tigri making his way toward her, delicate paws sidestepping stones and tufts of grass.
“Geiá sou,” she said. The Greek language sounded strange in her voice, though she supposed it would become less so with more effort. Tigri responded by nuzzling his soft head against her ankle. He wore no collar yet appeared well fed and healthy, his eyes bright and fur clean.
“Hungry?” she asked, scratching under his chin. “Me, too. Come on, then.”
When she stood and headed back the way she’d come, the cat followed, lagging at first, then bounding ahead as they neared the houses. There was another pickup truck parked at an angle outside the cottage next door to Joy’s. It had a UK license plate and a sticker on the bumper that read: “Sorry for Driving so Close in Front of You.” As Skye approached, a crash rang out from inside the house, followed by a shout of frustration. The door flew open, and a petite young woman burst into the yard, chased by another—a head taller though seemingly younger. Both had the same fiery red hair.
“How can someone so small be so bloody clumsy?” the taller woman raged in a strong Bristolian accent. Then, noticing Skye: “Oh, hello there.”
“Hi.” Skye said. The shorter women smiled with faint embarrassment.
“Sorry about all the yelling,” she said. “I dropped a vase—but it wasn’tmyfault,” she added, turning to her pursuer. “I tripped over Bruno.”
“I told you to leave him in the truck.” The other woman sighed and wiped her hands on the front of her jeans. “Bruno is our almost-blind basset hound,” she told Skye. “No one knows how old he is in human years, but I reckon he must be at least a hundred by dog standards.”
“Rude,” the other woman intoned. “Bruno isn’t a day over ninety.”
Right on cue, a large droopy-eared dog lolloped out of the house and walked straight into a stack of clay pots. Tigri, who had sprung up onto the mottled stone wall that surrounded the property, hissed in disgust.
“Oh, how gorgeous.” The first woman shot forward, bendingso she could peer at the cat’s face. “Nice moggy,” she said. “Is he yours?”
“Not mine, no.” Skye matched her smile. “I think he might belong to the village collectively—he certainly seems to behave as if he does.”
“That’s cats for you,” the woman said. “I’m Mia, by the way. And that crosspatch over there is my younger sister, Dusty.”
“Younger but wiser,” Dusty called across, and Mia rolled her eyes theatrically.
“Is it just the two of you?” Skye asked once she’d introduced herself. Dusty glanced up from where she’d bent to tie her shoelaces. She wore the same thick-soled boots as Andreas.
“There’s a third sister,” she said. “Louisa, she’s the eldest. I think she went off in search of a shop, though I have to admit, I wasn’t really paying much attention to what she said.”
Bruno gave up trying to find his way back indoors and lay down across the front step, stubby tail flicking away flies.
“Of all the places…” Dusty sighed, readjusting her baseball cap over an untidy bun.
“Do you want to see our house?” Mia offered. “It’s a bit of a shell, but there’s running water and electricity, which, apparently, we should feel thankful for.”
“The listing said ‘derelict,’ ” Dusty reminded her. “I’m thankful we have a roof.”
They took turns stepping over Bruno—who’d rolled onto his back and was snoring loudly, all four paws dangling in midair—and went through into an open-plan room cluttered with half-open boxes, suitcases, and three tightly knotted trash bags.
