She narrowed her eyes, and he smiled, extending a hand.
“I am Andreas. Andreas Vithoulkas.”
“Skye.”
Their fingers slid together briefly, and he repeated her name several times.
“It’sSkyewith ane,” she explained. “I was named after an island, which feels ironic.”
Andreas cocked his head to one side.
“Are you going to have a look at your house?” he asked, gesturing at the still-locked door.
“In a minute I will.”
When he failed to take the hint, Skye drew in a long breath and exhaled it sharply.
“Ah, sorry.” Andreas pressed a hand to his forehead. “I have not explained myself. I am a contractor,” he said. “A builder. I am the one who will be helping you finish the house.”
“Oh, you will, will you?” Skye replied. “And do I get a say in this, or…?”
He shifted from one foot to the other.
“Of course, you are free to hire another person, someone from Santorini or the mainland, but that will take a lot of time. I am the only person doing this job who lives here, on the island.”
His presumption stung, however well meant it might have been, and the sigh that escaped Skye’s lips was laced with mild frustration. How best to communicate politely that what she wanted was to look around her new home for the first time alone, without some stranger in tow? He was friendly, yet he was still a man—and as far as she was concerned, that meant he was also an unknown entity. An awkward silence bloomed, during which she did little more than stare at the ground.
Andreas cleared his throat.
“I am intruding,” he said. “Sorry. I will come back tomorrow if that is OK with you?”
Skye drew herself up, faintly ashamed of having so clearly communicated her displeasure.
“Of course,” she said, though before she had time to say more, Andreas had nodded and turned away, quickly disappearing from view through the boundary between her modest property and the larger one beyond. She waited, rooted to the spot, unsure whether he would return. Why had she left it to him to figure out what was playing on her mind? When it came to corralling a classroom full of children, she never used to have any such qualms. But then, that had been before; she had changed over the past few months in ways she didn’t want to admit, was not yet ready to accept.
“Get a grip, MacKinnon,” she muttered, fumbling to get the key into the lock. The door was stiff, and she had to shoulder it to get it open, flakes of blue paint falling over the threshold. It was dim inside, faint light streaming in from around the shuttered windows. She located a switch on the wall, blinking as a lone yellow bulb flickered to life from a cord in the middle of a cracked wood-paneled ceiling. The open-plan living space was empty save for several piles of timber and a scattering of bricks, while the thick shaft of a defunct fireplace banked up from one corner. Stairs leading to the second story hugged the wall closest to the door, though there was no banister. Someone had left a stack of newspapers on the bottom step. Skye made her way toward an open archway at the far side of the room, through which she discovered a kitchen, or the approximation of one. The plug sockets appeared new enough, as did the crude strip lighting, but the uneven stone tiles were scarred by another time.
There was a second door in the kitchen, which led outside, a brass key on the sill that opened it. Skye went into what she supposed was her garden—a rectangular waste ground hemmed in by tumbledown stone wall. It would need to be repaired, the weeds pulled up and the numerous heaps of what looked concerninglylike animal droppings cleared away. She could not fault the view, however, and stood for a few moments to admire the sweep of mountain set against its cobalt backdrop, the confetti-like smatter of pale rooftops, and the faraway ribbon of sea beyond. A church was perched high on a distant cliff, pure white and softly edged, reminiscent of a fallen cloud.
The enormity of her decision astounded her afresh, though Skye knew that regardless of how much work was required, being on Folegandros was preferable to the alternative. She could never return to the place she had left behind.
A light breeze shifted the leaves of an overhanging tree, and the sun broke through with dazzling clarity. Turning back toward the house, Skye bent to retrieve one of the fallen rocks from the ground and held it in her hands, feeling its warmth, the uncompromising strength of it. As the sound of bells began to ring out across the hillside, she took the stone and slid it back into the wall.
All that was broken, she would rebuild. One small piece after another.
Two
Lottery wins did not happen to people like her.
That had been Skye’s first thought when the email arrived, her second was that she must have fallen afoul of an elaborate hoax. She called the number provided with disbelief, and only when the man on the other end calmly confirmed that, yes, she was one of the six who had been selected, and no, he was not a fraudster who’d somehow hacked the entry list, did Skye accept that it was real.
After that, she’d had a month to make the necessary arrangements, though with no job to resign from and only a meager collection of possessions to pack, the only real task on her to-do list had been sourcing the means with which to fund her new life, and that sizable hurdle had come close to unraveling her completely.
Relief in having made it to the island had diluted any excitement she might otherwise have felt, but as the first hour slid by, Skye began to feel the tingles of something close to pleasure. The house was hers, every roughened stone and cracked tile of it. The wildflowers spilling out between the gaps in the walls were hers,as were the old latches on the internal doors, the stained marble basin in the bathroom, and the dappled glass in the window frames. She hummed to herself as she moved from room to room, a pad in hand on which she jotted down a list of jobs that would need to be done, furniture that would need to be purchased, holes that would need to be filled.
Sometime later, when she was in the process of inflating the single air bed that she’d mercifully thought to bring, a knock sounded at the door. Skye crossed to the window and peered down, immediately recognizing the broad shoulders of Andreas. He had returned sooner than promised and was holding two large carrier bags.
Scribblingsecurity chain?at the end of her steadily growing list, she went downstairs to see what he wanted.
