Andreas’s truck was blocking her path, and Skye maneuvered around it, doing her best not to get dust on her shorts. The windows were down, and peering into the cab, she saw a folded newspaper, several cans of white paint, and a large plastic bottle filled with some kind of oil. Hanging from the rearview mirror was a blue-glass evil-eye pendant on a gold chain. She’d noticed it before, during their drive to Chora, and it made her wonder about his superstitions and how they aligned with his beliefs.
“Geiá sou,” she said in passing to Stamatis, who was leaning against the outer wall of the house, vaping and scrolling on his phone. Not far in front of him, the cement mixer churned. Skye went inside and found Andreas standing in the far corner of the main living area, his head cocked to one side.
“Ah,” he said. “Good.”
“Did you find another crack?” she asked, moving in beside him.
Andreas pointed toward the wall where the old fireplace had once stood. Its semicircular opening had been haphazardly bricked up with stones of all shapes and sizes.
“This is very ugly,” Andreas said without a trace of humor or irony.
“It is,” Skye agreed solemnly, suppressing a smile.
“I have not been up onto the roof yet to check the, er, flue, but if you want to use the fireplace, then we must remove all of this”—he whirled a hand around in midair—“stupid stuff. Do you want a fireplace?”
Skye thought for a moment. He’d already convinced her to install air-conditioning units in several rooms. These would, apparently, also provide heat in the colder months.
“I think I do,” she told him. “I don’t know if I’ll ever use it, but I’d like to have the option.”
“Bravo,” he appraised. Then, as was customary, “Perímene.”
He went out to the truck, returning moments later with a set of coveralls on over his jeans and shirt and two sets of plastic goggles—one of which he passed to Skye.
“Put these on,” he said, weighing a large mallet in his other hand, “and be sure to stand back.”
The first strike sent cracks spidering through the surrounding plaster; the second brought down a cascade of stones and rubble. Skye coughed, quickly covering her mouth. Tightening his grip on the mallet, Andreas crouched to adjust his angle before winding up for another swing. More bricks tumbled, followed by lumps of blackened clay and the mummified body of a long-dead mouse. Shuddering, Skye fetched a dustpan and brush from the kitchen.
When she returned, Andreas was crouched low, peering through his dirty goggles into the empty space he’d created.
“There is something here,” he said, half turning toward her. “Can I use this?”
Skye gave him the brush, and Andreas used the handle end to poke up inside the chimney, just above where the curved hood of the fireplace met the shaft. A moment later, there was a soft thud as something landed on the pile of rubble.
“It’s not another dead rodent, is it?” she asked, tiptoeing forward with trepidation.
Andreas lifted the object and examined it for a moment, blowing hard across the surface to clear away the dust. Whatever it was appeared to be shrouded in some kind of burlap sack.
“Shall I open it?” he asked, glancing up at her. Skye pulled down her goggles, her thoughts already racing.
“I guess so,” she replied, her mind spinning with possibilities. As a child, she had spent hours digging through the garden in search of ancient pottery, imagining ancient treasures hidden beneath the soil. She’d joined her dad on metal-detecting excursions, scoured beaches for hidden sea glass, driven by the need to discover something new. It was a passion that had never quite left her.
Andreas began to unwrap the package, peeling off the burlap one layer at a time until it fell away completely. Skye gasped when she saw what it had been shielding—a stack of envelopes, tightly bound with twine, the topmost bearing a name neatly written in faded ink.
“Is it in Greek?” she asked. “Can you read it? What does it say?”
Andreas stood from where he’d been kneeling and crossed to the open doorway, Skye close at his heel. The sunlight made the words clearer, though she still couldn’t make sense of the characters—except for one. A bold unmistakableK, exactly the same as the one carved in her attic.
Fifteen
The letter was addressed to Katerina Sideris.
Katerina.
Skye repeated the name several times, copying the way Andreas sounded theeas anaand adding emphasis to the vowels as he did.
“ ‘Sideris’ comes from the Greek word ‘Sidero,’ which means iron,” he told her. “Folegandros is the Iron Isle of the Cyclades.”
“So we can assume she was from here, this Katerina?”
