“Out back,” Joy told them. “Dusty was turning over some more earth out there when her shovel hit something. It’s pretty cool, actually. Reckon it’s an antique.”
Skye did not need to hear more; she was already moving, hurrying across the dry ground with Andreas at her side. When theyreached the truck, he slid the bundle of letters into the glove compartment, then rolled up the windows and locked the doors.
“They will be safe in there,” he said. Skye offered him a grateful smile and fell into step beside him as they followed Joy to the sisters’ house. A small crowd was gathered outside. Victoria and Adam—bizarrely dressed in swimming trunks and flip-flops on bottom, with a shirt and tie on top—as well as Louisa, and Cora from the village shop, who had her two young children, Iris and Ajax, in tow. A harried-looking Theo was mid-apology, assuring her that George would like to play with them another day.
“I’m afraid his social battery has run dry,” he said.
Cora nodded sympathetically as the younger, Ajax, broke away to pet Bruno, his face brightening at the sight of Mia approaching with a box of Popsicles.
“We heard you have found something,” Andreas prompted, and Louisa, whose dress and bare legs were caked in dry mud, turned as red as her long hair.
“Dusty did,” she said, shifting awkwardly. “She’s still out back.”
He stalked away, and Skye followed, into the living area, where three camp beds were set up in a row along one wall, and out through the kitchen to the garden beyond.
“Told you she’d been busy,” Joy said, jogging up behind them.
The once-flat expanse of ground had been almost completely dug up, and there were separate piles of stone, mud, and other detritus such as wire, broken clay pots, and larger rocks. Dusty had somehow sourced a cement mixer and a vast bag of sand, and there were numerous white sacks in a heap next to a mound of wooden planks.
Andreas ran a hand through his hair. He was still wearing the coveralls he’d put on to demolish the fireplace, and sweat was beginning to dapple across his forehead. The peak heat of the daywas allegedly the middle part, though Skye consistently found that this hour was hotter, between four and five p.m., when the wind dropped off and the air grew still and heavy.
Dusty emerged from the hut at the far end of the garden and raised a hand in greeting. Clad in board shorts and a crop top, she was sporting two sunburned shoulders, and her pale shins were dotted with Band-Aids.
“Bites,” she explained in answer to Skye’s inquiring glance. “The mossies can’t seem to get enough of me.”
“You should burn a citronella candle in the evenings,” Andreas said, to which she tutted.
“Tried that to no avail, and I practically bathe in DEET. I wouldn’t mind if all of us were equally afflicted, but for some reason they don’t seem to go after my sisters.”
“I heard that it’s something to do with all the Marmite we eat,” Mia interjected. She had come out to join them, Victoria and Adam in tow. “It’s packed with B1, and apparently they hate it.”
“Is Marmite the gooey black stuff that tastes like the bottom of a beer barrel?” Victoria wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“She’s banned me from eating it,” Adam lamented. “I’m not even allowed a jar in the house.”
Skye, who’d always been able to take Marmite or leave it, turned back to Dusty.
“We heard you’d found something?”
“News really travels fast around here,” she remarked drily. “I’ll go and get it—one sec.”
Andreas, meanwhile, was asking Adam about his absent trousers—“Did you leave them on the beach?”—which promptly sent Mia into a fit of giggles.
“I’ve had a day of meetings,” he explained, “but as they’re all done online, only the top half of me needs to look presentable.”
“Do you have Wi-Fi at the house now, then?” Mia asked, suddenly hopeful, but Adam pulled a face.
“Not yet. The engineer can’t get here until June 18, so a week from Wednesday. I’ve been working out of the taverna most days, drinking every last coffee bean Pantelis has in stock.”
Dusty was coming back toward them, a long, slender object balanced carefully in her hands. As she came closer, Skye saw it resembled some kind of leather-bound tube.
“Cool, right?” Joy said.
“Erm…” Skye hedged. “I’m not actually sure what it is I’m looking at.”
“I didn’t either at first,” Dusty said. “Almost took my hand off fishing it out of the dirt.”
She gripped the narrower end and gave it a gentle tug, releasing a slim, curved blade from what Skye now realized was a scabbard.
