“Is it helping?” Skye asked. “Being here on the island, I mean.”
Louisa turned from the sink.
“It’s funny,” she said. “I thought coming here would make me feel closer to Mum, but if anything, I feel further away from her.”
Skye thought about her own grief, how it would never leave her.
“The people we truly love become part of us,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how far we go from where they last were, because they’re still here, living quietly in the folds of our hearts.”
Louisa’s eyes shone.
“Do you really believe that?”
Skye met her gaze, a small, wistful smile tugging at her lips.
“I have to,” she said.
Seventeen
The night drew in gradually, a lilac dusk that deepened to claret as the moon slid out among the stars.
Skye wandered to the far end of Joy’s garden, a glass of wine that she’d been nursing for hours in her hand, and stared out at the molten sea, its hush barely audible beneath the low hum of voices behind her. Then a new sound: steady footsteps on dry earth. There was no need to turn around; she knew who it was.
Andreas came to a stop a few feet behind her.
“Do you want to be alone?” he asked.
Skye smiled to herself.
“I was just thinking what a shame it is,” she said, “that nowadays, people tend to spend more time staring down at devices than they do looking out at the world around them. I mean, why gaze at a six-inch screen when you have the whole of the night sky?”
“It is a good question,” he agreed, moving to stand beside her. “Instead of trying to expand our minds, we are allowing them to shrink, be muddled by nonsense.”
“You can see so many more stars here than in England,” shewent on. “My dad taught me the basic constellations, but I can’t remember a single occasion since childhood when I’ve had time to stand still and simply take them all in. It’s overwhelming to have visibility this good. In England, there’s so much light pollution—especially in London.”
She stalled for a moment, cursing herself inwardly for allowing this nugget of information to slip out, though if Andreas had registered the revelation, he didn’t remark on it. He was still gazing upward, chin raised and shoulders rounded.
“It was the Greeks who gave most of the stars their names,” he said. “Do you think it was because they were curious or because they lay around on their backs a lot?”
Skye raised an amused brow.
“Shall we be generous and say both?”
He gave her a sidelong look.
“You are already starting to think like a Greek.”
“What can I say?” she replied. “I’m a good student.”
“The best teachers always are.”
They both turned as a shriek rang out, just in time to see Victoria picking herself up from where a chair had deposited her on the ground. Skye laughed, unable to help herself. Of all the guests, Victoria had been the most enthusiastic at the makeshift bar, and Adam’s repeated attempts to dissuade her had so far proven unsuccessful.
“Someone is going to wake up with a sore head tomorrow,” Andreas remarked.
“And a sore bum by the looks of things,” Skye said. “But I think we can let her off. It is a party, after all.”
Andreas pulled a face.
