“That’s so…Thank you,” she said.
Andreas looked down at her hastily retreating hand.
“I will bring them to the house later, unless—” He paused, frowning slightly. “Unless you want to come now to collect them?”
“To your house?” Skye said. “Right now? But how would I get there?”
Andreas put a hand on her shoulder, turning her until she was facing the sea.
“Éla,” he said, skin cool against hers. “We will go in the boat.”
Twenty
The boat could not be brought all the way into shore, though Andreas towed it close enough that Skye was able to wade most of the way out. Getting in was trickier than it looked, the water tugging at her clothes and the boat rocking unsteadily. After a few failed attempts to climb in on her own, Skye’s frustration mounted and she finally gave in, letting him reach out and help her over the side.
“You are light,” he told her as she sat herself down. “I have lifted octopuses that were heavier.”
“Well,” she said, ringing out her skirt, “they do have rather more legs than me.”
Andreas raised the anchor, its chain curling up by Skye’s feet like a slumbering viper. There was a T-shirt tossed over the outboard motor, a worn pair of flip-flops on the floor beside a cooler.
“There are some drinks inside,” he said, opening the lid with his big toe.
Skye helped herself to a can of Diet Coke. The long walk from the village had left her parched, the sun that had been mellownow more fervent. She had no idea of the hour. Her phone was where she had deliberately left it, back at Joy’s house, and Andreas was not wearing a watch. Time had once been at the center of her working day, her eyes going constantly to the clock on the wall of her classroom. Schools were structured by time—registration time, lesson time, break time, home time—and Skye hadn’t realized how much of a comfort that schedule had been until she no longer had it. Things were different on the island, however. Here, time seemed endless, the days leaking into evenings that were gradually consumed by nights. There was time to think, to pause, to simply be.
“Ready?” Andreas asked as the motor rattled to life.
Skye gripped the gunwale with her free hand, and then they were off, cutting through water so clear that she could see the pattern of light on the rocks below. The boards vibrated beneath her, a roar that grew in volume as they picked up speed, leaving the bay behind and heading out into open sea. The wind whipped around them, and Skye quickly tucked her dress between her knees, her gaze drawn upward to the island’s towering cliffs. Gray and weathered, their surface tie-dyed with patches of lichen.
Andreas tapped her shoulder, pointing to where the dark shape of a bird was playing chicken with the waves.
“A Levantine shearwater,” he said. “They like to chase the wind.”
“Do they nest on the island?”
“Not nest,” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over the engine. “They have burrows, the same as puffins. It is safer for them.”
“It seems to me as if a lot of things seek safety on Folegandros,” she said.
Andreas readjusted his grip on the tiller, and the boat slowed.
“Can you see that cave up ahead?”
Skye scanned the cliffside and located the jagged shadow of an opening, dark and mysterious against the sunlit rock.
“I see it.”
“That is Chrysospilia,” he told her. “It is very famous in Folegandros because, inside, there is a chamber, and painted on the walls are many ancient names.”
“How ancient?”
“The fourth century BC.”
“That’s astonishing.” Skye turned back to him. “Have you ever been inside?”
Andreas shrugged half-heartedly.
“Never,” he said. “If you want to visit, you must have special permission, and it can be dangerous to try. You must go by boat, and only when the sea is very calm. There can be no wind. Once, a long time ago, it was possible to climb down. The people who lived on the island thousands of years ago would come here to Chrysospilia to hide from pirates.”
