Skye swore as the zip of her case snagged on an errant sock.
“I can’t be here,” she told them. “Not anymore.”
Andreas moved aside as she stormed through into the bathroom, shoving shampoo, toothpaste, and tampons into her toiletries bag.
“What’s the big deal?” Joy said as Skye dodged around her. “Why are you running away? The story will be forgotten in a few days.”
Martyn would’ve set up a Google alert for all iterations of her name—of that Skye was certain. It was no longer safe for her to be here.
“Excuse me,” she said to Andreas. He was blocking her path into the bedroom and didn’t budge at her request.
“Where will you go?” he asked. “To another island? The mainland?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “I’ll get to the port, then I’ll decide. Will you drive me?”
She looked up at him, but Andreas was unmoved.
“Only,” he said, “if you tell me the real reason why.”
Skye head rocked back with a groan.
“Please,” she begged, close to tears. “I just need to get out of here.”
Andreas moved to comfort her, only for his phone to ring. As he reached for it, Skye slipped past, hurling the few toiletries she’d collected into the suitcase. From the landing, his low conversation drifted in, just a few words: “Nai,” “Entáxei.” By the time he returned, Joy at his side, Skye had zipped the case and found her passport. The confusion on his face had given way to something graver.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
He stared at her, his gaze unwavering.
“That was the police,” he said.
Skye went very still.
“The tests on the bones have been completed.”
“Already?” Joy said. “That was quick.”
“And?” Skye said, taking a step toward him. “Are they animal or human?”
Andreas glanced down at the phone in his hand.
“It is not one or the other,” he said. “The police found traces of both.”
Twenty-nine
April 1941
The meeting was held in the church.
Katerina walked through the village with Leni, their arms tightly linked together, shawls wrapped around their shoulders. It was early evening, the wind as lively as a dancing child and the air ripe with the scent of spring herbs. Greece, it seemed, was not impervious to the war; its people no longer had any choice but to face it. Athens had fallen, and soon, the enemy would come.
News of the defeat and subsequent surrender had come in across the wireless, and upon hearing it, Katerina had fled. She’d run until her lungs burned, not down to the sea but up to the mountains, where she’d buried her face in Chrysí’s soft flank and wept. Thousands of soldiers had been killed and many more taken prisoner. Logic told her that Stefanos and Michalis must be among them, though her hope refused to yield. It was enough to countenance the loss of your country; she could not accept the loss of him as well. He had sounded so unlike himself in the last letter she had received. Katerina read it often, taking it out from where she hadsecreted it beneath her cotton undershirt and running her finger over his words, his warnings and instructions, his expressions of love and regret. How would she survive this conflict without him?
It was crowded inside the church and loud with urgent voices. The twin brothers, Atlas and Zephyr, were standing at the front. Both appeared ready for battle and had rifles slung across their backs. Atlas, the taller of the two, had twisted his long hair into a neat ball, fixing it at the nape of his neck, while Zephyr’s trailed loose. Both had grown heavy mustaches that pulled their features downward and made each man appear far more serious in nature than Katerina knew him to be. As she led her sister toward a seat in the back, Atlas caught her eye and raised a hand of greeting.
The priest swept forward in his dark robes and began to speak, calling the gathered villagers to attention. Murmurs rumbled around the room. People were scared, and they were angry. Katerina said nothing, not even when Leni gripped her hand hard enough to stop the flow of blood into her fingers. She merely listened, tapping her foot against the hard floor as the men argued with one another. That was the problem with men—they did not know how to hear one another, could not abide the idea of someone else having an opinion that differed from their own. Some wanted to flee, others to fight, all were craving reassurance, though that had become an impossibility.
“If we sit here like chickens at roost, the soldiers will come and run us through with their bayonets,” shouted their neighbor Constantine.
