wish I did not think her a happy fool. Above her haloed head a brass bell dangles, and higher than that, on the shrine’s roof, the white cross is an advertisement to travelers, should they lose sight and forget that Greece’s old gods have been shunted into the backseat—at least for appearances’ sake.
Irini crosses herself, moves to push the bell, shake it from its slumber, but I stay her. My silent warning feels foolish, because here we are out in the open, advertising our location to anyone with two eyes and decent vision; but for all we know, the ghost of the Swiss isn’t the only danger that stalks us. The lazy peal of the shrine’s bell could easily alert anything lurking in the hills that border this inland road.
We pray silently, lost in our own heads. I pray for my baby, for Nick, for Irini, for Esmeralda, for everyone I love, and for the dead. I don’t pray for myself. When Irini asks why, while we eat crackers dipped in chocolate spread, I tell her that it feels like bad luck to offer that kind of temptation to the universe when it’s already having such a laugh at humanity’s expense.
Then Esmeralda surges forward, her cereal scattering and popping as her hooves stomp it to powder. She lets out a cry of pain. I leap up, try to soothe her.
Irini stoops, picks something off the ground. “Look.”
There in the flat of her palm is a rock, brown with old blood. My head snaps up. One hand shielding my eyes, I scan the hills for a glimpse of our enemy.
Nothing.
Cracks form in my fragile temper until I cast aside my own good counsel.
“Fuck you!” I yell through cupped hands.
Laughter echoes through the hills.
We sleep in shifts, just like Lisa and I did. But unlike that poor dead girl, Irini is meticulous in her efforts. During the day we walk, until one day the scenery changes. The generous foliage bends over the road, concealing us from the sun, dipping us in a pool of cool shadows. My skin temperature plummets immediately. I sigh with the relief. Even Esmeralda perks. Temptation taunts us, urging us to walk faster, but the shade feels so good I want it to stretch on forever.
Just before the bend in the road, there’s a sign shoved deep into the earth.
“‘Lamia,’” Irini reads. “Half.”
I know from the map she means we’re halfway to our destination. Halfway to Nick.
“Have you been here before?”
“Yes. On the bus. There is…” She mimes eating.
Sure enough, there’s a roadside restaurant up ahead, its entire front made up of glass panels, the grounds dotted with picnic tables and umbrellas that were once dyed bold colors. Now, with no one to secure them in bad weather, their tattered and faded fabric flaps freely in the breeze. Tour buses sit abandoned on the roadside, waiting on passengers who will never pay their fare. Their seats beckon to us, issue seductive invitations of comfort and rest.
So we do. There’s a ready supply of springwater, restrooms that—thanks to some miraculous feat of engineering—still have flushable toilets.
“Tell me of him,” Irini asks when we’ve settled down in the plush seats.
“Who?”
“Your husband.”
“Nick’s not my husband.”
“Is okay.”
I get up, double-check the door is secure, and give thanks that the glass is tinted a gray the sun can scarcely penetrate. Esmeralda is up the front, where she has room to move. I stroke my hand down her back, then let my tired hips sink back into the seats.
“There’s nothing much to tell. He left. I followed.”
“Why?”
“Because I love him. Have you ever loved a man before?”
“Once. Perhaps.”
“Would you have followed him anywhere?”
“Perhaps yes, perhaps no. He was killed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was many years now.”
“I’m still sorry.”
There’s a pause, then: “What will you do if he is dead?”
I think about the possibility, although it leaves me so empty each breathe is a knife wound.
“Mourn him forever.”
“What’s up here?” I point to the map beyond Lamia.
“More.” She indicates the trees and the hills. “Then the water.”
We walk on. I wonder where the Swiss is now.
“What will you name her?”
I look at her, surprised. “I don’t know.”
“You have time. In Greece, babies don’t have names until…” She draws a cross on her forehead.
“Baptism?”
“Yes. Until then they are named
I try it on. “Baby.”
“Does he know, the man?”
“About the baby?”
She nods.
“No.”
“What will he do?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly, because until now that thought never occurred to me.
“Do not worry.”
Too late.
Towns shuffle by. They’re ghosts now, dead and purposeless. They served the people, but now the people no longer keep them alive. They’re purposeless shacks. Even the trees look tired from living. The heat drinks the life from the land. We stop and look for food, but the perishables have long passed their expiration dates, forming decaying sludge in their containers. Sometimes we find cookies and candies, and after we scoff those hungrily, we add what we can’t eat to the stash.
There’s salt on the breeze now. There’s something else, too: the bright acidity of new pennies or copper piping. I know what it means; I’ve smelled it before. Irini has, too, but she says nothing.
“I smell blood.”
“Yes,” she says.
“I’m sorry about your sister. She was wrong, though: you should have stayed. It’s not safe with me.”
“I need a reason.”
“For what?” I ask.
“To exist.”
We see a trio of Roma women who do not look us in the eye as we pass each other in the street. Tense and alert, them and us. Their mismatched clothes hang from their bodies like shapeless sheets.
“Excuse me,” I say after they’ve passed. The short one stops, turns, watches me under heavy lids. I hold out a handful of candy bars. She moves away.
They keep walking and so do we.
Irini glances at me.
“It costs nothing to be kind,” I say.
