Konstantin was still gazing at her, his face a mass of wrinkles but his eyes, sharp and bright. She nodded back at him and gave a small smile, her chest swelling with emotion.
The morning of departure arrived quickly and unceremoniously. Cleo, Tash and Maya packed their few belongings with deliberate slowness, trying to delay the inevitable separation, before heading down the mountain with the other guests from the retreat.
The ferry to Hora Sfakia was waiting at the edge of the small bay, its engine humming softly, and the villagers, some of whom had now returned to their homes, gathered to say goodbye. Henrietta and Mark were there, too.
It was astonishing, Cleo thought, how quickly life had reasserted itself. It was less than a fortnight since the earthquake, and already boats were returning to the harbour, tents had been replaced with plastered walls and laughter rang out where there’d once been panic.
She began to push through the crowd, stopping often to say quiet farewells to the people she’d worked with or treated – the elderly fisherman with the bandaged arm, the mother whose baby had been born in the makeshift clinic and the shy girls who’d learned to clean wounds and take pulses.
‘We’ll be back,’ she told Anthea, before flinging her arms round her neck and then her daughter’s, beside her.
‘You’d better be,’ Anthea replied in a fake stern voice. ‘You’re part of Porto Liakáda now, like it or not. You’re one of us.’
Tash was just in front of Cleo, carrying a sketchbook, thick with jottings, as well as drawings of tents and children, crumbled walls and wildflowers forcing their way through cracks. She’d said she planned to turn them into something larger, though she wasn’t yet sure what.
Children jumped up and down and called out names, while adults offered hugs and handshakes as well as gifts – jars of local olive oil and honey, woven baskets and fresh bread.
When they finally reached the temporary dock, Achilles was standing there with his guitar slung over his shoulder and his hands stuck in the pockets of his worn jeans.
His eyes met Cleo’s and his look was warm and steady.
‘You take care of yourself,’ he said softly.
Cleo swallowed down the lump in her throat and smiled bravely. ‘I will. And you keep playing.’
He smiled back and nodded and she felt a stab in her chest, fearing he was about to go and this might be the last time she’d ever see him. But then he pulled something out of his back pocket, a piece of paper, stuck it in the palm of her hand and bent her fingers round to make a fist.
‘What is it?’ she asked, surprised, unfurling her fingers and starting to open up the paper.
‘My email address,’ he replied. ‘You can write to me – if you want.’
‘I will,’ she said, meaning it.
Cleo looked deep into his eyes and smiled again, but this time instead of a stabbing pain in her chest, she felt a bubble of light float up and out of her body and make its way right across the bright-blue sky towards the sun.
She watched as Achilles turned and walked purposefully away, back to his work, no doubt, and his precious boys. She understood why he didn’t want to wait and watch her go and she respected him for it. But she held the paper tightly in her palm, as close as could be to her heart.
As the ferry pulled off, she took a long, last look at the village, the cliffs, the mountains and the glittering turquoise sea and felt a bittersweet tug in her chest. In Porto Liakáda, fear, grief and courage had collided and, she believed, changed her forever.
She whispered a quiet thank you to Achilles, to the village and to Villa Ariadne itself because she’d been lost and somehow, they’d found her and put her back together.
Soon, the village shrank to a smudge of colour against the rocks, with the mountains rising protectively behind.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever really leave the place behind. It’ll stay with me,’ Tash said. ‘What about you?’
‘I agree,’ Maya replied.
Cleo took a deep breath. ‘And me.’
The water was much choppier than they remembered; something to do with the aftereffects of the earthquake, perhaps. After a while, Lesley and Fran appeared and lurched towards the three friends, hanging on for dear life to the metal handrail.
‘This is completely unacceptable,’ Lesley announced, to no one and everyone. ‘The boat’s swaying far too much. It’s nauseating.’
‘It’s the sea,’ Cleo murmured, trying not to laugh.
‘Well, it’s dangerous,’ Lesley muttered.
Fran looked towards the horizon. There was still the faintest outline of the mountains and the village, then they seemed to melt into nothing and become one with the sea and sky.
