THE ISLAND OF CHARON
a novel in the series
"PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY"
CHAPTER 4. THE CAVE OF MAGICIANS
4.2. ATHOS ROSARY
“Alice,” I heard Yanis’ voice, although for a moment it seemed to be the voice of another person, whom for some reason I couldn’t remember.
I turned around. No, it was Yanis.
In fact, who else could be there?
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Thanks, fine… Listen, Yanis… It’s the fourth day since I’ve been here on vacation, and there’s nobody on the beach. You have no customers in the cafe, don’t you? It isn’t high season, is it? Have you enough money to live? Maybe it’s better to go back to Greece?”
“It’s low season everywhere,” Yanis answered laconically, and we wandered towards his cafe.
Yanis brought me some water (dead? — ha-ha-ha!) and sat down across from me.
“Do you have friends on the Greek islands?” he asked.
Apparently, the memories of a cozy and completely non-witchy Greece warmed our souls.
“Do you miss Greece, Yanis? It’s great there! A real Paradise. Despite they write on the Internet that Paradise is here, on Camotes… I do have friends in Greece, of course! The last few years I went only to Ammouliani. So the whole village knew me very well. Sometimes I tried to walk along the ‘secondary’ roads, but even there I became recognized, and people greeted me. It’s customary in Greece to stop at a meeting to exchange a couple of phrases, but I am not a sociable person. By the way, you can find a lot of Greeks among my friends on the social networking site. However, there was also a totally reserved guy, let’s call him the ‘Confectioner’.”
“Are you fond of sweets?”
“No, but sometimes I visited his shop for cookies.”
“Would you like to marry a Greek?”
“Perhaps!”
“And what about living in Greece?”
“Yes, on the island!” I laughed, remembering. “My friend from Ammouliani, Sofia, said, „As long as you are on the Island, nothing will happen to you“!”
“Why is that?” Yanis was surprised.
“The last time I went there, the news was full of murders. Men killed their wives and mistresses. The Greeks themselves considered the pandemic to be to blame. They say, self-isolation was driving people crazy. Every day someone killed someone. But not on Ammouliani, thank God! The only person who theoretically could become the ‘executioner’ among the locals was the same Confectioner. He is of my age, by the way. The gloomiest creature! Unfriendly, neither married, nor having relationship with either women or men, he lived with his mother, but she died that year. Once I entered his shop in the evening and asked for coffee. ‘What coffee?! No coffee! You have to sleep at night! Look at your watch!’ Then I asked for sparkling mineral water. And he grumbled again, why ‘sparkling’ and why ‘mineral’? ! I should have learned long ago that in Greece they say ‘Soda’!”
“Not your story!” Yanis grinned.
“Yes, when Sofia and I were sorting out potential suitors among the local residents of Ammouliani, she said the Confectioner wasn’t an option for me either!”
For some reason, Yanis grew darker.
“Did you spend the whole vacation on the island without getting out?” he asked then.
“In fact, I have been to many Greek islands — Santorini, Crete, Corfu, some of Ammouliani’s neighboring ones. I went there by boat or yacht. With music and Greek dancing — wow!”
“Wow!” Yanis chuckled and…
...at the same moment, I began to hear some music… Greek music…
“Sirtaki!” Yanis clarified.
I was shocked! Where was it coming from? How was that?
“Let’s dance!” Yanis held out his hand to me.
“Well, oh…”
While we were dancing — and all the time the music was playing somewhere, and not only sirtaki — the Sun yielded the Sky to the main magician, the Moon. As the dance drew to a close, I glanced at Yanis’ wrists, densely covered with woven bracelets.
“Why do you need so many of them?” I asked with a smile.
“These are rosaries from Mount Athos,” Yanis turned gloomy again for some reason.
“Have you been to Mount Athos? Right on the top at the Cross or in a monastery? Long ago?” I asked, trying to touch the rosary and see the silver inlays in the center with images of Saints and prayers, but Yanis jerked his hand away.
“Yes, right at the Cross, three days ago…”
I froze in a daze. Was he crazy?!
Could Yanis come back from Athos to Camotes on the same day as me?!
“It’s physically impossible!” I began to calculate time in my mind. “The ferry from Athos arrives at Ouranoupolis in the morning, plus 2 hours from Ouranoupolis to the airport of Thessaloniki. But there’s no flights even to Manila, not to mention Cebu, from which it takes you about two more hours to get to Camotes by ship or ferry! So, at first you need to fly to Athens — plus one hour. And the most rapid flight from Athens to Manila is about 16 hours! We were discussing this flight with Sofia. Being a lover of all exotic, after her vacation in Bali, she and her husband planned exactly the Philippines!”
“Mmmm… So, you mean… three days ago,” I said only not to be silent, “you were on the top of Mount Athos in Greece…”
Yanis silently nodded and looked into my eyes so pitifully that I involuntarily bit my lip. Yes, I had seen that look before! No doubts. It was not Yanis. And I shuddered from a sudden surge of fear.
“Okay,” I exhaled, trying not to sound excited. “I’ll go… Bye-bye…”
Without even waiting for an answer, I turned into the encroaching Ocean and swam towards the stairs to get back to my hut and to catch my breath.
“Don’t go to the magicians!” Yanis shouted in my wake, but…