THE ISLAND OF CHARON
a novel in the series
"PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY"
CHAPTER 6. BLOOD WITH MILK
6.3. MAGICIANS’ GRANDCHILDREN
Yanis brought fruit juice and a cake (where did he get it from?) for the Girl, seated her at the next table and sat down across from me.
“Not sunbathing anymore?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You used to come down to the beach closer to sunset to sunbathe while dozing off. And the approaching Ocean woke you up…”
“Don’t you think I’m bronzed enough?” I chuckled, giving myself an appraising look.
“And in Greece? Did you spend all day long on your lonely beach with a view of Mount Athos?”
“It depends. I used to swim after breakfast… And sometimes at sunset.”
“Have you ever swum under the Moon?”
“No,” I answered mechanically, but something sank inside me…
“Have I swum?!”
However, Yanis interrupted my memories.
“And not a Greek ever dared to get meet you?”
“Why… But not there, not on the island. Ammouliani’s men, except the Confectioner, were all occupied.”
“Did you meet on the plane?”
“No, on the Internet. His name was Konstantine.”
“Kostas?”
“Yes.”
“Was he married?”
“No. However, he lived in the city of Drama. It’s possible that the dramatic name played a cruel joke with Kostas. Everything he took on ended in a tragedy. His wife left him and their babies for a tough businessman. His private school was abandoned, as there were not enough children even to fill the regular one. Kostas called Drama ‘the town of pensioners’. Although the name of the city is connected in fact not with the word ‘tragedy’, but with the springs of water, which beat out of the ground in that area.”
“And when his children grew up, he decided to start life from scratch, didn’t he?”
“Exactly. He dreamed of finding a future wife.”
“Why didn’t you tell him to move somewhere far away from Drama? On Ammouliani, for example?”
“He ventured to move himself. Not on Ammouliani, on Thassos. Imagine a map of Northern Greece: Ammouliani looks at the Holy Mountain from below, while Thassos looks from above. An expensive island. Not for average tourists.”
“Yes, I know this island. Did Kostas offer you to move in with him?”
“To start life from scratch Kostas went all in. He took a bank loan and rented for some years an excessively expensive and too large, in my opinion, premises on the most expensive street of the most expensive tourist city of Thassos, Potos, in order to open a restaurant. To be honest, it was not a restaurant, but something similar to an ordinary Greek gyros. However, even when I said the more prestigious word ‘cafe’, Kostas was offended and demanded to call his brainchild exclusively as ‘restaurant’.”
“Typical Hellene!” Yanis grinned.
“I agree… Besides, in my opinion, elite tourists come to a luxury resort not for barbecue, but for delicacies. As for me, I have never eaten meat in Greece, only seafood.”
“And you two quarreled over cooking?”
“Come on, Yanis. I didn’t even express my opinion. However, no one really asked for it.”
“Have you tried Kostas’ gyros?”
“Imagine, no!”
“Why?!”
“We never met in the end. Everything collapsed because of the pandemic, the borders were closed, and neither I nor the coveted tourists came. The rental contract had been signed for several years, and the cost was off the charts. Kostas barely payed it with the hope for a double flow of tourists in summer No. 2, but, to the greatest regret, he lost out.”
“Potos was empty?”
“Yes. Even after Greece opened its borders for entry, some countries, including European ones, made every effort to limit the departures of own citizens abroad.”
“Changing the direction of the financial flows to domestic tourism?”
“Right, Yanis. Besides, many people were psychologically afraid of going abroad. And more, for example, in my country the monopolist in tours to Greece, the Mouzenidis Travel company, collapsed. Who would have thought! More than 20 years on the tourist market, impeccable reputation, own airline and hotels… In the first closed summer, Mouzenidis promised the tourists with already purchased tours to realize the obligations exactly in a year. Naturally, no money was returned. And in the spring, the owner of Mouzenidis suddenly died of Covid-19 after his visit to a travel trade exhibition.”
“Yes, the whole of Greece shuddered,” Yanis nodded. “Mouzenidis Travel, at the time of the death of its owner, owed about 250 million euros to Northern Greece alone!”
“It’s easier to die, I agree. What to say about poor Kostas! From time to time, he sent me selfies in a protective mask against the back of the blatant emptiness of his restaurant.”
“Bankrupt?”
“Yes, and he lost 150,000 euros,” I nodded and suddenly remembered something more important. “Sorry, Yanis… Tell me the truth! What would have happened to me if I had drunk that blood with milk last night? No fairy-tales about vampires, please!”
“Okay. Do you believe in the existence of addictions? For example, alcohol and drug addictions?” Yanis asked calmly.
“Of course, I do!”
“Well… this potion is addictive, highly addictive.”
“How do you know that?”
“My grandfather was a wizard. I hope you believe in magicians!” Yanis said again without any emotion.
“Hmm,” I smiled. “My grandmother, by the way, was a witch, too.”
“It’s interesting,” Yanis sighed. “We’d make a great couple! I am surprised you don’t believe in vampires.”
“Would we make a great couple? It’s interesting!” I grinned, repeating his words in my mind.
“So, Yanis, the potion isn’t a witchcraft, but an ordinary drug! It causes addiction to itself, without changing reality, does it?”
I tried to understand if the Wish Tree worked by itself, without magicians. And what would have happened with me and Michael if blood with milk had been drunk.
“Didn’t your grandmother make love spells?” Yanis was surprised.
“And what about your grandfather?” I mirrored.
“Then you must know what happens after.”
“Of course, I know! A spirit is implanted in the bewitched. It would be more correct to say ‘a demon’, an essence, that will fulfill the client’s wish.”
“A dead person soul,” Yanis sighed and added, “for a fee.”
“Naturally! But I don’t understand, what you’re getting at!”
“Everyone pays. Do you agree?”
“Yes, I do. I paid two lanterns!”
Yanis leaned towards me as if he wanted to reveal some terrible secret.
“You invited two more souls to the Isle of Darkness! And in what Book, the Moon or the Sun, did you find the one you wished to see?”
I recoiled, but… sometimes one had to be frank to get something clear.
“In the Moon Book,” I sighed. “What does that mean?”
“Well, it’s a pity, however, it’s better than being in different Books. Although, in any case, you would have woken up in someone else’s body.”
I sighed heavily. Yes, Yanis was definitely crazy!
“I see,” I decided to withdraw myself, “I have to go. I’m writing… at night… a little novel… But not a single line yesterday, and I’m leaving in three days…”
The Girl, who had been sitting at the next table all the time, came up to me and looked pitifully straight into my soul. Yanis took her hand and grinned, rising from the table.
“If I were you, Alice, I would check the ferry schedule. Anyway, I sincerely wish you to leave here in time!”
***
Having returned to the straw hotel, I remembered myself dreaming so much of having a daughter. Not allowing myself to continue the chain of the saddest thoughts, I took out the notebook and wrote down…
“I woke up in my hut closer to sunset. It was hard to adjust me to the local time.”