THE ISLAND OF CHARON
a novel in the series
"PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY"
CHAPTER 7. THE MOON BOOK
7.1. THE SHADOW OF THE BEEKEEPER
I was returning home from Sofia at midnight.
Every evening after sunset, I observed the ritual of walking around the island, stopping at the pier and visiting Sofia. During the season (from April to September included) she worked till late at night in her own souvenir shop. We drank coffee, discussing various things, and sometimes made a promenade along the sea and the main road. Then I usually had dinner and went back to my place, although, it would be more correct to say, to the house of the beekeeper Panagiotis, where I lived renting an apartment.
That cozy and typically Greek three-story house was located on the other side of the island, on a rock, a kilometer from the pier. The only path to reach it went through St. George Chapel, which was open 24 hours a day, unlike the nearby church. Sometimes I stopped by the Chapel to light a candle. In Greece, all the chapels were open 24/7, and they even had candles in public domain.
I was walking home, singing a Greek song that I had heard in a restaurant on the beach, when, passing by the Chapel, I suddenly sensed someone following me. I froze to listen to the silence, disturbed by the cicadas, but no footsteps were heard.
I continued on my way without that Greek song and obviously accelerating my pace.
However, after a gap of a couple of lanterns, the feeling of a stranger, who was following me, intensified.
I got the courage to look back and…
Horror robbed me of my voice, I could not scream! A white silhouette of a man with the black beekeeper’s net instead of his face was about twenty meters away from me! And no one, there was no one around at all, except for the lanterns!
“God! Help me!”
I ran to Panagiotis house as fast as I could, trying to recite a prayer, but I kept getting confused, forgetting the words and their order…
Finally, I opened the front door to Panagiotis’ house — what luck! I was saved! — and at the same moment, a heavy hand grabbed my shoulder!
Having closed my eyes in horror, I screamed at the top of my lungs!
“Alice! Sorry! Did I scare you?” the voice of a surprised Panagiotis rang out.
“Ugh…” I breathed, opening my eyes and turning around. “Yes, a little!”
“I saw you running here as if someone was chasing you! Are you okay?”
“Everything is fine,” I said confusedly, unable to recover and get my breath back so quickly. “However, if…”
“If what? If someone comes here for you, you mean?”
“Well… yes… If someone asks me…”
“Not to tell him you’re here, yes?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“My house is your fortress!” Panagiotis smiled. “By the way, would you like a jar of my honey as a gift? At night with tea… it’s great!”
I thanked the owner of the house for such a sweet offer, but I politely refused, went upstairs, locked the door, and even checked the door to the balcony. It was closed, too. So, I curtained the window and called Sofia by phone.
“Alice! What’s happened? Another maniac?” she exclaimed in surprise, realizing that I wouldn’t have disturbed her just like that.
“I’ve seen him… again…”
“Whom?”
“The Beekeeper!”
“He is dead! Stop it!”
“Please, Sofia, trust me!” I told her about my way home.
“Yeah…” she sighed thoughtfully. “Either it’s your nervous glitch, or the black humor of a clearly bad person.”
“But you said that the Confectioner had already been arrested!”
“Yes, he is not on the island anymore. He’s in Thessaloniki. Did the false Beekeeper write to you anything else?”
“No, thank God!”
“Then the only thing I can guess, Alice, accepting the absence of your own hallucinations in this dark story… Tomorrow is Friday the 13th. In Greece, we consider it…”
“Yes, you don’t have to explain, we have it, too,” I sighed.
“So, I advise you to be extremely careful,” Sofia summed up grimly. “Especially at night… Unfortunately, I can’t ask my husband to walk you home tomorrow night, because he’s leaving for the sea. Tomorrow comes the Full Moon, so it’s the best time for catching long-nosed fish, which is loved so much and has been waited for so long by monks on Athos. They have a lot of holidays in August, thus…”
“Yeah, I remember, you told me. Okay, sorry to bother you!”
“Never mind. I think you’re just nervous. Go to bed, let’s talk about it tomorrow, okay?”
And we said goodbye.
***
I couldn’t sleep for a long time. To distract myself somehow, I reviewed about a thousand pictures I had already taken on Ammouliani.
I made a post with a photo of two waves running towards each other, and I signed it, “Meet?!” And…
He commented the photo, answering me in a private chat, “Yes”.
And I jumped for joy! Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Hell yes!!! Unbelievable! Finally!!!
These three letters made me scream at the whole Universe! Yes, I screamed, “I want you, too!”, but after thinking a little, I wrote,
“I want that, too.”
“What do you want?”
“…to see you…”
It was madness! I understood everything, but appealing to reason at such moments was completely useless! Of course, he was not the captain of the ship “Scarlet Sails”, and I mostly felt us the main characters of the movie “Titanic”.
Haven’t you ever been attracted by bad boys/girls?! And did you think at such moments that your “Titanic” was already doomed?! Neither did I. I was ready to drown… sometime later… not then…
“Are you really coming tomorrow, Mark?! I was told that since the 1st of August you have a ban on traveling to Greece!”
“I’ll come by the evening. I want you to come to me. You can overnight at my place. However, early in the morning I’m leaving for Athos.”
“Where will you stay here?”
“At Maria’s.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“Next to you, on the rock…”