the undergrowth among the yellow gorse and mimosa trees. They held each other tight for the first time in months, their hearts thumping in their ears, filling them with both excitement and fear. They knew it was risky, they knew after what had happened last time it was madness – what if they had been seen? But their love was stronger than their fear and, finally alone for the first time since their engagement was announced, they gave in to their passion.
They were lying in each other’s arms, knowing that they must soon set off on their way back home, when they heard rustling in the bushes outside. Froso let out a small cry and brought her hand to her mouth. Kosmas, holding her hand, stood up, then releasing her hand and taking a deep breath stepped towards the entrance of the cave. There, his figure silhouetted dark and menacing against the light, stood Mitros, brandishing a knife.
‘No!’ A single cry was forced from Froso’s mouth before she saw Kosmas fall to the ground. She scrambled to her feet and dashed towards him as blood poured from his chest, and placed her palm over the wound. ‘Murderer!’ she howled, hurling herself over the body. Mitros tossed the knife behind him and stepped towards her. With one strong hand he peeled her away from Kosmas and pulled her up.
‘You are mine!’ he hissed. ‘He had it coming.’ He spat the words out, and pushing her to the ground, pinned her arms over her head with one arm and covered her mouth to silence her screams with the other as he forced himself on her.
5
Crete, 2018
The night suddenly felt stifling. The breeze from the sea, which had been constant all evening, seemed to stop abruptly, along with Calli’s breath. She sat motionless, the perspiration which had broken out on her face now spreading all over her body. She had been listening intently to Froso without interrupting or noticing the passing of time. Now, to her horror, the story of young love and passion which had started so movingly the night before had turned into a Greek tragedy, a Cretan nightmare. She looked at her aunt, her ashen face streaked with tears; with trembling lips Calli tried to speak but could find no words. How could this be true? She had always heard stories and anecdotes about war and bravery, of the unforgiving Cretan temperament, of the hardness of the men mirroring the harshness of the landscape, their history of thrashing the Turks and defeating the Germans. She remembered the elders talking in hushed tones about mysterious events that had occurred in the caves and the ravines up in the wild mountains. But murder and rape, in their own family? The tales and yarns she had heard up until now were set in times of oppression and war, times of survival and slavery, historic times long past, or so she thought. What her aunt had just told her had nothing in common with those stories of long ago. This act of violence had taken place in the twentieth century, a few miles from where they now sat, and the realization took her breath away.
Froso, voiceless now, was sitting upright in her chair, fatigue and sorrow etched on her pale face. She reached for her niece’s hand, squeezed it, then got up and went inside.
Calli remained rooted to her chair in the garden, unable to move until the first star appeared in the pale sky. Only then did she take herself upstairs to lie on her bed. But sleep would not come. Nothing had prepared her for what she had heard in the course of the night. How could her mother not have known about her sister’s tragic early life? Or perhaps she did know but had not told Calli; perhaps the subject was a family taboo that could not be mentioned. Eleni discussed most things with Calli, they shared so much; surely if her mother knew she would have told her once she was old enough to understand.
Her aunt had said that she wanted to speak to them both before she died, therefore Eleni must be ignorant of her sister’s secret past. But how was it possible for her aunt and her grandparents to keep silent all these years? Did anyone at all know anything? Questions swirled in her head, giving her a headache. She had to talk to her cousin Costis, to find out if anyone in the family, his mother perhaps,