Metro Winds by Isobelle Carmody

Author:Isobelle Carmody
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: JUV037000, JUV038000
ISBN: 9781742697154
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2012-04-23T21:00:00+00:00

On his first full day on Santorini, he went for a long walk. He had decided to allow himself three days of being a tourist, not wanting to begin work when he was jetlagged. He also wanted some of the place to seep into him. All the research in the world could not tell you how it felt to be in a place, after all. But instead of unwinding or thinking about his work, he spent the whole day looking for the woman. He walked to most of the tourist destinations and even took a trip to Ancient Thera. Every wide-brimmed hat or tall woman or woman in a suit or woman with short dark hair jolted his pulse. He could not sit more than a short time in a restaurant without feeling that this was the moment when, if he were walking the streets, he would encounter her.

That night, again he dreamed of her, turning to look at him, but now they were somewhere dark and cold, and the smell of earth and stone was strong about them. She held a candle, and instead of a white suit she wore a black robe.

‘You looked at me,’ he said again.

‘I had to be sure before I could tell the others,’ she said.

‘Others?’

‘We are the Undimmed,’ she said. ‘Come to us.’

He woke again to the alarm and the scent of eucalyptus, determined to find the woman and speak to her. He told himself it was the only way to defuse his growing obsession, but as he walked through the day, the dream still whispered, Come to us.

He did not see her, and that night, he dreamed of the church facing the caldera.

The third and fourth days were the same as the first and second, but although the weather continued bright and hot the wind grew stronger, and at night in the restaurants, the blue and white tablecloths had to be pegged to prevent them flying away. There was a chill in the air which reminded him that summer had ended.

It was the seventh day before common sense forced him to accept that the woman had probably left the island. Few people would stay on a place like Santorini as long as he intended to remain. Even in the week he had been there, the number of people in restaurants in the evenings had dropped steadily, with a corresponding rise in friendliness on the part of waiters. No longer run off their feet by the tourist hordes of mid-season, they were pleased to stop and talk, happy to answer questions, especially after he bought them a Metaxa or two.

He played his usual role in these moments, asking them about themselves and their lives, listening intently, because he was genuinely interested, so that they failed to notice he had told them nothing about himself. But no one had seen the woman in white, and no matter how circuitously he brought up the question, Case got the same response: a frown, a slight look of confusion and then a shrug or shake of the head.

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