Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection

Author:Rosie Thomas [Rosie Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Meroula told me that if the weather is fine for the feast of Aghios Pandelios, the island’s patron saint, a peaceful and prosperous year is certain to follow.

Today is the feast day and it is perfect – as soon as I open the shutters of my room I can see that the early morning sky is an unbroken bowl of porcelain-blue. This is what happens on Halemni when the rain stops and the wind blows itself out. The clouds break up and drift away to settle on the horizon in pink and silver turrets, while the sky shimmers with the illusion of heat and the sea reflects it in a sheet of intense cobalt rippled with navy-blue. Under the brilliant sun the shadows in the clefts of hillside deepen to purple and slate-blue, and the exposed slopes reveal a hundred different tones of sand and sepia. There is just enough warmth in the sunlight to draw the scent of sage and thyme into the air. In this Aegean landscape of water and rock and shrub, where lush greenery plays no part, it is hard to believe that it is not midsummer. In fact, we are already into December and I have lived on Halemni for two months.

This is an important day. Not only will there be the feast, the biggest celebration in the island’s calendar, but Olivia’s brother Max is due to arrive on the ferry from Athens.

Olivia has been counting the hours – she told me so, but she also said that she is anxious to find out why Max is coming here without his family.

‘I hate the idea of him having problems, maybe being unhappy. I love him and he lives so far away. If I could see him every day or even every week I’d have a better idea and I could do more to help.’

I listen carefully, containing my feelings. Of all the things I envy Olivia for, the existence of her brother and her closeness to him is almost the first.

‘And he must feel the same about you,’ I say.

‘Yes. Yes, I know he does.’

I want to meet Max, but I feel my jealousy of Olivia like a rock under the surface of deceptively calm water. I shall have to navigate my way around it. And I am also apprehensive that the arrival of another person will unbalance the calm pattern of life here. I have been happy for these past weeks and I am afraid of change.

As soon as they see by my opened shutters that I am awake, there is a pattering of hands on the door of the studio. Theo and Georgi have taken to running across from the potter’s house to see me each morning before they set off for school.

I open the door to them and they tumble in. Even in the few weeks that I have lived on Halemni I have noticed a change in them. At the beginning they seemed barely distinguishable, except by size. They were little

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