Secrets of Santorini: The Perfect Holiday Read by Patricia Wilson

Author:Patricia Wilson [Wilson, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Family Life, General, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Travel, Europe, Greece, Sagas, Historical, Social Science, Archaeology
ISBN: 9781785769122
Google: dk5zDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07JHFX5R4
Publisher: Zaffre
Published: 2019-05-15T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

BRIDGET

Santorini, 24 years ago.

I COULDN’T STAND THINKING of Irini going to the convent. I imagined her looking out of the aeroplane window, excited, with no notion that we were about to abandon her. How would her tender young mind deal with the situation? I could not explain the reason for our action; she was too young to understand her mother’s madness. That she was safe was all that mattered, but I still had time to change the dream.

Emotionally drained and longing for a good night’s sleep, I sat on the patio and wrote down my last nightmare. My heart thudded, and my eyes were raw from tears. I told myself the incident I dreamed about had not really happened, yet that knowledge made it nonetheless real. Fell asleep with complete determination to change the outcome of my fiendish nightmares. If I could do that, then Irini need not go to Dublin. I was sure of it.

How many times had I tried and failed? How many times did I have to go through this before I found a way to stop it? The dreams were driving me mad with worry. Was I destined to continue on this hellish, pointless errand like a hamster in a wheel? The pen trembled as I started logging the account of my darkest hours.

Before I went to sleep, I wondered if my torment was some kind of hex connected to the archaeological site. Such curses were common myth, but I had never believed in them. However, if anything was jinxed, it had to be the dish or the necklace. I drew my finger along the scar over my heart and recalled the day Irini was born. I still suspected the pottery was the base of a vessel used to catch the blood of young virgins when they had their heels pricked, as depicted in the frescoes. The other thought terrified me. Was it the dish used to catch Oia’s blood when I . . . no . . . when Queen Thira sacrificed her?

If only I could make sense of it all, or at least change the end of the dream. In one last, desperate measure, the day before our flight, I asked Tommy to take Irini to the beach so I could catch up on my sleep. I made them a picnic and, once they had gone, I lay on the bed and tried to take my mind back to the day of the River Festival.

I willed myself to the dawn of that day, the awful day that would end with the sacrifice of my daughter. The outcome of that chilling finale had to change. After all, it was only happening in my imagination – wasn’t it?

The scenario that tormented me was not a vision of the past. Those events did not actually take place. So if they were only in my mind and I was in control, I could change them. I emptied my head and relaxed into my pillow, waiting for sleep.

My mind slid back four

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