The Weary God of Ancient Travelers by Jessica Stilling

Author:Jessica Stilling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: amnesia, abuse, greece, santorini, greek isles, psychological trauma
Publisher: DX Varos Publishing

~ ~ ~

“Lydia,” a voice interrupts and it’s David Copperfield. “Lydia, I think that’s all we should talk about for now.” I want to tell him what I’ve just seen, but he can only take so much. “I’m glad you saw the car. I’m even relieved you found out about your mother. You’ll see more, I promise, but until you do I don’t think we should… you and me. This has to stop, it’s hurting you.” He stands over me. He’s so large, the kind of man who slew whole armies in the time of Hector and Achilles. “And you don’t know all of it, it’s not fair.” I see him with a shield, his arms at his sides, a sword in one hand and a great leather tunic. He grasps my hand, holds it tight and then lets go. “It’s not this, it’s me. You don’t really know me, you remember so much, but you can’t even remember my name. I tell you and it goes right out of your memory. And if you knew what I knew.... I’m not so innocent.”

“Then tell me what you know,” I beg him. “Tell me and let me decide if I don’t want to be with you. And that girl, that Lydia, I am not that girl or if I am, I’m only part her. But now you live with me, now I share a bed with you. Do you think we can just go back…?”

“Your Aunt Marina called,” he tells me, looking down at the thin white sheets as he changes the subject. “That’s really what I wanted to speak to you about. Before all this, before the Claude conversation, before you found out about your mother. Your Aunt Marina would like to talk to you.”

“My Aunt Marina?” I ask. I try to conjure a picture and I know she’s not one of the women in the car, she’s not one of the 60s girls standing near Conrad and me.

“Your mother’s sister,” David Copperfield says. “Her estranged sister, something like her half-sister. I’m not exactly sure. She’s been extremely worried about you. She was very generous after everything happened and if it weren’t for her I don’t know what would have become of you.” David Copperfield stops, and I know he didn’t mean to say that. “She wants to talk to you, to see how you are. She’s been very patient and I know she’ll continue to be so, but I think it’s time you talked to her. It didn’t work before, but maybe now that there’s been more time, maybe now you’ll be able to really talk to her, to remember.”

“My Aunt Marina,” I say her name. It feels like dolphins frolicking and children playing on a crowded beach. Aunt Marina—I see a house, not our house on Santorini but another house near a calm body of water, the house smells of cheese and fresh fish, and cinnamon, bright leaves on summer trees. “Aunt Marina. I’ll talk to her.”

“Great,” David Copperfield replies, pulling a flip phone out of his pocket he presses buttons on the pad.

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