cheese and bread to the acropolis, but that had been many hours ago. He wouldnât have eaten since then. Had he hoped there would be something to eat in the shack that he and Paul hadnât discovered? Was that the real reason heâd wanted to come in the first place?
From the scarf sheâd wrapped around it, Lily took the bread and honey sandwich and placed it beside him, a few inches from his face. His snoring stopped. She moved quickly out of the shack. The snoring began again more softly. She was sure, suddenly, that his father had gone off somewhere on his motorcycle, leaving Jack to take care of himself. He groaned and muttered something.
She didnât like him, but she felt a pity for him that was nearly like angerâan unwilling pity. She stayed another few minutes, troubled by her contrary feelings about him, worried that her parents might wake and look for her. She imagined Jack waking up, finding the sandwich.
She turned and sped back to the road, hoping Rosa wouldnât bark and wake him. There was a different quality to the dark; it was thinner, softer, fading even as she looked up at the hill. Far above, among the terraced olive trees, she could see clearly a flock of sheep, their dark muzzles pointed toward the sea. She whistled softly. The flock twitched like one large animal. The bellwether ram jerked itself up on its stiff legs, its bell tinkling, and began to move higher up on the hill. The rest of the flock followed him.
At the crossroads Lily looked up toward Panagia. The sun would soon touch the peak of Hypsarion, nearly four thousand feet high, and then the light would flow down the slopes like honey, across meadows and forests and waking flocks of sheep until, finally, it would penetrate the dark interior of the shack where Jack lay sleeping.
In the small courtyard of the farmhouse she caught the movement of a chick, like a streak of butter, as it rushed and veered beneath tables and chairs. Chickens, she thought, always assume human beings are out to get themâand with good reason.
The village felt alive as she entered it and passed the first houses. It was as though the soft, slow movement of people waking to another day was visible through the thick walls of their rooms. Though it was still dark in the west and the north, the mountains of Macedonia held arcs of light like crowns on their peaks. Then she saw the boats of the fishing fleet sailing across the calm water, their high prows bathed in the ever-growing light. The fishermen would soon jump to the wharf and shake out nets full of red and silver fish, and Giorgi and the other taverna owners would choose and buy what they would serve that day to their customers.
Mr. Xenophon must already be behind the closed door of his grocery. She couldnât hear him, but the table where he served his friends brandy was in its place beneath the baobob tree. As she went past the shrine of Dionysus, she heard the thin, penetrating sound of a shepherdâs pipe.
Lily walked faster. She turned once and saw that the boats were now clustered just inside the harbor. The sea was olive green. It would soon be the hour when she and Paul were sent to the baker for breakfast bread and to Mrs. Christodoulou, who kept chickens, for eggs.
The piping seemed to come from the path on the hill where the nanny goat was tethered. It was hard to tell. The notes fell from everywhere like drops of rain. Lily saw Stella, yawning, emerge from her yard and look up toward the theater. A few yards beyond her stood two elderly sisters dressed in black. Lily knew that both of their husbands had drowned many years before when the fishing boat they were on capsized during a storm. They too were facing the hill. And other neighbors of the Coreys were gathering silently in front of their houses.
Just where the path narrowed, at the last house on the lane, stood a very tall old man. His clothes were tattered. A frayed rope held up his pants. His shoes