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much love to you and Stephanos - and please send warm best wishes to your sons too.
     
     
    Thank you, Fotini.
     
     
    Yours ever,
Sofia
     
    When she had finished reading the letter, Fotini folded it carefully and returned it to its envelope. She looked across at Alexis, who had been studying her every expression with curiosity as she scanned the crumpled sheet of paper.
     
    ‘Your mother has asked me to tell you all about your family,’ said Fotini, ‘but it’s not really a bed-time story. We close the taverna on Sunday and Monday and I have all the time in the world at this end of the season. Why don’t you stay with us for a couple of days? I would be delighted if you would.’ Fotini’s eyes glittered in the darkness. They looked watery - with tears or excitement, Alexis couldn’t tell.
     
    She knew instinctively that this might be the best investment of time she could ever make, and there was no doubt that her mother’s story could help her more in the long term than yet another museum visit. Why examine the cool relics of past civilisations when she could be breathing life into her own history? There was nothing to stop her staying. Just a brief text message telling Ed that she was going to be here for a day or so would be all it would take. Even though she knew it was an act of almost callous disregard for him, she felt this opportunity justified a little selfishness. She was essentially free to do what she pleased. It was a moment of stillness. The dark, flat sea almost seemed to hold its breath, and in the clear sky above, the brightest constellation of all, Orion, who had been killed and placed in the sky by the gods, seemed to wait for her decision.
     
    This might be the one chance Alexis was offered in her lifetime to grab at the fragments of her own history before they were dissipated in the breeze. She knew there was only one response to the invitation. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. ‘I’d love to stay.’
     

Chapter Two
     
    ALEXIS SLEPT DEEPLY that night. When she and Fotini finally went to bed, it was after one o’clock in the morning, and the cumulative effect of the long drive to Plaka, the afternoon on Spinalonga and the heady mix of meze and Metaxa drew her into a deep and dreamless sleep.
     
    It was nearly ten when luminous sunshine came streaming through the gap between the thick hessian curtains and threw a beam across Alexis’s pillow. As it woke her, she instinctively slid further under the sheets to hide her face. In the past fortnight she had slept in several unfamiliar rooms, and each time she surfaced there was a moment of confusion as she adjusted to her surroundings and dragged herself into the here and now. Most of the mattresses in the cheap pensions where she and Ed had stayed had either sagged in the middle or had metal springs protruding through the ticking. It had never been hard to get up from those beds in the morning. But this bed was altogether different. In fact the whole room was different. The round table with a lace cloth, the stool with its faded woven seat, the group of framed watercolours on the wall, the candlestick thickly coated with organ pipes of wax, the fragrant lavender which hung in a bunch on the back of the door, and the walls painted in a soft blue to match the bed linen: all of these things made it homelier than home.
     
    When she drew back the curtains she was greeted by the dazzling vista of a sparkling sea and the island of Spinalonga, which, in the shimmering haze of heat, seemed further away, more remote than it had yesterday.
     
    When she had set off from Hania early the previous day, she had had no intention of staying in Plaka. She had imagined a brief meeting with the elderly woman from her mother’s childhood and a short tour of the village before rejoining Ed. For that reason she had brought nothing more than a map and her camera - and had certainly not anticipated needing spare clothes or