by Andrew Hart
“Morning,” I said.
Brad and Kristen looked up and smiled.
“Hey,” said Melissa. Except that it wasn’t Melissa. It was Gretchen.
Damn my worthless, shortsighted eyes and damn my moronic impulse to wear my glasses in the sea straight to hell.
“Was it you creeping around upstairs last night?” she asked. “About gave me a heart attack.”
“No,” I said. Gretchen’s room, like Brad and Kristen’s, was on the floor below mine. “I thought I heard something but figured it was just my imagination. You know, unfamiliar place . . .”
“No,” said Gretchen, very sure of herself. “I heard someone. It wasn’t Brad or Kristen.”
“Maybe it was Marcus,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” said Gretchen.
What the hell did that mean? Like she’d know where he’d spent every second of the night? I didn’t believe it.
“And the master bedroom is on the other side of the house,” said Gretchen, conspiratorially. “With its own bathroom.”
“So you think what?” I pushed. She was annoying me.
“Someone is obviously telling porkies,” said Gretchen.
“Porkies?” said Kristen.
“Pork pies,” said Gretchen. “Lies. You know. Rhyming slang.”
“Oh,” said Kristen vaguely. “Right.”
“Are you saying I’m lying about not sneaking around the house last night?” I demanded, my spine stiffening.
Gretchen turned to me. Her face was both baffled and shocked.
“Of course not,” she said. “I was kidding.”
I stared at her, feeling the color rise in my face.
“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. I . . . God, I’m still really tired. I don’t know what I . . . sorry.”
Her uncomplicated smile flicked on and the confusion was gone.
“Know the feeling,” she said. “Coffee?”
“Oh God, yes.”
“Just a heads up,” said Brad. “Greek coffee is terrible. It’s either instant Nescafé, which tastes like gray Kool-Aid, or it’s the Turkish stuff that should be spread on roads.”
“She has been here before, dear,” said Kristen, not looking up.
“Just pour me a cup,” I said.
He grinned and shrugged.
“Your funeral,” he said.
“Morning darlings!” called Melissa from the foyer. She was leading Simon in by the hand. They both looked slightly tousled but wide awake and brimming with health. “Lots of fun things packed in for today!”
“Good God,” I said, “can’t you be like regular people for once?”
“It’s a glorious day,” said Simon, grinning from ear to ear.
“And we’ve been up hours,” Melissa stage whispered. “You should see him when he wakes up. Like a bear in January.”
“Is Marcus not up?” I asked.
“Went for a walk,” said Brad. “Wanted to see the sights. Trees, presumably. And stones. There are lots of stones. It’s awesome.”
“OK, Mr. Grumpy,” said Kristen. “Time to shake it off.”
“Well, I hope you can get a taste for stones,” cooed Melissa, “because we’re gonna see lots of them today.”
“Uh-oh,” said Brad. “I don’t like the sound of this.”
“It’s gonna be great,” said Melissa.
“What is it?” asked Brad, still dour.
“Finish up your breakfast and we’ll head out,” said Melissa. “Bring your bathing suits.”
“Seriously, Mel,” said Brad. “What is it?”
“Just get your things together—” Melissa began.
“What if we don’t want to go?” said Brad, an edge to his smile. “I mean, we were flying for about a week yesterday. I thought we’d have a lazy day.”
“We can do that tomorrow,” said Melissa. “Last time we were here we barely left the hotel bar. This time . . .”
“Oh God,” said Brad. “If I’d wanted a tour I’d have booked one of those geriatric educational cruises.”
“Mel’s laid on some great stuff,” said Simon loyally. “Gonna be fun.”
“I’d just like to be able to provide a little input—” said Brad.
“It’s a mystery tour!” said Melissa. “Trust me. Gonna be a blast. And there’ll be plenty of time for lounging and drinking later.”
“Too bad there’s no pool,” said Brad, gazing out onto the patio. “Bit of a swim, no salt sticking to you for the rest of the day. That would hit the spot.”
Melissa turned to Simon, and her face, which had been so full of light, looked fractured, as if she was barely holding in a sob. It was so surprising I didn’t know what to say, but Kristen saw it too, and turned abruptly to Brad.
“Let’s get ready, Brad,” she said. “I think you’ve had enough coffee.”
There was something in her voice that I hadn’t heard before. Her soft British vowels and tight consonants were almost gone and she sounded like an American, all the Mary Poppins falling away. It made her sound sharp, forceful. Brad said nothing but got to his feet. I focused on stirring my coffee, as if I had stumbled onto something embarrassing.
“What crawled up his ass?” Simon muttered once they were out of earshot.
“Simon!” Melissa scolded.
“He’s being a prick,” said Simon. “Was he always a prick? I don’t remember.”
I wanted to say yes, he always kind of was, but we liked him anyway because he was usually funny with it and was mostly a prick to other people. He was the one with the snide remarks about the fat German on the beach, the one who teased the cab drivers for the age of their cars and mocked the waitresses for their patchy English, using words he knew they wouldn’t understand, then translating with even harder words. He did it gently, playfully, always with a smile so no one could take offense, but yes, he’d always been sort of a prick. The only thing that was new was his directing it at us. I wondered why.
“I’m gonna go get ready,” said Melissa. “Don’t take all day.”
“Absolutely, your highness,” said Simon. Melissa tapped his cheek lightly as she walked by, and he grinned after her just as her voice came back from the foyer.
“See any birds?” she called as she made for the stairs.
“A few.”
It was Marcus’s voice. Gretchen winced, suddenly small and chastened, and I turned to see that he had just walked in, looking braced and happy.
“What a day!” he said.
“Good walk?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Not much to see in the way of civilization, but yes. Amazing views. There’s some sort of old gun casement in the cliffside below the house. World War II, I guess. I looked for a way up but couldn’t see one, then walked all the way round the other side. There’s a little church or monastery or something with a tower over on the far side of the valley. Beautiful. But nothing in walking distance. No houses. No shops. No gas stations. I hadn’t realized just how isolated we were. It’s kind of wonderful. I mean, I’m sure you could get to a village if you kept going in the right direction, but, yeah, we’re pretty much alone up here.”
He said it musingly, smiling at me, and I remembered why I had liked him. Loved him.
“Dude,” Simon remarked. “You make it sound so lame. This is just a base. We’re gonna do some great shit.”
“Morning, Marcus,” said Gretchen, putting a show of cheeriness on.
“Morning,” he said, smiling after the briefest hesitation, like he’d decided to just ease right past last night’s awkwardness.
“Listen,” she said, glancing around the room as if deciding whether to ask the rest of us to leave. She clasped and unclasped her hands. “I don’t really remember last night, Marcus, but I think I might have said . . .”
“It’s fine,” said Marcus. “It was nothing.”
“It’s just that . . . ,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean anything bad. The opposite really. I just don’t g
enerally . . .”
“You don’t have any black friends,” said Marcus. He was being patient, but there was a stillness about him that said he hadn’t made up his mind which way this was going to go. It would probably depend on her. Simon and I watched, tense and not sure how to help. “It’s OK. It’s pretty common.”
“Thanks. I mean, I don’t know how . . . I just want to . . . understand. Your people.”
“My people?” said Marcus, stiffening again.
“I don’t mean . . . oh, I don’t know. I don’t understand why this is so hard . . .”
“Look, Gretchen,” said Marcus. “I know you mean well, but I don’t want to play cultural translator for you right now, OK? I’m on vacation. Can I just be a person for a while?”
She gaped a little, then nodded.
“Thanks,” said Marcus, his smile warming.
“But you know what I mean, right?” said Gretchen.
“Let’s let it go, OK?” said Marcus.
She looked at him, and he held her eyes, still smiling but with a note of caution in his face. She nodded quickly.
“Sure,” she said. “Absolutely.”
He took a step toward her and put an arm around her shoulder and gave her a little squeeze. Gretchen’s face lit up. She didn’t understand what had just happened, but she felt forgiven, and that was all that mattered.
“Aaaaanyway,” said Simon.
I started laughing and Gretchen joined in, hesitantly at first, sensing she’d done something silly and endearing but not entirely sure what.
“So,” said Marcus, turning to the room as a whole. “You were about to tell us all this great shit we were going to do.”
“Right,” said Simon. “We have the car. Big plans.”
“Like what?” asked Marcus.
“Well, don’t tell her I gave it away,” said Simon, double-checking that Melissa had not returned. “But we’ve got scuba diving this afternoon, then an hour in Knossos right before it closes.”
“The site?” said Marcus, perking up like a dog who has been promised a treat. “I thought no one was interested in that stuff.”
“Well, we’re not, to be honest,” said Simon. “Consider it a gift, professor. But hey, we’re in Crete. Gotta do some Minoan shit, right?”
“Right,” said Marcus, clearly delighted.
“But first,” said Simon, rather more enthused, “scuba! Better check the equipment.”
“We don’t rent it at the beach?” I asked. I wasn’t crazy about the prospect of diving. “Isn’t there some kind of mandatory training or something . . .”
“It’s fine,” said Simon. “I’m a certified instructor, and we hired the gear for the week. I’ll talk you through it.”
Right, I thought dismally as he headed out, whistling. He was certified. Of course he was.
Marcus caught my look.
“If you’re not comfortable doing it . . . ,” he began.
“It’s fine,” I said. Another lie. “Thanks. And then we get to do some Minoan shit.”
“For a whole hour,” said Marcus with a wan smile. “Yeah.”
“Think we’ll be able to fill the time?”
“In one of the most important archaeological sites in the world?” said Marcus, deadpan. “I don’t know. Maybe we can pick up some sudoku books on the way.”
“Maybe there’s an extensive gift shop,” I said. “Case after case of plaster Minotaurs.”
“We can but hope,” Marcus agreed, grinning.
“Better get my swimsuit,” I said. “See you in a few.”
“We’re kind of the odd ones out, aren’t we?” he said.
The remark stopped me. He was chewing his lower lip and gazing at the empty living room and its sprawling rented opulence. For a second we said nothing, then he made a tight little smile and a decision.
“Swimsuits,” he said.
“Yep.”
Chapter Thirteen
I have not moved except to take some of the tension out of the chain that binds my arm to the wall.
“I don’t understand,” I say at last. “Five years ago we were here. Not here in this place,” I say, though I’m still not sure where exactly I am, “but Crete. The hotel Minos.”
There is another loaded, expectant silence, and then the voice winds out of the dark once more.
“And what happened, Jan? What did you do?”
I am scared and flustered again, not knowing what to say but desperate not to get it wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do,” said the voice, quicker this time, and I felt the irritation. The more I heard it, the more I was sure the voice was being electronically modified, distorted. That was what the green light meant. Some kind of device. Perhaps the idea that the questioner was just a person using some kind of gadget to disguise their voice should have made me feel better, but it didn’t.
“I don’t,” I say. “What do you think I did? Perhaps if you explain . . .”
“What did you do? What did you see?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about! How can I answer you if I don’t understand what—”
The light goes red and then goes out. I hear movement, and my eyes detect the vaguest shift in the shadows. He’s standing now.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I’ll tell you anything. I just don’t know what you mean—”
There’s a metallic snap, loud as a gunshot in the dark, then a juddering creak, and I can see a graying of the darkness. He has opened the door.
Oh thank God, I think. He’s going to let me go.
I sit very still and then I feel a hand on my bare ankle. I bite down the shriek of horror and surprise, pulling my foot away, but the grip tightens, and then I feel something cold and flat against the flesh of my calf.
Metal. I can’t feel the shape of it properly, but I think it is a blade.
Again I try to pull away, kicking with the other leg, but then the knife—if that is what it is—pivots, and I feel not the flat, but the edge, sharp and biting, inching up the back of my leg.
It presses but does not slice, and I take it as a warning rather than the beginning of something more awful that may or may not follow, so I go still. In the same instant, I get a sense of his
His?
presence, his body close to mine, and I realize with a start that something is wrong.
The head is too large. I can barely see anything, so it’s as much an impression as it is anything certain, but I am suddenly sure of it. The head is too large and the breathing is strange, animal. Drunk with fear, some primitive, reptilian part of my brain says, Minotaur. The body of a man, the head of a great bull . . .
I don’t believe it, but I freeze. I want to say that I’m sorry, that I will try to remember whatever he wants to know, but the words won’t come. All my senses close in around the few square inches of thigh above the back of my knee, where his knife has come to rest. I think of the muscle and tendon there, the femoral artery. If he cuts that, I bleed to death.
I do not move. I wait, locked in powerless terror.
And then the pressure on my leg is gone. The cold of the blade, the grip around my ankle, the sense of him looming there, deciding what to do, are all gone. Almost immediately the door closes again, thudding shut. I don’t hear footsteps, but I am sure he
It
is gone, and I am alone again. I should feel better, but I don’t because I know he’s coming back. He’ll ask again, and again, and then, when I cannot answer, when I can’t begin to give him whatever it is he wants, he’ll kill me.
I know that as I know the concrete beneath me is hard and cold. It’s a certainty. I don’t understand why I am here or what he wants, but I understand that, and for the first time I know something else with the same hard surety.
I have to get out. Somehow, before he comes back, and regardless of what labyrinth I am trapped inside, I have to g
et out.
Chapter Fourteen
I rather liked swimming, even if I wasn’t much good at it, but scuba diving was a different thing entirely and it frightened me a little. Once—spring break in Cancun, if you can believe the cliché—I had gone snorkeling with some friends, none of whom I was still in touch with. It had been a disaster. I hated the taste of the mouthpiece, the way I had to bite down on it to keep the water out even as it kept my airway open. It felt weird, and the first time a wave lapped over the top and flooded my throat with salt water, I was done. I faked it, splashing around, even diving beneath the surface holding my breath, and managed to see some fish. That’s the one upside of being a habitual, even pathological, liar: you get good at pretending all kinds of things. An old boyfriend once told me I was the most fun in bed he’d ever had because I made him feel good about himself. There is, after all, more than one kind of performance.
But I wasn’t going to be able to fake scuba diving. Swimming on the surface and pretending you’d just come up when everyone else surfaced was fine when you were all just floating about with snorkels, but twenty, thirty meters down? Not so much.
“You’re gonna love this,” said Simon at the quayside as we boarded the boat at the dive center in Agia Pelagia. We had been driving for over two hours, and I had been getting increasingly restless and apprehensive along the way. We could have just donned our stuff and then waddled out from some beach, puttered around for a few minutes in the shallows, and come in, but Simon was in charge, so naturally there was a boat and state-of-the-art equipment, all hired at considerable expense for a serious expedition. “For those of you who are comfortable underwater and are used to the usual half mask and octopus, there’s these.” He indicated a set of gear, including air tanks, carefully lined up in the well of the boat, a substantial motorized thing maybe twenty feet long, with a little cabin, a wheel, and a burly local captain who kept leaning over the side to spit. “For the others, you get something a bit special.”
He held up the other masks proudly. They were larger, designed to come all the way down over the chin, sealing around the neck, and had an airflow unit built into the faceplate. They looked like the kind of apparatus firefighters wear.