The Maidens

by Alex Michaelides

  Death was no stranger to Mariana; it had been her traveling companion since she was a child—keeping close behind her, hovering just over her shoulder. She sometimes felt she had been cursed, as if by some malevolent goddess in a Greek myth, to lose everyone she ever loved. It was cancer that killed her mother when Mariana was just a baby. And then, years later, a horrific car crash claimed Mariana’s sister and her husband, making Zoe an orphan. And a heart attack crept upon Mariana’s father in the olive grove, leaving him dead on a bed of sticky, squashed olives.

  Finally—and most catastrophically—there was Sebastian.

  They had so few years together, really. After graduating, they moved to London, and Mariana began the circuitous journey that ended in her becoming a group therapist, while Sebastian worked in the City. But he had a stubborn entrepreneurial spirit and wanted to go into business for himself. So Mariana suggested he speak to her father about it.

  She should have known better, really—but she cherished a secret, sentimental hope that her father might take Sebastian under his wing, bring him into the family business; let him inherit, before passing it on, one day, to their children. This was how far Mariana’s imagination carried her—but she knew better than to mention any of this to her father, or Sebastian. In any case, their first meeting was a disaster—Sebastian flew to Athens on a romantic mission, to ask permission to marry Mariana—and her father took an instant dislike to him. Far from offering him employment, he accused Sebastian of being a gold digger. He told Mariana he would disinherit her the day she married Sebastian.

  The irony was that, in the end, Sebastian did go into shipping—but in the opposite end of the market to her father. Sebastian turned his back on the commercial sector, instead setting up businesses to help transport much-needed goods—food and other essentials—to vulnerable and underprivileged communities around the world. He was in many ways, Mariana thought, the mirror image of her father. And this was a constant source of pride for her.

  When the troubled old man eventually died, he surprised them all once again. In the end, he left Mariana everything. A fortune. Sebastian was astounded that, being as wealthy as he was, her father lived the way he did—“I mean, like a pauper. He got no enjoyment out of it at all. What was the point of it?”

  Mariana had to think for a moment. “Security,” she said. “He believed all the money would protect him, somehow. I think—he was afraid.”

  “Afraid … of what?”

  For this, Mariana had no answer. She shook her head, at a loss. “I’m not sure he knew himself.”

  Despite this inheritance, she and Sebastian indulged themselves with only one extravagant purchase: they bought the little yellow house at the foot of Primrose Hill, which they had fallen in love with at first sight. The rest of the money was put aside—at Sebastian’s insistence—for the future, and for their children.

  This issue of children was the only sore point between them, a bruise Sebastian couldn’t help pressing on every now and then, bringing it up after one drink too many, or during a rare broody moment. He desperately wanted children—a boy and a girl—to complete the picture of the family he had in his head. And while Mariana also wanted kids, she wanted to wait. She wanted to finish her training and establish her psychotherapy practice—which might take a few years, but so what? They had all the time in the world, didn’t they?

  Except they didn’t—and this was Mariana’s only regret: that she had been so arrogant, so foolish, as to take the future for granted.

  When, in her early thirties, she consented to start trying, she found it difficult to conceive. This sudden and unexpected stumbling block made her anxious—which her doctor said wouldn’t help.

  Dr. Beck was an older man with a fatherly air, which Mariana found reassuring. He suggested that, before embarking on fertility testing and possible treatment, Mariana and Sebastian go away for a holiday, away from any kind of stress.

  “Enjoy yourselves, relax on a beach for a couple of weeks,” Dr. Beck said with a wink. “See what happens. A little relaxation can often work wonders.”

  Sebastian wasn’t keen—he had a lot of work lined up and didn’t want to leave London. Mariana later discovered he was under a great deal of pressure financially, that summer, as several of his businesses were struggling. He was too proud to come to her for money—he’d never once taken a penny from her. And it broke her heart to find out, after his death, that he had been carrying around all this unnecessary worry about money for the last few months of his life. How could she not have noticed? The truth was, she was selfishly consumed with her own worries, that summer, about having a child.

  And so she bullied Sebastian into taking two weeks off, in August, for a trip to Greece; to visit Mariana’s family’s summer home—a cliff-top house on the island of Naxos.

  * * *

  They took a plane to Athens, and then, from the port, they got the ferry to the island. It was an auspicious crossing, Mariana thought—not a cloud in the sky, and the water was calm and glassy flat.

  At the Naxos harbor, they hired a car, and drove along the coast to the house. It had belonged to Mariana’s father and now, technically, to Mariana and Sebastian—although they had never used it.

  The house itself was dusty and dilapidated—but stunningly situated, perched on a cliff overlooking the deep blue Aegean Sea. Steps had been carved into the rock, going down the cliff face, leading to the beach below. And there, on the shore, over millions of years, infinite pieces of pink coral had broken up and mingled with grains of sand—making the beach glow pink against the blue sea and sky.

  It was idyllic, Mariana thought—and magical. She could feel herself relaxing already, and felt secretly hopeful that Naxos might perform the little miracle that was being asked of it.

  They spent the first couple of days unwinding and lazing on the beach. Sebastian said that in the end, he was glad they had come—he was relaxing for the first time in months. He had a schoolboy habit of reading old thrillers on the beach, and he lay in the surf, happily engrossed in The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie, while Mariana slept under an umbrella on the sand.

  Then, on the third day, Mariana suggested driving up into the hills—to see the temple.

  Mariana remembered visiting the ancient temple as a child, wandering the ruin and investing it with all kinds of magic in her imagination. She wanted Sebastian to experience it. So they packed a picnic, and set off.

  They took the old, winding mountain road, which got narrower and narrower as they climbed higher into the hills, eventually deteriorating into a dirt track littered with goat droppings.

  And there, at the very top, on a plateau—was the ruined temple itself.

  The Ancient Greek temple was built from Naxian marble, once gleaming but now dirty white and weather-beaten. All that stood, after three thousand years, was a handful of broken columns silhouetted against a blue sky.

  The temple was dedicated to Demeter, goddess of the harvest—goddess of life—and to her daughter, Persephone—goddess of death. The two goddesses were often worshipped together, two sides of the same coin—mother and daughter, life and death. In Greek, Persephone was known simply as Kore, meaning “maiden.”

  It was a beautiful spot for a picnic. They laid out the blue blanket under the dappled shade of an olive tree, and unpacked the contents of their cold-box—a bottle of sauvignon blanc, a watermelon, and chunks of salty Greek cheese. They had forgotten to bring a knife—so Sebastian smashed the watermelon against a rock like a skull, breaking it into bits. They ate the sweet flesh, spitting out the bony seeds.

  Sebastian gave her a messy, sticky kiss. “I love you,” he whispered. “Forever and ever—”

  “—and ever and ever,” she said, kissing him back.

  After the picnic, they wandered the ruins. Mariana watched Sebastian clambering up ahead, like an excited kid. And as she watched him, Mariana said a silent prayer to Demeter, and to the Maiden. She prayed for Sebastian and for herself—fo
r their happiness—and for their love.

  And as she whispered this prayer, a cloud suddenly snaked in front of the sun—and for an instant, Sebastian’s body was thrown into darkness, silhouetted against the blue sky. Mariana shivered, and she felt afraid without knowing why.

  The moment passed as quickly as it arose. In a second, the sun came out, and Mariana forgot all about it.

  But she remembered it later, of course.

  * * *

  The next morning, Sebastian got up at dawn. He put on his old green trainers, and whispered to Mariana he was going for a run on the beach. He kissed her, and left.

  Mariana lay in bed, half asleep, half awake, conscious of time passing—listening to the wind outside. What began as a breeze was picking up strength and speed, tearing through the olive branches with a kind of wail, rattling the trees against the windows, like long fingers impatiently rapping against the glass.

  Mariana wondered for a moment how big the waves were—and if Sebastian had gone swimming, as he often did after a run. But she wasn’t worried. He was such a strong swimmer, such a strong man. He was indestructible, she thought.

  The wind grew and grew, whirling in from the sea. But still, he didn’t come home.

  Starting to worry, but trying not to, Mariana left the house.

  She made her way down the steps in the cliff face, holding tightly on to the rock as she descended, for fear of being hurled off by the gale.

  On the beach, there was no sign of Sebastian. The wind was whirling up the pink sand and hurling it at her face; she had to shield her eyes as she searched. She couldn’t see him in the water either—all she saw were massive black waves, churning up the sea all the way to the horizon.

  She called his name: “Sebastian! Sebastian! Seb—”

  But the wind flung the words back in her face. She felt herself starting to panic. She couldn’t think, not with that wind whistling in her ears—and, behind it, a never-ending chorus of cicadas, like hyenas screeching.

  And fainter still, in the far distance, was that the sound of laughter?

  The cold, mocking laugh of a goddess?

  No, stop, stop—she had to focus, she had to concentrate, she had to find him. Where was he? He couldn’t possibly have gone swimming—not in this weather. He never would have been so stupid—

  And then she saw them.

  His shoes.

  His old green trainers, neatly placed together on the sand … just by the water’s edge.

  After that, everything was a blur. Mariana waded into the water, hysterical, howling like a harpy—screaming, screaming …

  And then … nothing.

  Three days later, Sebastian’s body washed up along the coast.

  11

  Nearly fourteen months had passed since then, since Sebastian’s death. But in many ways, Mariana was still there, still trapped on the beach in Naxos, and she would be forever.

  She was stuck, paralyzed—as Demeter had once been, when Hades kidnapped her beloved daughter, Persephone, and took her to the Underworld to be his bride. Demeter broke down—overwhelmed by grief. She refused to move or be moved. She simply sat and wept. And all around her, the natural world grieved with Demeter: summer turned to winter; day turned to night. The earth fell into mourning; or, more accurately, melancholia.

  Mariana related to this. And now, as she drew closer and closer to St. Christopher’s, she found herself walking with increasing trepidation, as the familiar streets made it hard to hold back the memories flooding into her mind—ghosts of Sebastian were waiting on every corner. She kept her head low, not looking up, like a soldier trying to pass unnoticed in enemy territory. She had to pull herself together if she were to be any use to Zoe.

  That’s why she was here—for Zoe. God knew Mariana would rather never see Cambridge again. And it was proving harder than she thought—but she’d do it for Zoe. Zoe was all she had left.

  Mariana turned off King’s Parade, onto the uneven cobbled street she knew so well. She made her way along the cobbles, up to an old wooden gate at the end of the street. She looked up at it.

  St. Christopher’s College gate was at least twice her height, and set in an ancient, ivy-clad redbrick wall. She remembered the first time she ever approached this gate—when she came from Greece for an admissions interview, barely seventeen years old, feeling so small and fraudulent, so scared and alone.

  How funny, to be feeling exactly the same way now, nearly twenty years later.

  She pushed open the gate and went inside.

  12

  St. Christopher’s College was there, just as she remembered it.

  Mariana had been afraid to see it again—the backdrop to her love story—but thankfully, the college’s beauty came to her rescue. And her heart didn’t break—it sang.

  St. Christopher’s was among the oldest and the prettiest of the Cambridge colleges. It was made up of several courtyards and gardens leading down to the river, and built in a combination of architectural styles—Gothic, neoclassical, Renaissance—as the college had been rebuilt and expanded over the centuries. It was a haphazard, organic growth—and, Mariana thought, all the lovelier for it.

  She was standing by the porter’s lodge in Main Court—the first and largest courtyard. An immaculate green lawn spread out in front of her, up to the dark-green wisteria-covered wall at the opposite end of the courtyard. The greenery, peppered by splashes of white climbing roses, hung over the bricks like an elaborate tapestry, all the way to the walls of the chapel. There, the stained-glass windows gleamed green and blue and red in the sunlight, and from inside, the college choir could be heard practicing, their voices soaring in harmony.

  A whispering voice—Sebastian’s voice, perhaps?—told Mariana she was safe here. She could rest, and find the peace she craved.

  Her body relaxed, almost with a sigh. She felt a sudden and unfamiliar sense of contentment: the age of these walls, these columns and arches, untouched by time or change, made her momentarily able to put her grief into some kind of perspective. She saw that this magical place did not belong to her or Sebastian; it was not theirs—it belonged to itself. And their story was only one in a myriad that had taken place here, no more important than any other.

  She looked around, smiling, taking in the hive of activity around her. Although term had recently begun, last-minute preparations were ongoing, and there was a palpable sense of anticipation, like in a theater just before a performance. A gardener was mowing the grass on the other side of the lawn. A college porter, in a black suit and bowler hat, and a large green apron, was reaching up into the archways and nooks and crannies high above, using a long pole with a feather duster at the end of it, whisking away cobwebs. Several other porters were lining up long wooden benches on the lawn, presumably for matriculation photographs.

  Mariana watched a nervous-looking teenager, obviously a first-year student, making his way through the courtyard, accompanied by a pair of bickering parents clutching suitcases. She smiled fondly.

  And then, across the courtyard, she saw something else—a dark cluster of uniformed police officers.

  And Mariana’s smile slowly faded.

  The police officers were emerging from the dean’s office, accompanied by the dean. Even from this distance Mariana could see the dean was red-faced and flustered.

  This could only mean one thing. The worst had happened. The police were here—and so Zoe was right: Tara was dead, and it was her body that had been found by the marsh.

  Mariana needed to find Zoe. Now. She turned and hurried toward the next courtyard.

  Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t hear the man calling her name until he said it twice.

  “Mariana? Mariana!”

  She turned around. A man was waving at her. She squinted at him, unclear who he was. But he seemed to know her.

  “Mariana,” he said again, this time with more confidence. “Wait there.”

  Mariana stopped. She waited as the man crossed the cobble
s toward her, smiling broadly.

  Of course, she thought. It’s Julian.

  It was his smile Mariana recognized, rather a famous smile these days.

  Julian Ashcroft and Mariana had studied psychotherapy together in London. She hadn’t seen him in years, except on television—he was a frequent talking head on news shows or true-crime documentaries. He specialized in forensic psychology—having written a bestselling book about British serial killers and their mothers. He seemed to take a prurient delight in madness and death, which Mariana found slightly distasteful.

  She studied him as he approached. Julian was in his late thirties now, and about medium height, wearing a smart blue blazer, crisp white shirt, and navy-blue jeans. His hair was artfully messy, and he had striking light-blue eyes—and a perfect white smile, which he frequently employed. There was something slightly artificial about him, Mariana thought, which probably made him just right for television.

  “Hello, Julian.”

  “Mariana,” he said as he reached her. “What a surprise. I thought it was you. What are you doing here? Not with the police, are you?”

  “No, no. My niece is a student here.”

  “Oh—I see. Damn. I thought we might be working together.” Julian flashed a smile at her. He lowered his voice, confidentially. “They called me in, to give them a hand.”

  Mariana guessed what he was talking about, but she felt a sense of dread all the same. She didn’t want it confirmed, but had no choice.

  “It’s Tara Hampton. Isn’t it?”

  Julian gave her a slight look of surprise, and nodded. “That’s right. She was identified just now. How did you know?”

  Mariana shrugged. “She’s been missing for a day or so. My niece told me.”

  She realized her eyes had filled with tears, and she quickly wiped them away. She fixed her gaze on Julian. “Any leads yet?”