Then, without another word, Leo turned and walked down the stone steps, away from the house.
Sensible chap, I thought. Braving the gale was infinitely safer than putting up with Kate’s current mood. Even so, he should watch his step.
“Be careful,” I yelled after him. “The wind is really picking up.”
Leo didn’t reply. He just kept walking.
20
Leo walked toward the water, to watch the waves, as the wind attacked the coastline. He followed the winding path down to the beach.
The joint was hitting him now. He could feel his senses heighten. A delicious tingling feeling. Although Leo disapproved of alcohol—after all, he had spent his childhood witnessing its worst effects on his mother’s friends—he had become curious about weed. His drama teacher at school, Jeff, whom Leo deeply admired, said that getting stoned was good for an actor.
“It unlocks chambers in the mind,” Jeff said. “Weed opens doors into rooms that should be explored.”
This sounded intriguing—creative and inspiring. Leo hadn’t tried it only because he hadn’t had the opportunity. He was lying when he said all his friends smoked. Leo didn’t have that many friends, and the ones he did have were as responsible and rule abiding as he was. I was the only reprobate in his life.
Wicked Uncle Elliot. Jolly good, glad to oblige.
Sadly, what Leo was experiencing now, after a drag on the joint, he couldn’t describe as revelatory. He felt mellow and enjoyed the sensation of the wind rushing between his fingers and through his hair. But nothing else, nothing profound or spiritual.
Leo took his shoes off and left them on the sand. He walked barefoot in the swirling surf, with the wind whistling in his ears.
He lost track of time as he walked—it seemed to disappear, as if blown away by the gale. He felt oddly peaceful; at one with the wind and the waves churning up the sea.
Then, suddenly, a dark cloud blew in front of the moon, lingering there. Everything was thrown into shadow. As if the lights had been turned off.
Leo sensed something behind him. A pair of eyes, on the back of his head—and a creeping, crawling sensation on the back of his neck, making him shudder.
He spun around—but couldn’t see anyone. Only the empty beach—and the black trees, shivering in the wind. No one was there. He was about to turn away—when he saw it.
It was straight ahead, at the back of the beach, in the shadows of the trees. What was it? It didn’t look entirely human. Leo peered, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Was it an animal of some kind? The legs were the legs of a goat, or something like that—but it was standing upright. And on its head … were they horns?
Leo remembered the island’s legendary ghost. Was this what he was witnessing? Or something more sinister? Something evil … a kind of devil?
In that instant, he felt a terrifying premonition—Leo knew, with complete and utter certainty, that something terrible was about to happen, very, very soon—something horrific, and deadly; and he would be powerless to prevent it.
Stop it. You’re stoned and paranoid, he told himself. That’s all.
Leo shut his eyes and rubbed them, trying to unsee what he was seeing. Then, mercifully, the wind came to his aid—blowing the clouds from the moon. Moonlight illumined the scene like a floodlight, instantly dissolving Leo’s fantasy.
The monster was revealed to be nothing but a collection of various interconnecting branches and foliage. Leo’s overactive imagination had drawn the dots together and assembled a devil. It wasn’t real, just a trick of the light. Even so, he was thoroughly spooked.
And then—Leo grabbed his stomach. He groaned.
Suddenly, he was feeling sick.
21
While we had been at the restaurant, Agathi had dealt with the two measly-looking wood pigeons Jason had shot that afternoon.
She had sat at the kitchen table and begun the slow, patient plucking of the birds. She had been doing this since she was a girl, when her grandmother taught her. She had been reluctant to learn at first—it looked unpleasant, even gruesome.
Don’t be silly, girl, her grandmother said, taking Agathi’s hands and placing them firmly on the bird. Doesn’t it feel nice, soft under the fingers?
She was right, it did—and plucking these feathers, enjoying the sensation, the rhythmical movement, comforted by the memory of her yiayia, Agathi went into a meditative trance, listening to the wind. That wind, it was like the wrath of God. Appearing from nowhere—a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky. No warning. The fury—that’s what her grandmother called it. And she was right.