Page 68 of Pierce Me

Manuela: Wait, what? You’re staying? What happened?

Faith:Details please?

Manuela: En, are you there?

Faith: Don’t leave us hanging like that.

Faith: En? Are you here?

Faith: En?

fifteen

My skin is too tight.

I’ve lived with these memories for years, and it takes much more energy that you’d think not to relive them over and over again every single day. But somehow I’d managed it until tonight.

And now I can’t breathe. I find a dude in front of me, and blindly stop him and ask for help; I’m lost. He looks up sharply at my face, and I don’t know if he recognizes me underneath my hat, but he quickly recovers, and asks me where I want to go.

“Music,” I reply, my voice hoarse with emotion. “Somewhere where there’s music. Is there such a thing here?”

He smiles and nods.

“Is there music in Corfu, you ask? Never been here before, I take it.” He chuckles at a private joke only he gets. “Follow me.”

He’s about my age, and his English is perfect; his name is Dimitris, and by the time we’ve walked side by side for five minutes, he has somehow told me all about his family, his pets and his university plans. He must have some sort of superpower or something.

“So you want to go somewhere where there’s music?” He laughs. “You know you’re in Corfu, right? Poets have named it ‘the island of songs’.” My eyes snap to his. I did not expect a Greek person to quote Homer to me on my first day on land. And yet here we are. They probably all do that. They must have the ancient scripts coming out of their ears. “There’s music everywhere. You’ll have to be more specific.”

I duck to hide my face.

“Anywhere where people are singing,” I say. “I don’t care what.”

Dimitris looks me up and down. “I got you,” he says. “Climb up behind me.”

We climb on his vespa and start bumping along the tiny, cobblestoned streets lined with tall buildings on either side. Zig-zag lines of white laundry hang between opposite apartments’ windowsills over our heads, linen swelling in the night breeze, and a bright slice of moon hangs over a church bell’s tower as we reach the town center. It’s buzzing with life.

The street is paved in white stones, gleaming in the half-moon’s silver light. An old lady is sitting at a doorstep, leaning on a cane, murmuring the beginning notes of a Verdi opera. This place is like something out of a fairytale or a song. We abandon the Vespa and start climbing stone steps, built into the rocky mountainside. We climb and climb, until we can see the sea over the rooftops of the lower buildings, salty wind blowing sharp and cold on our flushed cheeks.

Dimitris climbs the uneven, winding stairs quickly, as if he’s accustomed to doing this twice a day. We reach the top. It’s a small, circular opening with a well in it. Trees frame the night sky, and I look up, searching for the stars. And that’s when I hear it.

I hear two guitars, three violins and at least one flute. No percussion. A cello is trying to find its way in the melody, but it’s shy, starting and stopping awkwardly, its low voice hoarse, as if someone’s learning to play it.

“See all these windows?” Dimitris asks me. All around us, the tall buildings are dark except for tiny, yellow windows in the attics. The music is coming from one of those. “They belong to students’ rooms. Corfu has one of the biggest and best musical university in all of Europe. The Ionian University, the Department of Music Studies. Most of its students live here. And… well, it’s exam season.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Dimitris smiles, “music. Come on.”

Ok, so now we’re crashing a tiny student attic? Is that what’s about to happen? I suddenly realize how far I am from the sea and from Spencer’s yacht. From my guards. From anyone who knows anything about me.

I am literally at the top of a mountain.

And it feels just about right.

I tug my cap lower, thankful for the cover of the darkness, as we walk in.

…

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