“Efcharisto,” William says again, and so do all the rest of the men.

  “Oxi,” the priest shakes his head. “It is we, the people of Topolia, and this island, who thank you.”

  Then with nothing more, Eugenios and the priest and all the rest of the villagers turn and leave, filing out of the cave the same way they came, back down the mountain, and we’re alone again. The sun’s beginning to sink so we walk from the cave, too, towards the bell tower with the view of the valley. We sit there and eat some of the food they brought, tearing pieces of bread to go with olive oil and mizithra, as well as tins of bully beef from the supplies we’ve received from the British SOE, and we drink the Cretan wine.

  When we finish the food, then comes the raki.

  William pours large amounts into tin cups and starts to pass them out, but Evelyn tries to keep his wine glass.

  “I’m fine with the red,” he says.

  “Sorry,” William shakes his head. “It’s not an option. This is what they do here after a meal.”

  “And how would you know that, Mr. Ryder?”

  “Because not too long ago, I was part of a village, even if it was only for one night, and the kind folk that took me in taught me.”

  “Did they now,” Owain laughs.

  “They did,” William says as he glances at me and smiles. “They taught me that philoxenia is everywhere on this island, and this is part of it, which means we are now, too.”

  I of course remember the night he’s talking about, the one with my whole family around the table outside our house with Giannis, Angeliki, my father, my mother, and the boys talking to him about philoxenia as we ate and drank and they smoked their pipes.

  We were all there.

  All of us except Demetrios.

  Now how many are left?

  It’s just me and Tasos.

  William still smiles, but I don’t.

  He knows why.

  “We have something similar in Palestine,” Abdel says. “It’s called arak, and we drink it after meals, and offer it to guests in our home.”

  “Is it this strong?” Charles makes a face as he sips.

  “Of course,” Abdel says, as the raki catches in his throat, too, but he doesn’t make a face. “Because why not, right? We are all here for a short time, so why not eat, drink, and live as much as possible while we are?”

  The sun sinks further and we sit for a few more moments without words, as the light begins to fade and change, and there’s silence as we take in the majesty that’s in front of us.

  I’ve seen this many times.

  I know they haven’t, though, and while I’m sure their island is very beautiful, this is a different type of beauty, isn’t it; a more ancient one, and perhaps a more cursed one, too.

  They sip their raki.

  I sip mine.

  “I think I’d like to come back here in another life,” Peter finally says, very softly. “I think, in another life, this is where I’d like to live.”

  “Another life when there’s not war, you mean?” Tane asks.

  “Exactly,” Peter nods. “Another life once we’ve finished this war, won and gone home, then can come back again.”

  “There’s always war here,” I tell them.

  “Surely there are moments, though, right?” Peter turns to look at me. “Surely there are moments in-between?”

  I don’t answer. I just stand and go back inside the cave.

  I pass the threshold where the air immediately cools and instead of going to the right, where the hoofprint of St. George’s horse is embedded in the rock, I turn left. There’s a shrine there on the far side of the cave; it’s a small area sectioned off by tall Orthodox depictions of various saints and icons painted onto pieces of wood that create a makeshift wall with a small door. I duck through the doorway, past the saints and icons, and go into the heart of the shrine, near the altar. There are burned and unlit candles plunged into sand, and names carved into the rock behind the candles. I look at the names. I look at all those that have come before me looking and searching for miracles, and is that what I search for, too? I see faces. I see all their faces. I’m not searching for physical health: cancer to be cured, a leg to be healed, a heart to lose its disease, or anything similar to what they came for. Instead, I’m searching for peace, and that’s its own type of miracle, isn’t it?

  I find an unlit candle.

  I take it from its place beneath the altar, and there are matches next to it, so I strike one against rock where matches have been struck by the faithful since before history, then reach out and bring fire to the candle I’ve chosen.

  One more time.

  I see their faces, one more time, my entire family, and I especially see his.

  I see him the way we were when we were young, when he was working on the barn at my house, when we both felt for the first time all the things we hadn’t felt before and were fortunate enough to still feel every day after, too, and not have fade, not ever.

  Why?

  Why did it have to end like this?

  I don’t know.

  I’ll spend the entirety of the rest of my life asking that question and perhaps just asking, because is it something I’ll ever find, no matter how hard I search, and is it something I’ll ever understand?

  I don’t think so.

  So I’ll just search, instead, and this is how I’ll begin.

  I place the candle in the sand, and with it, my prayer.

  I make the sign of the cross after my prayer, and then stand there. I just stand there. I can hear them still out by the bell tower drinking raki and speaking louder and louder, the more they drink, which doesn’t surprise me as all the British I’ve met, since they’ve been here, seem to drink a lot more than we do.

  Is it because there’s a war?

  I don’t know. I just know they do.

  “Are you alright?” I hear, then turn to see William behind me.

  He’s ducking his head through the entrance to the shrine, then he stands there in front of me, his body illuminated by the flickering light of the candle I’ve just lit. I look back at him. I don’t know what to say, which he must see in my eyes, so I just look at him.

  “Sorry,” he says.

  “For what?”

  “I know it’s a silly question.”

  “It’s fine.”

  I sit down near the bedroll I’ve brought to both keep me warm at night and also protect at least a little bit from the rocky surfaces upon which we’ve slept. I don’t say anything further so he comes and sits next to me, too, and looks around at the small shrine: he sees the altar, then the polished, golden stand filled with sand where I lit and placed my candle. Then beyond that, and carved into the stone, he sees the names written in Greek.

  “What does it say?” he asks, not able to read it.

  “It doesn’t say anything,” I tell him. “It’s names.”

  “Names of who?”

  “People who have come here and been healed.”

  He keeps reading and then touches them, the letters carved deep into stone.

  “So, kind of like Lourdes?”

  “Yes, I suppose a bit like Lourdes.”

  He looks at all the items now that have been brought and left: the crutches, glasses, and leg braces, as well as splints, gloves, and stuffed animals with fur that’s beginning to age and turn yellow. He reaches up and gently touches these things, thinking, I’m sure, about who they belonged to, what ailed them, and what cure they found. “Do you think this is a place where miracles happen?” he finally speaks again, his voice softer now, too, and I know why.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I hope it is.”

  “Why?”

  He turns and looks at me and while I don’t say the words, I know he knows them, and can feel them. Because I need one, William. I need to be healed, too. I brought us here because I also need a miracle. It might not look it, because my wounds are not visible to the eye, but I still need to be healed just as much as a boy with a broken leg, a father fighting cancer, a grandparent with an inoperable tumor and only days to live.

  He looks at me for another moment.

  Then he nods and begins to settle himself across the shrine from me on the cold rock.

  Outside, I can still hear the others, voices, words, getting louder as they drink even more raki.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Going to sleep.”

  “Right there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “So that you know I’m here,” he answers, then takes his jacket off and makes a pillow from it.

  He lays his head down, then closes his eyes.

  I look at him for another moment.

  I look at him lying there, his arms crossed over his body for warmth.

  Then I shake my head and stand and walk to where we dropped the spare bedrolls we brought, in the main part of the cave, and I already have mine, so I get one for him. I come back into the shrine and lay it over his body, like a blanket. He pulls it closer around him once he feels it, but doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t move or say anything further, so I go to my corner and lay down, pulling my bedroll over my body like a blanket, too, close my eyes, and it’s not long until we’re both fast asleep.

  21 MAY 16, 1943

  We wait in the cave for three days, then the Germans finally come. We learn they’re approaching through the valley when a young girl who looks like she’s maybe eight or nine years old comes running up the steps. Evelyn is outside shaving, using a razor to cut the stubble from his chin and cheeks, then cleaning the razor in a small bowl of water he gathered and calls for me when he sees her because he doesn’t speak Greek. When I come from the cave, she tells me the Germans have been spotted heading this way and as soon as her message is delivered, she turns and starts running back down the stone steps again and towards Topolia.

  I call to the others.

  They’re all going about various morning routines, but as soon as they hear my words, they drop everything and grab rifles to sling across backs, grenades to tuck into pockets, pistols to holster at hips, and now Cretan daggers to tie at waists. And once everyone’s ready, we begin to make our way down the steps, the same way the young girl came and then went.

  The road is right there, at the end of the stairs that lead up to the cave.

  But that’s not where we’ll meet them.

  We hurry farther south to a place where there’s a bend in the road that we chose when we first arrived because of the cover it will provide, and the element of surprise we’ll be able to preserve until the very last moment. We jog together and when we get there, Peter picks a medium-sized stone from the hillside and places it in the middle of the road near the bend.

  He makes sure we all see it, then we take our places.

  Peter, Evelyn, Tane, and Abdel are on one side.

  I’m on the other with Owain, Charles, Walter, and William, who takes me gently by the elbow and leads me near his hiding place so I’m there, too, and next to him.

  “May St. George watch over us,” Evelyn says, so we all hear. “Just the same as he has.”

  We nod, agreeing.

  Then we’re silent.

  We won’t speak again until we see them, but we feel them, first, the soft rumbling of the ground caused by heavy vehicles travelling on the same road at the same time, and it feels like a small earthquake, which is of course something we’re no strangers to on this island, either.

  We take the rifles from our backs.

  We hold them ready and in front of us, one in my hand and another loaded and propped against the rock next to me.

  The rumble of their engines gets louder, closer.

  “Stay near,” William whispers, next to me, into my ear.

  A few seconds later, we finally see them, coming around the bend and straight towards the part of the road where we wait. They keep coming as we grip our rifles tighter, and when they finally get to the medium-sized stone Peter’s placed in the middle of the road, we all rise as one and begin to shoot.

  The valley explodes.

  The sound of gunfire echoes everywhere and it’s nearly too much for our ears.

  Half of us aim for the tires of the kubelwagens while the other half aim towards the windows and the men driving both the kubelwagens and the motorcycles, and we fire once, then again, and when I hear the pop pop of the tires that are hit and explode, I know the day will be ours.

  They won’t be able to get away.

  A bullet pierces the front tire of the lead kubelwagen and it causes the vehicle to veer to the right. The driver tries to correct the swerve but overcorrects, and the kubelwagen skids and flips over and onto its side in a shower of dirt and there’s yelling from inside as bodies are tossed this way and that.

  Behind, the other kubelwagens try to slow, but they can’t.

  They crash into the first and there’s a massive pile of twisted metal and broken bodies.

  Some of the Germans on the motorcycles fire at us and their bullets bounce harmlessly off rocks as we duck back behind them, then rise once more and return fire and cut those soldiers down, too, and they fall near their bikes and don’t rise again.

  Soldiers crawl from the kubelwagens.

  They aim and fire at us and we fire back at them, and our bullets find flesh and then they lie still and the few others that are left drop their weapons and raise their hands into the air.

  They call to us.

  It’s a single word.

  I don’t speak German and neither do any with us, but then one of the Germans speaks in a different language.

  “Surrender!” he yells in English.

  He’s older than the others, a bookish-looking man with glasses who looks like he’d be more suited to a classroom and teaching schoolchildren rather than here on our island fighting and trying to conquer us. But here he is, and here I am, and it didn’t have to be this way but it is, so I come forward from my place behind the rocks.

  The others do, too.

  They go to the Germans and kick their weapons away, but I don’t go to the Germans that they go to, I go to the other one, the older man who spoke English and said “surrender.”

  I kneel next to him.

  He looks back at me and I think I’m going to see surprise in his eyes, at who I am, and how I’m dressed, and that I’m a woman.

  But I don’t.

  “Danke,” he says instead. “Thank you.”

  “Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller and Hannes Koch.”

  “What?”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know who —”

  Before he can finish, I take my father’s dagger from my hip and plunge it deep into his thigh and leave it there.

  He screams.

  He yells in pain.

  I yell now, too.

  “WHERE ARE THEY!”

  “I DON’T KNOW!”

  I reach down and twist the dagger.

  “RETHYMNO!” he says. “MULLER IS IN RETHYMNO!”

  “AND KOCH?”

  “I DON’T KNOW.”

  I take the other dagger, Demetrios’s, and raise it in my hand but William runs and grabs me by the arms and pulls me from the German.

  I shake free of him.

  I run back to the man and slam my husband’s dagger into his other leg.

  He screams again.

  “WHERE IS KOCH?”

  “I DON’T KNOW! I SWEAR!”

  William grabs me once more and some of the others come, too, and pull me from the German and I struggle against them but they hold me tighter this time, then I begin to stop struggling and feel their grips begin to relax.

  I turn to look at them.

  “What are you doing?” William asks, his eyes finding mine, and I see horror in them. “Who the hell are Koch and Muller?”

  “They’re the men that killed my family.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I do. Does it matter how?”

  “Is that what all this has been about? Is that why you came to us, and the mountains?”

  I don’t need to answer, because it’s clear.

  “Let’s start binding the rest of them up,” Peter finally says, and the others nod, agreeing.

  William goes to the German with the two Cretan daggers in his legs and I watch as he bends down, about to figure how to pull the knives back out as painlessly as he can.

  “What do you mean bind them up?” I ask.

  “Take them prisoner,” Peter answers.

  “And where exactly are you going to hold them?”

  “I suppose we’ll have to figure that out, won’t we.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They murdered my entire family.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that, Maria. But in war there are rules, and we follow them.”

  “They murdered everyone in my village, too, and the village next to ours. Old men, women, children, literally everyone, then they burned the buildings all to the ground. Every single one, built by our grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, and great-great-grandfathers before that. They’ve tried to completely erase us from the world. We were women, children, old men beyond fighting age, and even a priest. So tell me, Peter, and all the rest of you that would agree with him… tell me, what rule of war is that?”

  Silence.

  “They did… all of that?” Peter finally manages.

  “They did that and more, and my village wasn’t the only one where they did this, and they will certainly continue. There will certainly be many more villages who suffer the same fate, because this is who they are, how they fight, and you’d stand here and tell me about rules of war and that you must take them prisoner?”

  Peter looks at me for one more moment, then turns.

  He looks at the others now, while the Germans in the dirt watch, unaware of the English words being spoken, and what they mean.

  One German understands, though.

  “Please…” the older man whispers, through the pain of my family’s daggers in his legs. “Please, it wasn’t us. It wasn’t any of us.”