Magissa, p.2
Magissa, page 2
I turned to Baba, expecting to see my own incredulity reflected in his face. Surely, he could see how unreasonable Mama was being. More of an effort? What more could I give? I was already spending every waking moment studying or working out so I could keep my spot on the track team or participating in all the extracurriculars that would supposedly get me into a good college. Mama might be suffering from some temporary insanity, but they couldn’t both have missed just how much of an effort I’d been making.
“Baba?”
But his shoulders slumped as he spread his hands and shrugged with a sheepish sort of sadness. I stepped back.
“I’m sorry, koukla,” he said. “But your mother has a point. You’re never home anymore. And next year you’ll be going to college—”
“Not if I don’t study now,” I snapped. “You are unbelievable. I come home with a B plus on a final—just one—and you act like the sky is falling. I studied until my eyes bled, but did you care? I missed regionals, I missed prom—”
“Now, wait a minute.” Mama held up a hand. “Those were your decisions, not ours. You could have gone to prom, no one was stopping you.”
I stared at her in furious silence. How dare she pretend I’d made those sacrifices all on my own, as if she and Baba had just been innocent, disinterested bystanders as I barricaded myself in my room or in the library while my classmates were out dancing or cheering each other on, making memories that I could never share? As if each decision I’d made hadn’t been preceded by days or weeks or months of pointed comments about my grades and worried, whispered conversations. No, they hadn’t technically told me what to do. Not out loud, anyway, and now I had nothing to throw back at them, nothing with which to defend myself.
“It doesn’t even matter,” I exploded, my frustration boiling over. “I didn’t have anyone to go with, anyway. I have no friends. I’ve done literally nothing that doesn’t look good on a college application because you’ve told me over and over how important it is to go to a good school, and now you’re acting like it’s my fault!”
“Chrysa, calm down,” Baba said firmly. “No one’s accusing you of anything. We’re just worried. You’re putting so much pressure on yourself, and it isn’t healthy.”
“I’m putting pressure on myself?” I jabbed a finger at my mother. “She just said—”
“I misspoke,” Mama said with a wince. She stood and crossed the room to take my hands. “You’re right, little bird, I wasn’t being fair. What I should have said is that we think you’re working too hard and need a break…and time with your family.”
I let out a wild laugh and snatched my hands out of hers. “You think I need a break? You are such hypocrites! You’re really going to sit there and pretend you’d be okay with that? You expect me to believe that you wouldn’t be moaning behind my back about those ten points that could have gotten me into Harvard if only I’d tried harder? You think I haven’t heard you before?”
My voice had been rising steadily, and my anger with it. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to get any angrier, but a raw, scathing fury was clawing at my insides and laying me open to a host of other emotions, each with its own unique flavor. Resentment pecked at me like a sharp-beaked crow. Shame congealed, cold and quivery in my stomach. Disbelief, airy and light, tantalized me with the possibility that maybe this was all just a dream.
But the unfairness was the worst. It was unbearable—a crushing, suffocating weight heavier than any of the expectations I’d carried my entire life. I had been glad to bear their dreams for me, determined to repay the sacrifices they had made. They had left their families and their jobs and their homes behind, given up everything so that I could grow up in America. They were the embodiment of the American dream, everything I wanted to grow up to be. I tried so hard every day to follow in their footsteps so that I could go even further and make them proud. But what if I couldn’t do it? What if all my work, all my effort, just wasn’t enough? I pressed my palms to my face and let loose a wail of wordless, seething misery and despair.
Something burst forth from my chest, making me gasp. I dropped my hands just as a vase on the table beside me cracked and fell to the floor in a million smoking pieces. Had I knocked it over? I couldn’t remember hitting it. Was I so out of control that I wasn’t aware of my own actions? And where had the smoke come from? I looked up at my parents, suddenly afraid.
Baba looked stricken, guilty. My mother’s face was bone white. She stumbled and caught herself on a chair, clutching it for dear life.
“Get out,” she said, her voice tight with anger. Or was it fear? “Now.”
I woke with a gasp, groggy and disoriented in the darkness. What time was it? What day was it? I groped around the floor beside the low bed until I found my phone, but the battery was dead. It didn’t matter. I was awake now. I knew what day it was, and I wanted no part of it.
I flopped onto my back, torn between the desire to sleep and fear of what I would find behind my closed lids. Even now, after weeks of nightmares, I didn’t know which was worse—the dreams or the moment of waking and the realization that what I dreamed was true. Sometimes I dreamed of the fire, but mostly I dreamed of what came before. It was stupid, so stupid. Just an argument. I still didn’t know how it had turned into so much more, how the dumb things I’d said—words I didn’t mean—became the last words I spoke to my parents.
I’d been at the library that day, practicing for the SAT. A 1490 wasn’t enough, not for Harvard or Johns Hopkins or any of the other top pre-med programs. I’d need a 1500 at the very least to be a competitive candidate, so I’d been taking practice tests and reviewing old ones every day all summer. There was a test coming up in August that was my last shot before senior year started. It was the Fourth of July, and I’d missed the family barbecue. I said it was an accident, that I lost track of time, but really, I couldn’t face a whole day of trying to be social, especially with the SAT looming. And there had been a fight.
I relived it nearly every night in my dreams, the memories polished to a brutal clarity by repetition. I pulled a pillow over my head, trying to drown out the memory of my mother’s voice as she berated me. She’d told me to get out—so I had. I ran for miles before finally turning around, still half blinded by tears. I was nearly home when I heard the sirens. I knew, somehow. It was as if I could hear my mother’s screams in the wailing of the sirens.
I covered the last mile in record time and nearly broke through the ranks of police and firemen who circled the house. It took three of them to hold me back, though I'd been at the end of my strength after running so long and hard. My every muscle had been trembling. I'd been barely able to stand, yet one after the other had lost his grip as I staggered toward the flames. They snatched their hands back as if I were on fire, muttering curses and looking at me like I was something wild and dangerous.
They said it was an accident—a firework gone astray. The firefighters hadn’t found any recognizable remains, but the police insisted that Thalia and Lukas Markou had died in the flames. My pleas fell on deaf ears when I begged them to see sense. When Yiayia and Theio Giorgo arrived less than a day later, I begged them, too. Normal fires didn’t leave such devastation in their wake or burn bodies to ash. But Yiayia didn’t care about the police report. She just wanted to get what she came for and go back to Greece. Theio Giorgo seemed more willing to listen, but he would never cross his mother. He just followed her like a good boy as she poked around the ash, holding the urn that would supposedly house my parents’ remains. We were on a plane the next day.
The ashes we’d buried on the mountainside yesterday could just as easily have been throw pillows, for all I knew, but Yiayia’s bizarre ritual seemed to bring her some closure. Me, not so much. I withdrew into myself, refusing to go into town or see visitors. Not even Sotiri Samaras or Theia Anna, whom I hadn’t seen since I was three. Yiayia didn’t force me, though she could have. She had a strange way of giving orders when she wanted to. Sometimes I found myself obeying before I could even think to resist.
But she let me be, and I spent the days and weeks following the burial sitting under the linden tree outside my room or running in the very early hours of the morning. I loved running on the mountain. The air was the purest, cleanest thing I’d ever tasted, and the exercise brought me some measure of peace. There was something hypnotic about running, something that took me outside of myself and let me look away from my pain for a while, even if I could still feel it. If I heard voices on the wind or saw faces in the leaves, well, it was normal to go a bit mad from grief, wasn’t it? It would pass. It had to.
My seclusion couldn’t last forever. I knew that. But still, the traditional forty days of mourning had passed far too quickly, and today there would be a memorial service. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to do anything. But Yiayia was merciless. She was in my room with the first rays of sunlight, bustling about and opening the windows and making more noise than she needed to. She rummaged in the closet and dug a dress out one of of my still-packed suitcases. She shook it out and turned to me, her hands on her hips.
“Chrysa, my love, wake up. It’s time.”
I groaned and turned over, ignoring her cool, dry hand on my ankle.
“Yiayia, please. I don’t want to go. I'm just…tired.” I pulled the sheets over my head. “I’m so tired.”
“I know, koukla,” Yiayia said. “But you must get up. It’s time to start living your life again.”
I sat up abruptly, pulling the sheets off my face. “It’s been forty days. Are you telling me you’re ready to move on? Your daughter is dead.”
If my words hurt her, she gave no sign. She only reached out to caress my hair.
“Time moves on whether we’re ready or not, my love. We have to move with it.” She laid a dress out on the bed. “Come, now. Get up and take a shower. Oh, and your uncle bought you these. You can read them later.”
She waved at a stack of textbooks on the nightstand. I closed my eyes and said nothing. I could have asked her why. Why should I get up, take a shower, read my textbooks—why should I do anything?
But I didn't ask, because—damn her—she would have come up with an answer. Most likely it would be along the lines of, Your parents would want you to. And she’d be right. I knew my parents wouldn’t want me to wallow in grief forever. They’d want me to take care of myself. But they weren’t here to tell me so. Yiayia was, and it was all too easy to be mad at her for it—for everything. For reaching old age when my parents had been denied the privilege, for telling me to carry on as if my life hadn’t literally gone up in flames, for telling me what my parents would want me to do.
For being right.
“Siko, omorfia mou,” Yiayia said, and I was on my feet. “Go get ready.”
Before I knew what was happening, my feet were carrying me down the hall and into the bathroom. I sighed but didn’t try to fight it. Drat Yiayia. How did she do that?
I took my time in the shower, though hot water wasn’t something this household could afford to waste. I didn’t want to risk getting to church any earlier than absolutely necessary; there would be no opportunity for small talk or condolences, not if I could help it.
Yiayia knew what I was doing, but she let me do it anyway and didn’t insist on conversation as we filed out of the house and into a yard bursting with fragrant herbs: rosemary, basil, oregano. Chamomile and mint. My heart squeezed at the familiar scents, all of which had been present in my mother’s own garden. But there was more here—the peculiarly farm-like smell of chickens, the sweetness of ripening plums, and a strange, wild scent that I couldn’t be sure was a scent at all. It hovered between taste and smell, tantalizing me until I shook off the uncertainty with an irritated twitch.
Yiayia’s chickens were already hard at work, foraging busily beneath the linden tree. A snake regarded us lazily from the garden wall and lifted its head as if in greeting as Yiayia led us through the gate. I closed my eyes against a flash of pain. We’d had a rat snake in our garden back home that would greet Mama in just the same way. Her little watch-snake, she’d called it, and it was true that we’d never had problems with mice or rats in the yard.
I looked back at the little cottage that was now my home. Yiayia’s house was beautiful—and quiet, which was some comfort. It was small and square, made of stone, with a slate-shingled roof and a blue door. An arbor covered the wide veranda and spilled into the yard. Morning light slanted through the trees, dappling the stone with shadows and unexpected splashes of gold.
I sighed. This little Eden had become my sanctuary, and I was reluctant to leave it, but leave it I must.
The house was tucked away just outside of Pyrga, and we had to navigate a narrow path down to my native village. I trailed after Yiayia and Theio Giorgo, trying to focus on not breaking an ankle in my heeled shoes. The path was little more than a goat trail, and the cobbled streets of the village were even more treacherous. But at least the streets were silent, and empty of bystanders to stare at our sad little procession of three.
The buildings were largely abandoned even now in the height of tourist season, their former inhabitants having long since fled to the cities looking for work. A few buildings operated as bed and breakfasts, but they were clustered at the other end of the village. Their proprietors were waiting for us in Pyrga’s tiny chapel. Once, I’d been told, the village had been bursting with life. But the Pyrga I saw looked like a ghost town, the dark windows of empty houses staring out at us as if in accusation or judgment. The church’s courtyard was likewise empty when we arrived, but I knew there were people inside. Most had come from Kalochori, the big—well, bigger—town down the mountain. They had come to pay their respects to my family, one of the few who still lived in Pyrga year-round.
Maybe that was why the little chapel seemed different. It didn’t feel forlorn like the other houses in Pyrga. It felt welcoming—alive, somehow.
“Thalia was baptized here,” Yiayia said softly. “She was married here. Take comfort, my love. The stones remember her. They mourn for her, as we do.”
It was an odd thing to say, and odder still that it seemed to echo my thoughts. But then, my grandmother was an odd woman. She always had been, and her oddness was all the more apparent here in these mountains where the wind spoke and the trees kept vigil.
Theio Giorgo squeezed my shoulder. “Are you alright, koukla? You look pale.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, shaking myself. “Let’s get this over with.”
I kept my eyes down as we entered the church. I could feel the congregation’s curiosity buzzing around me like a swarm of gnats. Soft but incessant whispers followed us down the aisle, and a hundred pairs of eyes seemed to prick at my hunched shoudlers. I sank into my seat and closed my eyes.
The service was blessedly short, though perhaps it only seemed so to me. I may even have slept through some of it, lulled into a trance by incense and candlelight. After the service, I rose quickly and tugged at Theio Giorgo’s shirtsleeve.
“Hurry, Nouno,” I muttered. “I want to go home.”
“No, Chrysa,” he said gently. “You have family here, and they’ve waited long enough.”
He was right, of course. My father wouldn’t want me to disrespect his sister. But I didn’t know her, not like I knew Theio Giorgo. He and Yiayia had visited every year for as long as I could remember, staying for weeks, sometimes months, at a time.
But Theia Anna and her family had never visited. No one from Baba’s side did. Baba said it was because they didn’t have a lot of money and were too proud to let him pay, but I’d always considered my aunt the top suspect for the accident that had given me my scars. Not that I blamed her—not for that, anyway. But I did think it was a little crummy of her to never visit. I knew my aunt only as a voice on the phone, or a face on the computer screen. I had scrolled past her Facebook posts, listened to my father read her emails out loud, and made the occasional call on a holiday. But I didn’t know anything about her heart, her character. She was a stranger to me.
“Chrysanthe…Chrysa?”
A small woman with a pleasantly rounded figure and wide brown eyes stood wringing her hands, an almost painfully hopeful expression on her pretty face. Two small children hovered at her sides, looking up at me with open curiosity. The woman held her hands out to me, tears in her eyes.
“Chrysa, I’m—”
“Theia Anna.” I swallowed and took her hand. “Hello.”
She kissed my hand and wiped the tears from her eyes. “It’s such a blessing to have you here, Chryssoula.”
I winced at the pet name, the same one used by my mother—and by my grandmother and probably every older woman in my life, but right now all I could hear was my mother's voice telling me I needed to make a bigger effort.
I took a shaky breath and forced a smile. My lips felt stiff, like they’d forgotten how to even pretend at joy.
“Who do we have here?” I asked, turning to the children. “Are you my cousins?”
“Yes,” the little girl said. “I’m Eva.”
“Evangelia,” Theia Anna clarified. “And this is Panteli. We call him Teli.”
Teli cocked his head at me. “Why does your arm look like that? And why do you sound funny?”
A short, barrel-chested man who had to be his father—my Theio Mitso—reached over the pew and swatted the back of Teli’s head. “Please excuse him. He hasn’t yet learned to be polite.”
“It’s fine.” I smiled through a wave of embarrassment and addressed one of Teli’s questions—the easier one. “I sound funny because I grew up in America. I have an accent.”
