Stephen Jones - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 23

She laughed and nuzzled her cheek against his. “Foolish one, my golden love, you do not have to wait! Not for Aretoúla. She is yours. As much so as any priest could make her. We will not ask your comrades to risk their lives among these mountain passes that they do not know. Among, perhaps, the Germans.”

He said stubbornly, very low: “I can’t do that, Aretoúla. What would your granny think? I can’t take advantage of you and her like that; not after all you’ve both done for us.”

She threw back her head then, looked up into his face. Even from where I stood, around the corner of the hut, I could see how the stars shone, reflected in her eyes.

“Listen, my Ronnie. Granny will understand. I see that I must tell you of sad things — things that I had hoped need not yet trouble us. No priest would come here, if your comrades went for him. They hold this place accursed.”

“But why — what—”

“You cannot understand, you who are English and so not superstitious. You do not know how the mother of my grandmother died raving mad, after she had tried to kill my grandmother, whom she called a striga , the murderess of her brothers. For three of them had died indeed, of some wasting sickness, and grief had turned the old woman’s brain, so that she remembered a legend of our people — one that is old, very old, among us. Of how sometimes a girl-child is born with a craving for food that is not meant for man. And with other gifts also — a striga .

“Yes, she would have killed my grandmother, her own child. Her husband and her remaining son had all they could do, strong men though they were, to drag her off her only daughter. And that night she died, raving. And soon they themselves died also, of the same sickness that had taken the others. But the words of the poor mother’s ravings lived, and my grandmother was left alone. None of the neighbours (for we had neighbours then, here on the mountain) would enter this house; none of her kin would take her in. All hated and feared her; all shunned her. Until my grandfather came climbing this way from another village in another valley — tall and strong and laughing, such a man as her brothers had been. And he laughed at the tales and loved her. All might have been different if he had lived — or if my father had lived. But now the curse has settled here, like a black bird brooding above this house forever. No man will ever marry Aretoúla.”

“I will — some day.” Ronnie’s young face was exalted. “I’ll take you away from here. To England, where people are civilised and don’t do things like this to women. We’ll always be together.”

His arms tightened around her, and his head bent to hers. Her mouth plastered itself on his. She pressed herself against him, seemed almost to press herself into him, as if her body might melt, cloud-like, into his.

I came forward then. I said, “Good evening,” casually, before I came round the corner, and Ronnie jumped back, out of her arms. I stayed with them until she went in, and later, after he was asleep, I got Bert out of the house and talked with him:

“We’ll have to leave, Bert. Things are getting too thick here; the kids are falling in love.”

I told him everything; everything, that is, except those fantastic nightmares of old Kyra Stamata’s mother’s. Bert, like many Queenslanders, has seen a good deal of the aborigines; and although he pretends to scoff at their dark beliefs and practices, they have left their mark upon his mind. I was afraid he might be too much impressed.

As it was, he was not enough impressed. He laughed.

“Me, I’d let the kids have their fun, Johnny. This is wartime; it may be all they’ll ever have. But that’s the schoolmaster of it, I suppose; you’ve got to have everything proper and respectable. And maybe it would be just as well to clear out. The longer we stay the less chance we’ll have of getting picked up by our own boats; they may be all gone already.”

I was so surprised that I was startled into an undiplomatic honesty. Undiplomatic since I wanted, suddenly and desperately, to get away.

“You know very well there’s no chance of that, Bert. Any Englishmen that are left on this island are stranded — without a dog’s chance of getting out, unless it’s on a Cretan fishing-boat.”

Bert looked sheepish. “I know. But, nice as they’ve been to us here and all, I’d just as soon get out, Johnny. The old lady makes me feel funny; I can’t help it. She looks like somebody — or something — I’ve seen somewhere else. And how do she and the girl both come to know English so well when they’ve never either one been down off this mountain, and when there’s not a book — not even a Greek bible — in the house?”

I said testily: “That’s nonsense, Bert. You sound as if you suspected them of something. You know Aretoúla’s father had been to America — was educated and progressive, quite different from the superstitious peasants around here. Kyra Stamata has talked about that. He must have taught her English.”

He said doggedly: “Maybe. But it’s queer she learned it so well — and remembered it so well all these years. And it’s queer how she knew every last thing that was going on in the war up until we came here — and now she never hears a thing. Nobody ever comes up here; nobody’s supposed to have come up here in a long time. How did she get her news then — and what made it stop? If it did stop. I’m not accusing her of anything; I just don’t like the whole layout. It’s too queer.”

I laughed at him; there can be no doubt of these good wom en’s friendliness. But some of his points were shrewd and well made. More shrewd than I would have expected of Bert. I am more glad than ever that I did not tell him the wild parts of that story of Aretoúla’s. In the morning we will ask her grandmother about the mountain passes; about the best way to leave.

7th June: They were hurt and grieved, as I was afraid they would be; our two hostesses. They say that Ronnie’s leg is not well enough for any journey — too much truth in that, I fear. They ask us if we are not happy with them — safe? If they have not done everything they can for us? They have; the trouble is that I am afraid that if we stay Aretoúla will do too much. Perhaps I can find a chance to talk with Kyra Stamata before the day is over; warn her of that danger. We cannot leave till tomorrow anyway; that is clear.

Midnight: I have had horrible dreams; I could almost think that I am going mad. Perhaps it was my failure to get a chance for private talk with Kyra Stamata that made me restless, unable to sleep soundly. Yet I was very sleepy when we went to bed; we all were, for, in honour of our last night, Kyra Stamata had brought out her last bottle of wine, one that she had brewed with her own hands, according to an ancient recipe of her family. A strange wine, tasting of honey. And of something else, something to which I cannot put a name.

It went to all our heads, and we were glad to go to bed early; I remember thinking hazily that that would be better, anyway, when we men were to start out early in the morning. But in the dead of night I woke; in a sudden sweat of fear, though I did not know what had roused me.

And then I heard it again: the creak of a door, the door of the inner room, where the women slept. They were coming out, into the room where we lay, and as I realised that my heart leapt with relief — and then stood still.

For Aretoúla was carrying a torch, and in her grandmother’s hand was a knife. A long, thin knife. The torchlight shone brightly on the blade and redly in both women’s eager eyes.

Aretoúla said softly: “All is well, Grandmother. They sleep.”

The old woman did not answer at once. She came a little farther into the room, her head thrust forward, slightly bent. Like a bird’s, when it hunts food. Her neck looked long; longer than a woman’s neck should be; her jutting nose was like a beak, her beady eyes blazed with greed. And in that instant I knew her! Knew her for the bird that had flown above us in the mountains, the bird that had danced and menaced us as the sun set!