IKARIA, GREECE
RENA SWEPT THE COURTYARD WHILE HER UNCLE YIANNIS slept. He was sleeping more and more these days, and she worried that his time on earth was running out. The morning breeze was cool and she thought he might benefit from sitting on the upper deck and looking out at the blue Aegean Sea. That is, if he could muster the energy to walk the few feet from his bed to the deck. He’d had a visitor yesterday—a priest from America. The man had been in her uncle’s room for over two hours earlier that day and now it was evident the toll the visit had taken on her uncle. He would be exhausted for weeks. She sighed.
When she finished her sweeping, she went to the small kitchen and boiled an egg for him. He probably wouldn’t eat it, but she would try to get him to take a few bites.
The sound of his raspy coughing made her look up, and grabbing a cup of water, she walked to the door and knocked.
“Eláte,” he answered.
She entered the simple room that contained only a small bed against the wall and a nightstand, the tile floor devoid of a rug, the walls painted a plain white, their only adornment a wooden cross.
“Uncle Yiannis, can you eat something?” she asked in Greek.
He shook his head. “Óxo, pethi mou.”
Rena plumped the pillows behind his back and brought the cup of water over to him. Bending the straw, she placed it between his parched lips, and he took a small sip. He pointed a bony finger toward the chair in the corner of the room and she brought it next to the bed.
He spoke again, this time in English. “It is almost time. You have to go back. I don’t have much longer.”
She brushed a tear from her cheek. “No, don’t say that. You’re going to get better.”
He shook his head resolutely. “Rena, let us not lie to each other. We both know that God is calling me home. I am ready. But you cannot stay here any longer. It will not be safe without my protection.”
“I don’t understand. No one knows I’m here.”
“When I am gone, the spirits will know. People will find you. You must take the coins and go to America. You know what you need to do.”
Her heart began to beat faster. “I can’t go back. My life is here now.”
Yiannis spoke haltingly. “I found out yesterday . . . there are . . . important reasons to get the coins back to America.”
“What you’re asking of me is impossible. I can’t do it.”
When she had come to live here with her uncle, she had cut herself off from all technology and committed to a life of quiet contemplation and service. The children on this small Greek island all knew her as Teacher. She taught them English and learned to love them as if they were her own. It had been hard, especially those first few years, but she’d been convinced that safeguarding the coins was her sacred duty and that superseded all else. And now he wanted her to leave the life she’d finally become accustomed to? It wasn’t fair.
Her uncle began to cough again, and she gave him another sip of water. “The coins are always found. The only way it will ever be safe is to reunite all thirty and then have them destroyed by the unity of the two churches—Greek Orthodox and Catholic. The pope and the patriarch together can perform a ceremony to destroy them once and for all.”
Her mouth fell open in astonishment. “But we only have ten. Who knows where the others are.”
“I know where ten of the others are.”
“What?”
“They’ve been hidden in Mount Athos for the past six months.”
She was stung that he had kept this from her. It made her feel like he didn’t trust her, and after everything she’d given up in service of the coins, that was unacceptable. “Why did you keep this from me?”
He reached out a hand to her. “I just found out, pethi mou. I’m telling you now.”
“Why don’t I take our ten there then? Surely they would be safer with the monks?”
“You know that women are not allowed on the mountain. And besides, their presence there is disturbing to the spiritual well-being of the monks. I’ve already made arrangements for those coins to be taken to America. You must take ours back as well.”
“How?”
“You will have help—you know who you must go to. And when the twenty we control are together, the coins will call to their lost ones. You will see. You can do this. It is your destiny. Wait for Father Basil to come.”
Who was this Father Basil? She’d never heard her uncle speak of him before. Maybe he was hallucinating. He certainly wasn’t making any sense to her. She was supposed to find coins that men had fought and killed for from the time of Christ and then casually get in touch with the pope and the patriarch? It was the most insane thing she’d ever heard.
His eyes were closed now, and he was moaning. She put a hand on his forehead—he was running a fever. She got a washcloth, wet it with cool water, and placed it on his head. She’d watch over him tonight and pray. Reaching out to take his hand in hers, she brushed the tears from her cheek with her other hand. He’d gotten so frail in the past six months. She wished she could give him some of her own strength. He had become more than an uncle over the years; she thought of him as a father, and she didn’t know how she was going to go on without him. She wasn’t ready for him to die. She loved him. She needed him. No matter how prepared he thought she was, she wasn’t equipped to take on this impossible quest.