The next several days were a whirlwind of activity. Niki and I hired the pilot of the seaplane to fly us back to Sarnafi to check on the legal status of the scroll. Niki had heard that Kyropos was in a no-man’s-land, and she called Barry Weathersby, of Weathersby & Rollins, Barnes’s legal firm, to see what he could find out. Within hours, Weathersby had returned her call.
“We are in luck,” Niki said, hanging up the telephone. Glancing at her notes, she explained, “According to Mr. Weathersby, in 1917 the Egyptian government rejected a bid to annex the unclaimed volcano on the grounds that it had no economic or military value, and because it was completely uninhabitable. They declared the volcano abandoned and derelict.” She looked up at me. “The scroll is ours.”
With spirits soaring, we flew to Crete and sent the scroll to Dr. Stanley J. Davis, at the Institute for Minoan Research, in New York. Barnes had chosen Davis, a world-renowned paleographer and longtime friend of Alexios Mikos, to head the project. The scroll would be scanned in a high-resolution digital format for translation and further study. The institute would then hold it until a proper facility could be built to permanently house the scroll at the monastery on Pialigos.
I still had a bad feeling about opening the island to tourism, but everyone we talked to agreed that, with tourism a leading moneymaker in the islands, it was the only way to salvage the Pialigarians and their culture.
With our legal concerns resolved, I called my agent, Claudia Epstein, and I told her the whole story. Ecstatic, she called her contact at the New York Times, and in two days the scroll’s discovery was headline news. The Times, who had frequently used Davis as a consultant, touted his credibility and quoted him as saying, “This unlikely source may indeed offer the world one of the clearest windows yet opened into the mind of Jesus.” The Times was flooded with emails and telephone calls. People wanted to know more. Armed with the article and public reaction, Epstein orchestrated a bidding frenzy between the top New York publishing houses. The book was a sensation even before I’d had the chance to write it.
The excited buzz of wedding preparations transformed the tranquillity of Pialigos. Our wedding’s historical significance prompted eager participation from each of the island’s 257 inhabitants. The site for the ceremony, a large, grassy knoll bordering the cliffs and offering a stunning view of the sea, had to be prepared. Goats were brought in to nibble the grass into a lawn. Artemas and a crew of workers built and carefully decorated with roses a nuptial arch at the cliff’s edge. Planks for seating were hammered together and arranged in two groups to form an aisle leading to the arch.
We had the pilot fly to Chios to pick up Celia Mikos for the wedding. Celia and Niki stood face-to-face, Celia’s dark eyes tense with the uncertainty of how her adopted daughter would react to the years of deception. The two women quickly melted into each other’s arms, with Niki’s assurances to Celia that she held no hard feelings. “You did what you thought was best for me,” Niki said. “I could not have asked for a better mother.”
“I am sorry I did not have the courage to tell you sooner,” Celia said through tears. “I will make it up to you. I will tell you everything I know about my sister, your true mother.” After a long embrace, Celia turned to me, looked straight into my eyes, and placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “You will take good care of my child?”
“I’ll take good care of your child,” I assured her. She pulled me into a hug as Niki, her face beaming, looked on.
Celia drew back, smiling. “You have my blessing,” she said. “You have the blessing of my husband.”
The evening of our wedding brought a spectacular Mediterranean sunset. Soft smudges of pink, red, and gray lay in long, irregular streaks across the blue canopy. Our audience had taken their seats while a band of island musicians played. The band featured a bouzouki, a mandolin-like instrument traditional in Grecian music. There was also a guitar, a stand-up bass, and a percussionist. The woody twang of the bouzouki tugged at every one of my heartstrings. The band members had explained earlier that all their song selections had been composed over hundreds of years, that each one commemorated the love between Anatolios and Panagiota.
When Euphemia gave the signal, Blake Threader and I—decked out in tuxes—followed her to the arch. There, we turned toward the cart path that led to the monastery. Pialigarian tradition dictated that a bride approach her groom in a covered, donkey-drawn cart. According to legend, when Anatolios finally took Panagiota as his bride, her cart would be drawn by a pure white donkey. And so it was. In the distance, I could see the cart appear. The donkey, led by its owner, was indeed white as snow. The cart was covered in flowers and bolts of red, green, yellow, blue, and orange fabric. The musicians churned out their sweetest tunes as the cart bearing my bride slowly approached. It was a warm evening, but my hands were cold and clammy; I had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering.
The cart stopped at the back of the crowd. Everyone stood in breathless anticipation. My heart raced. Lia and Nitsa, the big-eyed little girl who had given me the pink stone of friendship, stepped from the cart and began walking down the aisle toward us, carefully casting rose petals from baskets they carried.
Niki stepped from the cart wearing a full-length dress of white chiffon with straps that fell slightly off her shoulders and crisscrossed in gathers over her breasts. She carried a bouquet of red roses, and she had a delicate mix of rosebuds and baby’s breath woven tastefully into her Edwardian braided hair. Artemas stepped forward as her escort. Niki walked with her head high, her eyes—strong, crackling with life—never once leaving mine. The wailing bouzouki brought streams of tears down even the sun-leathered cheeks of sea-hardened old fishermen.
Euphemia’s words passed in a blur, but it didn’t matter. I needed no words to confirm that Niki was the first woman that I could love without fear, without reservation. Soon, Euphemia was turning us to face our audience, announcing that Anatolios and Panagiota had at long last come together in marriage. When she invited us to kiss, the audience roared in cheers, and the music flew into a happy, festive mood. The people quickly fell into a double line and urged Niki and me to run through a shower of flower petals. When we reached the end, all the people formed a half circle around us and continued their cheers and clapping, their faces filled with hope for a bright future—ours and their own. It was a time for great celebration. Their prophet had returned with their future in his hands.
Or had he?
For all my joy, something was still missing. The Pialigarians had given me a story. What had I given them? A future of photo opportunities with tourists carrying gift shop bags loaded with fake Pialigarian memorabilia? I was a taker, not a giver, a thief who had snuck in and plucked the last jewel from a pauper’s hidden chest. Yeah, I was a prophet all right. I had no trouble seeing into their future. Frail as the flame of a candle in the hurricane of twenty-first-century reality, their culture wouldn’t stand a chance.
Nitsa wandered from the crowd and stood looking up at me. Her brown eyes were like a pair of strong hands reaching up and delivering a choke hold to my throat. I could hardly bear to look at her—me, the fraud, the imposter. I scooped her up, and she finished me off by throwing her tiny arms in complete trust around my neck.
“Nitsa, what are we going to do?” I whispered the question into her soft hair knowing she could not understand a word of what I said. “A real prophet wouldn’t send you into a future of grubbing money from the cruise ships. I just don’t know how to stop it. I really don’t.”
Niki, overhearing my words, stepped in close and slipped a comforting arm around my waist. “We have found a way to help,” she whispered in my ear. “We do not need the cruise ships.”
I looked at her doubtfully.
She had a confident smile, and her eyes flashed with unfounded optimism. “During the wedding preparations, Euphemia and I talked. There will be a museum and a retreat center. We will give people something meaningful, something to enhance their lives. The Pialigarians can tell their history through educational seminars. Pialigos is, after all, a monastery. There are already many trained teachers here. With their lost knowledge now restored, they are all very excited about sharing who they are with the world. You see how the Prophet fulfills his destiny? It is your book that will bring the people here, just as Rufus had hoped. But it will not be the random flood of tourists that you fear. They will come only by reservation. We will not allow the island to be overrun. The future of the Pialigarians will remain in their own hands.”
Museum? Retreat center? Seminars? She had it all worked out, and in a way I hadn’t really thought about. The wheels of my mind whirred. If the thing was controlled and well-managed, a museum-based retreat center wouldn’t destroy the island or the people. It would give them their future without costing them their dignity. It was brilliant.
“Are you sure you’re not the Prophet?” I said to Niki. “Because right now, it feels like you’ve got one hell of a lot more brains than I do.”
With a teasing smile she said, “There is nothing in Pialigarian scripture that says the Prophet will have a lot of brains.”
I frowned, wondering if I should defend myself or give her a hug. I opted for the hug. Then, something in the distance caught my attention. Silhouetted in the orange disk of the setting sun, high on a cliff across a cove, stood the lone figure of a man. Niki saw me looking and followed the direction of my gaze.
“Who could it be?” she asked, squinting into the sun. “Everyone on the island is here.”
The Pialigarians began to see him too. One by one, they turned, shielding their eyes against the dying sun, a questioning murmur rising among them.
Then, the man raised his hand. The music subsided, and a deep hush fell over the people. I knew in that instant who it was, and I raised my hand to return his greeting.
“You know this man?” Niki asked.
“It’s Marcus.”
“Marcus? The Essene? But that is not pos …” Her words trailed off.
“I know,” I said, struggling with the same problem. For me, the line between possible and impossible had grown thin, nearly imperceptible.
“What would he want?” Niki asked, “Why would he come?”
“Maybe he’s giving us his blessing for our new project.”
“The retreat center?”
“I told him about the Pialigarians, how they needed help. He said the answer would come when I wasn’t looking for it.”
A smile shimmered over Niki’s face. “His way of telling you to let go and enjoy the journey? So, I am not the only one preaching to you this doctrine?”
“Guess you’re not.”
“And now you have no excuses. You have discovered your destiny, you have found your lover, and soon you will be rolling in your tub full of money. What more could you want? Even as an American man, you should be quite happy.”
“Yeah,” I said, ignoring the gibe. “But you’re only right on two counts. I’m not sure there’ll be enough money to roll in. If we’re going to do this retreat thing, it’s going to take a lot to get this place up and running.”
“Yes, and Rufus has put aside—”
“No. I think I’m starting to get the hang of this destiny thing.” I turned to her. “Niki, I need to do this.”
“You?”
“Yeah. With the help of the book.”
“You would commit the proceeds from your book to the Pialigarian cause?”
A couple of Nitsa’s playmates darted past. Nitsa wriggled out of my arms and scampered off with her friends. I turned to face Niki. There was a sheen of admiration in her smile.
“Yup,” I said with a grin. “Oh, I might save a little to roll in. You know, maybe just enough to get it out of my system.”
“I see. And you would be naked?”
“Why? You want to watch?”
“Perhaps I will join you in your tub.”
“Yeah? You bringing the wine?”
“Me? I bring the wine last time. Do you forget so soon?”
“You want to join me or not?”
Her eyes flared with playful defiance before they softened. “All right, I bring the wine … this time. But you will owe me.”
An excited murmur suddenly rose from the crowd. We turned to see people pointing at the place where Marcus had been. Now, only the sun and the deep-shadowed cliff remained.
I slipped an arm around my wife, and we watched the sun sink slowly into the sea. I pulled her closer and took a deep and satisfying breath. When the last sliver of that blazing disk disappeared beneath the horizon, there was no doubt left in my mind that I had heard the whisper of Pialigos.
God, it felt good to be home.
THE END
J Douglas Bottorff 