Wicked Like a Wildfire (Hibiscus Daughter #1)(55)
“How far are we?” I asked him, scratching at my tingling scalp.
“It’s right up there,” Luka said, pointing through the windshield. “See? We’ll have to pass underneath the pipeline that carries gravel from the mountaintops down to the plain. And then go even farther up.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered, following his gaze. “That is—that is very high up. How did people used to get up there? It’s practically vertical.”
“There you go again, underestimating our forebears. They got up there the old-school way, with horses and donkeys and on foot, on paths carved into the side. There’s still a series of steps cut into the cliff through the car road, for pilgrims who want to climb.”
My stomach bottomed out as soon as we began to ascend onto the road that led up to Ostro?ka Greda, the sheer slab of rock into which the monastery had been carved. As we rose higher, the road’s serpentine curves coiled back on each other ever tighter. Without speaking, Luka took my clammy hand and placed it over the gearshift. It shuddered beneath my palm, and he curled his hand around mine. We shifted from gear to gear, cutting the switchbacks together, and this small scrap of control calmed me until a measure of awe crept in. The lush valley seemed impossibly far below us, a deep, rich green like algae, scale models of forests bisected by farm fields, villages, and vineyards between them.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “This is the tightest portion of the road, but Saint Basil is the patron saint of travelers. They say no one’s ever had an accident on the way here.”
“Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they,” I said through gritted teeth. “I doubt any plummeting peasants ever made it onto his permanent record.”
We finally reached the little cliffside plateau that held the monastery’s two tiers, and Luka eased us into the empty parking lot outside the monastery gates. I nearly tripped over myself in my urge to scramble, weak-kneed, out of the car. “I think I need something to eat,” I said tightly. That queasy, skin-crawling feeling kept sweeping over me, and I thought I might throw up if I didn’t line my stomach with something.
“There’s a shop that sells relics and food over in the Lower Church, on the first tier of the monastery,” Luka said. “We can get something there before we go into the monastery proper.”
The Lower Church’s facade reminded me of a film set, as if the stone archways, cream-colored balcony, and three inlaid mosaic icons had simply been rested against the stone of the cliff behind it. Inside the shop, the shelves groaned with golden jars of honey, herbal creams and tonics blessed by the monastery, and rows of wine from the vineyards in the villages below.
I picked one of the busier honey jars, dense with dates, almonds, and apple slices, and we carried it up the steps that led to the monastery proper and its terrace. The prune-faced, kerchiefed woman at the shop had given us some plastic spoons, and Luka and I dipped into the honeyed fruit.
“It looks like something your mother would have made, doesn’t it?” Luka said, swirling his spoon through the sticky mass. My heart went raw at the thought of her, and of Lina back in Cattaro, without me. “Although messier. A little lacking in presentation.”
“I think it’s perfect,” I said. I propped my elbows on the stone wall and gazed over the lowland plain below, emerald beneath the leaden sky, a cool, piney breeze stirring my hair. Looking down over the valley seemed to settle me a little, soothe the feeling that my skin had flipped inside out, nerves dangling raw on the outside. “It tastes just like this valley looks.”
“That’s what they say about honey,” Luka agreed. “Every kind is different depending on where and when it was harvested. Even a batch from the same hive can taste completely different two weeks later. People who really know honey can tell exactly where each batch is from, and when.”
We looked up as a priest approached us, his black robes brushing the dusty stone. He was in his thirties, almost as tall as Luka and the peregrine kind of handsome so many Montenegrin men were, hawk-nosed and full-lipped beneath a neat beard. He was eyeing us sourly, and I could see his gaze flick to me and then purposely away, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath stubble. It reminded me of what Luka had said, and I wondered if I’d spent my entire life misinterpreting the way people looked at me.
“The reliquary is closed,” he said finally, sighing. “No one should be allowed in there until we’ve properly resanctified it, but I hear the powers that be have decreed otherwise for you. Even still, I’m hesitant to let you pass. It isn’t right, adding insult to injury that way.”
“I’m not sure what you were told, Father,” I tried, tugging at the hem of my shorts, wishing I’d worn something longer. The buzzing on my skin was growing so thick and uncomfortable I felt like I was covered in a swarming blanket of flies. “But our—my mother died, not three days ago. She was murdered, and the police don’t know why or by whom. I’m just looking for some peace on her behalf, Father. Please.”
He wavered for a moment longer. “All right, child,” he finally conceded, his eyes sliding away from mine again. “For the sake of your mother’s soul, then. I’ll come in with you and administer the saint’s blessing, but you may not approach the remains as we’d normally allow. You will stand in the doorway, both of you.”