Hydra, 1986.

She was lying face-up on her cotton towel on the pebbled beach, with her large straw hat covering her face. Her sun-kissed body was radiant and her skin smelled of coconut oil and salt water. She thought about how it had been two days already since her cousins left the country. How she decided to stay in Greece awhile longer instead of sticking to their original plan to pass through Italy. And so, she said goodbye to her cousins in Athens and took the ferry to Hydra.

The island called to her in a familiar way. The place was unknown to her yet she would soon feel at home. She had no idea that by staying behind she’d be swimming towards her destiny.

Familiarity and safety sang to her through the winds — they were in everything. She never spoke a word of Greek in her life, but understood what the Greeks said. She had never been to this island before, yet her whole being told her she already knew of the place for many lives. There was no fear because nothing was unknown.

Like a mermaid appearing from the sea, she arrived at the docks with seashells around her neck, on her wrists and braided into her hair. She smiled at the white pelican that greeted her as he bowed with his long beak. She came upon the village like a child returning to her grandmother’s house in summer: wide-eyed and exploratory, as if looking at everything for the first time yet knowing exactly where she was going. Her intuition guided her westward on the cobblestoned streets, passing the rows of bracelets with the turquoise glass eyeballs used to keep the spirits away. A family of tourists walked up to her to ask for directions to the beach. Pointing them towards the city walls facing south, she instinctively knew the path before she and this beach had ever met. After a short walk she too started towards the city walls, ready to meet the sea.

She gently lay her towel on the sand and took off her dress and bikini top, placing them in a ball under her hat before making her way to the crystal blue water. She swam with her long lost loves, the pearly white fish and the freckled starfish. Walking towards shore she caught the eyes of a young man. He was tall, with black hair and green eyes, wearing white shorts and sneakers. He was sweating and breathing heavily after a midday run. He was wearing a frustrated look as he felt ill-prepared to cool off in the ocean without his swimming shorts. But his expression changed when he saw her — he smiled at her and she smiled back. He immediately grew shy at the unexpected sight of this mermaid, so he turned around and began another run towards the village, wondering if he had actually seen her, or if it was all a dream.

The young man was a foreigner in this land yet, he had Greek ancestry that rooted as deeply as the seafloor. He came to this place to understand what was real to him: where he should place his Greek name, his Greek body, his Greek family. But by being here he still felt nothing more than a visitor, without language.

What do we call this paradox: a woman from across the ocean, having never stepped foot onto this island, yet being wholly of it in spirit. A woman who knew where to go and how to speak and how to be, without a word of Greek on her tongue. And then there was a man more Greek than the gods of myth themselves who chose to sever his roots before they could surface. How clever then, that in this space between living in the past and waiting for the future, that the god and the goddess first met.

She was lying face-up on her cotton towel on the pebbled beach, with her large straw hat covering her face. Her sun kissed body was radiant and her skin smelled of coconut oil and salt water. She thought about her cousins now wandering through Italy and then started to doze off as the crystal blue waves came to her in dreams.

Suddenly her right arm was aroused by a sharp stinging sensation. She saw the eight-legged hairy brown beast crawling away from her in shame, looking for refuge under a rock buried halfway. What did the creature want with her? Perhaps she was still in a dream, she thought. She watched the sun set over the horizon as the pain in her arm slowly faded, leaving a single blister in its wake. Exhaustion overcame her as she stayed on the beach, unable to leave her rocky post even as the sky began to darken. The waves came back in half-dreams as she fell back asleep.

She awoke to fever and to an endless shivering. The cold beads of sweat dotted her forehead in the shape of crystals. The blister on her arm multiplied to three circular mounds in the shape of an upside-down triangle. She looked for a doctor to help her.

The island doctor told her to cover up the blisters: they were ugly and highly contagious, he said. He definitively denied the life of these hairy crawlers, saying he had never seen them on this island before. She asked herself if instead this was still a dream. Instead of an insect bite, they were her body’s way of showing her what happens when you turn your back on your birthplace, to your family, and when you forgo the life you’re supposed to lead. It was punishment by the creatures and natural elements of an island that meant nothing to anyone else but her.

Maybe, she thought, when we choose to not receive the lessons that life presents us, we’re ignoring the gifts that we’re given that help give us our direction and our freedom. And so, she could ignore the blisters that spoke to her, believe the island man who denied her fever, and then live and die alone on this island. She’d be forever known as the mermaid who got lost at sea.

Or, she could accept that her time on the island was seeing its end, and for what purpose she was ready to receive its message.

The next morning she boarded the first ferry for Athens and took a seat by the window. Beside her sat the young man from the beach the day before, the Greek runner. This time, he looked fresh and clean-shaven, wearing aviator sunglasses atop his wet hair. His eyes admitted he was not a backpacker like she was: he’d never experienced sleepless nights on overnight train cars, or played cards on the backless benches of the long-haul ferry boats, or spent hours daydreaming out the window of the crammed and noisy bus rides. His biggest life adventure so far was selling his horse and moving from a small village to a big city. And now, he was sitting next to a mermaid on the ferry docked at a small island in Greece.

Even soaked in sweat and fever she was beautiful. Her golden skin and bright eyes were kissed by the sunshine and the sea. They didn’t speak the same language, but there was little to be said. He looked at her bandaged arm, and she removed the cover to show him the blisters. She moved her fingers across her arm, crawling them up to the site of the bite and crunched her face to signal pain. Then she brought the back of her hand to her forehead and to her neck to signal her fever.

The young man asked, “hospital?” and she nodded. He said “I will take you.” She nodded, put her head to the window and closed her eyes. She felt safe with him there. He asked the boat crew to let him make an emergency call, ringing his father who lived in Athens and who’d be able to help her. It was agreed they would meet his father at the dock to drive to the private hospital. In the meantime, he let the mermaid sleep. He noticed her delicate arms as they bent to make a pillow under her head, her high cheekbones cupping the light through the window, her soft hair braided with seashells. She was petite, yet he felt so much strength in her presence.

She awoke just before the ferry arrived at the port, more dazed and distracted than before. He told her he would take her to the hospital, and that his father knew someone who could help. She nodded to thank him.

The doctor took off the bandage and swiftly gave her an injection. She learned that bites need to breathe, that covering them worsens the progression. Whoever it was that denied the crawler was no doctor. She was lucky — another day and it could have been fatal.

As she slept again, the shy Greek stayed with her; saving the mermaid gave him a renewed sense of purpose and identity. He was called to his ancestral land for a reason, and he now knew why. And in that way, if he left her, he’d betray himself. He couldn’t leave her — he’d never leave her. He didn’t even know where it was that she called home, but knew he’d find a way to see her again.

She awoke in the hospital room to the young man sleeping by the window of the hospital room. She was feeling alert and well. Although she was alone and her family far across the ocean, she felt at ease. After all, she was in a country she knew she had lived in before. And here she received a gift as if from a dream: a bite that led her to return to the capital, and to meet the young man, an outsider on this land yet who would conquer his fears of divided roots and entrust himself to help her. The bite was a gift to both.

And the Greek would say goodbye to her that day knowing he’d fulfil his promise: that he’d find a way to bring this mermaid home.