Kleilia turned off her boat's engine and lifted her gaze high. Her eyes met the eyes of the lion. By a whim of nature, that rock had the appearance of the lord of the animal kingdom, proudly overlooking the sea, as if waiting for something, as if it were a matter of life and death to see it first. The figure beneath the eyes faded slightly, but Kleilia could make out the mouth with sharp teeth bared, ready to face the danger that would come from the sea. Nature had also taken care of the rich mane, offering wild bushes that embraced the stone head. She turned her gaze to the blue all around her. The sea met the sky, the sun was dim, casting strange shadows^ one of which resembled a mermaid swimming beneath the surface. She wished Eugenia’s fairy tales were true. That mermaids existed in the depths of her beloved sea. Velvet creatures carrying the wisdom of centuries, who knew everything about humans even though they had never lived among them. What would they tell her, she wondered, at this moment? Would they blame her for her many mistakes? Or would they comfort her that love was not given to her as a gift but as a curse;
Perhaps they could even tell her when her life took the wrong path, where she went wrong, and why she was never like the other girls her age. Now, at forty-six years old, she wanted to know… Maybe it was time to learn how she managed to scatter so much love, so much pain, so much sacrifice into the depths of the sea… Perhaps some mermaid had encountered all that she threw into the sea and could give her the answers she had been searching for all these years. Maybe that was why she had not isolated herself in this corner of Corfu;
