The house standing before them seemed like it had been built in the middle ages. Surrounded by a barely standing wooden fence, with the main gate on the west side facing the main path, it was a two-storey house with four small square windows and a single chimney. It was built with stone, wood and clay; while large stone plates all dark brown lay one on top of the other, serving as roof tiles. They seemed to be very heavy, but the house was strong and did not suffer under their weight.
The front entrance faced north, looking up a small steep hill, completely bare, only feet away. A wooden shack stood to the right, previously used to host cows and sheep. A stone courtyard that now had turned into a little jungle, stretched about 20 feet long and wide from the door of the house all the way to the main gate. A back door on the ground floor allowed access in and out of the house from the south, while on the top floor a balcony overlooked a wide and beautiful scenery that consisted of the immediate garden below the house, a huge field farther down that ended at the brinks of the small river of Tomorrica, and finally mount Tomorr itself rising high and proud in front of them.
They could not believe their eyes. This was not going to feel like hiding, more like a holiday. Daniel’s grandfather and his older brother had built this house about 70 years ago. A small plate by the entrance showed the exact date and the names of the two builders. Almost 25 years ago, after both his grandparents had passed away, the house had been abandoned for good, and the other family members, including his mom, had made their life in the cities or other countries. The house had been deserted ever since. Everywhere around it the grass had grown uncontrollably, and turned into a little forest. It would take them some time and work to turn this place into anything resembling its former shape, but of that they had plenty.
Lucky for them, there was still electricity in the house. Daniel had found the keys right where his mother had told him he would, underneath a stone on the first step of the stairway leading to the main door. They entered the house and dropped their luggage in the first room they found. While still occupied, it appeared to have served both as a living and dining room. There was a fireplace in the middle of the wall opposite the door, and floor pillows were placed all around, covered in plastic. A table sat on the left corner, with a chair on each side, while a built-in cupboard had all sorts of serving china and tableware.
The air in the room felt heavy and moldy, so the first thing Sam did was open all four windows to let some fresh air in. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere in the house, and they would need to do some major cleaning if they were serious about living here for an indefinite time. They all agreed, however, to eat something and rest before they did any work.
They’d been travelling for three whole days now and they all felt exhausted. Forty-eight hours after Daniel had made the decision to leave the country, Freddie had presented them with brand new passports and identities, courtesy of the Order of the Guardians. Sam was now called Alyssa Taylor, and Daniel was supposed to be her twin brother, Johnny Taylor. Non-identical, of course. The Order clearly had its people well placed, because these identities were entered into the system and they would be able to travel anywhere without a hitch.
They thought it best not to fly direct to Tirana; instead they took the Eurostar to Paris and from Charles de Gaulle they flew to Athens, Greece. Sam had never been to Greece before, but they didn’t stay long to do any sightseeing. They boarded the daily coach to Korça, which was almost always full of Albanian immigrants travelling back home. This period was especially busy because of the holiday season, so they had to wait for a second coach to accommodate them, and that took them a couple more hours than they cared to spend. Once in Korça, they had to take another bus, this time to a smaller town called Gramsh. But seeing that the bus had already left for that day, they had no choice but to spend the night in one of the city’s hotels and resume their journey the next day. They booked a single room for Sam, though she didn’t seem very happy about it for some reason, while the two of them shared a twin room.
Communicating with the residents did not prove a hurdle; many of them seemed to speak good English, especially the younger generation.
The next day, they boarded the little yellow bus, which looked like it belonged more in a museum, than on the hazardous road it took every day across the mountains to and from Gramsh. Even though it left Korça packed with people, by the time they reached Gramsh about four hours later, only an old couple remained on the bus besides them.
But that wasn’t the end of their journey. From Gramsh, they had to hire a 4x4 to take them through the valley of the river Devoll, to the small village of Sotira, where Daniel’s mother was born and raised. The ride only lasted about an hour or so. Once in the village, they followed Diane’s instructions to the letter and thus managed to reach their destination without much difficulty.
The village was divided into two main zones, with the meeting point being the community’s elementary school building. North of it there were about forty or so houses, grouped together on the hillside. This was what had mostly remained from the entire population of a decade earlier. Most of the people still lived in these houses.
The other part of the village, south-west of the school, followed the river up its stream and was comprised of about thirty houses, with Diane’s childhood house at the far end. The few houses closer to the center of the village still had families living in them, but the rest were now just a memory of what used to be. Diane had said that theirs was the last one at the west end of the village; a good ten minutes from their closest neighbor.
And now, here they were.