Childhood Dream
The evenings at the Wadebridge house were Eleanor's favorite.
When the last light of day faded beyond the English gardens, she would often find her way to her grandmother's room, where the warmth of the fire and the familiar scent of old books made the world outside seem very far away.
Sofia always had a story waiting for her.
That evening, an old book lay open across her lap. Its pages were worn with age, and its illustrations showed a country Eleanor had never seen.
She leaned closer.
There were temples standing among rugged hills, distant shores touched by sunlight, and a brilliant sea stretching beyond the mountains.
Eleanor had never travelled farther than the world she knew in England, yet the pictures seemed to awaken something inside her.
She watched Sofia turn each page with great care.
The older woman spoke quietly, describing places Eleanor could only imagine. As she listened, the little girl began to picture herself walking beneath a warmer sky, surrounded by mountains and looking out toward an endless blue sea.
For Eleanor, the pictures became windows into another world.
She asked question after question, never wanting the story to end.
Sofia smiled at her granddaughter's curiosity, but there was something thoughtful in her expression whenever the subject turned to Greece.
Eleanor noticed it, though she was too young to understand it.
When Sofia finally closed the book, Eleanor continued staring at its cover.
She had never been there.
Yet somehow, Greece already felt like a place she belonged to.
That evening, as she returned to her room, the image of the blue sea remained in her thoughts.
She did not know when she would see it.
She did not even know if she ever would.
But a small dream had taken root in her heart.
A dream that, years later, would carry her far from England and toward a country she had known first through the stories of her grandmother.
