Heather

Yesterday it rained in Thessaloniki. We wandered down from the old castle above the city, stopping in at the churches tucked in among the houses and alleys on the hillside. We walked down shallow stone steps, with the rain water rushing down the drainage channels beside them. We looked out at the sea, its surface swept and pockmarked with the rain. We wiped the water off our faces with our hands in the church porticos before stepping inside to the warm, incense- and beeswax-scented air.

At every church we stared at the frescoes, the vaulting roofs. At every church, the site of long centuries of prayer and thought, I lit a candle for Heather McKenzie. Friend, bookseller, publisher, traveler, glamour girl and girl from the farm. She died suddenly last Sunday morning. Far too young.