“It means if we cannot find anything on our own, we must wait for it to find us.”

But I don’t know how long I can wait.

I had thought the crumbling buildings with their vines and shrubs growing out of every cranny hauntingly quaint when we arrived. Now they look as abandoned as Ivan’s apartment, as forgotten by the ages as the stones themselves.

The old woman calls down as we return through the courtyard.

“Da?” Claudia says. After a brief exchange, Claudia glances at me sidelong.

“What?” I ask.

“Come. We pray for Ivan.”

A little late for that, I think, but follow her anyway.

The chapel, though tiny, has enough wooden pews to cram nearly forty into its rustic space. Two figurines sit on minor altars on either side of the rounded apse: the blue-and-white-robed Virgin Mary and a man holding the baby Jesus in his right arm, lilies in his left.

I wait, awkwardly, as Claudia genuflects, and I wonder if I should leave her alone. But instead of sliding into a pew, she moves toward the second altar and considers the figure draped in wooden rosaries on top of it.

“The woman said to me, ‘At least the last time I saw him, he had just come from mass.’ So she is confident that he is in heaven. But Ivan”—Claudia glances at me—“was not religious.”

She runs her fingers beneath the white cloth draped over the altar’s edges.

“Which saint is that?” I ask.

“This is Saint Anthony, the patron of lost people and things. Forgive me, Saint Anthony,” she murmurs, as she gets on her knees and peers beneath, practically looking up the robe of the saint. A moment later she flips up the corner of the cloth to reveal a small slot carved into the altar itself.

I get down beside her, slide my fingers into the narrow space. “What is this?” I say.

“I think . . . a mailbox,” she says.

But whatever was there is gone.

Of course it is. Anything Ivan might have left has already been picked up—either by the so-called mailman or most recently by Ivan’s killer. I slump into the front pew. So much for Saint Anthony and his lilies.

I look to Mary as though for guidance, and then at the purple flowers beside her. They are the same ones as on the hill.

My gaze shifts to the vase beside Saint Anthony. The fuchsia petals are lettuced around the edges. Fresh.

And not from Lubenice.

“Claudia,” I say slowly as she pushes up from her knees. “Who conducts mass here?”

“A priest from Cres town, I suppose.” She shrugs.

That could be any number of people. But that isn’t the right question.

“Who was Saint Anthony?”

“I told you, the patron saint of—”

“Before that. Who was he?”

“Saint Anthony of Padua? A Catholic priest. Franciscan.” She glances at me.