Mapless we wander, like we’ve known this old city all our lives. On a quiet, cobblestoned street we find a bistro where we sit outside and order dolmas, saganaki, and a bottle of red. No waiters rush us, so we let the afternoon drip by as we drink and eat and laugh. To forget time, we toast, is to live.

After the red, we order tsipouro, though I’m unsure how to drink the sweet, clear liquor. I shoot it back like Jameson and Cleo sips it slowly, always elegant. In contrast to my joggers and messy bun, she wears an olive sundress fluttering to her calves, gold earrings and bracelets that glint like armor in the sun. She looks like she belongs here, like someone the ancients would carve into stone.

It’s good to be back, Cleo continues, and I snort and correct her. We’ve never been here before. She shakes her head and holds up an empty shot glass, accusing it with a laugh. That’s not what I meant. I mean, it feels good to be here. On vacation. Don’t you feel good here? It’s a good place.

Oh really? Is this good place good? I tease her.

Ok, ok, I get it. No more alcohol for me.

Buzzed, we float down sidewalks, delighted that plots of lush orange trees line our way. Outside the Acropolis Museum, we stare down into the excavation site of the ancient city. Walls of homes, crumbled and dusted, reveal themselves under our feet. Cleo puts her arms on the railing and takes it in very seriously. Huh, she remarks, but doesn’t say more.

Near dawn the next day we make the climb to the Acropolis itself. Cleo says she wants to see it without the swarms of tourists. We’re tourists too, I tell her. At the top, groups are already gathered, posing and taking photos by the Parthenon. We walk to a smaller temple on the side, where the statues of six stoic women create the columns of the building.

They’re beautiful, I tell Cleo.

They’re replacements, she responds. The originals are in a museum. These just give us an idea of what was.

She turns and stares out over the city. You can see all the rooftops from up here, the distant hills. Even the blue of the port where old heroes would depart and return from war. Cleo pauses, statue-still. For a moment, horror flashes in her face: a tightness in her jaw, a wideness in her brown eyes. Cleo? I say, stepping behind her and slipping my hand into hers. Everything okay?

Oh, she says, returning from wherever she was. I’m okay.

In the afternoon we venture to another museum. Cleo is quiet and says she wants to discover at her own pace, so I hitchhike on a tour. Look at how these figures stand at an angle, contrapposto, a short guide with a loud voice says. I follow him around the room. And here is a depiction of Odysseus. Many heroes fight for Kleos–fame and glory. But Odysseus is famous for Nostos–his homecoming after a long time away.

I break from the group to look at a case of pottery in the corner–jugs and vases, some with cracks like roots growing through them, some with shards missing, fragments lost to time. One intact bowl displays the profiled bodies of two women in terracotta brilliance. A woman stands just behind the other, resting her chin lovingly on her shoulder as they become, together, lost in the song played by a third figure–another woman sitting with a lyre. I want to ask the tour guide about them, but he’s not actually my tour guide, so I read the sign: Figure 6: Terracotta bell-krater.

Nothing is written about the women, nothing about who they are or the lives they lived. Still, I like knowing that in this hall of marbled warriors and gods, they exist: two women standing softly entwined, transfixed, forever.

I look closer: the woman standing in front of the other is wearing a dress, and her bared arm crosses her body. It is not until my eyes trace the shape of it that a strange heat prickles on my skin. It is a simple drawing, an outline on clay–and yet.

It is, unmistakably, Cleo’s arm.

I follow the lines of the arm to her neck, to her chin, to the woman’s calm face and neat curls, and my fever grows when I meet her focused, painted stare. In every feature, I cannot unsee her.

I dare bring my eyes to woman standing just behind her. She wears a hat, and her chin has disappeared altogether, as if it had melted and become one with the other woman’s shoulder. But there is something about the straight bridge of her nose, her parted lips, that makes me look away from the pottery and onto the glass case, where I can only see an idea of myself–a blur of floating body– reflected in the spotless pane.

Cleo appears beside me. She steps forward to the case, examining each piece of pottery. Dread burns in me as her eyes trace the bellies of old bowls.

She sees the bell-krater, and the curious smile on her face drops to a thin, painted line. I found our twins, I want to joke. We can pretend it is nothing but strange– isn’t life? –and laugh at our long-dead likenesses. But I don’t say a word.

Neither does Cleo. A new stillness settles in her face—not the frightened, wide-eyed gaze of this morning, but a look that is serene, transported. I can’t help it–I take a step closer and rest my chin on her shoulder. She hums a song I haven’t heard before, or maybe I have. We stand together like that for a time I can’t remember– either for seconds or for centuries.