The invisible gardener of Alicudi has been hard at work since I left. The main paths have been trimmed and the air hangs heavy with the warm scent of fresh cut grass and trampled herbs. A smoldering cactus stump that infringed on the path still smokes on the edge of the rocky steps as I pull myself over the uneven stones. On my own terrace there are precisely five grape leaves on the trellis that were definitely not there when I left for Palermo last Saturday. I don’t want to miss anything, so I keep counting the newness, measuring with my eyes.

The island feels forgotten. When I first arrived I walked for three hours, looping down from the high trail to the rocky beach just as the tide was coming in and saw no one but a man in a small fishing boat heading to the port for supplies. There are only about 120 people living here, a friendly but consciously private citizenship, almost compartmentalized. My neighbor Gianni admitted to me in one of our half-Italian, half-Spanglish conversations that this is an island for silence, for analyzing. So I analyze. I make risotto or spaghetti or variations of cheese and fruit sandwiches, stare out at the pale horizon for hours at a time, and I walk.

The edges of the paths are dotted with wildflowers, fennel, rocket, and borage, wild on the edges right up to the faded wooden doors. The entryways are strewn with nasturtiums, leggy vines trailing over rocks oblivious to feet and hooves alike; this place is old enough to have made peace with nature in a silent pact of temporary ownership.

I’ve come across many abandoned settlements on my walks. Lone houses left to disintegrate in the sun, almost all built on the vertical seams of rock, clustered in upward lines, the more fertile land between them terraced and roughly cultivated so that the effect, when looking down from a high point towards the port, is like looking at the folds of a dress. A green bell skirt with little white dots scattered on the tops of the folds.

The settlement here is ancient, its name derived from the ancient Greek word for the heather that covers the slopes of the volcano, a flower symbolizing solitude and protection on an island chain that is the home of Aeolus, the god of wind. It feels as if it is teetering between the two, on the edge of the world and yet protected from it, the sensation amplified by the distant blue silhouette of Filicudi, floating on the horizon in almost every view, ethereal particularly in the pale pink light that suffuses the ocean at dawn and dusk.

The story of Aeolus is a convoluted one, three characters blended into one. His most familiar incarnation is the keeper of the winds who grants Odysseus a bag for the wild air so that only the gentle west wind can bring him home—a successful plan until the curiosity and greed of his crew unleashes a storm that brings them all the way back to where they began. On silent walks my mind wanders to those men. In the anticipation of home on a peaceful sea, how tempting it would be to take just one peek; we love to tempt fate to sate curiosity. How many myths begin and end with this simple warning, to take what we are given without squandering the gift by wondering what else it could be? This place in all its silent serenity and rugged beauty is a haven for me and a prison for those holding an imagination with nowhere else to go.

The promise of silent isolation is what brought me here, and after a month I find that I pause to listen just as often as I pause to look. The pull of the wind, the steadiness of the waves, the small birds chirping and the whoosh of the sparrows as they play at getting as close to every surface as they possibly can. Even the faint drifts of music coming from houses you can never quite see, the distant sound of a dog barking, of a cat scrambling to escape its playful pursuit perks up my ears. Certain sounds have become so familiar they set the pattern of my days. The hydrofoil ferry comes to port twice a day, and the big blue supply ship Helga arrives slowly with a softer chug at noon on Tuesdays and Saturdays, the rhythm of their arrival a reassuring contrast to the hours of solitude.

On Sunday I spot the island girls scrambling over the rocks between the paths, cutting through the overgrown terrace of a closed-up summer house. Their ringleader is the youngest, a round girl with a long braid and a taunting laugh. She is daring the other two: the herb forager I’ve spotted on my walks, and the longing melancholy one, always leaning against the gate of the ferry office, looking dramatically out at the pier. Unhappy in the way only a teenager can be. The sight of her invariably pulls my thoughts to the donkeys standing by the fishing boats below the store, waiting to be loaded, their sadness so palpable, their immediate future so grim.

Gianni has lent me some books, and taught me how to collect snails at low tide. In the evening we roast fish over the fire with torn sprigs of rosemary burning against their skin. I want to ask him about the girls but the language eludes me. So we sit in silence with our wine, watching the embers glow and breathing in the smoky scent of dinner. Still the questions linger. Where do they go to school? Are they the only young people? How many stay for life? What is the name of the sad one?

I watch for them now on my walks, eyes sharp over the thousands of gray steps, in need of a goal now that I’ve successfully counted the island’s donkeys (there are seven). I make every excuse to hike down to the grocery to visit Carlo with my practiced Italian shopping list, then rest on the quay, watching the comings and goings of the port, hoping to spot the characters in my mental play.

It has become habit to watch the ferry coming in, its faint outline growing larger by the second, bringing bread from Lipari and newspapers from Milazzo, one or two islanders aboard returning from somewhere with a needed appliance or specialty item. One day I saw five men carrying a full-sized refrigerator up the ancient stone steps—such a basic luxury so taken for granted at home—and I think again of the girl by the pier. A hungry mind in an isolated place.

I imagine a life here and look out past the boats to the mist, wondering which girl I would be, the forager learning the secrets of her home or the dreamer longing for nothing but escape. I already know the answer.