The Gypsy's Curse

by Sara Whitford

  “Yes,” said Adam. “My friend and I, we were here the other night, and he stayed as a guest of your daughter Stela.”

  Madame Endora put spectacles on and peered at Adam. “Oh, it is you. I remember you, boy. I am surprised to see you here.”

  Adam shrugged, unfazed. “Yeah, well, me too. But like I said, my friend—I don’t know if you remember him. A little older than me, tall, blond curly hair, blue eyes, and he—”

  “Oh yes, I remember your friend,” said the old woman. “Very handsome is he.”

  Adam gave a small grin and nodded. “I reckon they do say that. Anyway, he’s not well and I was wondering if you have any medicines for anything like that.”

  Madame Endora raised her eyebrow with skepticism. “How is he not well?”

  “You mean what are his symptoms?”

  She nodded and listened attentively. “Yes.”

  “He’s been vomiting. Has a terrible headache. And he’s real weak.”

  “This thing he has is contagious?”

  Madame Endora looked concerned. Understandably so, since Martin had been there with her daughter just the night before.

  Adam answered, “Well, uh, I’m not a doctor, so I’m not sure, but it seems like he may have caught it from somebody else. There are some other folks in town who are also sick.”

  “Yes, I see.” Madame Endora looked pensive.

  “Do you have anything that might help him?”

  The Irish gypsy, Amelia, started fumbling through the crate of bottles and chose one, which she showed to Madame Endora. The old woman gently lowered Amelia’s hand and the bottle back into the crate and shook her head.

  “No, not that one. I have just the thing,” she said. She turned to Adam and said, “I will be right back. I have something in here that is exactly what he needs.” She disappeared into her tent.

  Adam stuck his hands in his pockets and waited for her to return. Amelia tried to busy herself straightening the rows of bottles. It seemed to take the old woman quite a while, which made for an awkward few moments.

  “You look like one of us, you know,” said Amelia, motioning to her own dark-brown hair. “You’re dark.”

  Adam stroked at his cheeks. He felt his stubble beneath his fingertips and gave a half smile. “People say I look like both of my parents. Neither of ’em are gypsies, though.”

  “Are you sure?” Amelia smiled.

  “Well, my mother was born here, and that side of the family has been here for generations I reckon, and I did have at least one great-grandmother who was Indian. And my father, he was half English and half Spanish.”

  “We’re everywhere, you know,” she said. “Even Spain and England.”

  Adam smiled. “I’ve heard that.”

  Just then Madame Endora emerged from her tent with a bottle in her hand. She shook it and gave it to Adam.

  “Give this to your friend.”

  “How should he take it?”

  “Wait. I am about to tell you.” She smiled at him. “He should drink just a little bit of this as he is able until he feels better. Then he can stop. It might help to take it with something else. The odor is very strong.”

  “And this will help him?” asked Adam. “What’s in it?”

  “It is a tincture of herbs that we sometimes use. I do not think they grow here,” she said.

  “Fine. How much do I owe you?”

  The old woman placed the bottle in his hand, then placed her other hand over the bottle in his. “I feel very sad for your unfortunate reading the other night, and all of these troubles your people here are having. The difficult times are like the moon that takes us from day to night, but day always comes again, even after the darkest time. Just take this—I will not charge you anything. This will help.”

  Adam was surprised by her sudden change of heart. “Are you sure? I’m happy to pay you something.”

  Madame Endora smiled. “Just make sure your friend takes his medicine. Helping him in this way will be payment enough.”

  Adam apprehensively gave her a half smile and a nod. “Thank you,” he said.

  He immediately bade Madame Endora and Amelia good-bye.

  ADAM WENT STRAIGHT FROM TOWN Creek to the tavern. He would’ve liked to have taken the medicine to Martin first, but there wouldn’t be enough time to do that and still make it back for the meeting.

  When he arrived at the Topsail, the place was packed—standing room only. At times like this, Adam was glad to be able to go find a spot behind the bar. Shortly after he arrived, he learned from Valentine that Jackson had missed work for being sick.

  “I hope you don’t end up with it,” said Mary. “Seems like whatever it is, it’s really going around!”

  “Me neither,” said Adam.

  “Just so long as all the sick folks stay away from here, that’ll be fine by me,” said Valentine. “Last thing I need’s a bunch of patrons puking all over the place.”

  “Or at least so long as the patrons have the decency to wait until they’re home if they’re gonna be sick, right?” Adam joked.

  “They better.”

  Mary rolled her eyes at Valentine, then turned her attention to her son. “What have you been doing today? You look worn to a fray.”

  “I’ve been running around like a madman all day. Martin is sick as a dog, Dr. Taylor and his family seem to have left town, so I just ran out to the camp at Town Creek and picked up some medicine for him.”

  “What do those gypsies know about medicine?” said Valentine dismissively.

  “Well,” said Adam, “going out there wouldn’t have been my first choice, but Martin asked for me to, since he’s so bad off and the doctor’s nowhere to be found.”

  “You’re a good friend, son, to help him out like that.” Mary patted him on the back, then slipped away into the kitchen.

  “So when is this thing supposed to start?” Adam asked Valentine.

  The old man looked around. “Been wonderin the same thing myself. Moses Heath was supposed to run the thing, but he ain’t even here.”

  “Maybe he’s sick too,” Adam suggested.

  Valentine looked pensive. Finally, he took control of the situation and started the meeting himself. He stepped out from behind the bar and cleared his throat, apparently hoping that would get folks’ attention. Finally, he motioned to a man sitting in a chair near the kitchen door to ask if he could use it. The man nodded, and Valentine climbed up on it like a stool. He whistled loudly to get everyone to look at him, then said, “Attention, folks! It don’t look like Moses Heath is coming after all, or at least if he is, he’s running real late, but we can’t wait around forever to start this thing. That being the case, is anyone opposed to my getting this meeting started?”

  Adam was surprised to see Valentine taking the lead, but then again it made sense. The tavern keeper didn’t have a vested interest one way or another on the subject of the gypsies, so he could be a good facilitator.

  Once everyone had quieted down, Valentine pointed to a red-haired man standing near the fireplace in the center of the tavern. “Bob Porter, you and Moses are good friends. How about if you say a few words and tell everyone his side of things?”

  Well done, Valentine, thought Adam. He was impressed with the old man’s ability to not only take charge of the room but delegate a new speaker for one side of the issue.

  Bob Porter stepped forward and said, “Well, I reckon y’all already know the story. We got a big ol’ family of gypsy folk out at Town Creek, and some of y’all are real riled up about it. There’s been talk of runnin ’em outta town.”

  Valentine nodded. “Is that your position, Bob?”

  The diminutive man shook his head. “Naw, not really. We don’t reckon they’re hurtin nobody. They’re just a little unusual, but we know they’ll be movin on before too much longer. That’s what they do, ain’t it? Don’t seem like it’d be real Christian of us to run ’em off.”


  A tall, stout woman of about fifty or so with graying blond hair stepped forward angrily and said, “Where’s your sense of duty, Mr. Porter? And how it is that you claim these people are doing no harm to the town I will never understand.”

  Her name was Nan Gidding and she was a busybody and the kind of woman who no one wanted to get on the bad side of, and yet nearly everyone seemed to at one point or another. She gave the poor man no time to answer before continuing. “These heathens have brought a curse down on us—any fool could see that!”

  There was lots of mumbling from all around the dining area as everyone chattered back and forth.

  “Mrs. Gidding, how ’bout if you tell us a little more about this curse?” said Valentine.

  Mrs. Gidding drew her head back and twisted up her face at Valentine. “How do you mean?”

  Valentine looked at her, then at the other residents who were present, and said, “I mean, what is this curse? What are the…?” He scratched at his chin and looked pensive. “Well, what are the symptoms of it, for lack of a better word?”

  Mrs. Gidding’s eyes grew large, as if she couldn’t believe he would even need to ask. “What are the…?”

  She looked around the room. Those who were likely on her side of the issue seemed to be waiting for her response, and those on the other side of the issue were also, but for an entirely different reason. “Well, to begin with, in all my life I don’t recall the good folks of this town ever claiming to see ghosts running around the graveyard. I also am horrified to think a little girl’s grave has been disturbed—some demonic ritual no doubt, where they’ve tried to summon the poor girl’s spirit from its resting place.”

  She looked wildly around the room and continued. “Oh yes! I’ve heard they make a circle around the grave and burn strange plants and herbs while they say their ungodly incantations.”

  Murmuring could be heard across the room. Valentine patted his hands in the air in an effort to calm the crowd.

  “Well, I don’t know about any demonic rituals, but that disturbed grave is a troubling thing to have happened.”

  Mrs. Gidding seemed encouraged by Valentine’s comment, as she stood a little taller and continued. “The most damning piece of evidence, the worst thing of all, is that we’ve got some strange sickness—right out of the pits of Hell—running rampant through town, and my very own daughter has been struck down by it. I’ve never seen anything so foul in all my life!”

  “A strange sickness—from Hell?” called out an old fisherman from the back of the crowd. “Ain’t you never had any bad oysters, old woman?!”

  There was more murmuring and laughter across the room.

  Mrs. Gidding was affronted. “Bad oysters? Don’t be absurd, Mr. McDaniel. In our home we haven’t even had oysters for several months now—not since last winter, in fact! Furthermore, do you ever recall in your many, many years here in Beaufort ever seeing half the town sick because of bad oysters?”

  “Ohhhh…!” The old fisherman, whose name was Ebenezer Gaskins, growled and waved his hand at her dismissively. He wouldn’t bother responding.

  “Is there anything else, Mrs. Gidding?” asked Valentine.

  “Yes. In fact there is.”

  Valentine tipped his head as if to say, Please continue.

  “Mr. Simon Moore has had a bad fall and broken his arm—first time in all his years. His wife told me that she’s sure it’s a curse because that’s exactly what that devil gypsy woman told her husband when he went to have his fortune told.”

  “The gypsy woman told Simon Moore that he’d break his arm?” asked Valentine, perplexed.

  Adam could understand Valentine’s confusion. Everyone knew Simon Moore wasn’t the sort of man who’d go to a fortune-teller or put much stock into anything of the sort. Adam specifically remembered Mrs. Moore telling him that she was the one who had gotten the bad fortune, but he guessed that she hadn’t wanted to admit it to self-appointed Minister of Morality Nan Gidding.

  “No,” said Mrs. Gidding. “The foreboding prophecy was that danger would come from afar. And I have it on good authority that Mr. Moore was busy putting away a shipment of items that had been brought across the sea by none other than Emmanuel Rogers’s Shipping Company. And you all know that ship of his is called the Carolina Gypsy. Isn’t that just a little bit troubling to all of you? And I also heard that when the crew recently arrived back to Beaufort, they were all laid up sick in their beds for the better part of a week and part of their shipment was fouled by vermin!”

  At that, some of those present gasped, others made faces and nodded at one another, and still others seemed totally unmoved by the whole dialogue.

  Oh, this is not good, thought Adam. If anybody in town hadn’t already heard about the Gypsy’s misfortune, they had now.

  One man stepped forward sheepishly. “I got a bad fortune, too.”

  “So did I.”

  “Me too.”

  It seemed close to a dozen people in the room had gotten bad fortunes, which Adam figured probably left Mrs. Gidding feeling conflicted as to whether or not to embrace them for supporting her argument, or to chastise them for getting involved with fortune-telling in the first place.

  Several others stepped forward to say they had gotten good fortunes and that the others were just angry because they hadn’t. Still another contingent seemed both confounded and amused that so many of their neighbors had gone to the fortune-teller in the first place.

  Finally, Valentine asked, “Bob, did you have anything you’d like to say in response to any of this?”

  Bob Porter looked around the room. “Folks, listen. Emmanuel Rogers ain’t here, so we really ought not be runnin our mouths about his business. It’s not unusual for there to be vermin on ships. I’d say that’s part of the pains that those boys suffer to bring us the things we need from far away.”

  Heads in the crowd were nodding. Other attendees had skeptical looks on their faces.

  Mr. Porter continued. “So some of you got bad fortunes. Some of you got good fortunes. So what? Just ’cause that gypsy woman told you something was gon’ happen, don’t make it true. Last I heard, only the good Lord up above knows the future. Ain’t that right, Mrs. Gidding?”

  Mrs. Gidding pursed her lips together and gave a curt nod. “Of course. Of course it is.”

  “Way I figure it, if that gypsy woman said bad things were gon’ happen—and from the looks of it, she said that to right many of you—I’m gonna guess that one of these days she’ll be right, ’cause we all face troubles from time to time, don’t we, Mrs. Gidding? Same thing for those of you who got good fortunes.”

  At this point Nan Gidding was indignant. She wouldn’t say another word.

  Valentine spoke up. “Alright, now folks, I’ve got to admit I’m a little bit curious about one thing. I heard talk about that woman selling protection spells and good luck charms or something like that.” He looked out over the group for a moment. “Who here bought one of those spells or charms to ward off the bad luck she was predictin?”

  All but one of the individuals who had admitted to receiving a bad fortune earlier raised their hands.

  “Huh. How ’bout that?” Valentine nodded his head. He looked over at Bob Porter. “Sounds to me like a right clever idea for running a business. Don’t it to you, Bob?”

  Bob nodded his head. “Oh yes, indeed it does.”

  At this point another man spoke up. “Even if these gypsies haven’t put a curse on the town, sounds to me like they’re dishonest. Do we really want such a deceptive group of people camped out on the edge of town?”

  “You’re one to talk, Cornelius!” said another man. “You tell your wife you were fishin yesterday instead of workin?”

  He laughed hard as the other man’s face turned red from embarrassment.

  The crowd was busily discussing the matter amongst themselves.

  Valentine raised his hand and said, “Listen up.” No one see
med to be paying attention. He put his fingers in his mouth and gave out another loud whistle.

  That sure got their attention, thought Adam.

  “Thank you. Now it’s good that we can all meet here and discuss things—you know, like civilized folks. But y’all are here crowding my tavern, nobody’s ordering anything, and if y’all were accomplishing anything by all this fussing back and forth, that would be alright, but as it is, I’m gonna try and put things in perspective.” Valentine made a face at the crowd as if he was waiting for everyone to nod in understanding. “Alright, good. There’s two factions here. Some of you want these gypsies gone. You want us to run ’em out of town. The rest of you for various reasons don’t mind ’em being here. Am I correct so far?”

  Various heads bobbed in agreement.

  “Fine. Well, let’s just say for a minute that we decide these gypsies have got to go. We’re gon’ run ’em on outta here, send ’em on their way. Mrs. Gidding, you seem to be the most vocal supporter of that idea. Have you given any thought to how we might accomplish that? Running ’em out of town I mean.”

  Nan Gidding inhaled deeply before she began to speak. Adam could tell she was probably trying to think of what to say.

  “Well, I would most certainly defer to you menfolks about such matters. You can’t think we women would form a strategy for ridding the town of these vagabonds. I know some of you brave men came together twenty years ago to run those Spanish and Negro marauders out of town. I don’t see why you can’t use the same tactics here if necessary.”

  Bob Porter glared at Mrs. Gidding. “Are you crazy, woman? Are you suggesting we turn to violence to run these travelers off? They’ve committed no major offense that any of us are aware of. The event of which you speak I remember well! Those damned Spaniards and their Negroes were raisin all kinds of hell. They took possession of the town, remember? They were runnin wild in the streets, burnin our vessels, stealin our Negroes, slaughtering livestock, and leaving rotting carcasses all over the place. Do you honestly think we ought to use the same tactics, as you say, to run these gypsy folk—who from what I can tell are peaceful—away from here like we did that damned bunch from Florida?”