Piper LeVine, A Gypsy's Truth

by Eris Kelli

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I watched Barthow sleep for the next hour or so until sunrise and the entire time I thought of how enraged and jealous Nicholas had been when I’d seen him last. What if Daniel hadn’t lied? What if Nicholas was in danger?

  Donnell.

  He had been trying to come and tell me something important and he’d been restrained. Seraph had ordered me to go into hiding, and she had forbidden me from choosing Nicholas.

  Why was I being kept in the dark? What did Donnell want me to know?

  When the first ray of light touched Barthow’s face I shook him and he opened his eyes wide and jumped up onto his feet. “What is it? What happened?”

  “Where is Nicholas?”

  “He’s back at the community. Why? What’s wrong?” He was looking me in the eye and for some reason I decided not to tell him about Daniel’s visit. “I had a dream about him. He was wild and he didn’t know me.”

  “What else?”

  “What do you mean what else? Nicholas didn’t know me. Is he chained to the ground and as out of it as the full moon makes him?”

  “You saw all that in your dream?” I didn’t answer I just stared at his mouth and willed him to tell me it was all just a terrible dream. I begged him silently to tell me that it wasn’t true but when I met his eyes I knew he would be telling me no such thing. “You have a gift, Piper. You have the sight.”

  “How could the clan do that to him? Chain him to the earth? The Baobhans will murder him. Don’t you care what happens to him?” Tears poured down my face and he stood up and reached for me.

  “Piper, please understand. He’s not himself. He would kill the people in the clan, the children, and his own family if he was turned free. Nicholas would not want to hurt anyone. We couldn’t let him hurt the clan. Think about it. That night you were out you saw the werewolves. He’s that way but worse.”

  I pulled away. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We had to get you to safety. Nicholas ordered your safety before he was completely consumed. He wanted you gone.” Barthow sighed fisting his left hand in his dark hair. “He’ll come out of it in time and then you can be assured that he will come to find you.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Barthow looked out the window. “It’s very early, Piper. Why don’t we try to get another hour of sleep before we move again?”

  “What about Daniel?”

  He met my gaze and I could feel him trying to hear my thoughts. “Daniel, who?”

  “My brother Daniel. What happened to him?”

  Barthow sat back down on the sleeping bag. “Maybe you shouldn’t sleep anymore. Why don’t you study that journal?”

  I raised my voice. “Barthow, tell me why he was Marimed.”

  “I don’t know. Seraph ordered it and she is the queen and it was honored as her wish.” He read my confusion and followed that up with, “It must have been a very just reason. Seraph would not have asked for it otherwise.”

  Is Barthow advising me because of the blind trust that Seraph had earned or was he just another manipulated puppet performing to the will of what Seraph believed was best?

  He fell back asleep, and I tucked the journal into my purse and found my coat hanging next to the door. I carefully stepped out into the cold morning air.

  “What are you doing?” One of the pack I didn’t know asked me in a stern tone of voice.

  I hugged my purse to my chest. “I’m looking for Adriel. I want to ask him something.” I watched him run toward the east. He was barebacked and the tightness in his face gave me the impression that the night before must have been very difficult.

  Adriel came back and he was quick, thank goodness. “What is it, Piper?”

  “Can you tell me what Donnell was trying to tell me?”

  “No one could tell you that except Donnell himself.” I pressed my lips together and told myself to be patient. The gypsies were by culture not supposed to lie, but it was ever so clear they knew how to avoid a question.

  “If you were going to just give a gist of his general intention, what would that be?”

  “He wanted you to come and see Nicholas. He thinks that maybe you can bring him out of his jealousy.”

  I sucked in my breath.

  “He’s wrong of course. Nicholas won’t know who you are so you won’t be able to change his feelings.”

  “Adriel?” I put my hands on the tops of his shoulders even though he was taller than me. “Do you think Nicholas will be able to pull out of this by himself?” Adriel looked away from me and I watched his jaw clench.

  “It’s not worth the risk.”

  I let go of his shoulders. “I know you don’t really believe that.”

  “Go back inside. I can’t let you keep going down this road.”

  “He’s your brother.” Adriel was walking away from me. “Do you always do everything you’re told, Adriel?” He didn’t pause or look back. He kept going.

  Seraph’s influence appeared to be unquestionable. It was really hard to disregard the things Daniel had said when everyone was playing the parts Daniel had described. My newfound brother obviously wasn’t getting along with the gypsies, so of course he would be negative. Still, everything that I had asked about that he had said was true.

  I couldn’t forget the way that Baobhan had looked at me when I’d been bleeding on the pier. His pupils had been pulsing with my heartbeat. I had seen no love in his eyes. No rescuing crusader comes to free me. But he had said that they weren’t going to hurt me.

  Why bother to assure me?

  There was no clear direction for me to take. I didn’t trust the Baobhans. I didn’t trust the gypsies and I didn’t trust Daniel. The only person I could trust was Nicholas, who was too busy being out of his mind, and my grandma Sidney. She seemed worlds away now. I went back into the small cabin and pulled out the journal. At least Angus couldn’t lie to me.

  2 June 1888

  I recognized one in the marketplace. A woman was cut and had I not looked at the young man, I never would have noticed the strange rhythm the blacks of his eyes danced to. It was the woman’s heartbeat, I’m sure of it. There is no other outward detectable difference in him.

  The young man trying to sell pig’s milk was avoided by the Baobhan at almost any cost. The Baobhan watched the women as though they were royalty. They looked upon the men like troublesome livestock. I stayed clear of his path and followed him from a distance until he left the village toward the east.

  I turned the page.

  4 June 1888

  Jubilation! I have recognized three others as they came with the first to the village. My Sarae is no longer allowed to go to the village. She is as unhappy about the new rule I have enforced on the females of our clan. I’ve seen the way the Baobhans look upon the female living. They want them. What I can’t understand is why they don’t just reach out and take them. There is not a living creature I’ve yet to discover that could stop them.

  5 June 1888

  Wolves have begun to hunt closer to the villages and it is a peculiar behavior they have never exhibited before. They are troublesome. Especially with the Baobhan problem we have yet to solve.

  9 June 1888

  I waited at the east edge of the village and when I saw the Baobhans coming I began to walk, hoping to discover where they went when they left the village. Instead, I was set upon by three oversized wolves and was bit several times. I fought against them but after they’d each bitten me they left and I discovered that the Baobhans were not far behind. I had no choice but to flee. If they caught me bleeding they would surely have finished me off.

  12 June 1888

  I am ill and haven’t left our community for two days. I’ve heard three more men have been reported missing.

  14 June 1888

  I awoke this morning in a field far from our community without clothes or memory of how I had arrived there. My body was stiff and had I not been putting off movement t
o avoid the aches and pains, I would have received the attention of the Baobhans that were moving through the field.

  Their focus was on the common Yew trees. They avoided touching them. The leaves of the common Yew tree are highly poisonous. Though I wanted to believe the Yew trees would kill them I watched as one of the Baobhans touched the leaves and though a sizzling sound crackled in the air like frying bacon the Baobhan suffered no more than a slight irritation.

  Their home is inside the eastern mountain and the Yew trees are springing up all around it. The stinging nettle bush is highly troublesome if touched, but nature always provides the cure, growing right next to the nettle, the fern. Could the Yew be the cure?

  I thought, what the heck did a common Yew look like?

  I turned the page and was not surprised when I read that my great, great grandfather discovered that the bites from the wolves infected him with what their medicine woman was calling werewolfism. The three missing men from the village surfaced suffering the same affliction and they were adopted into the gypsy clan. Angus wrote that the Baobhans avoided werewolves too.

  22 June 1888

  I filled baskets with the leaves of the Yew. With the help of the other werewolves I dumped them upon one of the Baobhans. My hope was that the concentration of leaves would burn up the Baobhan but we were unsuccessful. The Baobhan was bleeding from every surface that the leaves touched, but it was not enouth to kill it. The Baobhan was still powerful enough. He killed two of us. Now there is only myself and Logan left to protect the clan from the Baobhans.

  We have decided to infect several others to build ourselves a pack and further secure our people’s survival as the Baobhans are likely to retaliate. I am confident we are on the cusp of discovering the weapon to defeat the Baobhans. I know I have the keys, I just don’t know how to use them.

  The rest of the page was blank and as I feared so was the remainder of the journal. That was the very last entry that Angus had written. Angus had said that he had the keys. I just hoped that he had written them all down. He wrote of the Yew tree, the pig’s milk and the werewolves. Well, Angus had the good fortune to be a werewolf and what if that was necessary?

  Will I have to become a werewolf?

  I was surprised when the door opened and Adriel’s angry face squeezed through the opening. He stuck his arm in and signaled at me to come to him. I stood up and grabbed my purse and put the journal inside it. The door was soundless when he closed it behind me.

  “Do you command me to take you back to the gypsy community?”

  I shouldered my purse. “No, I don’t-”

  “I said, do you command me to take you back to the gypsy community?”

  “Oh.” He was glaring at me and appeared quite pale. “I command you to take me back to the gypsy community.” Adriel grabbed my hand and shot to the parked car so fast I looked like a rag doll hung outside a freight train window, at least that’s what I felt like.

  The small one room cabin shrank in the side mirror, and I felt Adriel glance in my direction twice before he finally spoke. “You better shake him out of it, Piper.”