by Dima Zales
“They denied seeing her, or you, for that matter.”
“Well, of course they’d say that.”
He chuckled. “Do you remember being here?”
“No.”
“Please stay close. Romany value their women but have little regard for the Gaje fairer sex.”
“Am I Gaje?” she asked.
His breath fanned her neck. “Yes.”
“Are you Gaje too?”
He nodded. “But not nearly as fair.”
As they entered the camp, Petra noticed the gypsies were small and dark, had curly hair and wore bright colored clothing. Petra looked away from their curious gazes as their escorts led them through the camp. A child clutching a rag doll ran forward to touch Petra’s blue skirt. Petra smiled at the little girl, and the child grinned back, revealing crooked and brown teeth. A dog with a festering ear limped by, and an old man with one leg leered at her from a rug near a fire. Petra instinctively reached for Emory’s hand.
He squeezed her hand. “Who is Mark Baron?”
She sent him a puzzled look and nearly tripped over a speckled goat. The goat bleated a complaint. “So sorry,” she said to a young boy leading the creature by a knotty rope. “My father. Why?” She wondered how he knew her father’s name, but then she remembered she carried an insurance card in her purse.
Emory stepped in front of her and leaned forward so his forehead nearly touched hers. “Not your husband?”
She shook her head, a nervous laugh bubbling in her throat as she looked into his dark eyes. “I’m not married.”
A smile lit his face. He fingered a small gold band that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. “Now you are,” he said, slipping the ring onto her finger.
8
A wedding band is a symbol of:
Love
Commitment
Fidelity
Eternity
Honor
A wedding band is not a protection against kidnapping.
—Petra’s notes
“By my faith, my lady, this is the safest way,” he said, taking her hands in one of his, hampering her futile efforts to remove his ring.
“I don’t believe in your faith,” Petra whispered as they moved through the camp.
One of their guides sent her a dark look over his shoulder and Petra stopped wrestling with Emory’s hand and his ring. Emory chuckled softly. “Your beliefs are irrelevant against the truth.”
“We are not married,” she whispered in his ear. “That is the truth and we both know it.” She suspecting that he referred to a larger, more universal truth, but with the gold ring weighing down her finger, she wasn’t interested in metaphysics.
“Yes, thank the Almighty, we are not married. But for tonight, for your safety, we are.”
Realization of her dependence on Emory started to sink in as their escorts paused in front of a caravan no bigger than her horses’ trailer at home. Each of its four wooden side panels had a scene painted on it, the closest depicting lovers entwined in a dark forest, a doe and buck watching the pair from behind a pine while a flock of birds flew into a faded blue sky. On the next screen brightly speckled fish swimming in a bubbling sea.
“Each depicts an earthly element,” Emory told her. “The Roma worship nature, the spirits of the sun, moon, air, earth, wind and fire.”
When Earring Dude rapped on the caravan, a panel slid to the side and a gray-haired woman stuck out her head. The two conversed for a moment and then the panel slammed shut.
Emory whispered in her ear, “Is this your dude?”
Petra shook her head. She’d known she wouldn’t find Fester—despite managing to find a Kyle look-a-like and Hot Horse Guy—yet disappointment still settled in the pit of her stomach.
The guides looked at Emory with a shrug and then all sat down on logs surrounding a fire. The small one drew a flask from his pocket, uncorked and took a swallow. After a moment, he passed his bottle to his companions.
Petra watched. They didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. “What did they say? What just happened?”
Emory leaned close. “Our chovihanis is preparing for a healing. That takes precedence. We may as well sit.” He settled on another log and one of the men offered him the flask. Emory held it out to Petra as she sat beside him.
She gave him her most disgusted look, one she’d perfected in middle school when she’d been assigned to sit by Lenny Jorgensen. Lenny was a paper chewer, tearing off bits of his assignments and masticating them into oozy tiny wads. He didn’t do anything with his wads. He didn’t throw them -- that Petra would have understood, even if she wouldn’t have approved. No, Lenny collected his spit balls on top of his desk like a minuscule, useless munitions pile. Although Emory looked nothing like the concave- chested, slobbery Lenny, Petra felt a familiar frustration.
“We can’t just sit here,” she said so sharply their chaperones glared at her from beneath their thick eyebrows.
Emory frowned. “We’re guests here, my lady. This is their land, not yours.”
Petra placed her hands on her hips. “But it’s not their land, right?” She glanced around, wondering if any of the gypsies understood English. She spoke quickly and quietly. “Isn’t that the point of being a gypsy? Vagabondness?”
“Vagabondness? Is there such a word in even Royal Oaks?”A smile curved his lips and she wondered if he was laughing at her. “Tell me, my lady Petra, if you were given the choice to shun the captivity of walls and ceilings and roam the earth, unburdened by possessions as the spirits direct, would you choose to stay at home?”
Petra swallowed a lump in her throat. She thought of her home, her dad. How since her mother’s death, the walls and ceiling had stayed the same but the home itself had changed. Same house, same walls, same furniture, but the home had changed. Too large and too empty. Until Laurel and Zoe came. Since her dad’s remarriage, the walls had shrunk and the volume had increased. Same house, different home.
Emory leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “A midnight ride across the earth? A sailing across the ocean at twilight?”
If she moved just an inch, her skin would touch his and she knew it would tingle, as it had before.
Whatever adventure she was on, she needed it to end so that she could continue with her life in Royal. Prom, AP classes, graduation, college, a career, marriage, two children, poodles, a house in the suburbs. No, not a house, a home.
Emory looked at her with intense steadiness. His gaze passed over her face, to her throat, to her waist, before rising back up to settle on her lips.
Petra felt woozy because she saw a life she never could have imagined, a life that defied time or space.
One of the men had lit a pipe, and its smoke curled with the revived campfire. Flames shot into the darkening sky. Embers popped midair. The stars, though faint, winked in the purpling haze. The night was fading. Where would she sleep? Did it matter?
Life in Royal had been perfectly arranged. There she knew exactly what she wanted, what was next on the agenda. As a freshman, she’d mapped out her high school schedule and had never deviated. Classes, clubs, service hours, she had everything she needed for graduation and UCLA. Here she knew next to nothing and had no idea what she needed other than a ticket back to her real life.
Emory picked up Petra’s hand and held it in his lap. Nearby, a fiddler began to play, and someone beat a rhythm on a tambourine. Someone added drums. Through the wheels of the caravans she saw other fires burning. Women, barefoot and laughing danced. Their clothes, loose and flowing, billowed, their jewelry glinting.
Emory’s thumb rubbed a circle against the pulse skittering in Petra’s wrist. Behind her, she heard low chanting. She turned to watch an old woman, the chovihanis, was performing the healing. The jingling tambourines grew louder, drowning out the wail of the fiddle. The healer’s voice matched the rising volume; the chants turned to moans and cries.
Emory looked over his shoulder. “She’s calling out to the sp
irits in the Otherworld.”
“The Otherworld? What other world?”
“You do not believe in the Otherworld?”
“Do you?”
“What you and I believe doesn’t matter. It’s the faith of the one being healed that’s important.” Emory listened. “The chovihanis is trying to stand in the shoes of the sick one.”
Petra smiled.
“What?”
She shook her head. “It’s just—well, they’re all barefoot.”
Emory sighed and continued his interpretation. “It seems the lad is troubled by a malevolent spirit. The chovihanis is attempting to lead his problems into one of the three levels of the Otherworld where they belong.”
“Do you think she can place me where I belong?”
Emory shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
He reached out and touched her cheek. “Because you don’t believe.”
“Then why are we here?” Exasperation tinged Petra’s voice.
Emory stroked her neck, pulling her closer. She knew she needed to lean away, to break the hypnotic contact. She couldn’t trust Emory and yet, sitting beside him in the semi-darkness of the gypsy camp, inhaling the tangy smoke of mugwort and rosemary she felt powerless as he drew her against him.
Emory whispered in her ear. “If need be she can also travel to the three levels of the Otherworld for soul retrieval, which occurs when someone loses a part of their soul in a past or present life. Have you been lost?”
Emory’s lips brushed across Petra’s cheek, a hint of a kiss. She felt, rather than heard, him laugh softly as her lips looked for his. This is it, then? She wondered. Is this why I’m here? To be with Emory? Could she really give up her home, her family, her life plans to be with this person she’d just barely met?
No. Of course not.
But she didn’t want to think that hard. She didn’t want to think at all. Not about tomorrow or the next day. At this moment, she just wanted to be.
In this time, in this place, all she felt was Emory pressing against her, his lips looking for hers. And that was all she wanted.
Until the world exploded in fire, smoke, and the sound of guns.
9
Raids on Gypsy tribes were common sport in Elizabethan England because:
Gypsies were accused of spreading disease, particularly the plague.
Unprotected by the law, they were easy to blame for others’ unexplained, dirty deeds.
Raiding Gypsy camps had about the same entertainment value as cockfighting.
—Petra’s notes
With a racing heart, Petra dropped to the prickly grass. Emory pushed her beneath a caravan and fell upon her. A small cry tore from her. He covered her completely, his knees digging into the ground on either side as he sheltered her with his body.
Another explosion pierced the air, and Petra bit back a scream. She tried to make sense of it, but all she felt was Emory pressing her to the ground, hard and heavy on her back, his ragged breath on her neck. She tried to push onto her elbows and his arms, rigid beside her, pinned her beneath him.
“Hush, Petra,” he whispered. “For your health, be still.”
Women, children and horses screamed. Goats bleated as horse hooves thundered past. Peering between his shoulder and the dirty ground, she saw scurrying feet, darting dogs and not much else.
“A gypsy hunt,” Emory said in her ear. “This, I suppose, is your fortune.”
“I don’t want this fortune,” Petra struggled for breath. Wriggling beneath him, she managed to turn over. Nose to nose with Emory, she debated on whether that had been wise. She tried to rise onto her elbows.
“Are you hurt?” Emory asked, without moving, his lips inches from hers.
Petra shook her head. She couldn’t breathe beneath his weight.
“Good.” He didn’t flinch but remained firm and unmovable.
That’s when she realized the pandemonium beyond the caravan had quieted.
Emory had lifted onto his elbows, his face still just inches from hers.
“What happened?” Petra gasped.
“Gunpowder, they must have thrown it into the fire.”
Petra managed to get her other elbow beneath her. “But who? Why?”
“The gentry. Land owners hire thugs to drive away the Roma. ‘Tis common enough sport.”
Petra, in an effort to distract her attention from Emory’s body poised above hers, watched the feet and hooves scramble in the dust.
Then the caravan above them rolled away.
“Aye, what have we here?” A portly, bearded man smelling of beer wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Lumbering, ox-like, he drew closer. As he leered at Petra, Emory peeled away from her in a fluid movement and stood in front of her, arms folded.
“We are not Roma,” Emory began.
Petra sat up, instantly disliking the beefy man and his raunchy grin.
“But acting none better.” The man laughed an unpleasant bark. “A bit of sport amongst the filthy Roms?”
Emory spread his arms, as if trying to hide Petra. “This is a gentle woman.”
“A true lady wouldn’t be here with the likes of you.” The man looked Petra up and down and ran a hand through his beard. “She best be coming with me, boy.”
As swift as a cat pouncing upon a mouse, Emory swung his fist into the older man’s distended gut. The man whoofed out a puff of smelly breath and then lunged for Emory with a growl. Petra back-crawled away, pebbles and sticks hurting her hands.
“Now, my friend, be reasonable,” Emory said, sounding casual and relaxed even as he blocked a heavy blow with his forearm. “You must know a treasure such as she would bring a fair price from her distraught father.”
The man, stumbling, reeled toward Emory like a charging bull. “If she’s such a treasure,” he huffed, “then why is she rolling in the grass with the likes of you?”
“Good question,” Emory said, taking a moment to swipe his hair from his eyes before sending his fist into the man’s nose.
Petra scrambled to her feet.
Blood spurted down the man’s face, and he howled in pain and anger. Emory placed his heel firmly in the man’s groin and kicked him into the grass.
Petra, who had never seen a fight that hadn’t been choreographed for TV or stage, stared. The spurting blood, the sound of flesh hitting flesh, the grunts and puffs of pain transfixed her. When the ox-like man fell to the ground, Emory grabbed her hand and she shook back to life.
“Let’s take you home, my sweet,” Emory said, pulling her away.
She followed mutely, and then screamed when another thug appeared from behind a caravan, raised his sword and plunged it into Emory’s chest. Emory’s knees buckled and Petra watched in horror as the sword sunk deeper and a silver tip protruded from his back.
A dark smelly and stiff shadow flew over her, plunging her into darkness. Petra clutched at the cloth covering her head. Someone tied something around her throat. The more she pulled, the more she choked. Petra kicked and flailed her legs when strong arms lifted her off the ground. She smelled yeasty breath and her stomach turned sick.
She tried to remember all that she’d learned in her self-defense class. Bash and dash – both difficult without the use of sight or arms. Breakaway techniques -- she struggled to think and then remembered to make her body limp. She slid from her captor’s arms, but once her feet hit the ground, the man scooped her up and swung her around. Her head made contact with something solid. Inside the dark bag, Petra saw stars.
Moon and stars lit the valley. Emory didn’t like being dragged by his heels, his head bouncing along the stone-studded path, but in his long existence he’d learned possum skills. So, eyes half open, body limp and an open wound in his chest, he held his peace while Petra’s captors tossed his body down a river bank. He suppressed a grunt of pain when he smacked against a willow and silently thanked the tree for keeping him from the creek. Buried in the tall grass, he watched a man
lift Petra onto a horse.
The ox-like man hauled himself up beside Petra, who was hooded and bound. It nauseated Emory to watch the man gather her against his barrel chest.
“Whatcha got, Marshall?” asked the youth who had stabbed Emory.
Marshall.
Marshall’s beefy arms circled Petra’s waist and rested against her breast. Emory thought he’d explode with pent-up anger.
“Bounty,” Marshall grunted.
“Bounty or bootie?” The youth laughed.
Fire flamed behind Emory’s eyes. He fought the urge to attack with nothing more than his hands. He tried gathering his thoughts.
He’d have to separate Marshall from the others without raising an alarm. Unless he could get the man off the horse first, the horse would need to fall without injuring Petra. If not for her, he could have startled the horse, causing him to rear and bolt and hopefully cast off Marshall. If she’d been awake, she could be of use, but from her slumped and compliant form he knew that she’d fainted. Normally he detested female vapors, but watching Petra’s retreat, his heart twisted as the horses moved away. Marshall lumbered behind the others. Emory couldn’t wait much longer; on foot he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the overburdened horse.
Crouching, Emory hurried along the creek’s grassy edge, jumping downed trees, dodging branches and tripping in and out of rabbit holes.
Ahead, Petra bounced against Marshall. Every jolt increased Emory’s ratcheting fury. As they approached a bend in the road, Emory sprinted ahead to position himself behind a boulder. He picked up a couple of large rocks, tested them for loft and then aimed for Marshall’s temple. When the other men and their horses disappeared around the bend, Emory let his rock fly.
“Good Gad,” the man muttered as the rock whistled past his head. “Demmed bats.” He turned in Emory’s direction and Emory launched another rock. Marshall’s oath died mid-mutter, as the stone smacked his forehead with a sickening thud. With Petra in his arms, Marshall wavered atop of the horse, leaning right and then left, like a leaf held to a branch by a thin stem.
