Of Gypsies: Post II

Audra, holla at me about some dialogue. Again, all comments and edits welcome! I didn't change a bunch of stuff after first writing these scenes, so there should be fewer copy

editing mistakes. Please let me know what you think? Give your opinion of what should happen to the characters and whether or not you like the characters. 

--B.C.H.

___________

Rain battered the wooden camp. A small figure darted between wagons, a shadow bent on some mission. No one else stirred, not even the animals, who had all taken shelter with their owners, or else underneath they gypsy homes. Even the vibrant colors of the paint and fabric and signs had gone into hiding beneath the large black rainclouds.

The shadow paused before a wagon, the largest in the caravan, bigger even than their leader, Ursa’s. The rain continued to pelt the wagons, an unsteady beat playing across the camp. With one final look around the sodden clearing, and the figure climbed into the wagon.

“Elek! You are too small to be in this rain. What were they thinking? You are to serve, yes, but what use are you if you are dead? Can you answer me that?”  Pepita blew around him, her sympathies, admonishments, and plump hands a force to challenge the gale outside.

Normally he would grin at her while she fussed, enjoying the attention, but his mission preoccupied him. Bundled in a dry tapestry, he refused the tea Pepita tried to force on him.

“Okay, but don’t blame me if you die, okay? Now shewsh!” She swatted him on the bottom. “And Elek, try to be quiet, okay?”

Elek did smile at this. It was their joke. For the first couple years of his life, years he doesn’t remember, he lived with his alcoholic father, Lemke. His mother had died in a wagon accident but had managed to shield the baby in her arms. Lemke’s drinking was continuous, and the situation got so bad that when Elek was two years old, Pepita took him in. But the boy didn’t talk. For the first few years Pepita tried to coerce him with silly songs or tickle the words out of him or, eventually, just beg for a word. The rest of the troupe ignored him, Lemke’s dumb mute son. Pepita lost hope soon, too, and instead decided to accept him as he was: mute.

The troupe’s neglect wasn’t always a bad thing and had led, in fact, to his present mission. He had overhead something in Ursa’s wagon that Hazel had to know. How to get Hazel alone, though? A wagon does not provide much privacy—especially when sharing one with Pepita “the Hen.” Hazel had given her the nickname within hours of being adopted by the matriarch.

Hazel sat in the rear of the wagon, propped up on a pallet of embroidered pillows. She was practicing her cards next to the shuttered window. Hazel could never bear to be shut up for long, and as soon as the rain stopped, the shutters would be open and she, gone.  

“Are you staring at me for a reason, mite?” She spoke without lifting her head.

He nodded.

Brown eyes cut to him beneath dark lashes. Head still bend, she regarded him, taking in his anxious eyes. She patted the bench next to her. “Come, I’ll give you a reading.”

“No!” The Hen flew from her perch at the stove to where they sat on the other end of the wagon. “Girl, you promised to not use your gift on your family.”

Hazel smiled. “He isn’t family. None of you are.”

Pepita’s wings flew to her breast. “Not family? Not family!”

Before she could really get into the swing of things, Hazel patted her on the arm. “I am only joking, Pepita. Where would I be without you? Dead probably.”

Pepita let out a distressed squawk.

“I’ll give him a fake reading, like for the gadjes. Good?”

Pepita’s dark face scrunched up. A lot that she disapproved of had transpired in a short span of time. She must absorb it. It was Hazel’s favorite game. Riling her up and cutting her off before she could blow off all the collected steam. It was probably why Pepita looked so puffed.

After a moment’s deliberation, her face unfolded into an expression of mild disapproval. “You have the gift, child. You should use it. I know what Ursa says. But he don’t believe in the gift. So I don’t know how advice could make any difference one way or the other.”

Hazel groaned. “Pepita! You’re the only one who believes that! And what should I do if it is as you say? Mess with these people’s lives? Even you say that a fortune can never be taken at face value. That trying to avoid it can seal your fate—for worse. Isn’t it better to do what we’ve always done?”

Pepita’s fathomless eyes regarded her distantly. “Do what you think best, child. It is your gift.”

Hazel sighed again. She loved Pepita, but she was not her mother and the troupe was not her family. Gratitude would always weigh heavily on her shoulders for that very reason. She was not like Elek, who had been taken in by family, whose father—mean drunkard that he was—still worked for the troupe training horses, bringing in a lot of money. Elek had a right to their shelter, food, and protection. She had no right to any of it.

Elek regarded her solemnly, which wasn’t unusual for the serious boy. Hazel smiled, her momentary mood pushed aside. She held out her hand. “Give me your palm.”

His swarthy hand reached out. Taking it in her own, she flipped it over. In between two of the fingers, just barely visible, was a tiny piece of paper. It was barely visible on purpose, of course. All of the Roma were taught deft fingers from the time they were toddlers. Hazel glanced in Pepita’s direction. She was busy over the stove.

Running her slender fingers along Elek’s hand, letting them explore the topography of his palm and fingers, she slip the note into a fold of her skirt. After making a big show of examining his life lines and veins, she proclaimed that he would live to be one-hundred-ten and a world-renown bear tamer (and lover), to which Pepita snorted disapprovingly and Elek smiled and blushed.

“Hazel! He is too young for such things.”

“He is eleven, almost a man. And just because he hasn’t started yet doesn’t mean he won’t be one in the future. He’s going to live for ninety-nine more years. There’s plenty of time.”

“Hazel,” Pepita started in a warning tone.

The girl cocked her head, holding out a hand for the Hen to stop her squawking. Pepita paused, listening for whatever it was that Hazel had heard. She didn’t hear anything. Pepita turned around, searching the wagon for a noise. When she turned back around, Hazel was gone. It had stopped raining.

Hazel sat in the tree, waiting. She was going to throttle Elek. All the note had said was, “Need to talk” in his messy scrawl. She couldn’t blame him for the messiness. It was no worse than hers, and she had been his teacher. No one knew they could read and write. Their knowledge wasn’t extensive, but it was enough to pass notes to one another, which was imperative so that they could communicate without revealing the big secret.

“Hazel!”

Bark scraped the back of her thighs through her thin skirts as she jerked in surprise. “Joseph and Mary, Elek! Do you want to give us away?”

The boy grinned at her from the branch above. He must have climbed up the other side of the giant oak tree and scampered over to his current position.

She glared at him. “Your message, unless I misread it, meant nothing. And then I had to wait an hour before you came. So talk. Now.”

“Pepita made me eat. I’m sorry.”

He clearly was not. Hazel arched a dark brow, waiting.

The smile from Elek’s face. “I was in Ursa’s wagon serving the meal and caring for his animals.”

Elek was known for his way with animals. Always he had collected them and seemed to communicate with them—and they with him. Before Hazel had been found and adopted, Elek’s only companions were animals. It had been just another marked oddity about Lamek’s odd son until Ursa’s bear had escaped the year before. What could have been a disaster for the troupe had the bear attacked a gadje, had been avoided when Elek found the poor creature in the woods, suffering from a gunshot. A wounded bear is not a happy creature, and it fiercely protested anyone’s presence but Elek, who remained by its side, nursing it for weeks. Ursa had been using him as a helper ever since.

“I know all of this,” Hazel said, motioning for him to get on with it.

“Eamus was there. He was there to talk about you.” Elek swallowed.

Whatever was to come, Hazel was sure she would not like it.

“He wants to marry you, Hazel. He asked Ursa—”

“What did he say?”

The boy grimaced.

“Elek, what did Ursa say to Eamus?”

“He laughed and said that that would be one way to keep you out of trouble.”

The girl collapsed against the tree trunk, a hand over her eyes. She was so furious she couldn’t bear to look at anyone or anything. She struggled to control her anger, tamping it down, down, down. It felt like a solid stone in her stomach. But she could contain it.

Elek was still there. She could hear his breathing. It was unusual for him to stick around when he knew she was angry.

“Is there something else?”

“He said that a couple of babies might calm you down and give you something useful to do.”

Hazel flung her leg over the side of the branch and dropped the three feet to the ground, her skirts billowing out, hair flying every which way. She landed on her feet, but ended on her back in the mud, staring up into the tree. Elek’s grinning face seemed to be a mile above her, and it quickly disappeared amongst the branches. Smart boy.

She lay boiling in the mud. She contemplated throwing a fit, kicking and screaming and tearing around in the grime. Her fury had consumed almost all of her energy, however, and she settled for the small satisfaction of imagining it. Besides, the mud didn’t deserve any part of her anger. This way, the two men who did would receive all of it.

Using the trunk as a support, she pulled herself to a standing position, and step-by-step, made her way to Pepita’s wagon, crafting a plan the whole way.