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.

The True Confessions of Buttercup Harding

Yesterday, Turner Classic Movies had an “adventure on the high seas” movie marathon—aka, pirate movies. Thank goodness the boring business of working with spreadsheets can be done while watching television! These adventures gave me a thirst to read a nautical tale. One packed with suspense and adventure. One that I could immerse myself in, become part of the story.

Enter The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. This Newberry winner, written by Avi, was required reading when I was in the fifth or sixth grade. I can’t remember which. But I can remember my overwhelming desire to hie off and join a ship’s crew. My parents should be thanking God that Oklahoma is landlocked.

Around the same time I first read that book, my family took a month-long road trip to hit all of the national parks west of the Mississippi. At the end of our journey, we visited Alcatraz, the United State’s most high security prison. Since its heyday during the Prohibition era, it has been transformed into a museum that tourists like my family can visit. My mother, being the dedicated lifelong learner that she is, insisted we all listen to the audio tour, not just wander through.

From the moment I placed those headphones over my ear holes, I was enthralled. The narrator had a History Channel-worthy voice. But even if the inflection and tone had been lacking, the ambiance noise in the background would have been enough to submerge me in that world. It changed from the clanking and cries of seagulls on the dock to the whispers of men in their cells to the shouts of violence in the mess hall.

As I walked the halls of Alcatraz, peering into the men’s cells that still had their effects on display, I imagined myself there, cutting hair in the barber shop, shanking any who dared threaten me in the cafeteria, attempting escapes with the inmates. I was thirteen years old. I wanted to be a forty-year-old mob boss. Felony is exciting!

While these youthful aspirations are—well I find them endearing. Others have told me that they’re weird. Apparently girls shouldn’t want to be Al Capone when they grow up with the sole goal of being thrown into prison. While I find them endearing, they’re more farfetched than the average ballerina or fireman dreams. The truth is that I would never be able to climb rigging without a) hanging myself, b) falling to my death, or c) vomiting myself to death from motion sickness. And as for being a felon…I’m a good girl! I just don’t have what it takes to be convicted. But oh, once I was there, in prison, I could be an awesome inmate. The best inmate. Which would basically mean I would get out on good behavior before I ever had the chance to attempt an escape.

But still the thirst for adventure chases me. Usually I’m fully content to live in Oklahoma. I love, love, love, love Oklahoma. I have seen the world. I have been to big cities and small all over our country and ten others. I have been on four of the seven continents. So anyone who considers themselves learn-ed and wants to correct my backward love of my state, they can stuff it. I don’t scorn your love of NYC or London or Tokyo (or wherever it is that you want to make your real home). So don’t scorn mine.

There are problems with Oklahoma, though. I will grant you that. For instance, adventure. What am I to do for adventure? Noodling just doesn’t do it for me. Nor does cow tipping, paintballing, or camping in the Ouachitas or the Ozarks. When I want adventure, a change in routine isn’t enough. It’s more than a need for adrenaline, too. I want danger. Not senseless danger, like sky diving. I want logical danger like mobsters or being on the wrong side of the law or sailing on the open sea.

So I have to ask myself, since my daydreams are so totally improbable, what is at the root of this thirst for big adventure? After staying up till four a.m. reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, I have a theory. What I yearn for isn’t just adventure. It’s that big life-changing event: mutiny on my ship, falling into crime, battling gross injustices, surviving a near-fatality. It’s experiencing something bigger than life, bigger than myself, and being changed because of it. That’s why simple adventures: travel, starting a business, going to a peach festival, noodling, etc., don’t satisfy that thirst.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle ends with thirteen-year-old Charlotte unable or unwilling to be reabsorbed into her well-bred family after her two-month adventure on the sea. She’s changed too much. The last sentence of the book reads,

Something Zachariah told me filled my mind and excited my heart: “A sailor,” he said, “chooses the wind that takes the ship from safe port…but winds have a mind of their own.”

According to my theory, I want to choose that wind, and then fly before it, whether I head toward storm or fair skies. As long as I’m pointed toward the open horizon, it doesn’t matter to me. The adventure is in the not knowing. It’s in the bigness, grandness, and uncertainty of the journey, and especially the unknown destination.

If you know me very well or have been reading this blog, you’ll understand how paradoxical that is. I sometimes throw little temper tantrums (luckily my dogs are usually the only witnesses) when writing a business plan becomes overwhelming. Or when I don’t know who to call to get a particular answer. Or when I begin feeling the pinch of my shrinking savings account. Or something as tiny as the brand of dog food I buy being moved somewhere else in the store. Clearly, I don’t like the unknown. In fact, not knowing is my least favorite thing. It makes me feel vulnerable and stupid. I deplore feeling stupid. It gives me heart palpitations when I feel out of my element. The kind of adventure I want to chase is entirely about being out of my element!

So what? Am I crazy? My opinion might lack objectivity, but no, I don’t think I’m crazy. Or at least not for this. There are several basic human aspirations at play here. 1) The desire to do something bigger than yourself. Leave a mark on others, or, if you’re the right person at the right time and place, leave a mark on history. 2) The need to escape the responsibilities of your current life. I think psychologists would back me up on this. At one time or another, every person has dreamed, what if? 3) The even more basic, deep-seeded craving to give up control.

There’s this simultaneous need in human beings to be in control and the wish to give up all control. It’s tiring, isn’t it, trying to control every aspect of your life? We’re all a bit OCD on the inside. We believe if we can just choose our friends and choose our profession and choose our partner that we will have a good life. If we could see into the future, we would pick the right path when we came to a fork in the road.

But that’s a lot of responsibility! And it also is disproved day after day. Your partner cheats on you, a parent dies, you get fired, or you end up hating what you chose to do for a living. When things like this go awry, our need for control is aggravated. We go on overdrive, attempting to control everything and every one. All we want, deep down, is to give up control. It’s too much to do to control every little thing. And we keep messing stuff up. It gets worse, and we just want Mom or Dad to come pick us up and clean up our mess. Our grip on our lives is so tight, though, that it is painful, so, so, so painful, to pry our fingers loose. That pain reinforces the belief that we not only want to be in control but we need to be in control in order to avoid pain and failure.

And then I have a day like yesterday, when all I want to do is stand up and walk out, driven by a wind of my choosing with an unknown path and destination. I want to experience big things I have no control over. I feel I can be the right person at the right time and place—if I just let go. If I stop trying to control my life, narrowing it down and boxing it in to something manageable (because really, how much can any one person control? I can’t even control myself!), then my life could be epic! And that’s what I want for myself. Epicness.

Do you ever feel this way? What is your what if daydream? 

Of Fairies, Witches, Gypsies, My nourrice sang to me, Sua Gypsies, Fairies, Witches, I alsua synge to thee

I have been tinkering (pun intended--don't worry, you'll get it in a second) for quite a while with the idea of writing a series of books populated by gypsies. Except that every time I start, the research swallows me whole. There is both a dearth and a lack of information. Or, more accurately put, there is all the misinformation you could ever dream of and a lot of question marks for accurate information about gypsies throughout history.


I can't even find an a list of Gypsie names. They had private names in their own tongue, and then names they would adopt for the country the lived in or traveled to. Names that were normal for that time period in place. For example, if they came to America today, they would choose John or Jack or Matt or Will. Actually, I suppose that it would have been similar in the past as well. But no one outside the traveling people ever seems to be trusted with their privates names. Or, perhaps, they were just very accurate in choosing who they told. Because no one wrote it down anywhere, apparently. 


All that to say, this is the beginning and I have done research, but compared to how much research I will have to do in order to actually write the series, it's just a drop in the ocean. Future installments subject to changes in name, occupation, and a host of other things. Comments and criticism welcome. Though if you're really going to rip it to shreds, maybe just e-mail it to me. 


Enjoy!

Although he comes and cuts me down,

    I'll grow next spring, 'tis plain,

But if a virgin wreath should fade,

    'Twill never bloom again.

"What does a tinker whore know?"

She'd been nervous, scared even, from the moment he'd walked into her wagon. The incense that was supposed to lend an authentic mysterious ambiance had clawed at her flared nostrils and made her eyes water. The cool, enigmatic dark had transformed into shadows concealing antagonistic intent. But now her senses closed and what she felt was...not anger. No, that would come later. But strength. It built within her, warming her thin limbs, stilling her imperceptible tremors, clearing her eyes. 

She lifted her chin and met his gaze evenly for the first time. His head snapped back. She let the silence grow, filling it with her strength, allowing the warmth brimming in her core to spill between them. 

"Whether you believe or not is not my responsibility, gadje. I have done what you paid me to do. Now go."

His arm twitched, as if he might slap her. She let the full measure of her disdain to enter her eyes, so thick in her aura even a gadje like him must sense it. He grabbed his hat, crushing the expensive velvet between thick strangler's fingers, and left.

A heartbeat, two more, and then a giant crash as the table hit the plank floor. Tarot cards fluttered, fell, and flailed in every direction. It wasn't enough noise to satisfy the angry god inside her. She rained down expletives on the cards, on the city, on their cursed, greedy leader.

"Hazle?"

She whirled, fists clenched. "What?"

The tent flap was opened a bare inch. Sunlight came into her tent, but that was all.

"D-did that man...? W-what d-did that man--"

She sighed loudly and slumped onto a pillow. Elek's stutter had melted her anger and left in its wake a niggling impatience, as it always did. 

"It was nothing. A bad reading." For a dangerous man, she thought but kept to herself. The caravan had to leave, that was clear, but a story about a scary man wouldn't convince Ursa. Not in such a profitable city. Not when things were finally getting better. Not when it was her, an untried fortuneteller, who was doing the telling. Only Momma D believe she had "the gift"--possibly because she was the only one, including Hazel, who still believed in such things. 

A curly brown head appeared in the sunlight. "Y-you're okay?"

She smiled wanly and then returned to rubbing her forehead, badgering herself to think of a way to get Ursa to move the troupe without exposing herself to censure for giving the bad reading. She had been desperate to prove her worth, to contribute and pull her own weight. Always she had felt beholden. And now, with Eamus sniffing around her skirts, she especially didn't want to feel as if she owed anyone anything to the troupe who had taken her in as an orphan. Momma D had had to harangue Ursa for a full year before he would allow it, and only then because the troupe was so hard up for money. Her first week of telling fortunes and already she had screwed up. Why had she told him what she'd seen, and why had she seen it?

A cry made her jump, her nerves taught as violin strings.

Elek stood sucking his finger, a few cards in his other hand. Hazel sighed again. "Leave it. I'll clean up my own mess. Momma D would say it's only what I deserve after making it in the first place."