Staunch Fate

Chapter 4

He doesn't respond right away he only lights his new cigarette facing her people make merry around the various campfires.

"Is it cursed, truly?"

"They say the curse of a fortune teller is no one believes them. You'll believe whatever fits. I say yes, you'll only think it's true when you want the guilt of you and when the time comes that you'll be troubled you'll think me a liar. You'll drape your guilt over you and suffer in it. This thing you brought upon us." She sighs trying to gather her thoughts careful about what she is about to reveal to him. "It'll be a hard one to break. I'm not even sure if I can do that. Curses are a tale, Tommy. No one is meant to believe in them, but you did."

"I gifted it to her." He whispers so low she barely hears him.

"I know." His icy gaze oppresses her. "Come." She orders. "I need to speak to you in private." The child resting in her arms doesn't stir as she walks. His little puffs warmed her neck where he buried his sweet face. Charlie clutches at her detecting her unease as easily as children can. Tommy's huffs as he follows her remind her of the nightmares she used to have before of a great man like beast breathing down her neck ready to give chase.

Her vardo is warm enough as they enter. Anna lays the child on her bed. His father's eyes are on her watching her every move but no protests rise from him when she tucks the baby in. She hesitates ready to give him what she considers ammunition against her. He waits for her standing by the hearth a hand outstretched on the wall. His impatience was written all over his tensed form.

"You've asked if I had seen my death in Australia well, I didn't but..." She sighed again walking closer to him her voice low enough so as not to disturb the sleeping child. "I have seen things." Her confession spills from her lips as if she regrets the words ever leaving her mouth.

"What have you seen?" There is a strain in his words, an accusatory undertone.

"I've seen you." His glare gives her pause. "I mean... I see bits and pieces. I've seen you..." During the war she almost says. "I wear that necklace." She tells him instead. "Night after night, it's always around my neck for years now, since my dreams came to me. I never saw her..." She points at Charlie. She never saw Tommy's wife, hell she never saw her own brother or any of her many cousins either. "I see my mother too, sometimes."

He deflates right before her eyes. His forehead pressed on the wooden wall hands resting on the mantle. She approaches still as if her small vardo had put miles between them. Gnawing at her lip she touches his back feeling his warmth.

"Tommy, I just realised something." His head turns so he can look at her, he waits. "You're real."

Tears rush dropping heavy droplets down her cheeks, sniffling away her relief for this are tears of joy. Of that, she has no doubt. She hears him snort then she is in his arms. Hushed words in their tongue calm her a bit and his lips come to rest upon her brow, holding her there he is shaking from laughter.

"You thought I wasn't real, eh? I don't envy you those dreams, Anna." He sighed.

"You can't tell anyone. They cannot know. Not Polly or your brothers, not even mine. Only a few know of my gift and even my aunt doesn't know the extent of them." She beseeches.

He seems to understand the gravity of her situation. "Will you help me, Anna?"

"If I can." She bites her lip again. "What if I can't? The dreams came when I ran with the Boswells up and down the country. What if us being here together, what if after I meet with my mother, what if they go away?"

"Would you like that?"

"They've been part of me for so long. I came to rely on them and I want to help you."