Chapter Twenty-One
"We have heard the chimes at midnight".
King Henry (Act III, Scene II)
EVERY LIFT AND DROP OF the flute and fiddle leads me out of the inn and into the darkened forest. Farther and farther away, until I am in an enclosure surrounded by nothing more than trees and a jarring silence. I dig my feet into the damp soil and a slight cool breeze wakes me from my hazy trance. How did I make it to the forest without alerting Giovanni or his guards? I am many things, but stealthy I am not.
"Calm down, Petra." But I cannot think rationally, not when the only thoughts fluttering around my mind are those of the forest Zingari.
They capture you with their song and make you do their bidding!
You cannot escape them. For death waits. Death!
I suppress a shudder.
"Stupid Stefano and his stupid stories." My bitter alterations echo around me, in the voices of a million secretly frightened Petras. For how else would I have made it to the forest if not for the forest Zingari magic?
"For one to have escaped the Azdags, to be afraid of a little gypsy magic is rather silly, no?"
I whirl around to the voice, but there is nothing there. Nothing. Just silence and the mad pumping of blood in my ears.
Azdags.
"No. No. I am not an Azdag my dear. Far from it. I don't believe they can even speak, the poor devils. Out to destroy the world and can't utter a single syllable."
The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere at once. It envelopes me more than the music had and yet leaves me alone all the while.
Despite my efforts to remain unperturbed, I am unsettled and the slight tremor in my voice exposes me completely. "And—and where are you?"
"I am here. All around you."
I take a small breath. At the very least whoever was speaking to me was not an Azdag. I run my hands down my arms, but it does nothing to calm my nerves. Whoever this phantom is, was not making our acquaintance easy.
"What do you want of me then? I am no one of consequence. Just a lonely traveler –"
"Do not lie to me, Petra. You only look silly doing so."
My mouth shuts instantly.
"Besides, I have what you seek. And you have what I seek. Witch of the Shazastar."
Witch.
I cringe at the word. But it is said matter-of-factly, without malice and not dripping with hate, as is often the case.
"I am no witch –" I begin to say but stop myself. No lies the phantom said and no lies it will receive. For the time being anyway, until I figure out exactly what it wishes from me. I will be the Zingari's witch as I had been the Florentian's fortune-teller. I have many skills and deception is my best of them.
"Excellent," the Zingari whispers and a cool rush of air flitters around the dead forest; everything from the leaves to the blades of grass to the sky comes back to color. And the music – the music returns like the soft embrace of lover, of a kiss that I had only felt in my dreams. Through the curtain of hazy music, I see outlines of people surrounding the clearing in which I stand, alone, bewitched and barefoot.
"You are now ready." The haze of smoky magic lifts, like a curtain and there before me is a squat old woman, with hair as silver as any of Giovanni's blades. I cannot tell how old she is. Her wrinkled bark colored skin tells me ancient, but her eyes tell me otherwise, eyes as surreal as this magical night. All around me I find myself encircled by brown skinned silver haired people, ethereal and colorful.
"We are the Zingari and we have waited for you, Petra of the Shazastar. We have waited."
The old woman reaches a gnarled hand to me and I take it, for I too have waited. I have waited a very long time for some answers.
The Zingari lead me further into the forest into an enclosure of brightly colored tents and campfires. There are people here, not dark and silver haired, and not ethereal, but normal people, the kind I have seen in Florentia and from all around my travels.
"They are not Zingari by blood like us," the old woman explains. "They are people who heeded the call to join us. The music and our magic pulls some of these desperate souls to our care." I watch as a couple non-Zingari women stir a pot of stew. They are nothing spectacular, and when compared to the Zingari's magical splendor they look washed out and pathetic.
"Old lady," I ask the old woman Zingari holding my hand and leading me to the center of the camp. "Are they cursed?"
"Call me Saboykan. And no!" She chuckles and all around me I hear the sounds of the Zingari holding back their laughter. "To join us is a blessing my dear. We call out to those of our most desperate need."
Old lady Saboykan leads me further into the enclosure until we reach a small circle and a modest tent. There stands a man, slender and tall, skin the color of the trees that surround us, and hair as silver and as Giovanni's most intense glare.
I scoff under my breath. Giovanni? Why was I even thinking about him? The idiotic potato. "Stupid Giovanni de Luca and his stupid eyes."
"Did you say something, my dear?" Saboykan looks up at me, eyebrows curiously furrowed.
"I only asked who that man is?"
"Oh," Saboykan smiles fondly. "That is my son Lavik and where is Isabella? Why the two are barely ever apart."
We walk up to the man beside the tent and just as Saboykan is to introduce me to her son, a non-Zingari woman exits the tent.
Even among the Zingari, the woman is beautiful. She contrasts Lavik in everyway, light to his dark, long blond hair to his silver and a friendly timid face to his scowling harsh angles. I continue to stare at her, unable to look away, not of her beauty. But of something else.
"Ah! Here she is!" Saboykan embraces the blonde lady and says, "Isabella, my son's wife."
But I cannot look away. I know that perhaps my unabashed staring made the poor Isabella uncomfortable, but I had to know what was making me uneasy. Her face is kind, but there is something familiar about it. Her eyes blue, but not cold with resentment. Her mouth played with a timid smile, not an arrogant scowl. Her hands nervously twisted the ends of her blouse.
Her hands.
Take out the gypsy clothes and dress her in Florentian fineries and who stands before me is not Isabella, but Cecilia. A shy, slightly older Cecelia, but Cecilia Marchisio nonetheless.
There are not many moments in life in which I am rendered speechless, but Cecilia amongst the Zingari would make even a mute screech out in disbelief. Saboykan pulls me away from Lavik and Isabella. For I could not move, my mouth agape and eyes wide as recognition hit me like a million arrows to the stomach.
"I know that woman!" I whisper urgently to Saboykan as she pulls me into the tent away from the peculiar couple.
"Do you now?" She slumps onto her cushions and pats the pillows for me to take a seat.
"I do! That is no Isabella!"
Saboykan pulls a pipe and stuffs it with an earthy smelling herb and sighs. "I think I know who my son is married to, Petra."
"No! No, you don't!" I stand up in flurry and pace the length of the tent, trying to make sense of what I had just seen before me. "That woman is not Isabella! Her name is Cecilia. Cecilia Marchisio. A courtier's daughter of the Florentian court! Her father is a horrid man. Absolutely monstrous. But that is who she is! She is no picnic either."
"Ah, do you mean Alfonse Marchisio by any chance?" Saboykan takes a calm hit of her pipe and closes her eyes as she holds the smoke in.
"Yes—yes I suppose that's the man."
Saboykan exhales the smoke and opens her eyes lazily. "Ah. But that is the man. You see Isabella is not Alfonse Marchisio's daughter Cecilia. No. Isabella was Marchisio's wife and is Cecilia's mother. So you see. I do know who my son is married to."
I sink to the floor beside her. "W-what?"
Saboykan hands me the pipe and I take it absentmindedly, in too much shock to really smoke.
"Alfonse is a horrid man. But he was most horrid to Isabella, a shy quiet woman who would take his abuse duteously. Until she met Lavik." Saboykan takes the pipe back, takes another hit and hands it back to me. "It is not my story to tell. But she is now here, and Alfonse is there."
In a shocked trance, I take a hit of the pipe. I had smoked before when I stayed with the southern tribes of the Silaeen. But what I had smoked then and what Saboykan had in her pipe are completely different things. I feel the smoke making its way not just into my lungs but every part of me, and unlike other herbs, whatever Saboykan had in the pipe did not leave me in dreamy haze ... no. Everything around became more. More color. More sound. I can smell more, hear more, and feel more. I smile as a breeze tickles every part of me to the roots of my hair.
"Jinseen root. Makes everything more – what's the word? Magical."
Magical indeed. I lie back on the floor and close my eyes. It is no wonder the Marchisio's hate me with such passion. I reminded them of the man Isabella ran off with. Timid shy Isabella left them all to ruin.
"You should give me some of that root to take with me. There is someone I know who is in need of major lightening up."
I laugh as I imagine an uninhibited Giovanni. A Giovanni strung out on Jinseen root, a Giovanni who did not care about rules or decorum. A Giovanni who would not reject me, instead he would do the opposite. For a second I let myself wonder what that would be like. The smoke from the herbs intensifies my blush as I try to hide my thoughts from Saboykan.
Not even Jinseen root would make Giovanni de Luca that reckless.
Old Lady Saboykan does not pay me any mind. Instead she pulls me up to my feet and says, "There are things we must talk about, before you take Jinseen root back to your lover."
I stumble after her. "Wh—what?" I gag. "He is not my lover. More like a pain in my side. What a silly thing to say Saboykan. Truly. Of all things that happened tonight, I do say that is the most outrageous."
But I hurry behind her regardless. She takes us to the music circle where the Zingari sit with their families and non-Zingari. A soft tune on a fiddles plays, as calm as the autumn breeze from the trees. In the center of the circle, Lavik and Isabella dance. Slowly twirling, their colorful clothes meshing into each other into one swirl of rainbow. His silver hair dancing with her blonde, free and together.
I stop walking and instead watch the couple with an intense yearning. How he looks at her --- how she looks up at him, as if nothing else in the world exists, as if she is all that matters in his world and he is all she needs in hers.
"Come Petra, stop ogling the poor couple."
Saboykan's command breaks my trance. I follow the squat woman to the outside of the circle and into the dark. She sits beside a rotting old tree truck and motions for me to do the same.
"We will not be disturbed here."
I sit beside the old Zingari, but my heart aches, for there was a time when I had loved like Lavik and Isabella; there was a time in which I was loved like that. And what good came of it? What good?
Saboykan takes my hands in her calloused ones. "The Shazastar gypsies are the most ignorant of all Zingari."
I blink at the old woman, surprised at her rudeness. Again, she speaks matter-of-factly and not in any way malicious, just as when she called me witch. She continues to hold my hands tightly in hers. Hands that remind me too much of my Grams.
"We Zingari are a blessed lot. Forest Zingari, through music and dance and herbs we can heal, but that is our limit. We are all born with these gifts, every single Forest Zingari child. Which is why we are not ignorant or fearful of our powers. Our Cousins in the Shazastar are different."
She traces the lines in my palms. "The Shazastar is harsh place. A desolate desert. Its people tough and rugged as its sands."
I look away from her as the magic of the pipe begins to fade away and the pain f my reality makes its way through the cracks.
"I do not wish to speak of such things."
"You have no choice." Saboykan's grasp on my hands tightens. "You have run away for long enough. Your ignorance has caused more harm than good. It is time."
I close my eyes and will myself to calm down. Of course things were never good for too long. Take a hit of a Jinseen root and the pay back is for my pain to be rehashed.
"Unlike the Forest, the Shazastar is stingy with its magic. Unlike us, in which all our children inherit gifts, the Shazastar doles its gift to only one, every random number of generations. As we can see, people forget. Your people forgot, and instead of recognizing the gift of the Shazastar in their kin, they feared it, for they have no reference, no understanding of magic as we do."
And how deep they fear it. I keep my eyes closed as tears sting and beg to be released. How can they fear a child, an innocent child just as ignorant as any of them? How can a father fear his own daughter to the point of wanting to get rid of her? Oh, how deep they fear.
"You mustn't blame them," Saboykan whispers. "You cannot give into that darkness. For although we Forest Zingari have many small gifts, the Shazastar has one great one. And your control of it depends on your pureness of heart, Petra."
Saboykan holds me to her. "You need guidance, my dear. Your people are gone and you must forgive them and forgive yourself. Let me guide you, for all of our sake, let me."
She holds me even tighter as my silent tears soak her blouse. Forgive? I can forgive the taunting of children, of adults, but can I forgive the death of my love? Can I forgive a father at his wits end? Can I forgive him wanting to be rid of the curse that took his wife from him, that ostracized him from his people?
Can I forgive my father for digging that grave in the desert? A grave deep and big enough to hold a six-year-old girl?
I push away from Saboykan as the memories come back to me in full force, but instead of rejecting them and fighting them as I usually do, I smile as the pain comes in waves.
Drink this, Pet. A brown hand hands me a steaming mug.
And I do, for he is my Papa. He would never harm me, like the others. He is sad. I want to make him better.
Drink this, Pet. Everything will be better if you do.
And I do. And I fall into his arms, deep in sleep, happy that I finally did something right, something to make him happy; for although he loves me, he is always sad. I do not want to see him sad.
But my numbed happiness is short-lived; for I wake beneath the sands, suffocating, every breath panicked and filled with desert. I wake with the realization that I was to die, buried alive beneath the sands, by my own father's hand.
A/N:
HEY EVERYONE. SORRY FOR THE SUPER DUPER LATE UPDATE. I have a lot of things going on in life right now and unfortunately writing has taken a hit. lol Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter and please leave me your thoughts! They motivate me to write and update sooner!
Oh dang. Those Marchisio's lol Xp
AWWW SNAP. LOOKS LIKE PETRAS CHILDHOOD IS MORE MESSED UP THEN WE THOUGHT HUH :/
Do you trust the Zingari? And what do you think it is that Petra did? What is this power that the Shazastar passes on?
WHAT IS GOIng ON? Is there really magic in this story??? O.O