“But that’s not fair. Anyway, they’d never know. I could walk behind you.” Her face screwed up, as though she were trying not to cry. “I just want to get out of here for a while.”
“Don’t be silly, Harriet. It’s impossible,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Look, perhaps we could ask Miss Scratton if you could come another time,” Sarah said kindly. “But we can’t do it today. Why don’t you run back to school and curl up with a book or something? We’ll see you later.”
Harriet’s black eyes were mutinous with disappointment. “Oh, all right,” she replied sulkily, as we hurried through the gates and set off along the rough lane that led to the village. I seemed to feel her eyes boring into my back as we left her behind.
“Poor Harriet,” murmured Sarah. My conscience twinged. I would be extra nice to Harriet when we got back, I promised myself. I would play Scrabble with her after supper, whatever she wanted. I would let her think I was her best friend; I would do anything—but right now I had to get to the travelers’ camp.
We walked briskly, and had soon passed the churchyard and reached the far side of the village. The field by the road had a sad, untidy look. Four or five trailer vans and a couple of beaten-up cars were parked, seemingly haphazardly, around the edge of the field, and here and there piles of scrap metal, a broken chair, and a stripped-down motorbike added to the sense of transience and confusion. Someone had strung some washing to dry on a line, and the clothes flapped stiff and frozen in the chill wind. There were no gaily-colored wooden carts, no exotic women in bright skirts, nothing of the storybook image of the ancient Gypsy folk. A low hum of pop music was coming from one of the trailers, and the smell of cooking. Three horses were tethered by coarse ropes to the fence, and they stood patiently, nuzzling against one another, waiting.
“Do you really think we’ll be welcome?” Helen wondered, as we hesitated by the gate. I was glad we weren’t wearing our conspicuous school uniform, but instead were dressed for a Sunday-afternoon walk to the village in our jeans and jackets.
“We’ll soon find out,” I replied, pushing the gate open and walking into the field. A dog barked; then a girl opened the door of one of the vans and ran down the steps. When she saw us she stopped and stared wordlessly. It was the young girl we had seen out riding.
“Hello,” I ventured. “Is your…um…brother around?”
The girl continued to stare at us, then turned and fled back into the trailer. We heard voices and then the door opened again. The boy we had seen before stepped out, eyeing us warily. I guessed he was about seventeen. He had untidy brown hair and broad shoulders and a closed, defensive expression. I nudged Sarah in the ribs.
“Sastipe,” she said haltingly. Sarah had made the effort to learn a few Romany words before our visit, and had persuaded us to do the same. “Devlesa avilan.”
Greetings, my friend. It is God who brought you….
The boy looked up in surprise, then growled, “I can speak English, you know.” He stared at us for another moment, then broke into a reluctant grin. “Your pronunciation is terrible. But at least you tried. Devlesa araklam tume—It is with God that I found you.”
“Thank you,” Sarah replied delightedly. “So…can we talk to you?”
“Sure. I won’t bite.” He smiled at her again. “I’ve seen you out riding. You’re not bad. Quite good, in fact. What do you want to talk about?”
Sarah hesitated for a second. “It might sound stupid….”
“Wait a second.” He turned and stepped back into the trailer and spoke briefly to the people inside, then zipped up his jacket and walked over to us. “Let’s go somewhere else. My mother’s resting. I don’t want to disturb her. She doesn’t really like…I mean, it would just be easier.”
We walked down the lane, away from the village, and found ourselves taking the path that led to the little river, hardly more than a stream, that ran down to Wyldcliffe from the hills above. The boy said his name was Cal, and we told him our names. “So what brought you to the camp? Most of the locals avoid us like the plague, especially since all that trouble about those dead animals being found in the village. We’d never do that,” he added quietly. “We have too much respect for our fellow creatures.”
“We don’t think it was you,” Sarah said in a rush. “I’m sorry if you’ve been given a hard time.”
Cal’s face clouded over, and he stopped to lean against the old stone bridge that spanned the river’s shallow bed. “Yeah, well, I don’t care what people say about me, but some of those stuck-up girls from that big school at the Abbey have been giving my kid sister grief. They’ve been hassling Rosie when she’s riding her pony, calling her names, making fun of her. That’s out of line.” He looked up suspiciously. “You’re not from that place, are you?”
“We are, but not all of us think like that, I promise you,” said Helen. “We don’t like those kinds of girls much either.”
Cal didn’t look entirely convinced. The news that we were from the Abbey seemed to have put him on his guard again. “That’s easy to say. Perhaps I’d better go.” He began to walk away, but Sarah ran after him.
“Please, Cal, please look at this. Look,” she said, pulling something out of her pocket. “This is a photo of my great-grandmother, Maria. She was one of the Roma—like you. And these were her parents.” She showed him another photo of a handsome dark-skinned young couple sitting outside a vardo, or traditional wagon, a little wooden house on wheels with a campfire nearby. The mists of my dream moved and swirled in my head again…. “Maria was adopted into a rich gaje family,” Sarah went on. “The girls at the Abbey gave her a really hard time when she was there. She knew what it felt like. And I haven’t forgotten her. I’ll never forget. That’s why we’re not like those girls who were mean to your sister.”
The boy took the faded sepia photograph in his hands and examined it. He gazed at Sarah for a second. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, giving back the photo. “I should have known. I should have seen it in your eyes. You’re beautiful enough to be Roma anyway. T’ave baxtalo. You are welcome here.”
Sarah blushed scarlet. “Thank you.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk. What do you want to know?”
I pushed forward eagerly. “Has your family been coming this way for a long time?”
“As long as I can remember this has been one of the winter stopping grounds. Doesn’t makes sense, really, as it’s miles from anywhere. We usually stay nearer to towns in the winter. But there’s a kind of tradition in our family not to let too many years go by before we come back to Wyldcliffe. Something to do with an old promise.”
“Do you know anyone called Sebastian?” I said, my heart in my mouth.
Cal thought for a while, then shook his head. “Can’t think of anyone called that.”
“Oh.” Disappointment washed over me. I had been clutching at straws, perhaps, but I had been so convinced that my dream had meant something. “Are you sure? Sebastian Fairfax?”
A flash of amazement passed over Cal’s face. “Fairfax?” he said. “Do you mean Fairfax James?”
“I—I don’t know…maybe. Who was he?”
Cal looked around cautiously. “My dad told me about him before he died. Said he had to hand on the tradition. Fairfax James was, well, a sort of legend for us. He was a conjurer, a kind of wandering magician.”
“Oh my God…”
“Fairfax traveled with our family for a while, in the old days, way before I was born, performing at fairs and shows. Then there was some kind of trouble—I don’t know what—and he disappeared, but not before he helped our family. A deed worthy of a brother, my dad said.”
“A brother—that’s exactly what Sebastian said! So when did he know your family?” I asked anxiously.
“That’s the uncanny thing. Dad remembered seeing Fairfax when he was only a kid, and Fairfax was about twenty years old. But Dad said that my grandfather had known him too, years and years ago,
and yet Fairfax was exactly the same age even then. He doesn’t change, just turns up for a while, then vanishes. They say that every generation of our family is destined to meet him at some point in their lives. That’s why we keep coming back here. In case he needs us.” Cal looked defiant. “In case he comes back from the dead.”
“It is him—Fairfax James is Sebastian; it has to be!”
“But what has he got to do with you?” asked Cal in astonishment.
“I know this sounds crazy, but we know him,” said Sarah.
“And he sent me a kind of message,” I added hurriedly. “He said his brothers would help, and I think that must have something to do with your family. I need to find a fire sign, something to do with fire—a token or symbol or object. Do you know what it might be?”
Cal frowned, then shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t think of anything.” He looked at us warily. “Are you sure this is for real? You’re not winding me up?”
“I promise you, Cal, it’s nothing like that,” pleaded Sarah. “I swear on everything that’s precious, on Maria’s memory—”
His expression softened. “Okay, Gypsy girl. How about you come and meet my kid sister? You can show her your picture and tell me more about all this. If Fairfax really has come back to our family, I want to be ready for him.”
He held out his hand to Sarah. She hesitated, then took it in hers. “Thanks. I’d love that.”
Cal turned to us. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring her back to the school before it gets dark.” They walked away in the direction of the travelers’ camp, and Helen and I set off back to the school. I was thinking furiously. It was good that we had made contact with Cal, and good to see the light in Sarah’s eyes when she talked to him, but I was still no nearer to what I needed. I kicked a pebble on the path in frustration. Sebastian had once known the Gypsy travelers—that much was clear—but how could they help? And what was the fire token?
My stomach was tight with fear. I tried not to think about what might be happening to Sebastian: how the light in his eyes might be fading, how the threads that bound him to this life might be getting ready to break. I had to make progress—and quickly. There was a little over a week until the new moon. It would rise on the fulfillment of my hopes, or their utter annihilation.
Thirty-seven
I tried everything. Every night I tried a different charm from the Book. To Cure Sicknesse, To bring Rain in time of Droughte, To improve Memorie… But I knew I was fooling myself. These things might have filled me with wonder a year ago, but now they were like empty toys. Without the fire token my powers were meaningless and the Book offered me nothing but ways of killing time. Time…time…time… Every day that went by was another failure. I couldn’t find the fire token, and I couldn’t find a way of stopping the hours racing past.
Monday…Tuesday…Wednesday…Thursday…the last week before the new moon rose was almost over.
On Friday morning there was a rush of girls around the long table in the entrance hall. They were looking excitedly at the piles of mail, chattering and giggling like eager magpies. A huge bunch of red roses was displayed in a crystal vase in the middle of the table, and red ribbons had been fixed up all around the hall.
“What’s all this about?” I asked Sarah as we pushed our way past the crowd of girls.
She grimaced in reply. “St. Valentine’s Day, of course. They always make a big fuss about it.”
“I wouldn’t have thought Wyldcliffe would have encouraged such frivolities.”
“Mrs. Hartle would have stamped it out if she could, but you know how the school clings to its traditions. In the old days, the girls would make little posies and poems for their favorite teachers, and the handing out of the flowers was an elaborate ritual. We don’t do that anymore, thank goodness, but it’s still a big deal for students to get valentine cards from well-connected boys from London or Eton College. Celeste will be in her element.”
Celeste was indeed at the center of the crowd, gleefully waving a bunch of colored envelopes and exclaiming over their contents. She had a gang of girls hanging around her shrieking and giggling, but I couldn’t help noticing that Sophie wasn’t there and that India looked rather sour. Perhaps the preppy boys she knew had let her down. As I watched the crowd of laughing girls, a desperate, crazy, ridiculous hope that Sebastian had sent me a valentine message shot through me like an arrow. I marched up to the table, scanning the letters.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering to look, Johnson,” Celeste crowed, pushing past me with her triumphant haul. She was right, of course; it was hopeless….
“Hey—aren’t these for you?” A girl called Fiona Hamilton excitedly waved a small package and a plain white envelope under my nose. “Lucky you.”
Lucky me. I grabbed them from her; then my heart sank. That wasn’t Sebastian’s writing—how could it be? How stupid of me even to imagine for a second that they would be from him. Sarah was at my shoulder, looking with curiosity at the package and letter.
“Why don’t you open them?”
“Not here. Let’s go outside.”
I had a feeling that whatever they were, I didn’t want Celeste or anyone else to see them. Sarah and I made our way to the terrace. It was cold but bright, and our breath hung like little clouds in the clear air. I opened the envelope and a strip of paper fell out.
THIEVES WILL BE PUNISHED
“Looks like the mystery letter writer has decided to contact me again. Just the thing for Valentine’s Day,” I said lightly, crumpling it up and throwing it away.
“Evie, you’ve got to take care,” Sarah said in a low voice.
I tried to laugh it off and show a confidence I didn’t quite feel. “Well, the thief has to be caught first before she can be punished, and they haven’t managed that yet.”
“But still—”
“So what’s in this other one?” I said jokingly. “Rat poison? A letter bomb?” I ripped the packaging open and a small, heavy object made of polished wood fell into my hand. It was a carving of a horse, wild and free and exquisite.
“But that’s beautiful!” exclaimed Sarah. “And there’s a card.”
The card had a simple flower on the front. Inside, someone had written, For Evie. Happy Valentine’s Day. J.P.
“J.P.—so it’s from Josh,” Sarah said quietly.
Sarah and I stared at each other for a fraction of a second. “Sarah—listen, I’m so sorry. I never wanted—”
“It doesn’t matter; I’m not stupid. I can see how much he likes you.” She sighed. “I guess I’ve always known that Josh thinks of me as a kid. I’ve had plenty of time to accept that nothing will ever happen between us. Just because we both liked horses, and he was the only boy around for miles, and we were friends and chatted sometimes…Well, it wasn’t enough. Like I said, I’m just not the kind of girl guys notice.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Cal seemed to notice you all right.”
Sarah looked down with a secret, self-conscious expression. “Perhaps he did. Don’t worry, Evie; my heart isn’t broken, only bruised.”
“Oh, Sarah—”
She gave me a warm hug and forced herself to smile. “Don’t they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? It’s all right, honestly.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Then she looked serious again. “But what about Josh? Won’t he be upset?”
I didn’t want to bruise anyone’s heart, let alone break it. “It probably doesn’t mean that much,” I said. “I guess he likes me, and I do like him; he’s a really nice guy. But this valentine thing…he’s probably just being—”
“Being what? Being polite? Don’t kid yourself, Evie. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
I glanced down at the carved horse in my hand. It must have taken him hours to make, I thought. It wasn’t a gift to be given lightly. I remembered the way he had found Martha’s locket and put it on a chain for me, they way he found any excuse to chat whe
never I went to the stables, the way he looked at me…. I couldn’t pretend to myself any longer that Josh was just being friendly. But I couldn’t accept his gift.
“Why is everything so complicated?” I groaned. “I’ll have to go and talk to him and explain. If anyone asks for me, will you say I’ve gone to see the nurse with a headache?”
“Sure.”
I walked slowly across to the stable yard, hoping that Josh wouldn’t be there and yet cursing myself for my cowardice. I would tell him the truth, thank him for the gift, and explain calmly that I had a boyfriend, that was all. But it would be only a fraction of the truth, and I hated lying to him.
“You’re deep in thought.”
I looked up. Josh was there, right in front of me. He was leading a beautiful white mare across the yard and smiling his golden, welcoming smile.
“Oh…Josh…hi…I mean, that’s a lovely horse,” I said lamely.
“She’s really special. I’m taking very good care of her.”
“Who does she belong to?” I asked, glad to talk about anything that wasn’t Valentine’s Day.
“One of the staff. Miss Scratton.”
“Oh.” So Miss Scratton did ride after all. She probably got this horse sent to the school so she could follow and spy on us if we went out riding. I hoped she would break her neck.
Josh tethered the horse, giving it a drink from a bucket, then came over to me.
“Are you okay, Evie?”
“Yeah…of course.”
“It’s just that I have the feeling that you’ve been avoiding me lately, making excuses to cut your classes with me. Do you really dislike riding so much?” He stepped closer and added, “Or is it me that’s the problem?”
“No! I don’t want you to think that. I…I got your card, and the carving. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s beautiful, but—isn’t that what you’re gong to say? So what’s the ‘but’ in all this, Evie?”
“I’ve already got a boyfriend,” I muttered.