No.

  “Now you are close to your life, to what you were,” Mulengro explained. “But soon the memories will grow dim. You will shed them as a tree does its leaves. You will forget life and know only what I will teach you.”

  Never. NEVER!

  The old woman’s muli drifted apart and fled to the sound of the stranger’s laughter. Ola watched until the muli had completely dissolved, then realized that the man in black was looking in her direction.

  “Stan. Did you hear—”

  “Shut up, Bob.” Stan stared stupidly at the tomcat, a finger of fear clawing up his spine. Animals just didn’t talk. It had to be a trick. Little Jeffy’s black pussy was tryin’ to pull one over on them, but it wasn’t gonna work.

  “Come on, boys,” Boboko said, taking his words from the dozens of late-night western and detective movies he’d watched. “One at a time, or all together.” The last words ended in a hissing spit.

  “The bitch,” Stan said. “Where the fuck’s the stupid bitch? She’s doin’ this!”

  While Bob held the cat at bay, he shot a quick glance at the bedroom. Empty. At least it looked empty. It was hard to tell with only the light of the TV to go by. The stupid movie was still playing on it—some kind of horror flick. Shitty reception. He looked back at the cat, then at his brother. He started to move towards the porch and Boboko leapt for him. Bob flung the book, catching the cat on the side of the head with a glancing blow.

  “In here!” Stan cried, running for the porch.

  Book and cat landed hard against the floor as Bob ran to join his brother. He looked back into the living room to see the cat trying to stand on wobbly legs. It was shaking its head.

  “Bingo!” Stan said. “B-I-N-G-fuckin’-O!”

  He crossed the porch in a few quick strides and dragged Ola up from the sofa by the front of her dress. Her head hung slack.

  “I don’t know what you’ve got that cat on, little lady, but you just better call it off. You hear me?” He punctuated the question with a rough shake. “What’s the fucker doin’ out there, brother Bob?”

  “It’s tryin’ to stand. Stan, it was talkin’. . . .”

  Stan shook his head. “No way. The little lady here’s just like one of those ventro guys—the kind that can throw their voice around, you know? Go finish off that cat, Bob.”

  “I don’t know.” Bob looked at the cat. It still appeared to be stunned. “Little fucker’s got me spooked. . . .”

  Stan gripped Ola’s throat with his free hand, then sat down on the couch, pulling her upper torso across his knees. Taking a firmer grip of the material at her bodice, he ripped it down.

  “Cunt’s not gonna throw her voice, Bob. Just kill the cat, would ya? Have I gotta do everything?”

  There was only starlight coming through the windows, but Bob’s eyes had adjusted to the dark enough for him to make out the brown curves of Ola’s breasts.

  “Just you wait for me, Stan,” he said as he turned back to the living room.

  Mulengro knew she was here. He could see her spirit by the porch as surely as her dook let her see beyond the veils of the here and now. Ola pulled back into the shadows, uncertain. Should she flee or hide? If she fled, would he be able to follow the trail of her spirit back to Rideau Ferry? She took a half step back, deeper into the shadows, but something gripped her by the throat. She was choking. Mulengro? Did he—No! Something had attacked her body.

  She fled back to where she’d left her sleeping body. On the porch, the stranger watched the shadows where she had been hiding for a long moment, then shrugged and returned to the street, where he retraced his steps until the corner of a building at the far end of the block hid him from sight.

  Bob stepped into the living room and looked for something he could kill the cat with. He didn’t want cat guts all over his boots, nossir. He kept a wary eye on the animal as he edged towards the fireplace and grabbed a hefty piece of firewood.

  “Okay, you little fucker,” he said, holding the makeshift club between himself and the cat. “Here’s where you get yours. Got any last words?” He chuckled to himself, glad that Stan had explained how it had seemed that the cat could’ve talked. He’d been spooked bad there for a minute and was looking forward to giving the little creep the old one-two for doing that to him. He’d splatter its brains all over that nice carpet and—

  Just then the television went off and the room plunged into darkness.

  Ola returned to her body to feel the weight of a hairy arm across her stomach, fingers at her breast, a hand at her throat, choking her. . . . She could feel the man’s grin as she went stiff in his arms.

  “Say-hey ‘bout time you woke up, honey. Jeffy-boy couldn’t show, you see, so we thought we’d do the neighborly thing and poke you for him.”

  Ola blinked, stilling the fear that went through her like a January wind, biting and lean. The man’s breath was strong in her face, reeking of alcohol. His arms were like thick cables—all corded muscle. Panic reared in her until a sudden unfamiliar rage gripped her for the second time that night. But this time she wasn’t helpless as she’d been when she’d had to watch the old woman being murdered. This was her home. Here she knew the names—and they didn’t need to be spoken aloud.

  From the same stack of firewood by the hearth that Bob had fetched his club, a two-foot length of hardwood rose and came whistling through the air. Before Stan was even aware that something was wrong, it struck him in the side of the head, dislocating his jaw and making a pulp of the bones and cartilage where it hit. He made a sound halfway between a howl and a gurgle and let go of her. The wood rose again and smashed into his face with enough force to drive straight through the front part of his skull and into his brain. A shower of wetness splattered over Ola as she lunged to her feet. Stan’s body flopped onto its side, then rolled off the sofa to land on the floor with a soft wet thump. A moment later the log was dislodged and clumped onto the floor beside him.

  Ola stared at the body, breathing heavily. She could see as well in the dark as she could by day. What she saw made her stomach churn with an acidic rawness. There was no sense of victory in her—only outrage that she had been forced to do what she had done. She hadn’t even thought about it—-just struck out blindly. It had all happened so quickly. Seeing the old woman die, her own helplessness in wanting to stop Mulengro, finding her body in the grip of this Gaje pig. . . . Who was he? What in God’s name was he doing here? He’d said something about Jeff—

  A sound in the doorway leading to the living room made her turn. A second man, as big as the one she’d just killed, stood there, blinking, trying to see.

  “Stan?” he said. “Stan, what’s goin’ on in there?”

  So. The dead man had a name. And he wasn’t alone.

  Ola called up a name and the lights came on at her command, catching the second man by surprise and momentarily blinding him. Ola’s pupils were already contracted in anticipation of the sudden glare. She regarded the stranger, anger swelling in her again.

  “Oh, Jesusfuck,” Bob mumbled, horror-struck by the ruin of his brother’s head. His shocked gaze shifted to the woman. Any desire that had woken in him at the sight of the bared breasts died. She was wild-eyed, splattered with blood and brain-matter, the tatters of her bodice hanging at her waist like a gruesome parody of an apron. She . . . He blinked again as the truth hit home. Stan was dead. The whore had killed him. Stan was dead! The makeshift club lifted in his fist and he lunged for her.

  Ola’s thoughts gripped the log and spun it from his hands. The rug moved under him, spilling him to the floor. The log hovered above him, ready to strike, but then Ola shook her head, forcing the anger down. She wouldn’t allow it to make her kill a second man— monster though he was. The air in the porch gathered at her command, lifting the man to his feet and propelling him back into the living room. His eyes rolled in his head, stark fear etched in every line of his face. His bowels went weak and his jeans filled with excrement. Ola followed him into the living room, eyes burning. The air held him like a fist and threw him out the front door of the cottage, across the lawn. Twigs and stones lifted from the ground, pelting him, forcing him to keep to his feet. He stumbled to the street, tears streaming down his face, excrement seeping wetly down the legs of his jeans, arms lifted to protect his head from the storm of debris. He clawed his way up the steep embankment that led to the highway and lurched along the side of the road, sobbing.

  The pelting stones and debris thinned out as he was crossing the bridge, dying fully by the time he turned off the highway and staggered up to the parked pickup. He collapsed beside the vehicle, shoving his face against its metal door, the blood thundering in his veins. His body heaved with great wracking sobs. The utter panic that had filled him was a long time in dying. What had happened tonight was his worst nightmare become real. Stan was dead and he was alone. And that whore . . . that stupid fucking black whore . . . she was going to pay for it.

  Slowly he got to his feet, still sniffling. His jeans were soiled clear down to his boots and he reeked. He looked back towards the Ferry, numbly trying to understand what had happened—how it could have happened. How could Stan be dead? How could everything just . . . come alive like it had? And that, whore . . . He didn’t know how she’d done whatever it was that she’d done, but he was goin’ to make her pay for it, yessir. He’d make her pay in spades—like the spade she was. He didn’t know how, but he was goin’ to hurt her until she begged him to kill her.

  He rubbed a meaty fist against his eyes. Wouldn’t bring Stan back, though. Goddamn her! Nothing was goin’ to bring him back! The tears erupted again as he climbed into the cab of the pickup.

  Ola stood in the doorway of the cottage, leaning weakly against the doorjamb. The adrenaline rush was fading but the blood still roared in her ears. She followed the man’s progress up the road, read his fear and his hate. . . . The hate. It was like a dead black coal lodged in his chest, slowly being fanned to life. Wearily she turned back inside. She couldn’t stay here anymore. The man would be back once he regained his courage. And there was the body on the porch. There would be police, questions. . . . She trembled, sick with what she had been forced to do. No, that wasn’t true. She hadn’t been forced to kill him. It had been a combination of frustration and sheer unadulterated panic at returning to her body and finding this Stan abusing her that had brought on the killing frenzy.

  Her gaze fell on Boboko. His head lifted weakly from the floor. He was no longer trying to stand. She moved quickly to his side, stroking him with one hand while she gently probed his injuries with the other.

  “Can’t . . . can’t seem to get up. . . .” he mumbled in a low hurt voice.

  “There, love, there. It’s over now. Lie still a moment.”

  There was so much to do. Would the man who had escaped go directly to the police? How much time did she have before they arrived? Or would he be too afraid? After all, they had assaulted her. But she couldn’t stay. She frowned, trying to think, but the presence of the corpse in the other room intruded too much on her thoughts for her to think anything clearly through.

  At last she lifted Boboko in her arms and rocked with him on her lap, her fingers trailing through his fur where he’d been hurt. She sang softly, making a song of his secret name, his true name, and concentrated on healing the wounded tissue, knitting the fractured bones. His name was like a blueprint as to what he should be when he was healthy and unhurt. By singing it and pouring her own energy into him, it allowed her dook to repair the damage that had been done to him. When she was finally satisfied that she’d done all that she could, she laid him on the carpet once more and let him sleep. He would awake healed.

  She rose tiredly to her feet. She was expending too much of herself, too rapidly, but she knew there was still work to do. The corpse. . . . Steeling herself, she went into the porch and stared at it for a long moment. She didn’t want to touch it, but forced herself to work his wallet free of his back pocket. Flipping it open, she found his name on his driver’s license. Stan Gourlay. In case of emergency, one was to call Bob Gourlay. Well, this was an emergency, Ola thought, but she decided that Bob Gourlay already knew about it. He must have been the one that fled. And now that she thought of it, she could remember Jeff telling her about these men. They were troublemakers and not well liked. And now one of them was dead. . . .

  She shook her head, irritated at the way her thoughts were going. First she had to get rid of the body. Knitting her brows, she awoke the carpet to movement. It wrapped around the body and lifted slowly into the air. Perspiration beaded on her forehead as she concentrated. Catching up a bathrobe, she followed the tubular bundle out into the night.

  They crossed the yard and the dirt road leading to the highway. At the highway, she took to the ditch, still following the rolled carpet and its gruesome load. The veins stood out at her temples and she was perspiring freely by the time she reached the fields beyond the last houses. This was an area she knew well, having walked it summer and winter since she’d first arrived. The trees and other vegetation were almost friends; the earth knew the feel of her weight, the sound of her voice. Allowing the carpet to settle on the ground, she leaned against a tall elm, fighting back the pain in her head. After a few precious minutes of rest, she stood straighter and fixed her attention on the ground by her feet.

  For a long moment, nothing happened. Then with a sound almost like a groan, a section of earth three feet deep rose slowly in the air. Small clumps of dirt fell from its edges and she murmured apologies to the hundreds of tiny roots that had been severed by her need. When there was enough room, she physically pushed the rolled carpet into the hole. She tossed the wallet in after, then quickly stripping off her dress, stuffed it in on top of the carpet. With a gasp of relief, she let the earth settle down once more. At first there was a gravelike mound, but as she exerted pressure, she heard the dim sound of the corpse’s ribcage collapsing and the ground settled until all that remained was a slight rise. Stupid with weariness, she collapsed to her knees and pressed her face against the dirt.

  She knew there was more she should do than simply cover the corpse with dirt. But she was too spent to reach out and see if her victim’s mulo had flown free of its dead shell. She wasn’t even sure what shape a Gaje’s mulo would take—if she would even recognize it. Among her own people, when a Rom died, some part of the dead one’s spirit remained behind. Usually it took a few days for the mulo to forget what it meant to be alive and find its way to the land of shadows. But when a Rom died violently, the mulo couldn’t accept that it was dead, or sometimes the mulo was simply too strong and refused to release its grip on life, becoming more potent rather than fading.

  As a drabarni, Ola was able to see these spirits and was responsible for keeping her tribe—if she had had one—away from areas haunted by such a spirit. At the same time, she was obliged to do what she could to send the creature along its way to the land of shadows. She must convince it that it was, indeed, dead. Sometimes, the mulo required forgiveness for wrongs it had done when it was living. Most Gaje refused to believe in mule and Ola wasn’t sure how they dealt with the spirits of their dead. But she knew one thing. She lifted her head and stared at the low rise of earth that hid the corpse.

  “I cannot forgive you,” she said. “You are dead. Go to your God, if you have one. But I cannot forgive you.”

  She continued to study the grave, but could sense nothing stirring at her words. She knew from experience that the Rom and Gaje had very different spirits. There was a presence in the soul of a Rom that called out to her as never a Gaje spirit would. Were their mule different as well, then? She had met gifted non-Gypsies who were born with the sight, as well as others who acquired it through a traumatic experience or even by sustaining a head injury , but the natural reticence of a Rom kept her from comparing notes with them. Gypsies kept their secrets as precisely as Gaje did their possessions. Yet whatever sight Gaje had, it was not like a Romany dook.

  So she studied the grave, but she was too weary to concentrate properly. There was little enough that she knew about Gaje mule and there was still so much—too much—to do. She didn’t feel she had the strength left in her to go, but she knew she must. Her body glistened with perspiration as she stood, and she was too tired to brush away the swarming mosquitos that buzzed around her in droves. It was all she could do to stay conscious, but at length she tugged on the bathrobe she’d brought with her and stumbled back to the cottage.

  The return journey seemed endless. The monotony of it was only broken once when a late-night driver sped by on the highway and she was forced to crouch low in the ditch, hiding her face so that the whites of her eyes wouldn’t catch in the headbeams. She rose to her feet after the scare with only the greatest effort. There was still. . . so much . . . to do. . . .

  It was almost first light by the time she’d finished scrubbing the cottage clean and had bathed. She sat outside when she was done, a large backpack beside her. Her beaded braids were gone, replaced by a ponytail that pulled the hair tightly back from her face and gave her a somewhat Latin look. Jeans, a sweatshirt and a pair of sturdy walking shoes added to the illusion. Kerio Rouge—the half French, half Gabonese writer—was no more.

  She stared dully up at the lightening sky and knew she should be on her way, but wasn’t sure where that way would lead her. It was frightening just to think of leaving the cottage. It had been a refuge, become safer with every month she stayed. Her control of the environment had grown steadily—as witness how she’d dealt with the intruders last night. Once she left the cottage behind, her dook would only charm what she brought with her. Had she been in a strange place when the attack came last night, she would probably not have survived.

  She turned slightly as Boboko stepped gingerly from the cottage. He came to where she sat and settled on her lap. The dawn chorus was beginning and they listened to it in silence, smelling the pungent thyme that grew in amongst the flowers beside the house.

 

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