Stone of Thieves (Robbin' Hearts Series Book 2) (9 page)

The woman crouches down on her heels and feels the ground for a stick, then pokes the fire, releasing a shower of sparks into the night air that look like stars.

She rests her elbows on her knees, quietly staring at the fire as if searching its orange and yellow and crimson hues like a crystal ball. God as my witness, for a second I thought I saw an image of my own face in the flames, swallowed by a sudden burst of red heat. When the woman lifts her gaze to us again, she appears to stare beyond me to where the last bloody inch of sun is slipping behind the horizon.

“
Dili pisliskurja
, the woman mutters softly with a sigh. “Don’t you understand? Your mother is in your back pocket.”

She throws her stick into the fire and rises to her feet.

“Now it’s time to go to sleep.”

I toss and turn on the downy blankets that remind me of Granny Tinker’s old quilts, my eyes squinting at the rising sun.

Did that strange woman last night mean my “mother”—as in, my “ancestor”—is in my back pocket? The renowned Martiya? Or is she trying to tell me my mom’s dead, like all the rumors claim, and her soul departed into the stone, too?

Anxious, I wriggle the ruby heart from my jeans and hold it in my palm.

Creek showed me the ragged letter he’d stolen from the de Bargonas while we were on the trail yesterday. With my heart in my throat, I’d unfolded the damp, yellowed page from the envelope—it was simply addressed to the de Bargonas eighteen years ago and had Alessia’s name printed in the middle with these words:

Istituto Mentale: montagne
.

Mental Institution . . . mountains.

Even I could figure out that much in Italian.

The message seemed cryptic, as if the family didn’t want any more details about their daughter. And it was a long time ago. The “crazy nun of Venice” who used to see angels could have passed away, or killed herself, by now.

I glance at Creek lying beside me. We’re nestled on a bed of blankets that the gypsies gave us in the small woods beside their camp. It’s dawn and I can feel the dampness rising from the earth, collecting on my cheeks as dew. Last night, we slept beneath the stars, each one twinkling as bright as my hopes to find my mother. And I can’t help gazing into the star-like cracks at the center of this ruby in my hand, wondering if she’s somehow in there.

“Alessia,” I whisper low enough not to wake Creek, “are you here? Have you left your body—are you in the stone, too?”

But the ruby feels cold, as asleep as the rest of the camp. Sighing, I stare up at the sky and the seeping blue color that’s slowly becoming vibrant enough to wipe out the stars. The sky’s so vast and unbroken here that it practically gives me vertigo, as if I’ve fallen into a glass-like sea, and I hold onto fistfuls of grass to keep my bearings. I’ve never slept on the ground before—at Bender Lake, Creek and I always used his platform high in a tree. All around us are young people on blankets, messy-haired children and teens who’re less than twenty years old, I guess, and I wonder if that’s a gypsy custom for them to sleep outside. The rest of the camp are in old fashioned wagons or small trailers tucked up against the trees, hidden from dust and wind. There are no cars here—their sturdy piebald horses with legs as large as tree trunks appear to pull everything. I can hear the horses stomping and nickering already for breakfast. But so far, I’m the only soul who’s up.

Except for that strange gypsy woman.

I spy her from the corner of my eye, and it makes me jump.

Her back is to me, her raven hair delicately highlighted by the rising sun, and she’s picking tender shoots in a glen in the woods and placing them in a suede pouch. Each time she plucks one, she whispers
gestena
to it as if to say “thank you.”

Then she turns around to face me, as though she could feel my eyes on her back.

And smiles.

A light breeze brushes her wild hair from her face, revealing dark eyes as large as chips of coal. She pulls her coat tighter around herself, and for the first time I realize it has brass buttons that match the gold in her teeth. As the shy sun begins to warm her high cheekbones, strong nose, and full lips, I feel my breath catch.

Honest to God, she is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

Her features are smoothly carved—even regal—yet she seems so strong with her earthy, wide hips and straight back that funnel into a narrow waist. She reminds me of a bohemian Sophia Loren, the actress I saw in that dorky
Houseboat
movie with Cary Grant, one of the few films they let us watch at my old boarding school because it’s rated G.

But something in this woman’s eyes tells me she isn’t rated G at all . . .

She narrows her eyes, her gaze intense as black beads, and lifts her chin.

“Do you want to be a girl—or a woman?” she challenges me.

I have no idea what she’s talking about. But I glance back at Creek, still as a stone with scruffy bed hair on our faded blanket, and I feel unbearably naked near this woman. Something about her seems like she can see right through me. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m actually 18. And all of a sudden I remember—so is Creek! Today’s his birthday, and we’re both . . . adults . . . now.

“I already am a woman,” I reply defiantly, standing up and thrusting my fists into my pockets. Second guessing myself, I realize that must look childish, so I leave the ruby in my front pocket and fold my arms. “What’s it to you?”

She smiles, flashing gold teeth.

“Everything,” she calls back.

Her voice rings across a nearby field and I hear birds sing in reply. She swings her pouch from her hand, back and forth like a ticking clock, as if pondering my future, then waves me over to her.

“Now come with me.”

I forget to breathe.

This woman scares the daylights out of me. And I don’t know if she’s after the ruby in my pocket, or if she has darker intentions. How’d she know it was there? I blush, recalling it’s not like I hid the bulge or anything. Swiftly, I transfer the stone to my cleavage inside my bra while she’s not looking, where it feels icy against my skin. The woman is walking ahead of me deeper into the woods, taking long, swinging strides.

I feel an irresistible pull to follow her, even without Creek for protection, the same way Alice must have tumbled after that rabbit and down a hole to Wonderland. What does this woman want to show me? There’s something magnetic about her—as if she stands at the gateway between my horrible and lonely teenage years and what I hope for in adulthood. And despite any logic, I feel my feet stepping after her in a way that sends violin chords screeching through my brain.

What the hell are you doing?
Some rational part of me scolds.
This woman might want to kill you
for the ruby
. . .

But I can’t seem to get my brain to tell my feet that. My heart is racing, yet my soul is heading like a moth to a flame—her flame. And whether my brain wants to admit it or not, my soul suspects she might lead the way to Alessia.

With that thought, I feel the stone warm against my breast, pulsing to the rhythm of my strides. Cautiously, I follow this woman to a lush draw in the woods filled with green grass beside a stream.

“We flow, like this water,” the woman says without turning around. “That is our nature. The life of travelers.”

She stands facing the stream with her eyes closed, as if listening to it. A little girl from the camp skips up to her—with an almond complexion and bright ribbons dangling from her dreadlocks—and gives her a handful of herbs. The woman opens her eyes and smiles before the girl scampers off, swift as a breeze. Then she points to where the little girl had paused. She leans down and collects a fistful of green shoots and sniffs them before bringing them to her lips. One by one, she tastes each at the root, chewing slowly as if they were tobacco. She spits them out and nods, slipping the remaining herbs into her pouch.

“Tell me,” she says softly, “what shape will the
shon
—the moon—be tonight?”

I shake my head.

“How would I know?” I answer, glancing up at the glare from the sun higher now in the sky. “It’s broad daylight.”

“Sit down.”

I do so reluctantly, wondering how many demands this odd woman is going to make. The fact that she sits beside me makes me feel even more awkward. She crosses her legs, revealing weathered, lace-up boots, a lot like Granny Tinker’s.

“Feel with your hands.”

She begins swishing her fingers through the weeds.

I move my palms across the long stems that are moist with dew.

“What do you feel?”

“Um,” I mutter, wondering if this is some kind of test, “wet plants, I guess. Is there more?”

The woman’s broad hands pause over the grassy tips, and I thought I heard her mumble as if praying over them. Her lips rise with a hint of smile.

“The moon is full tonight. Like you.”

I don’t know why, but her words shoot tingles up my back.

She pets the stems lovingly, as if they’re her friends. “They swell and lean toward the moon at this time, when she’s round and bright. You are eighteen, no?”

The tingles are skittering in downright ripples across my skin now. I shift uncomfortably.

“H-How do you know that?” I ask, as spooked by this woman as I was when I first met Granny Tinker. Maybe more—

I feel her strong, warm hands move across my arm. Startled, I look down and see her fingers following the contours of my skin, gently kneading my flesh the way one tests a plump piece of fruit.

“I can feel your ripeness.” She takes a deep breath. “Smell your—how do they say it? Your readiness.”

Those gold teeth flash again with a smile. She turns her face up to the sun.

“It is time for you to show me that you can be the next
Thagarni
. Gypsy Queen.”

My heart is racing out of control. And I fear at any minute it might burst through my chest like a runaway train.

“W-Wait a minute,” I defend. “I don’t want to be anyone’s Gypsy Queen—”

The woman laughs.

“What makes you think you have a choice,
shebari?
”

“Who are you? What’s your name?” I demand, standing up and glaring at her. I’m sick to death of wasting time and she’s getting downright creepy. “Tell me what happened to Alessia—”

A blue bird flutters in front of my face, scaring me out of my wits.

I take a step back, hoping to make my heart rate slow down, only to see it land on the woman’s arm. She and the bird are so calm in this odd moment that I half-suspect she has this animal trained. My thoughts are confirmed when I see her sneak it a bread crumb from her riding coat pocket. Strangely enough, she never looks at the bird, which I’m sure now is a kind of falcon. Nevertheless, it chortles at her and she nods, making soft sounds deep in her throat as though they share a secret language.

“If you don’t lead yourself,” the woman says in a peculiar tone, almost as if taking dictation from the bird, “someone else will. And you will not like the path they choose for you.” She lifts her arm and lets the bird take to the air. “It’s time to be a woman,” she says like a warning.

We watch the bird spiral into the sky.

“Now, show me how you will make your own path.”

Path to what? I wonder. The next gypsy camp, or maybe to find my mom?

“Only if you tell me your name,” I insist. I’m totally done with this woman’s puzzling games. Trade for a trade—I’m not my father’s daughter for nothing. And if she wants me to take a fricking walk with her to find herbs or whatever and pretend I’m her long lost Gypsy Queen before telling me my mother’s whereabouts, so be it. I’m as fine an actress as they come. But she’d better deliver.

The woman points to the bird over the horizon, its wings gently riding on the growing thermals of the brightening sun. It disappears into the boughs of a tall tree across a field.

“That’s who I am,” she replies, waving at the sky and then the earth. “My name is Zuhna. Like my friend the
falco cuculo
—I am wherever my feet land.”

She stands up in front of me, but her dark eyes are still lifted to the sky, which I find peculiar. Before I can blink, she wraps a yellow paisley scarf over my eyes and ties it tight—

Holy shit!

I’m blindfolded. I whip to my feet, punching at the air, and attempt to rip off the scarf, but her strong arms are already wrapped around me like a bear. Wriggling fiercely, I can’t get loose, and just when I’m about to scream Creek’s name, Zuhna nearly suffocates me with her thick-skinned palm. Her seal is so strong I can’t open my lips to bite her.

Seriously? I’m going to meet my death wrestling a creepy gypsy chick?

I kick back at her but she doesn’t budge. Doesn’t yelp. She only chuckles at me.

“Oh
draga
, I’ve been kicked by wilder horses than you.” She lets out a throaty laugh. “You will not get away until you follow your senses.”

“My what?” I mutter, voice muffled by her fingers. At this point I’m wondering if she’s got some weird fairy tale idea of preparing me for dinner.

“You want to find your mother?” she hisses, clasping me tighter.

I feel all my breath deflate from my body.

Of course that’s what I want, bitch!

Tears are threatening my eyes, but I grit my teeth, ready to deck this chick the second her grip slacks.

I feel her press her suede pouch into my hand.

“Then keep this
putsi
and follow your star. Use your senses.”

“Like what,” I mutter, “touch, taste, smell?” My words are still garbled by her palm.

She’s so close I can feel her breath against my temple. When she nestles her cheek against the back of my hair, I jump. Quite frankly, I’d love to start running by now if only I could figure out how—

“Take a deep breath,” she insists, her voice low and grave.

“Then you’ll tell me where my mother is?”

“No. You’ll tell
yourself
where your mother is.”

Her words spread a shiver through my body.

I shake my head to brush it off. For crying out loud, what’s next—duck-duck-goose? It’s got to be only six in the morning and this woman already has me exhausted.