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“Here now, Mr. Miller. Unhand her at once,” Mrs. Nightwing commands.
“You won’t be so quick to say that, m’um, when you hear what she done. She’s the one wot painted the hex marks. And who knows what else besides.”
Mother Elena’s face is gaunt. Her dress has grown bigger on her. “I try to protect us!”
The Gypsies stream over the lawn from the camp, drawn by the clamor. Kartik hurries behind, pulling up his suspenders, his shirt half undone, and warmth pools in my stomach.
One of the Gypsy women steps forward. “She is not well.”
Mr. Miller doesn’t let go of Mother Elena’s arm. “No one’s goin’ anywhere till them Gyps tell me where to find Tambley and Johnny.”
“We did not take them.” Ithal marches down the lawn, pushing up his sleeves as if he would fight. He takes hold of Mother Elena’s other arm.
Mr. Miller tugs hard on the old woman, making her stumble. “What sort of people travel round all the time?” he shouts. “People what can’t be trusted, that’s who! No better than jungle savages! I’ll ask you again: Where’s my men?”
“That is quite enough!” Mrs. Nightwing bellows at full headmistress volume, and the field goes silent. “Mr. Miller, Mother Elena is not well, and it would be best to allow her people to care for her. When she is well enough to travel, I will expect to see no more of her.” She faces Ithal. “The Gypsies will no longer be welcome on our land. As for you, Mr. Miller, you’ve work to tend to, haven’t you?”
“I’ll ’ave my men ’fore you leave,” Mr. Miller grumbles to Ithal. “Or I’ll ’ave one of yours for it.”
Later in the day, Mrs. Nightwing relents and has us help Brigid prepare a basket of food and medicine for Mother Elena as an act of charity.
“Mother Elena has been here as long as I have,” our headmistress says, packing a jar of plum preserves neatly into the basket. “I remember when Ithal was a boy. I hate to think of them gone.”
Brigid pats Nightwing’s shoulder and she stiffens under the sympathy. “Still, it won’t do to forgive the vandalism.”
“Poor old madwoman,” Brigid says. “She looks worn as my handkerchief.”
Regret shows itself briefly on our headmistress’s face. She tucks in an extra tin of lozenges. “There now. Will someone volunteer to take this to—”
“I will!” I blurt out, and loop my arm through the basket before anyone else can take it.
The sky threatens rain. Clouds gather in angry clumps, ready to unleash their fury. I hurry through the woods to the Gypsy camp, holding tightly to the basket. The Gypsy women are not happy to see me. They fold their arms and eye me suspiciously.
“I’ve come with food and medicine for Mother Elena,” I explain.
“We do not want your food,” an older woman with gold coins woven into her long braid says. “It is marime—unclean.”
“I only want to help,” I say.
Kartik speaks to the women in Romani. The conversation is heated—I hear the word gadje used bitterly—and occasionally, they glance back at me, scowls on their faces. But at last, the woman with the long braid agrees to let me see Mother Elena, and I scurry off to Mother Elena’s wagon and pull the bell attached to a nail.
“Come,” she calls in a weak voice.
The wagon smells of garlic. Several heads of it sit on a table by a mortar and pestle. The wagon’s sides are lined with shelves housing various tinctures and herbs in glass jars. Small metal charms live there as well, and I’m surprised to see a small statue of Kali tucked between two bottles, though I have heard that the Gypsies came from India long, long ago. I run my fingers over the figure—the four arms, the long tongue, the demon’s head in one hand, and the bloody sword in another.
“What do you look at?” Mother Elena calls. I see her face through a large bottle, her features distorted by the glass.
“You have a talisman of Kali,” I answer.
“The Terrible Mother.”
“The goddess of destruction.”
“The destruction of ignorance,” Mother Elena says, correcting me. “She is the one to help us walk through the fire of knowledge, to know our darkness that we should not fear it but should be freed, for there is both chaos and order within us. Come where I can see you.”
She sits in her bed, shuffling a deck of worn tarot cards absently. Her breathing is heavy. “Why have you come?”
“I’ve brought food and medicine from Mrs. Nightwing. But they tell me you will not eat it.”
