Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
After Logan’s groundbreaking admission, he’d immediately clammed up, refusing to explain further.
Haven didn’t care so much about what he refused to say, it was that he didn’t want to share what so obviously needed to be said.
Something was buried there, deep, and it strangled him like the spreading roots of a long-neglected oak.
He’d effectively concluded their conversation with a sharp look, and a growled, “No more,” and then spurred his horse into action. She clumsily followed, hoping the Romany camp wasn’t much farther.
After another forty-five minutes of painful, loaded silence, she heard the sounds of a camp in the distance. People working, laughing, shouts, and murmurings of conversations.
Scared and a little excited, she turned to glance at Logan. As she’d expected, the vulnerable, open, passionate man disappeared and had been replaced by the guarded, withdrawn, stoic duke.
She liked the man better, but the duke looked just as good.
“The camp is through this line of trees. There’s a clearing there beside a stream where they’ve set up their wagons and tents.
” Bringing his horse to a stop outside the tree line, he jumped from its back, and came around to help her down.
“We have to walk from here. There’s not enough clearance beneath the trees for us to ride through safely. I’ll lead the horses.”
“Is the whole camp surrounded by the forest?” Excitement tinged with anxiety fluttered through her stomach.
“No. On the further side, the side nearest the southern pasture, there is a wide opening.”
“Ah.”
The horses trailing behind them, they ducked and maneuvered through the leaves, fallen branches, and roots along the forest floor, and she wondered what the camp would be like.
Would it look like the Romany camps in the movies?
Would there be fortunetellers, and dark-haired women in scarves and big, looping earrings?
Would there be bare-chested men in leather vests participating in rousing knife fights?
Snuffing out a giggle before it could escape, she rolled her eyes.
Of course, it wouldn’t look a thing like it did in the movies.
The dense trees began to thin, and she saw the backsides of several wooden wagons topped with dark canvas. They reached the wagons, and she knew a twinge of disappointment.
There weren’t brawny, shirtless men slicing at one another, or vibrantly dressed women with crystal balls in their clutches.
It was just a camp. Men and women went about their business, preparing meals, smoking pipes as they chatted, children chasing one another in and out and around the wagons, fires burning beneath boiling pots, and clothes hanging from lines crisscrossing between the canopied wagons.
“Wow.”
Logan didn’t acknowledge her outburst.
He led her out into a clearing, and a slender, balding man with a long curling mustache approached. Halting to greet the man, Logan gave her a quick warning glance.
Shifting from foot to foot, she watched as the balding man looked at Logan, then looked at her, then looked back to Logan.
“You were expected.” He had a thick accent.
Lifting a curious brow, Logan asked, “I didn’t send word. Who is expecting us?”
“Esmae.” One name.
Logan tensed, and the look of surprise slipped from his face.
It was replaced by uneasiness.
That didn’t bode well.
Who was Esmae, and why did she make Logan so tense?
“Lead on then.” He made to follow, but the slender man held out his hand.
“No. Only the woman will see Esmae.”
Logan’s face darkened. “Not without me she’s not.”
Crossing his arms over his tiny chest, the man snapped, “Then you both leave now.”
Alarm raced through her blood. No, she couldn’t leave now, not without talking to this Esmae, this Roma woman who could apparently sense their arrival.
“No, Logan, please. Let me go.” Desperation fueled her fear.
“Haven, I can’t let—”
“Let? You can’t let me do what?” She glared at him. “I came here to get answers. There is someone here who can give them to me, and if it means you have to stay behind, then that’s what’s got to happen.”
He growled, and looked like he wanted to snatch her up and drag her to the nearest cave. “Fine, but if you need me, scream. I’ll be right there.” Slanting the skinny man a scalding look, he turned, and walked to the stream, leading the horses behind him.
Pouting a little at Logan’s attitude, but crowing at his protectiveness, she trailed after the man with the big bravado and little hands.
The man stopped beside an outcropping of rocks further down the stream from where Logan brooded, and she blinked in surprise.
Esmae had a withered, leathery face, and was crowned with wisps of gray hair. Her bright, deep-brown eyes glared out over the end of her cigar. She slowly rose to her feet, but Haven didn’t know whether to run forward and steady her, or give the old lady a salute.
Before Haven could regain her composure, the old woman spoke. “What do you want?”
Startled by her gruff, commanding tone, Haven stuttered, “Uh...I…uh...I need to know about someone named Ahmi.” There, she’d said it.
Esmae said nothing, so Haven wondered if the woman understood her, though she had first spoken English. “Ahmi. I’m looking for someone named Ahmi.”
“I hear you first time.” Esmae said, mumbling something resembling a curse word in Romany.
Unsure of what to say next, she stood there, out of her element, exposed—and not in the way that would make her money.
“Come, sit.” The old woman sat, and Haven jumped to do as bid. What else could she do?
Esmae took a long drag of her fragrant cigar, and exhaled a cloud of thick smoke, filling the air with a gray screen that dampened the sounds of camp life outside the small circle where they sat.
The chirping birds, laughing children, the banging and clanging of meal preparations, men and woman talking were all muffled.
It was like a single puff of smoke had conjured some kind of soundproof forcefield around them.
Haven gaped, disbelieving what she was seeing with her own eyes.
What kind of magic was this?
Taking another drag of her cigar, the old woman blew another large puff.
When a dense mantle of fumes surrounded them, Esmae turned to her, her deep gravelly voice an explosion of sound in their otherworldly cone of silence.
“You not from here.” A statement of fact, not a question.
“No.” A simple, unnecessary answer. Intent on steering the conversation in a direction of her choosing, she began, “I told you I wanted to know more about someone named Ahmi, but I didn’t tell you why—”
“You have watch.”
Haven’s breath caught, the warmth draining from her face. “How did you know?”
Esmae smiled, her penetrating gaze doing a number on Haven’s nerves. “Esmae know many things.”
Already tired of the song and dance, Haven rolled her eyes.
“That’s great, really it is, but I want a straight answer.” She faced the older woman, unblinking. “If you know what’s going on, please tell me.” Sighing heavily, she fought back the tears of frustration.
Seemingly unaffected by Haven’s outburst and less-than-respectful tone, Esmae took another pull on her cigar, tilted her head back, and expelled into the sky.
“Perez Cantana.” The name was unfamiliar, but somehow it rang ominously.
“A story some think paramitsha, myth, but Esmae know truth. Perez Cantana was prince among tribes. He beautiful man, charming. What he want, he got. He want many women. Some of them monashay...er…married. He charm with sweet words.”
Ripples of dread moved through her veins.
This story would not end well.
“One day, his sweet words turn sour. He take heart of Aramina, a maiden of much beauty. Aramina was spoiled, she got all she want, she want Perez. He vow love, she gave her body. She a silly chavi to believe his words. Later, he go to bed of other woman. Aramina find. Hate fill soul. She turn dark, ugly. She stole a book, a book of spirits, gods, old and full of much power. A book no Roma ever touch. Witch.”
This all seemed familiar. A beautiful young woman in a fire-lit cavern, casting a spell.
A swell of fear pressed against her heart.
Memories of a gorgeous man screaming in agony, his naked body convulsing. Searing pain, swimming through a deep, roiling ocean, and then black. Echoing black.
Esmae crushed the smoldering tip of her cigar against the rock. Some of the ashes turned to gray dust against the granite surface, but some flitted into the oppressive air of their tiny smoke cocoon, dancing, rising and falling in a waltz so captivating she nearly missed what Esmae said next.
“Aramina enchant Perez. Amria. She chain his spirit to watch.”
Her watch? Was it the same one from her dream?
“She chain him forever slave to three goddesses. The Sister Goddesses. Tres Deae.”
Haven jerked her head back. “Wait, are you for real? She enchanted him, forced him to live inside a watch, and serve three goddesses? Are you kidding? What does this have to do with me?”
I dreamed about this. Holy shit!
Esmae quirked an eyebrow, her glare focused on Haven’s face, studying her. She didn’t answer.
Haven repeated the question. “What does his enslavement to three goddesses have to do with me?”
“You ask him.” The old lady shrugged, dismissing her with a flick of her finger.
She was floored. “You expect me to talk to the watch?”
The older woman laughed. “No. Watch no talk. You talk to Perez. He hear you. He talk.”
The old woman smiled as she lifted her age spotted hands.
With a single wave, the smoke surrounding them dissipated.
After a few seconds, the busy camp reappeared, the people appeared oblivious to the fact that she and Esmae had been enveloped in an anomalous smoke cloud in their midst. The noises, the smells, and the sunlight all returned, and she was relieved, if a bit bewildered.
Somehow the smoke made them invisible; she couldn’t see outside the smoke screen, and assumed no one could see inside, either.
No one looked in their direction, or even blinked when the smoke cleared.
Carcinogenic camouflage.
She ran her fingers through her hair, knocking a few pins loose.
What does Perez’s supposed enchantment have to do with me? Damn it! Still too many questions.
She couldn’t explain it, but a sense of urgency surged within her.
Before she could make a move to find Logan and tell him what she’d learned, four beautiful Roma maidens appeared.
They smiled and chatted excitedly, and though she couldn’t understand a word, she caught the gist that they wanted to take her somewhere.
Unable to pull away from their eager grasps without being rude, she decided to go along with what they had planned.
Hell, how often did she get to spend time in the company of authentic Roma?
Smiling and nodding in response to their enthusiastic chatter and hand motions, she followed them into a tent.