They made camp that evening in a lush valley nestled between the foothills.
Heloise retrieved her journal and sat herself down on a rock near her caravan. She wanted to record as many ideas and impressions as possible for when she was back in dull, rainy England.
A rustle behind her made her turn. A boy, no older than eight or nine, was hiding in the shadows, watching her with huge liquid eyes. He lingered at the very edge of the circle of light, and when she glanced at him he froze like a frightened animal. When she smiled and beckoned he sidled closer but kept his distance, staying well out of arm’s reach.
The child was thin, a cadaverous Anubis puppy with dark hair and golden skin and black, haunted eyes that looked as if they’d seen far too much.
Heloise bent back over her writing and pretended to ignore him. He sneaked closer. She tapped the pen against her lips as if struggling to think of a phrase. He edged forward and slid onto the rock next to her. He peered over her arm at her book, intrigued. She repressed a smile.
“What is your name?” She kept her voice low, soothing, so as not to scare him off.
He didn’t answer.
She glanced over at him and tapped her chest. “Heloise.” She pointed at him and raised her brows. Nothing. Just big eyes as he stared at her, uncomprehending. “No?” she tilted her head. “Can you read?”
No answer.
“Can you understand me? Speak English?” Heloise sighed. “No, probably not,” she muttered to herself. “And I don’t speak much Spanish. Bother.”
She couldn’t even remember how to ask for an aquatint of the harbor or tell him her dentures were broken. At least those phrases might have coaxed a bemused smile.
The boy shook his head, which sent his inky black curls tumbling around his little face. Maybe he was a mute? Heloise turned to a clean page in her journal and wrote out her name, then pointed to it. “Heloise. That’s me. See?”
She gestured at his chest again. “You?”
Nothing. She sighed. How to entertain him? He looked so serious, watching her as if she were some kind of oddity, like an exotic animal in a zoo. She’d received similar uncomprehending looks when talking about etymology to her suitors. “All right. How about this, then?”
She tried to recall the parlor games she’d played with her brothers and remembered the silhouette shows they’d performed for their parents. Turning to the side, she used her hands to make the shadow outline of a bird’s head upon the side of the caravan, lit by the distant fire.
She made a dove, waggling her fingers to make it flap its wings. The boy’s eyes widened with delight. She smiled at him.
“You like that, do you? How about a swan?” She elongated one arm to make the neck and made bobbing motions with her hand for the head.
He smiled wider.
“What else? Um, I can make a stag.” She did so, splaying the fingers of one hand for the antlers. “Oh, and a wolf. AUOOOO!” She howled softly.
To her delight the boy nodded enthusiastically.
She racked her brains, determined to keep up the entertainment, some instinct telling her that this boy hadn’t smiled in a long time.
“How about a rabbit?” Two upraised fingers created the animal’s ears. She made it hop.
When the boy laughed, the ancient look fell from his face and she smiled at him, perfectly in charity. To her surprise he reached out toward her with his hand, then pulled back partway, watching her apprehensively as if he expected her to scold him. He tilted his head to one side in silent question and when she didn’t refuse, he reached out and traced his finger over her scar. He had the gentlest touch, and Heloise swallowed a lump in her throat at the look of sympathy and understanding on his face.
He dropped his hand to his skinny chest and tapped it, moistened his lips, and whispered. “Rafa. Rafael.”
His voice was a low croak. She smiled. “That’s your name? Rafael?”
He nodded shyly. “Sí.”
“Like the angel,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the sky.
He shook his head earnestly, clearly having understood the word. He took a strand of her hair between his fingers. “No. Usted es el ángel.”
His little face was so solemn, his voice so low and rough that she had to dip her head to hear it. She nodded but glanced up when she heard a sharp intake of breath.
A woman made the sign of the cross on her chest and stared in astonishment at the child as if she’d seen a ghost. “Qué dice?” she said and gasped.
Heloise realized she was asking what the boy had said. She frowned and glanced behind her, but the boy had already slunk back into the shadows.
The woman’s urgency was alarming and Heloise’s stomach dropped at the thought that she might have inadvertently done something to offend. Had she crossed some invisible social boundary by talking to the boy?
“Ah, something about angels, I think. And his name. That’s all.”
The woman caught her arm. “Madre de Dios! He speak? Verdad?”
“Well, yes,” Heloise said, confused.
“God be praised, señorita!”
The woman dragged her forward to the fire and erupted into a stream of Spanish too fast for her to follow.
“I’m not sure I’ve done anything, really…” Heloise stammered. “I just—”
Raven stepped up to translate the sudden babble that had arisen. “The boy is a distant cousin of Alejandro. He hasn’t said a word since he witnessed the massacre of his parents and entire village two years ago.”
Heloise gasped, her eyes wide.
“He survived by playing dead while the French soldiers looted and raped.”
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“They think what you’ve done is a miracle.”
Heloise flushed. “Oh, well. I’m just glad I could help.”
An elderly woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd now surrounding them and pinched Raven’s arm. She studied Heloise critically for a few seconds, then said something to Raven and beckoned Heloise forward with a welcoming gesture. “Come. You come.”
Heloise frowned.
“Elvira’s offered to tell your baji, your fortune,” Raven said. “It’s a great honor. You’re an outsider.”
Heloise glanced at the old crone uncertainly but she looked so expectant it was impossible to refuse. “Oh, well then. Thank you.”
She followed the woman to a red-painted caravan and sat down on the front step as directed. The gypsy settled herself opposite her and drew a pack of worn pictorial cards from a pocket in her skirts. She handed them to Heloise and indicated that she should shuffle them, then held up four fingers. Heloise dutifully lay out four cards, facedown on the step.
“Past, present, future, outcome,” Elvira said in accented English.
Heloise started, surprised to hear her own language coming out of the woman’s mouth, but Elvira merely gave an enigmatic smile and tapped the back of each card, her gnarled knuckles like the twisted limbs of an olive tree.
Heloise nodded. She’d seen a tarot reader perform once before, at Lady Vane’s. The woman had been so vague in her pronouncements that the guests had interpreted them to mean whatever they wanted to believe. There was no magic in it, merely the power of suggestion, but Heloise had been intrigued. The tarot was, in effect, another code—one from which the reader could tease practically any desired translation.
She turned over the first card.