4

 

Five years ago.

The noise in the dark was at once familiar and startling—A soft tap at the window over my bunk.

I peered out.

Siyah stood on the aft deck of our boat. He held his side and leaned against the railing. The grimace on his face made my heart stutter.

I looked over at Sonja, she was asleep. I sneaked up the back hall and through the galley careful not to wake my sleeping parents. Struggling into a sweatshirt, I hurried out to him, my hands going to my mouth with shock.

Siyah’s lip was split, his eye bruised. Listing with the swell of the water under my family’s boat, he looked about to fall over. It was worse than last time. I bit back angry words as he took my hand in his, and I felt a tremor pass through him.

“Can you come with me?” he whispered, his face pained.

I nodded, heart in my throat. I padded silently behind him as we climbed down and walked into the dark of the woods, Siyah leaning on me for support. We slipped into the shadows, and he slid to the ground. He leaned against the trunk of a tree, his eyes closed as he panted the pain away.

“Is it your ribs?” I touched his side tentatively and he hissed, stopping me. “I’m sorry. W–we need to get you to the village. To the doctor. He’ll keep a secret with enough money—”

“No one keeps secrets from my father,” Siyah said through a clenched jaw.

“But if they’re cracked…” my voice trembled and I looked at him, my heart aching.

He held my gaze. He was so beautiful and so broken; the fights with boys from town worsening. There’d always been tension between the Romany and the village families, but this was more. This was not just hurled insults and stares.

My lip trembled. “Siyah…”

“Shhh,” He lifted his other arm for me to climb next to him. “Just, be with me for now.”

I settled next to him, careful not to jostle his injury. Inside I screamed with anger, wanting to run for help or to tell someone. Instead, I ran my fingertips along Siyah’s jaw, feeling the strength growing in him with every passing day. I reached up, kissed the cleft of his chin, looking into his face with worry.

“Please, let’s go today,” I whispered. “Right now. Like we talked.”

Siyah opened his eyes, cupped my cheek in his hand, and sent a flare of heat through me. He shook his head, his eyes dark with the storm that churned behind them. “Wait, my love,” he whispered in the night. “We will be free soon.”

 

****

 

A sharp crack resounded through the forest and yanked me from the memory with a jolt. Looking around, I pulled away from the tree, let my hand fall from the rough bark, and tried to blink away the grip of that night. In the distance, smoke rose in a spire towards the darkening clouds and I followed it as I walked through the woods to the boardwalk grounds. My heart paced up with every step. The graceful arc of the Ferris wheel rose over the tree tops and my insides tumbled. I squeezed my eyes, willing the image of the boy’s broken body from my mind.

Stop it. You had no choice. You were just a kid.

A noise to my left froze my steps. Moving brush and crackling twigs, someone was walking in the woods with me. I squinted, searching the shadows, but the steps had stopped when mine did. I listened for a moment, sure I wasn’t alone. Leaves trembled on the wind and underneath their rustle, a whisper rasped.

Lies…

Another thwack, the sound of chopping wood, pulled my gaze and I gasped, unsure if the noise was real.

You’re just imagining things. Being back here, the memory of that night…calm down.

I told myself the Crescent Point Carnival grounds seemed less ominous than last night. Shadows and shapes that loomed in the moonlight were now just tattered awnings and fractured plastic signs. I heard the ax fall again and looked for the source. A male grunt and another crack of the blade sent me in the direction of the funhouse. Wood burning scents floated to me, and I thought of campfires in the summer. Near a row of booths that used to house the shooting gallery, a small bonfire raged in a pit dug into the ground. I neared, curious.

Emerging from behind the flames, Siyah tossed an armload of wood scraps onto the fire, and the sight of him sent my heart stuttering. The years had put muscle on his frame, the sun and sweat highlighting the contours of his shoulders and chest. I had not thought it possible for him to be more beautiful, but I was clearly wrong. He took my breath away. My gaze went to the tattoo of a black bird with jagged wings soaring over his heart. A raven. Memories of the night he got it shot a sliver of sadness through me—back when we were rash and so sure of what the future held for us. He spotted me and stilled.

I lifted my hand, a tentative smile on my face. “S-sonja asked me to talk to you,” I said walking over. The thought that he’d caught me gawking sent another wave of heat to my face. “I don’t mean to bother you again, but I promised her.”

His expression unreadable, he nodded and peeled the work gloves off his hands. Turning he grabbed a t-shirt from the railing next to him, and pulled it over his head. I caught sight of the threadlike slash across his abdomen; a remnant of a dark time.

“What are you doing here?” I glanced around the abandoned grounds. “My mother said you live here?”

“The land is mine,” Siyah answered. He tossed a stray board into the fire and nodded at the old booths. “I mean to make some changes.”

“On your own?” I looked around for his cousins. “There’s no one else?”

He made a face.

I put my hands up in surrender.

He didn’t want to talk about it, apparently.

“But I though the Hale family owned it.”

“A lot has happened since you left Noble, Raven.” The way he said it pulled my gaze to his face, but he was staring into the fire.

“Like a Hale giving up an inch of land to the Romany people?” I shook my head, shocked. “How…?”

“Loss can change a man.” Siyah said. “The Hale family is trying to make amends. To work with our families, rather than against them.”

Simon Hale had lost his wife in a mysterious accident a year before I left. I wondered if that was what Siyah was referring to. Still, I was dumbfounded. The rich families from the hill houses never bothered with the Romany families if they could help it. We lived in parallel and intermingling, yet distinctly different, societies.

“And your father?”

“Will know when it’s time,” he said and his gaze held mine in warning.

A breeze sped through the empty pavilion, bending the flames and whipping my hair out in dark waves.

Siyah watched from his place against the fence, silent and unreadable.

An old food wrapper skittered across the pavement between us, caught in the fire’s updraft, and was engulfed in the flames.

“I’ve missed so much,” I said quietly.

“You have,” he said simply.

I turned to face him. “I met up with Sonja last night. She is fine, as you said she would be.”

“But she is not so fine,” he said, watching me.

“She, and a boy—”

“Niklos.”

“Yes.” I skirted the fire, the heat flaring my skirt and sending needles of sensation to my cheeks. “You know, then?”

Siyah leaned against the railing and planted his work boot on the toolbox at his feet. A dark lock of hair fell over his brow and he pushed it back. The low light of the club had not done his eyes justice. They were slate in the daylight, the blue shadowed with sadness.

“I know as of last night. I spoke with my father.” He offered me a water bottle, and I took it. “From the look on your face, you’ve heard what I did.”

“An unfit match,” I muttered.

Siyah nodded, his gaze sliding from mine. “He told me as much. I am sorry for her.”

Shaking my head, I stared at the fire. I had done this to her. Three years younger, Sonja had been only fifteen when I left, too young to realize how her big sister’s decisions might affect her. Sorrow and regret bubbled in my chest, and I let out a slow breath trying to keep from falling apart in front of him.

“Are you all right?”

I looked up, surprised that he’d care at all. Clearing my throat, I nodded. “Yes, uh…thank you for looking into it.” Something occurred to me. “Sonja said you hold the council seat for your family? Is that true?”

“My father holds the seat, always has,” he said. “But it is his intention I take his place when the time comes.”

“Because your brother left.”

“Sometimes loss is unavoidable.” Siyah threw his bottle in the fire.

A pang of sorrow pricked at me. I cleared my aching throat determined to keep our conversation to my sister and nothing else.

“Then the question of their marriage didn’t go to council? If it had, you would have already known, right?”

I tried to read his expression, but he tilted his face to the sun, his eyes closed. A move to shut me out—something he’d done even when we were young and dark thoughts pulled him away. “Siyah?”

“No.” He looked over at me. “No one brought it before us. Not your father and not his.”

“Why?”

“I don’t sit for every gathering, Raven,” he said. “I will ask for more information, but from what I was told last night, Niklos’s things are gone. His room is empty, and his family is gone as well.”

“Why would the whole family leave?” I didn’t understand. “The season for selling isn’t here yet. Niklos’s family…they’re leatherworkers—”

“It makes sense if they took him to see his mother’s family,” Siyah cut across me.

“To find a more acceptable bride,” I finished for him. My heart sank for Sonja. “Did she even have a chance?”

“You know that arranged marriages aren’t done anymore, but…” He started to gather his things, not looking at me.

But alliances were strongly encouraged while others were worked against by entire families. Outright contracts for marriage were a thing of the past, but one still didn’t always have the option to be with whom one wanted.

Bending to pick up a screwdriver, I noticed a lunch pail open on the ground, a thermos lid with tea and a half eaten sandwich inside. I took in the soft cloth napkin and sliced fruit and knew that someone had done this for him.

Siyah’s mother had died of cancer when I was still with him. The year before I left, actually. If he’d needed something for a journey, if he had a wound to be dressed, I’d cared for him. His father had time only for Siyah’s older brother, Tomèo, his golden boy. My heart ached, but I pushed the thought aside. What was it to me after all this time if he’d found someone to care for him? Did I expect him to remain my Siyah forever?

“Can you find out for sure?” I handed him the tool and folded my arms. “If Niklos left, I want to set her mind at ease. She’s so worried.”

He followed my gaze to the lunchbox and used the toe of his boot to shut it, bending down to look me in the face.

“I will do that.” The corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. “You can’t fix this, Raven.”

“She asked me to help her, not because she was dumped, but because she believes that he is in danger. She has nightmares. She believes he loves her and is not gone of his own will.”

“Why would she think that? Everything suggests otherwise.”

“She loves him, Siyah,” I whispered.

“You and I both know that often is not enough, is it?” He moved to walk away, but I hurried to face him, getting in his way.

“However much you hate me, can’t you try to understand that she needs to know for sure? If it’s over then let it be plain that it is.”

“Hate you? How can you—” His jaw clenched and he stepped back from me, taking in a deep breath before speaking. “That was a long time ago, Raven.”

“Is there nothing left, then?” My voice broke as I moved closer once more. “Can we not be friends, Siyah—”

He moved so fast, I didn’t have time to gasp. Firm hands on either of my arms, he whirled me out of his way, setting my back against the fence gently. I let him move me, searching his face as he leaned in. He wasn’t angry. He was something, but not that. Our noses mere inches from each other, his gaze brushed my lips, lingered on my eyes, stopping the breath in my chest.

“We cannot,” he murmured and let go, striding from me. He disappeared around the corner of the snack stand.

I watched him leave struggling to control the thumping of my heart. What had just happened? My hand went to my trembling lips.

The fire lapped at the wood, the heat filling the space that Siyah left behind. Embers collapsed on each other, sparks riding the hot air to the sky. Not sure where to go or what to do, I strolled the bare pavilion, my thoughts in a jumble.

How could I feel as though I was home and yet a stranger at the same time?

Stopping at the carousel, I ran my hand along the weathered wood of the once pink horse. The silver backing of plastic jewels reflected the meager sunlight back at me. Pitting and splinters marred the snout of the once majestic steed that had sped me in heady circles, along with the flashing lights and calliope music on hot summer nights. Tarnished metal poles and grimy leather straps gave the ride a forlorn, forgotten feel. I wrapped my arm around the horse’s neck, hugging my cheek to its cracked paint. Why couldn’t those days last?

A clang resonated through the abandoned pavilion, and I jumped.

“Siyah?” I looked for him by the fire, near the snack shack, by the fence. Nothing.

The noise came again, further this time, and I followed it to the fun house. A genie’s face with its garish red mouth opened wide as the entrance, stared down at me with bulging green eyes. I titled my head, listening. From somewhere inside, a rumble shook the building. “Are you in there?”

I turned away, not wanting to bother him anymore. A flash caught my eye. Quick and furtive, the light moved with erratic spurts in the darkness of the funhouse. Too large for an insect. I stepped towards it, leaning into the blackness. A warbling echo bounced out of the depths, standing the hairs on my neck on end.

“Hello?”

Behind me, the clatter of more wood falling to the pavement. I turned.

Siyah raised the ax over his head, swinging down with a crash, the frustration still on his face.

Looking back at the funhouse, I squinted. I had green glitter from the genie’s face all over my hands. Hadn’t Siyah said he was alone out here? I listened, but there was no more noise, no more light.

The sky above me churned, and I remembered my mother’s prediction.

A storm is coming.