by Willow Rose
In that same second the four spirits were sucked back into the darkness with a large hissing sound.
Sara blinked her eyes and could hardly believe where she was or who was standing in front of her. The boy kneeled and asked with a worried voice if she was going to be alright.
“What a weird dream,” she said.
The boy shook his head.
“That wasn’t a dream. That was Nyx. The spirit of the night trying to suck your soul out of you.”
“You saved my life,” Sara said with astonishment.
The boy got up and helped Sara back on her feet.
“You are very welcome.”
The boy’s name was Manolo. He was thirteen years old and a Spanish Romani, a “Gitano” as they called themselves. He told her that as he escorted her safely back to her camp. When he was about to leave her he took her hand. Then he kissed the top of it and bowed in front of her.
“Sleep safe.”
“How will you get back?” she asked.
“I know these forests like the back of my hand,” he said and stepped back into the darkness.
Then he was gone.
But that wasn’t going to be the last Sara saw of her new friend. Her tribe stayed a couple of weeks in the same camp near the marketplace of Granada since the village people really seemed to like their acts and they made a lot of money—enough for them to get by during the rest of the winter.
One day, Sara was walking among the people in the market when her dad was performing on the stage. She stopped and watched him for a second when all of a sudden a man in the crowd of spectators started yelling.
“My wallet is gone! Someone took all of my money!”
The spectators started mumbling among each other and no one looked at the act any longer. So Moeselman stopped and threw an extinguished torch on the stage.
The man from the crowd looked at him and started yelling at him.
“You did this! You and your people are nothing but thieves and beggars stealing money from decent hardworking people.”
Then another man interfered.
“What is going on here?” he asked.
“This man distracted my attention while someone else, his accomplice, stole my wallet.”
“Now I never …” said Moeselman and jumped into the crowd with his gigantic body. The crowd split and then surrounded the two men. They were circling each other looking like roosters that were about to fight.
“Give me back my wallet,” the man said.
“Are you calling me a thief?” Moeselman said. His face was red with anger and his eyes were raging wild.
This is not good, Sara thought to herself. There was only one thing Moeselman hated more than thieves and beggars, and that was to be called one.
“Yes I am,” the man answered.
Moeselman raised his fist in anger and roared like a bear.
“We’ve got him,” a voice said from the crowd. “We have got the thief that is working with them.”
Moeselman, Sara and the rest of the crowd turned around and looked at a man holding a young boy by the neck.
The young boy was Manolo.
“Is this your wallet?” the man asked and gave the wallet to the man who had been calling Moeselman a thief.
“Well yes it is,” the man said and took it.
“I think we have a couple more,” the man holding Manolo said. He looked through the boy’s pockets and took out more wallets, bracelets, loose money and a watch. He gave them back to the people who now claimed them and soon the crowd dispersed. People left while mumbling that this was typical when you let “Gypsies” into your town.
When they were all gone, the man threw Manolo to the ground at the feet of Moeselman.
“Now get out of this town,” he said and left.
Moeselman lifted Manolo in the air.
“You little…Why would you come and ruin everything for us?”
Sara stepped forward.
“Don’t say anything, Sara. I don’t want to hear it,” Moeselman said. “I am too angry.”
“But Dad …”
“I am serious, Sara. Go home to your mother while we figure out what to do with this boy.”
“But…”
“Go!”
Later that evening, Manolo was put in a cage they normally used for animals and put in the middle of the camp for everyone to see and spit at. All the women would pass him and curse at him and throw herbs and potions at him to put a bad spell on him.
The men would laugh at him and spit and even yell at him. Everyone let their anger and hatred out on him. Everyone except Sara and her mother.
All Sara saw was a little boy crying in a cage. She didn’t see any devil or evil spirit in his brown eyes.
And her mother saw it on her.
While Sara watched at the way her tribe and her family treated this boy, her mother came and stood beside her. She put her arm around her.
“You know this boy?” she asked.
“He saved my life once,” Sara said.
“Then it is your job to speak up for him.”
And so she did. Sara walked right through the crowd of angry people, climbed the cage and yelled out to everybody.
“Stop!”
They all looked up.
Moeselman stared at her. Was she defying him again in front of his people? he thought. This time he would have to punish her.
“I owe this boy my life,” Sara said.
“What?” Moeselman said with great anger. ”We don’t own him or his kind anything!”
“I do. He saved my life. The other night I was lost in the forest and the Spirit of the Night tried to capture me and take my soul. The spirits lured me into falling asleep. And if it hadn’t been for this boy showing up and waking me up I would not be standing here in front of all of you.”
“He is a thief!” someone in the crowd yelled and threw a rock at the cage. It hit Manolo in the head and he cried out.
“Yes! He is the reason we have to leave this place now. We were making good money here. Now we have to leave it!” someone else yelled and then more stones were thrown.
Sara felt anger build from deep within her spirit. It was so forceful so full of power it made the cage lift from the ground with her on top of it. She knew she broke her promise to herself, but something had to be done.
The crowd shivered and stepped backwards at the sight of the flying cage with Manolo in it. It was now high up in the air.
“Leave him alone,” she yelled.
The crowd stared at the cage and then Moeselman took over.
“People. If this boy truly saved Sara’s life, then I owe him my life as well,” he said. “And so do all of you.”
So with Sara’s help, Manolo was forgiven and let go. Sara talked to him as he was about to leave their camp.
“I thought you played the guitar and sang for a living,” she said.
Manolo sighed.
“I would love to. But I don’t make enough money doing so. My dad tells me to go and take things from people so he can have enough money to pay for his wine.” Manolo looked at the ground and sighed again. “He likes to drink a lot of it.”
“I am sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be.”
She looked at him.
He smiled. “It is not your fault,” he said.
Once again he took her hand and kissed it before he disappeared into the forest. Sara stared after him for awhile, wondering if she would ever see him again.
“Now we are even,” she yelled after him.
THE BOOK OF FORESIGHT
Months passed as Sara and the tribe traveled in the south of Spain all winter. They had great success with their performances, and they were doing well for themselves. Sara got to know everybody a lot better, and little by little she felt more and more like she had found her home. Just as Moeselman had told her, it was where her heart was.
She was taught a lot of new things by the people in her tribe. The snake charm
er taught her how to play his flute in that special way that made his tiger python come out of the basket and dance its exotic dance. He even gave Sara her own flute. It was beautiful, hand carved and painted with small dancing snakes on it.
Sara danced with the troupe of belly dancers as they showed her how to move her hips to dance like them, she lifted weights with the strong man to train her muscles to be big and strong like her father. Together with the other children she peeked in the temptress’ tent as she seduced the men that paid to visit her with incense, soft music and very exotic dancing.
She helped feed the elephants and got tips on how to train them from the tiny lady with the high hat.
The magician showed her tricks that made her loosen her jaw in awe. And her mother taught her how to make potions and heal sick people. She took her to the forest and showed her which herbs she should pick and which not to.
Her father told her about the dangers lurking in the dark forest, creatures and evil spirits that she should be aware of. Creatures that no one in the rest of the world knew were there, but the Romani people did since they lived so close to them all of their lives.
“Most of the world you see out there is blind to the magical world that lives in our forests,” he said one evening as they watched the stars in the sky together. “They never go deep enough into them to see what is there. But when you have been living like we do all of your life, you get to know nature in a totally different way. We respect nature because it is a big part of us and because we are always close to it. And therefore we also know all of its secrets.”
Then he gave her something. A beautiful amulet that she could wear around her neck. It had a gorgeous green stone in the middle, a sapphire it was, her dad said.
“It is a talisman. It will protect you.”
“I will always wear it,” Sara said and put it around her neck.
So as the months passed, Sara grew into being a real Romani girl (or gypsy-girl as people from the outside would call her) she even began to look like one. Her mother pierced her ears and gave her golden earrings and she gave her a yellow scarf to put around the top of her black curly hair. The skirt on her dresses danced as she walked and music slowly became a big part of who she was. She would whistle when she went to collect branches for the bonfire. She would hum as she found herbs for her mother in the forest. And she would sing out loud when the music was played at night around the fire.
Yes, Sara had become a real Romani and she had finally found her home. She didn’t live her life with her nose stuck in a book anymore.
Actually she hadn’t opened a book since she left the Schneider’s house almost a year ago. Until one day when she walked into her mother’s tent that she always put up when they set up their camp where people would come in flocks to be healed.
She had been in there many times but this was the first time that she laid her eyes on a big book on her mother’s table. It was one very unlike any she had ever read (and she had indeed read many).
It was lying on the top of a stack of her mother’s books (she had a lot of them, which was very unusual for a Romani since they had no written tradition. They were a people that told everything in stories or they would sing their history in melancholic songs.).
It came to Sara that she had been staring at the book for a long time. It was like she couldn’t take her eyes of it. It seemed to have a kind of magnetic power and it attracted her.
She went over to the table on which it was lying and slowly held out her hand and touched the book. At that moment it was as if something clicked inside of her and Sara picked the book up. She examined it from all sides. It was bound in copper-colored silk that was shined when she moved it around. It was big, larger than the table her mother had put it on when she took it out. On the front cover was the head of a snake in pure gold. It seemed to be staring at her with his mouth open and teeth showing. Sara touched it, and as she did, she was sure she heard a whisper. It sounded like it came from a place far away, it sounded like it came from within the book.
It whispered her name.
“Sara … Sara …Sara…”
This would scare most little girls from opening the book, but not Sara. She was not a girl who believed in fear. If anything was to be afraid off, then she would most definitely face it. So naturally she opened the book.
It was nothing but blank pages. Sara flipped through it and then closed it, disappointed. As she did she was sure she heard the book sigh.
At that moment her mother entered the tent. She took one look at Sara with the book.
“Sara? Where did you find this?” she asked.
“On your table.”
“Answer me one thing. And I want you to be totally honest with me on this,” she said as she looked seriously at Sara.
“Sure.”
“Did you open the book?”
Since she was a very honest girl—sometimes even brutally honest, her parents thought—Sara didn’t hesitate for a second.
“Yes,” she said.
“Did you see anything?”
“No, it was all empty. The pages were blank.”
“Okay, that is good,” she said and took the book from Sara and put it up on a shelf.
“What kind of book is it?”
Her mother sat down and looked at her. Then she smiled.
“You are so curious. It is The Book of Foresight. It tells you what to do if you ask it to. Like if you have a problem it will tell you how to solve it.”
Sara’s eyes got big and wide.
“Wow. That is wonderful!” Sara said. ”Is that how you know how to heal people all the time?”
Her mother looked at her with great seriousness.
“No! I have never used it.”
“Why not?” Sara didn’t get that. Why wouldn’t she use a book like that? Why even have it if you couldn’t use it?
“Because it will cost you dearly if you do.”
“How is that?”
Her mother touched her cheek gently.
“Nothing in this world is for free, sweetheart. If you use this book it will ask for something in return, something very dear to you. So you have to be very careful with it,” she said.
“It was calling my name,” Sara said.
Her mother sighed.
“This is starting sooner than I had expected. Your powers are growing as you get older and you will be very powerful one day. Everyone in the spirit world wants some of your powers. You have to be very careful what you do. You will meet temptations everywhere. Spirits trying to get you to side with them. Remember there is always going to be a battle in you, the battle between the dark forces and the light. And the evil spirits are going to try and get you on their side for whatever the cost.”
“So the book will try and get me to use it?”
“Yes. Don’t ever cave in to that urge. You can’t trust it. Don’t ever open the book again.”
“I promise, Mom.”
Even though Sara promised never to open The Book of Foresight again, her mother grew more and more worried as the days passed by. She was worried for the battle of her daughter’s heart that had begun. She knew it was going to be a tough fight for Sara to stay goodhearted with all the temptations that she would meet in the world. Therefore, she asked her grandmother, Sara’s hunchbacked great grandmother, to look into Sara’s heart. She was the only one that Settela knew could read people’s hands.
One day they sat down in Settela’s tent and Sara’s great grandmother took her hand. Since she was so hunchbacked Sara couldn’t see her eyes, as the old woman felt her hand both on top and in the palm. After a couple of seconds she stopped. Then she spoke to her in Romani.
“You have great powers,” her mother translated. “Greater than any Romani who has ever lived.”
Then her great grandmother felt her hand again and spoke some more in Romani. It sounded beautiful in Sara’s ears, and a little scary, as well.
“You have a very strong heart, too. That is good
. But you must keep it protected against the evil,” her mother translated.
“What does that mean?” Sara asked.
The great grandmother spoke again.
“You can’t let it be poisoned by evil. A heart can’t guard itself, you have to do it. You have to protect it from these deceitful feelings.”
Then she stopped and all of a sudden Sara’s great grandmother lifted her head and stared right into her eyes.
“Your heart has already been poisoned, I see. Once, when you took revenge on that girl who was alone in the street.”
“Gertrud?” Sara said and thought of the day she had let her books threaten her until she cried.
”But I didn’t even harm her.”
The great grandmother stared at Sara and it felt like she saw straight into her heart.
“But you let the evil into the purest place you have. Your heart. You have to protect your heart from the world. Your heart is your guidance, it will lead you to do right. If you let evil into it, how can it guide you in the right direction? How can it help you to tell right from wrong?” she said while gesticulating wildly with her old wrinkled hands.
Sara looked into the almost black eyes of her great grandmother one last time before the old woman’s head bowed down to her throat again, and there was nothing but the top of her gray hair left to look at.
“Now it is time for you to rest, granny,” Settela said as she helped her out of the tent and back into the caravan where Sara’s great grandmother spent most of the day sleeping and talking to the spirits.
Sara was glad she had the advice even though she didn’t really understand everything that the great grandmother had just told her.
Little did she know that she would soon come to realize just how important it was what the old woman had said.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
It wasn’t until the month of June, shortly after Sara’s thirteen birthday, that her world started to fall apart. They had traveled up the Mediterranean coast of Spain where they camped outside a small coastal town called Carboneras. It was located beautifully on the sea and the beaches were long and white beneath the mighty cliffs.