by P. K. Tyler
After they passed the house, Vai stopped the car on in the middle of the road. "Get out and pee here."
"I can't use a bathroom?"
"This will be easier if you just do what I fucking tell you. "
Nik opened his door and walked around to the back of the car. He felt like an idiot, peeing at the side of the road, but his bladder was thankful for the relief.
When he climbed back in, she started the car again and drove slowly down a sparse dirt track barely recognizable as a road and completely surrounded by trees.
The trees rose so high, the branches from either side reached out toward one another, forming a natural tunnel. The path had so many twists and turns, it was impossible to tell how much further they had to go. Soon, they turned into an open area, a perfect circle of cleared land surrounded by trees on all sides with the exception of the space through which they'd entered. In the center of the circle sat a small wooden house.
Vai parked next to it, facing a path leading out into the woods. Paths led out like spokes of a wheel.
"Where do those paths go?"
A wistful smile settled on her face making her look years younger, almost like a child. "To the homes of various Romani people. That one," she pointed to a path on the right, "goes to my mother's home. This is Ma's house, where we have meetings and celebrations. People are usually coming in and out of Ma's house all day long. I guess she told them we were coming. They won’t come while you’re here."
Vai and Nik got out of the car and approached the front stoop, which was only a 3-step staircase leading directly to the front door. No porch, no overhang. Just climb up and walk right in. On either side of the door stood two hydrangea bushes in full bloom.
Vai stopped just short of the steps and reached over one bush to knock on the wood wall, then she stepped next to Nik and waited. Vai stood patiently while he fidgeted under an imagined, judgmental gaze. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned to pace but Vai stopped him with one word.
"Wait."
"Can't I walk around a bit?" he asked, stepping from foot to foot trying to stay warm.
"Just wait."
So he waited. He thought about Zeph and Adel, and pulled out his cell phone to check in with his friend. Again, Vai stopped him and told him simply to wait. He thought of the children back at the flophouse, wondered if they had done their chores and if they looked after each other while he was away. He nurtured them to be a family, the kind he'd never had. He wondered, too, if the kids would worry about him if he was gone too long. Would they think they'd been abandoned once again? He'd never forgive himself if he betrayed their trust.
When he felt like he was ready to jump out of his skin with impatience, the chill in the air acting like an accelerant to his fidgeting, he remembered a trick an old teacher had shown him in middle school. It had been an attempt to calm his untreated ADD. He closed his eyes and focused only on what he could hear. Wind rustled leaves in countless trees all around him. Wood-smoke from inside the little house brought with it a heavy dose of nostalgia. Birds called and Nik opened his eyes to seek them out. He saw black birds, blue jays, and doves.
Nik felt at peace. He returned his gaze to the door and found it open. Vai was nowhere in sight. Beyond the door, a sofa faced the entry. The only electric light came from an open door to the right. Natural light spilled in through the windows.
Nik cleared his throat and entered the house, hoping he was allowed inside. Why else would they leave the door wide open?
As he entered, his eyes adjusted to the dim light. He entered into a well-worn but clean living room. On the wall to the left was another door. Judging by the size of the house from the outside, it probably led back outside, but the space inside felt larger than the house's frame could hold.
A scratchy, heavily-accented voice called from the naturally lit room to the right of the entrance. "Close the door and come in."
He complied, his hand shaking a bit. As he turned to follow the voice into the next room, he took a deep breath and imagined the sounds of wind through the trees outside. He walked into a country kitchen. The large, single sink to his right sat beneath an open window in the front of the house. Sunlight filtered in through the antique, lacy curtains of a larger window in the wall opposite the opening to the room. A wood stove sat in the corner with a cast-iron pot on top.
Vai sat with an old woman at a round table with only three chairs, the third left empty and waiting for him.
Vai put one slender finger to her lips, then gestured for him to take a seat.
The old woman shuffled a deck of cards. Thick, gray hair with streaks of white frayed out of her long braid. As Nik took his seat, she set the cards down on the table and pushed them closer to him.
Her eyes were such a light shade of brown they almost appeared yellow. It made him think of feral cats and a wild kind of freedom. "Cut the deck into three piles, and give each stack back to me."
He picked up the deck and made three piles.
"Ah," Nik looked at the three piles and decided that, since he had no clue what was going on in the first place, it didn't matter which pile he gave her first. So he lined the three piles up in front of her, in a row and within easy reach.
She collected all three piles and combined them into one again, then went back to shuffling them.
"What was the point of that if you're just going to shuffle them back in? Aren't you going to read my fortune or something?" Nik asked.
The woman chuckled, put down the cards, and lit a long Moore cigarette that would take at least fifteen minutes to smoke. Her body rocked slightly, forward and back. The motion comforted Nik in an almost hypnotic rhythm. "You are right-handed, considerate, and not at all creative. You handed me the cards in the exact order which you separated them, and in the order you've been taught things come, left to right. Had I told you to cut the deck into nine piles and line them up in rows of three, you'd have started at the upper left corner."
"And all of this is important because?"
She gave another short, husky chuckle. "Very little of what you learn is ever useful or important, Nikolai. You must learn to seek the bones of the matter, that which you need to know for your purpose. You are considerate. That is useful to me in helping you. I know that you are less likely to fall prey to demons born of greed."
"Huh..."
She flicked ashes from her long cigarette into the glass tray at her right before putting her smoke down and stared at him.
A heavy shuffling gait made its way from the back of the house and into the kitchen.
The person's presence filled the room with an intensity Nik felt deep within his bones. It was the same sensory experience as when he encountered a demon, but without the pain, malice, or evil. The intensity of it frightened him, but whoever approached so slowly clearly intended no threat.
Vai stood and pulled out her chair, offering it to the woman.
Gripping a cane as tall as herself, her spindly arms shook with the effort to take her seat without falling into it. Long, white hair fell over one shoulder, the tips grazing her bony knees beneath the hem of her simple, hand-made dress. Vai approached the woman and put one hand on her shoulder.
"Nik, this is Ma."
Chapter Five
"This is the boy you told me about?" Ma's bent head and weathered hands gave Nik the impression of a large tree, an Oak or some other ancient species.
"Ancient is a good word, Nikolai, it's one you'll hear from us often."
Nik stared at her and raised his eyebrows. Had she heard him? She couldn't have heard him.
That's impossible.
"Impossible is another word you'll hear often," Ma chuckled.
Nik stared at the old woman sitting at the table. His body was drawn to her and he could almost see an aura of white hovering over her silver hair. The front was pulled back in braids that met and tumbled down her back. She wore every color all at once, but somehow the styles or patterns didn’t clash, it all flowed togethe
r to add to her radiance.
"Are you reading my mind?
"Ah Nikolai, no, but there is much you don't know about who you are, or where you are from. You are Bino-Wuzhokh like our golubushka Vai?" Ma asked, her black eyes sparkling with an unseen light.
Nik looked to Vai for confirmation.
Vai sighed. "Bino-Wuzhokh is what we call Sin Eaters, remember?"
"And the other thing she called you?"
"It's just a nickname," Vai mumbled, looking away.
Ma smiled and rolled her eyes, the juvenile gesture strange on someone so old. She patted Vai’s hand, still resting on her shoulder. "Our Vai, always resisting, always fighting her nature. Even as a child she wanted to fly away, but she always comes back to us. Blood only flows in one direction."
"Yes, Ma." Vai's smile appeared more like a grimace, but she softened under the older woman's touch.
"That's why you are here, yes? You can see the Prikasa. You know the evil that surrounds us."
"Yes, ma'am."
Ma laughed, her craggy face widening into a smile so heartbreakingly beautiful, he wondered just how old she really was. "Ma'am...Oh boy, you just call me Ma, like everyone else here. If you are Bino-Wuzhokh, you are already family. All of you come from the same line. It's the blood. It always comes down to the blood."
Nik liked Ma. She had a naturalness about her, an ease of being he couldn't place his finger on. Sitting next to her, he felt a lightness. Like someone opened a door and let the light he'd been missing for so long shine on his face.
"Are you a Sin Eater?"
"No, no, that's not my calling."
"But you're like Vai and me, right? She said you were like us."
"Vai thinks she understands the world, but she's still a babe crawling around, her knees scraping the ground."
"Hey!"
"Oh golubushka, I've told you many times, it's you who holds you back, no one else. Just your own ways."
The older woman with the cards laughed and poured a glass of lemonade from the pitcher sweating on the table next to her. She passed the glass to Ma.
"Thank you, Dika. Nikolai, there is only one line of people who can do what you do. It is an ancient and impossible line of men and women like you and me."
"The Church said I was the last one," Nik said.
"The Church lies."
"About a lot of things," Vai added.
Ma frowned at her, "Vai, that anger is what keeps you from finding your truth. Your need to always be right, always know more. The Church has furthered the cause against evil in many ways, they have fought back the darkness in ways we could not have hoped to accomplish. They are different, but some of their ways work. Remember, none of us saw your potential, it was a Priest who guided you through your first exorcism. My only sadness is that we have never found a way to work together against the real evil. The Church spends too much time fighting those with a different view to bother battling the real evil in this world. They have not learned to choose their adversaries wisely, and ally against a common foe." Ma shook her head.
Nik had never considered God in the equation of what he did. Sure, there were demons and possessions and the whole crucifix exorcism rite worked, but God had never been more than an abstract for him. He'd never seen any proof of the existence of an all knowing, all loving Father. The idea that there was a greater plan or a bigger picture was crap. Maybe the Latin worked, but as far as Nik was concerned it might as well be Martian. He used the tools that killed the monsters. He didn't much care where they came from. The Church had its uses, but he couldn’t see counting on them for any real help.
“I’d sooner form an army with my boys from the flophouse than all the priests of the Church. They don’t know nearly as much as they think they do. I fought more sin as a child than most priests even acknowledge in a lifetime. And I managed just fine on my own.”
"Nik, it breaks my heart to think of you alone, dealing with what you saw and what you can do with no one to guide you. I am so sorry for that, but I am filled with happiness that you're here now. You, Nikolai, are my brother, as Vai is my sister. We are one blood."
Ma spit in the lemonade and set the glass in front of him. She motioned with her hand for him to drink but he had no idea what to do. Between the idea of ingesting some stranger’s phlegm and Vai's warning that he wouldn't be allowed to eat or drink while with her people, he felt certain this had to be another kind of test.
He glanced toward the woman with the cards, Ma had called her Dika, but she avoided his eyes.
"Is this a joke? I'm not drinking that."
Vai frowned behind Ma and widened her eyes at him. It felt like an admonishment.
"What? You told me I couldn't have anything to eat here, I'm following your rules." He sat back in his chair, defensive and frustrated. "Why bring me up here if you're just going to fuck with me with tests and tarot cards?"
Ma's gentle face didn't react. She didn't smile or laugh. She simply watched him. Vai's frown drew her face down, making her look like the hard woman he'd first met.
"Fine," he said and grabbed the lemonade, knocking back half the glass in one gulp. "If I get diphtheria or some shit you're paying the doctor bills."
The three women swarmed around him, Ma slower than the others. Before he knew it he was on his feet and Ma had him in a tight embrace.
"Now what did I do?" he meant to be upset, but the group hug broke through his hard resolve until he found himself laughing and hugging them back. Even Vai smiled and, for a moment, he could see the bright aura of her radiance shine around her.
"You came home," Ma said. She placed both hands on his shoulders and held him there with the power of her presence. "You've come home, Chavi. You've been returned to your people. Blood only flows one way."
Ma gave him a brief hug, then Dika embraced Nik, kissing him once on each cheek.
"I don't understand."
Vai rolled her eyes. "Of course you don't. They're telling you they've accepted you, that you are Romani. We all come from one line, as far back as we can trace it. Your family broke away at some point. Sometimes people were outcast, but most of the time we find we can trace it back to the porajmos."
"The what?"
"The holocaust. History has forgotten how many peoples were torn apart during that time, though. We were hunted, abused, exterminated. Many people ran, more tried to hide, but too many of us died. Do you know what happened to your grandparents? It would have been their generation."
"I'm an orphan. I don't even know what happened to my parents." Nik's mind swam with images of starving men and women dressed in black and white. He'd read about experiments the Nazi's did on the people taken to the camps, about forced sterilization, and the murder of so many people. Was that his history to claim? A deep sadness welled within him.
"This is your home now," Ma said. "You are welcome in the Kumpania. You can live here and join us if you choose. You will never be without family again."
"Although you may come to regret that." Vai ducked out of the way of Dika's slap with a laugh.
Nik had never had a family, he'd never had laughing siblings or doting aunts. The jovial familiarity of the women around him spread through him like an infection, like radiation leaking from some underground toxic waste dump. He couldn't breathe. With a step back, he shook his head, not seeing the kindness on the faces, only remembering all the families that had abandoned him, starting with his parents, the ones who were supposed to love him.
"I can't. I'm sorry..." He took a step back. "I just can't."
He turned and, as he rushed out of the room, he heard Dika say, "Let him go."
Outside, he regretted his choice to quit smoking years before. Shit. Winter had its claws firmly embedded up here and Nik wrapped his arms around his chest to keep warm. All this family talk left him reeling. He'd jumped from foster family to foster family and spent most of his childhood trying to avoid the attention of the older kids. When he finally landed in the family that kep
t him the longest, the people he came the closest to considering parents barely spoke to him. When they kicked him out, he thought he'd lost everything.
Since then, it had just been him. And now, after years alone, it was him and Zeph again. That was it. The only thing he could count on was Zeph. At some point, everything he cared about would be ripped away from him. That combined with his hands-on personal experience with the absolute worst of the universe's creations, left him skeptical of anything that sounded like happiness.
Zeph loved him, he knew that. He believed that there was real love between them. But as long as he remained committed to being a priest, there wasn't any kind of future for them. He had all the pieces of a relationship, but it just wasn't real. None of it was. It couldn't be. There wasn't room in this fucked up world for softness or kindness.
Not for people like him.
No doubt when Ma and Dika got to know him, when he finally let his guard down and let them see the real him, they'd up and run, take their open arms and use them to bar the windows and doors so he couldn't infect them.
"Nik?" Vai invaded his privacy but didn't come too close.
"What?"
"You're going to freeze."
"The sun is keeping me warm enough."
"Your lips are blue,” she said.
Nik turned, eyes narrowed and defensive. "Fine, give me the keys and I'll sit in the car."
"I don't understand." She stepped closer, hands out. "They drive me crazy and sometimes I hate being Roma, all the rules and old-fashioned ideas can get tedious, but they're my family. I thought you'd be happy."
"Did you know this would happen when you brought me up here?"
"No, but I'm not surprised. I mean, if you're a Sin Eater then, on some level, we have to be related, which makes us family."
"I don't have family."
"Well, that's sad. I guess it’s up to you, though. You can stand out here in the cold and pout like an obstinate teenager, or you can come inside and get to know the people who want you around."