The stranger in the portrait was no longer such a stranger. I was present there, in the arch of his brows, his half-smile, and his dimpled chin. My resemblance to him explained why I’d never suspected my relation to Gran—there were few similarities between us, and those that existed were masked by age. Perhaps I had her nose, and perhaps our shapes were similar, but with her stooped-over posture, it was difficult to say.
I hugged the picture to my chest and dropped my head, regret cracking my icy armor. I’d never know the man. Gran would never see the lost decades. Had she not been carrying me when Joseph drowned, she could have used blood to fuel the spell—hers or someone else’s—but to keep me safe, she’d had to give up half a lifetime.
No wonder she was always aloof. She resented me for what I cost her.
“No. No, no, no.” Gran reached for my arm and clung to the sleeve of my blouse. “Never, not once, did I harbor ill will toward you. I loved you. Love you. I am not warm often, but it is because our road is fraught with hardship. I want strength for you. To harden you in ways I was not hardened. All parents want better for their child than they themselves had. Perhaps I did you a disservice, but my intentions were pure. You are my world, Bethan. You are the living proof of my great love.”
Her great love. Joseph. My father.
I looked down at his foreign-yet-familiar face.
“It changes nothing,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.” Such lies were not becoming of the Romani. Everything was changed, all of it mattered, but the blood moon had brought too much strain for one night. My energies were limited, and what I had in my reserves had to go to Martyn’s ritual. I slid the portrait across the table and reclaimed the enchanted mirror, tapping the sleeping facade in the glass. “You said you had an idea for Tomašis.”
“Yes, of course.” She pulled her hand from my arm and sat up in her chair. Her spine had gone to steel. My dismissal had hurt her, that was evident, but there would be time later to soothe her, when the pressing business was done. “If you wish to spare him, to allow him to live on among his people, I would recommend binding him to you. He will not volunteer as Wen had, as he is a lesser man than Wen, but you can force it. Such relationships can be helpful. As for punishment?” She paused, frowning. “The eye. He crushed our hawk’s eye, and it hampered me in finding you. There is, too, that of all of them, he knew my strength and disregarded it. If he is too blind to see what is right before his face, sight is wasted upon him.”
I considered it, watching Gran twirl Tomašis’s hairs between her fingers. “That’s just, you think? It isn’t too severe?”
“No. I am angrier with him than the rest, Silas aside, because he already suffered my curse. He disrespected me by disrespecting you a second time despite my warnings. As for taking it from him”—she paused thoughtfully—“eyes are sensitive things. Removing one is a revolting chore, and one you must be cautious with, lest you kill the person you take it from. I will do it for you tonight, but you will have to learn. You never know when the time will come that you will need to take another. For magic. For medicine.”
“I…All right.” I wasn’t overeager, but if I was willing to levy the sentence, I had to be willing to play executioner, too. Gran was merciful to take responsibility for Tomašis’s tithe, but there were four boys who hadn’t come yet, and she wouldn’t be the one chasing them around. I’d bloody my hands soon enough.
Gran motioned at the open bureau drawer behind me. “Put the mirror and the portrait away. I will summon Tomašis. The hour grows late.” I wedged the frames side by side into the drawer, a piece of perfumed silk stretched over the tops to keep them hidden from prying eyes. Gran stretched her cane to the door latch and pushed on it until the door swung wide. Our gathered audience gasped, murmuring quietly among themselves.
“Bring the boy, Florica. The rest of you leave. I am sorely tempted to sic the shadows on you for eavesdropping.” That killed the talk. People clamored to get away, the dry field grass snapping and hissing as they fled back to their tents and vardos. “Idiots,” she murmured beneath her breath.
Florica stumbled up the steps, her face bloated with tears. Tomašis didn’t look much better, slouching beside her, his hand entwined with his mother’s, his face pressed into the side of her neck.
“You are fortunate, Tomašis Buckland. My granddaughter is feeling magnanimous. You are not banished, and you will live—” Florica erupted with a happy shout, and Tomašis hugged his mother with relief. Annoyed that she’d been interrupted, Gran jabbed her cane into Tomašis’s side, hard enough that he squirmed away. “I am not finished, boy. You are not banished, and you will live, but under two conditions. The first is that we bind you to Bethan. You will serve or you will suffer, it is that simple. Perhaps, if you are a dutiful and loyal toad, she will release you one day.”
I didn’t relish the idea of having any kind of tether to such an odious boy, but I could see the practicality of it, too. A boy bound into my service, required to do as I willed, meant he could no longer endanger me. There was safety in that, in a place where I did not feel very safe anymore.
“The second condition is that we take your eye,” I said before Gran could get to it. I wanted to be the one to deliver that blow. Perhaps I was hoping to sate a desire for vengeance I hadn’t really acknowledged yet, but when Tomašis crumpled, I felt nothing.
“My eye?” He looked pleadingly at his mother. “Help me, Mama.”
Florica covered her mouth with her hand and looked away. She was red-eyed and red-cheeked, her brows knit together in an unbroken dark line of hair. “You helped m-murder a man, Tomašis. You wronged the drabarni’s granddaughter. It is a mercy that you will see the sunrise.” She dabbed her face with her sleeve, slapping her son’s hands away when he clawed for her arm. “Be grateful for your life and the knowledge that you aren’t banished.”
“B-but my eye, Mama. MY EYE!”
“That’s the tithe, son. Have a seat and we will get started.” Gran stood and shoved her chair toward him. Tomašis shrieked and scampered into the corner, his face awash with terror. “Wait outside, Florica,” Gran said. “You have my word he will be returned to you quickly.”
Florica pressed her hand to her mouth to muffle her sniveling as she walked out of the vardo. Tomašis darted after her to escape, but Gran lifted her hand and gestured and the door slammed in his face, the latch locking and trapping him inside. He screamed for his mother but all she could do was sob, the walls far too thin to keep out the sound.
Gran snagged Tomašis’s ear and dragged him toward the chair. She looked frail, but she had unfathomable strength when necessary, and she efficiently steered a boy a full foot taller than her into a seat with little effort. “Tie him. I doubt he will be still,” she said to me, pointing at a stack of scarves folded neatly on the shelf beside her bed. I grabbed them all, thinking they wouldn’t be strong enough to hold him, but then I remembered how secure my bindings were in the field after Tomašis tied me, my arms pinned behind my back, allowing Silas to…
No.
No, I will not think about that.
I chose a red scarf and circled Tomašis. He sat very still before me. I thought he was paralyzed with fear until I saw his eyes beginning to droop. Then his head dipped forward, his chin touching his chest.
“Sleep,” Gran whispered. She’d bespelled him, using his hairs as a focus. She flicked his ear to check his responsiveness, and getting nothing, she opened the window to cast the hairs to the wind.
“You are merciful.” I wove the ends of the scarf through the rungs of the chair and around his wrists in figure eights, concentrating on the task to mask my irritation.
“Am I?”
“I was awake during my attack.” I wrapped a second scarf around his neck, letting it bite into his skin more than was necessary. “Martyn was awake when they beat him senseless.”
“I plan to wake him for the last of it. Tie his legs and arms as well.”
I did as she said, the
n strapped him across the forehead and chin so his head couldn’t loll. Gran returned to the corner and pulled out the ritual knife we’d used to make the hawk’s eye charm. She pressed it to Tomašis’s cheek, the flat silver against his skin.
“Always make a visible mark, so they cannot hide from their wrongs.” She stepped aside, offering me the knife handle first. “It is densest here.” Gran carved a path over Tomašis’s cheek with her fingernail, showing me where to cut. “Remember to go deep. You want it to last as long as your bond.”
I did not hesitate. I slashed at him, the edge flaying him open from the side of his nose and diagonally across his cheek, to just above his ear. The skin ripped open, the blood crisscrossing in rivers down his cheek and dripping from his jawline onto his crisp white shirt.
Gran leaned in, squinting her brown eye to assess my work. “Good. Perfect. Now we must bind the two of you together. Do you have the cat fetish I gave you?”
I retrieved the bag I’d stuffed my soiled clothing into and rummaged through the pocket of my skirt. Touching the soiled garment made me shudder, and once I’d found the charm, I thrust it away like it bore disease. If that wasn’t a plague, nothing was.
Gran guided me back to stand between Tomašis’s splayed knees. “Here. We will need a drop of your blood to seal the bond. Do you want to do it or shall I?”
I opened my hand for her, the knife flat across my palm. My consternation when we’d made the hawk’s eye charm seemed silly in the wake of worse hurts, and when she took the blade and jabbed me in the center of my palm, I didn’t flinch. She scraped a crimson bubble from my palm, letting it rest upon the silver before pressing it to the open wound on Tomašis’s face. Not having to touch him myself was a blessing.
“Will him into your thrall,” she said. “Claim him. Own his soul, Bethan.”
I pinched my eyes shut, my free hand squeezing the cat figurine until it dug grooves into my palm. I pictured Tomašis indentured to me as the chieftain was indentured to Gran. I wanted it; I demanded it; I would not be denied. Tomašis was mine. The magic simply had to acquiesce to that reality.
And it did, answering far faster than it had with the hawk charm. Heat scalded my bleeding palm, startling me enough that I nearly dropped the cat, but I gritted my teeth and held on. When I opened my eyes, I saw a golden glow spilling out between my fingers. It flared bright, like a star, the burn worsening for a heartbeat before the effect burst apart. Magic sprinkled from my hands in a wash of golden dust that dissipated upon contact with the floor.
I hadn’t touched Tomašis, and yet when I looked up at him, my magic had closed his wound to a fresh pink scar and scorched off most of the blood. His mark wasn’t as blatant as the chieftain’s, but it bisected one side of his face, impossible for him or anyone else to ignore.
“Focus on the scar. You can feel it—him—through it. His blood is now yours.” I’d witnessed Gran manipulating the chieftain with magic, reopening his old wound, and I wanted to see if I could do the same. I gave the cat fetish another squeeze, envisioning myself ripping open the meat of Tomašis’s face, my fingers pulling the flesh apart. Sure enough, the scar beside his nose burst, and the neat seam unraveled like stitches before my eyes.
I could do it. I could hurt him at will, and knowing that the power had shifted, I actually managed to relax a little in his presence. It was the first hint of peace since the field, and I was grateful for it.
“Good. Now for the rest of it.” Gran tapped his shoulder twice to wake him. Tomašis’s eyes popped open. He hollered, the muscles in his neck and forearms cording with strain as he pushed against the scarves, his face turning red. He’d gone from restful to very much aware in no time at all.
“Welcome back, toad. You now bear Bethan’s mark. If you betray her, she can reach into your chest and squeeze your heart until it explodes. She is your mistress, and you would be wise to remember that.” Gran limped to the front of the chair and grabbed a scarf from the stack, wadding it into a ball. Tomašis looked from it to Gran and snapped his jaws shut, desperate and scared. Gran simply pinched his nostrils closed, shook her head, and waited. “Silly boy. This is a kindness to your mother. This will muffle your screams.”
He succumbed quickly, greedy for air like a pig at a trough. His maw opened and Gran stuffed the scarf inside, deep enough that he gagged and couldn’t spit it out.
Like he’d done to me.
She let go of his nostrils and tutted. “Bring me an empty jar, Bethan. And you can put the knife away. This is delicate work. I will have to use my fingers, as unpleasant as that is. We’ll need boiling water from the fire later, most certainly.”
I did as instructed, pulling a jar from her supplies and sliding it onto the corner of the table. Tomašis looked at it and then at me, his red face darkening to purple, tears welling and then spilling down. He sobbed behind his gag, but it didn’t stir me because nothing stirred me. His cruelties had stolen my ability to care.
Gran used two fingers from her left hand to widen Tomašis’s eye—one finger pulling up on his brow, the other pressing down on his upper cheek. “See how I’ve opened him up? I go in from the corner….” Her long, curved talon pressed not where the pink and white started, but the skin beside it. “Now all you do is slide in and scoop. It pops out surprisingly easily. I will have to sever the cord afterward, of course.”
Gran pressed her fingernail in, and Tomašis screeched, his chair thudding against the floor as he rocked back and forth. Gran was undeterred. As she went in a second time, Tomašis’s screams hit glass-shattering pitch, and though his pain did not bother me, the gore made me jerk my gaze away. I was not beyond revulsion, after all.
For what was most likely a minute but felt like an eon, I listened to the awful, rhythmic squelching sound of Gran’s work. It reminded me of when I did our laundry at the river, when the clothes were saturated and I had to knead them to wring them out. Finally, after much sloshing and sucking, Gran deposited a freshly severed eye into the jar.
I stared at its unseeing brown iris, at the stringy bits of meat hanging from the back and the way the blood smeared the inside of the glass. It was awful, yes, but it had to be better than looking at the gaping hole in Tomašis’s face.
Gran retrieved her healing kit from the shelf and brought it to the table. She chose fresh linen cloths, once boiled to keep them free of contamination, and two jars of medicinal salves from the basket.
“This will heal quickly,” she said, turning back to Tomašis. “Ask your mother to fashion you a proper eye patch. I want you to drink the tea I give you twice a day for a week to keep the fever down.”
It was strange to watch the torturer become the healer in such short order, but that was the essence of Gran, wasn’t it? Good and bad, both sinner and saint. She damned and blessed in equal measure, depending on how the wind blew. She was drabarni. She was magical.
She was fierce and terrible and wonderful.
And she was my mother.
Tomašis was the only one of the four who dared show his face that first day. I wondered whether the other boys’ mothers were pleading with their sons to come to us, and whether their fathers, like the chieftain, refused to believe that their boys could commit such heinous acts. My conscience would be clear as I collected my tithes, but for the parents who hadn’t heeded Gran’s advice for a chance at mercy, I had to wonder, would theirs?
The next day, I rose early and grabbed our bowls to get breakfast. The grass had the first crusts of frost on it, the blades snapping beneath my boots. People milled about the fire, drinking tea and talking animatedly, likely about last night’s travesties. As I approached the main table, every voice quieted, and I wondered how many people had already seen Tomašis or learned of his fate. I refused to shy away, meeting their gazes with my own cold, steady one. Some people looked down, affronted by my boldness. Others offered tight, awkward smiles, like they weren’t sure how to proceed.
And then there was Brishen.
; He stood across the clearing, talking to one of the elders, nodding and smiling like it was any other day. I wondered if he’d even considered coming forward or if he’d convinced himself that he hadn’t directly murdered anyone so he had nothing to repent for. I slapped porridge into my bowl so hard that it splattered over the table and across the front of my blouse and skirt, but I was too angry to care much about the mess I’d made.
Brishen must have felt the weight of my stare, because he craned his head my way, peering at me through the dancing flames and smoke tendrils of the fire. I thought he’d have the good grace to look discomfited by my presence, but instead, he smirked.
“The new look suits you well, Bethan,” he shouted. He lifted his hand in a mock salute and turned back to the elder, effectively dismissing me from his thoughts. The elder reached for Brishen’s ear and yanked it, dragging him away from the fire and chastising him for his insolence. I wanted to chase after him right there, but I swallowed my growl and stormed back to the vardo. When I crested the home path, Gran awaited me, holding the door ajar, her eyes narrowed.
“What is wrong?”
“Brishen next,” I spat, brushing past her to slide both bowls onto the table. “Brishen today.”
“As you wish.”
We ate in silence, but my thoughts whirled with every bite. Brishen had undoubtedly heard about Gran’s proclamation, but he simply didn’t care. Could he possibly believe that the chieftain’s son held so much favor? That because Silas had always been beyond reproach, his friends would be, too? Perhaps he had not seen Tomašis’s face.
“Idiots. Vain, self-serving idiots.” I slapped my spoon down into my porridge and shoved away the bowl. Normally Gran would chide me for wasting hard-earned food, but she reached for the parchment piece from yesterday instead, skimming it and nodding.
“The hungry roots,” she said. “The hungry roots for Brishen, I think.”
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