by White, Gwynn
Maybe he really did want to know his future. Ember couldn’t bear to think of the alternative.
Bianca loosened up a bit as they walked, making jokes as if nothing had happened, but Ember’s mind was elsewhere.
She felt the officer’s eyes on her back long after the market was out of sight.
3
He looked even meaner up close,” Bianca said as they walked.
Ember let her shoulders slouch a bit now that the village loomed before them. Hundreds of cinderblock homes stood on either side of the dirt road. Most were simple cubes with a small outdoor courtyard for cooking, but occasionally there was an actual glass window. Ember’s home had once boasted two before the village children smashed them.
“I owe you,” Ember said. “How did you know about the officer?”
“Mimi sent me to the market. She’s sick.” She emphasized the word with a grin. Bianca’s mother-in-law was frequently drunk and spent much of her time in bed. As one of the older and therefore more respected women in their kumpania, Mimi took full advantage of her status. “Dretta’s son walked by and said an officer was lingering at your stall. Who else would help but me?”
Too true. The other Roma tolerated her, but they would never come to her rescue like that. Not with her gadjo father and traitorous mother. She leaned over and gave her friend a peck on the cheek in gratitude. “Thank the stars for you. I haven’t seen you in days. I was beginning to think Mimi tied you up in a corner somewhere.”
“The life of a boria is lovely but hard.” Her smile faltered just a bit as she slowed, clutching her rounded belly. “Someday you’ll experience it yourself.”
Ember already knew more about marriage than she wanted to. First the ceremony, then moving in with the groom’s family. The new bride was responsible for the laundry, cleaning, and cooking while the bori, or mother-in-law, looked on. Mimi was less rigid than most, but the woman rarely let Bianca go to the market, much less visit her shameful half-blood friend. It made this time together all the more precious.
“Where is Luca?” Ember asked. Bianca usually had her three-year-old son with her, but he was nowhere in sight.
“Playing somewhere outside. I’ll walk you home and then go find him. The soldiers aren’t coming here, right? I only saw four of them.”
“I don’t think so. Their shuttle was mostly tourists.” That part was strange. She couldn’t decipher why they’d be traveling together on an Empire ship. The military had their own craft.
The officer wanted her back by sunset. Surely the Empire ship was leaving shortly afterward. How long would the man wait for her? Would he even have time to search her out in the village? There had to be other future-readers in the galaxy, if that was what he really wanted. And there were plenty of women to please him in other ways. It was all so odd.
“How is your dai?” Bianca asked, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Has the smuggler come yet?”
“No. It’s been a week since Ambrose said he would come. Maybe he’ll be there tonight.” She couldn’t hide the worry in her voice. Ember didn’t know of any other smugglers who came to the outer planets, and the healer had no idea what ailed Dai. None of the woman’s prescriptions ever helped. If only they had a hospital here. The closest one was on Enceladus, a day’s journey by shuttle. And an expensive trip, at that. The entire kumpania could pool their money and still not have a quarter of the fare.
Bianca shook her head. “Well, I brought you this, hoping I’d find you at the market.” She handed Ember a brown bag.
Ember took it and peeked inside. A piece of stringy ewe meat, a tomato, and some figs.
“Bianca!” she burst out. “Don’t tell me you’re stealing from Mimi again.”
“I didn’t steal it. We came across some good business recently with the horses. We can’t spare much, but at least it’s something. Tell your dai Gavril and I asked after him.”
“We don’t need help. We’re doing just fine.”
Ember tried to give it back, but Bianca raised her hands. “Do you think I’m stupid? Just take it and don’t think so much about it.”
Ember frowned, resentment spreading through her chest like acid. Months ago it would have been Ember giving charity. Her father had just sent off his first shipment of furniture when the sickness settled in his lungs. Now all his orders were being canceled as his customers found what they wanted elsewhere. Once he recovered, it would take a year or two to rebuild his business.
Why couldn’t you have sent me a practical gift? she asked the stars. Like furniture making.
“Thanks,” she muttered, wrapping the bag up and tucking it under her arm.
Bianca’s hand lifted to her swollen stomach, and she grimaced. “Gavril thinks I will give him another son, but I think it’s a chey. This one is too sharp with her kicks.”
They reached Ember’s home. It looked much like the others, only slightly larger and sporting square holes where the windowpanes had once been. Hens squawked from the courtyard beyond. Ember had neglected to feed them this morning, too.
“Well, thanks again. I hope I see you again soon.” Ember turned away.
“Wait.” Bianca stared at the ground. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something. Gavril talked to Coste the other day.”
“Please don’t,” Ember broke in, too tired to argue about this again. “I know you mean well, but I can’t discuss it right now.”
“You can spare one minute, Ember. Is it true you refused him? Tell me it’s not true. Not after everything he’s done for you, the times he has defended you—”
Ember snorted. “All the times? Coste stopped the children from calling me ‘old maid’ once, Bianca. It hardly qualifies as gallantry.”
“He offered a bride price for you. Do you understand how rare that is?”
“Of course I do.” She knew better than most, actually. The sharp pangs of a dark, painful memory emerged, but Ember shoved them back. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that terrible night. “Most guys don’t even bother. They just kidnap the girls they want. Cheapen them first, then get them for free.”
Bianca flinched as her face fell.
A horrible realization struck Ember then. “No. You’re not serious.”
“I can’t believe you just figured it out. It’s been four years since we married, Ember.”
She was right. Ember should have known. Bianca’s words felt like a well-deserved slap to the face. “But you looked so happy at your plotchka. I thought you wanted to marry him. How could you not tell me?”
“Oh, like you told me what happened the night your mom died?”
Ember paused. “That’s not fair.” She hadn’t confided in Bianca about her mother’s death, true. But nobody knew the truth. Except Dai, perhaps, but he wasn’t talking about it either. How could she explain something she didn’t quite understand herself?
“Not fair?” Bianca turned to go, her cheeks stained with pink. “All you can see are your own cares, your own suffering. You’re not the only one with problems.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Bianca.”
Her friend turned back to face her. “Nobody in their right mind would marry you now, Ember. You pretend not to see it, but you know what they say about you. You’re barren or unclean. Some even say cursed. And yet Coste ignored all of it and asked anyway. His family offered more than they should to help with your dai’s medicines. And you threw it back in his face, just like with the others.”
It wasn’t exactly true. Coste had offered a bride price, yes. But she hadn’t rejected him in a cruel way. She’d just . . . explained things to him. Told him she couldn’t leave Dai. Said she had to stay until he was better. She could still remember the anger in Coste’s expression. He hadn’t understood. In his eyes, as in everyone’s, Coste was doing her a favor.
Apparently Bianca didn’t understand either.
“Dai needs me,” Ember said. “I can’t abandon him. I’m all he has.”
“He doesn’t need you,”
Bianca said flatly. “He needs money. Medicine. Proper medical care. You can’t give that to him, not on tourist gratuities.” She paused and her voice grew soft. “And if you keep running from those who would help you, you’ll be even more ostracized than you are now. I know Coste isn’t that much better than Babik, but you can bet he’s your last chance. Stop being stupid and ask him if he’ll take you back.”
In her eyes it was simple. For Ember it was anything but. As the daughter of a Roma woman and a gadjo, however liked and accepted he was by her tribe, she had been an outsider at birth. Her parents raised her Roma, but in her dealings with friends and boyfriends there had always been that hesitation, that reluctance to fully accept her.
To the gadje she was a gypsy. To her people it was the other way around.
How could Ember explain what her parents once had? The way they treated each other with such tenderness? They’d truly liked one another. They took on traditional roles, but they did it as a gift to one another. He cared for her and brought home money. She prepared his favorite meals and kept his home for him. And at night they talked and laughed as if they’d waited all day to be together again.
That was before. Now she was gone, and Dai wasn’t doing well. And as long as she was the only thing standing between him and the last good-bye, she refused to stand down.
“Thanks for the concerns, but you have plenty of your own.” She brushed Bianca’s protruding stomach and leaned over to speak to her friend’s unborn child. “Grow well, dear one. Be kind to your mother.”
Bianca frowned, but her anger was already fading. “I have to go now, before Mimi wakes up. Love is just a gadjo notion, one your dai should never have planted in your mind. Just think about it, all right?”
Luca, Bianca’s energetic three-year-old, came bounding up to them. He barely gave Ember a glance, turning instead to his mother. “I’m hungry.”
Bianca gave Ember an apologetic smile. “I’ll try to slip away again soon. Be careful.”
Ember nodded, knowing her friend referred to the officer. She still had several hours to decide what to do. In the meantime, it was time to check on Dai.
* * *
When her friend was out of sight, Ember pushed the makeshift door open and entered. She passed through the living area with its assortment of mismatched chairs all arranged neatly at the table in the way her mother preferred. She missed sitting there for meals. It had been so long.
She knocked gently on her father’s doorframe and swept the divider cloth aside.
He lay just as she’d left him, but his eyes were open now, his expression clouded with pain. Dai still only took up half the bed, as if subconsciously leaving an empty space for a wife who would never return. He blinked at the sight of Ember, like she’d roused him from a daydream. “You’re back early. How was business?”
“Good,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t press the matter. “How is the pain today?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
Ember knew that was a lie. Sometimes the pain in his chest grew so intense he trembled and wept like a babe. Even now his eyes pulled tight like he was trying to hide his usual grimace.
Tonight, she promised herself. She’d wait until the Empire ship was gone, then sneak down to the hollow behind Talpa’s home to meet the smuggler. If Ambrose still wasn’t there, she’d start asking around for another source. There had to be someone else in the sector with the pills she needed.
Ember forced a smile. “We’ll have meat tonight. What do you think of that?”
“I think it sounds fantastic. Anything unusual today?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she lied, retrieving a fig from her bag. Half the village could be dying of a plague, and she would tell him the exact same thing. As cautious as her people were about the Empire soldiers, Dai was the most extreme in his hatred. He refused to allow Ember anywhere near them. If he knew she’d spoken with an officer today, it would kill him. She was smarter than that.
She handed him the fig. “Eat this until dinner is ready. It won’t be long.” She stood and headed for the doorway.
“Ember, I heard you talking to your friend.”
She hesitated in the doorway, mentally kicking herself. She’d forgotten about the broken windows. Had she mentioned anything about the officer? She reviewed Bianca’s words in her mind, pretending nonchalance. “I’m sorry we woke you. I’ll get your food going—”
“I agree with Bianca.”
Now he had her attention. “About what?”
“I think you should ask Coste’s forgiveness. Maybe he’ll take you back.”
This conversation had taken a strange turn. “You want me to marry Coste? But—but you’re the one who told me about love and waiting for the right man.”
He paused. “I did, but—I’m not sure it’s wise to wait any longer.”
She returned to her chair and sat, her head swimming with confusion. “What are you saying?”
He leaned back against the pillow again, as if gathering his strength. “My little Ember, I want you to be happy. I do. But if you turn down opportunities for happiness so you can care for your sick father, soon there will be no more opportunities left.” He coughed and grimaced again.
Ember stood. “I’ll get you some water.”
“No. Sit.”
He wasn’t usually this insistent. She lowered herself into her chair again, wincing at the deepness of his cough. It was definitely getting worse. “I’m not pushing away my own happiness. This is what I want, to care for you.”
When he could breathe again, he watched her with tired eyes. “You’re wasting your life waiting for me to recover. I can see it. You wait for me, but I also wait for you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Death comes for me soon, my Ember.”
Ember’s heart skipped a beat, and she gripped her chair. “No, Dai. That’s not true. As soon as the medicine arrives, you’ll start to feel better again.”
“The medicine just postpones what is coming. There have been times I felt death creeping along my bones and shooed it away, telling it my daughter is not ready yet. I want to attend your wedding, to see you happy and settled and cared for the way I can’t care for you. But I can’t fight it much longer.”
The lump in Ember’s throat lodged there so tightly she couldn’t speak. She shook her head and forced her voice to work. “You don’t know that.”
“I do, my Ember. Use your gift. It will tell you the truth.”
Odd. He’d never been willing to discuss her gift before, much less insisted what she saw was the truth. But it wasn’t the truth, not after what she’d seen today with that man Stefan. Her visions had to be possibilities. Nothing more.
“You don’t know,” she said again. “Nobody does. The stars give me wisps of hope and magic and beautiful things, not death. The medicine will work. I’ll increase the dosage when the new bottle comes, and everything will be fine. You just need to trust me.”
He studied her face so intensely she shifted in her chair.
“What is it?” she finally asked.
He shook his head as if dismissing a thought. “You’ve grown strong and determined, as I always hoped. But sometimes your strength blinds you to the reality of our life here. Perhaps it’s time for me to arrange a match for you.”
“An arranged marriage?” she asked, getting angry. First Bianca had turned against her, and now her father. “I will marry eventually. I swear it. But it will be to a man I choose.”
He accepted her words with a long sigh. “I can’t bear the thought of you being alone.”
“I’m always alone.”
Most women were raised with large families and married into even larger families. Noise and chatter were a regular part of Roma life. But for Ember, even a day at the market had its solitude. If her status as Dai’s daughter hadn’t cast a shadow on her already, her refusal of perfectly good marriages had. And the incident with the chief’s son on that terrible night—well,
that had clinched it.
He coughed again. “You know what I mean. I hear the children curse you in the streets. I know what their parents are saying. An unattached Roma woman will always be looked upon with suspicion. Without me here as protection, they will find a way to be rid of you. You’ll be too vulnerable.”
“To what? If you mean Chief Talpa will give me up for homage, he can’t. That practice is illegal now.”
“It happened to Harman a few years ago.”
“They took the man because he was wanted for a crime.”
“No,” he said firmly. “That’s why we allowed it.”
She gritted her teeth, barely hiding her frustration. He acted as if she were a ten-year-old child. She’d cared for him for months, and now he wanted to repay her by forcing her into a marriage she’d made it clear she didn’t want.
Ember stood and strode toward the doorway. “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Nothing will happen to you. Just rest so you can recover and go back to work. I promise we’ll have this discussion again then. All right?”
“The stars are never wrong, my light.” His voice had gone quiet, and she knew he’d be asleep again soon. “It’s time to stop dwelling on what was and prepare for what lies ahead.”
4
Four hours later, Ember draped the last damp shirt over the line and pinned it into place. She took a small step backward and accidentally clipped a hen, who began squawking in indignation.
She glowered at the bird. “Well, if you’d give me some space to walk, you’d be fine.”
Sala the hen eyed her, fluffing its feathers in reply.
“Be careful. I’m hungry, you know.”
Sala continued to stare for a moment, then lost interest and walked away.
Their enclosed outdoor living space was larger than most. At forty square yards, the courtyard had plenty of room to complete her chores. But sometimes she resented the open air for the tantalizing scents it carried. Tonight it was her neighbor’s Russian tea. She breathed in deeply. It had been so long. Too much had changed in the past few months. Earlier mornings, later nights, more pressure, more chores. Less time to think.