by Gabby Fawkes
“Sentenced?” Kian repeated uncomprehendingly.
The Great Ballena’s sigh was like a whoosh of wind over us.
“Sentenced is not merely the stony punishment many meet in the Stonetary,” she said carelessly. “Oh no, it is something much, much more unfortunate.”
Kian blinked.
I grabbed her hand to find that Demi was holding it already. Shit. Poor Kian.
Was she really about to find out that her parents were dead the same day she found out where her family was in the first place?
“But that is not a story to tell you now, it’s neither here nor there,” the Great Ballena said carelessly.
“You loca?” Kian sputtered. “You just told me that I have parents, and you’re not going to tell me what happened to them?”
“That is the concern, child,” the Great Ballena said, her unibrow raised indignantly. “I do not know what happened to them. That is the way of the sentencing. Only the Seven Sisters would be able to tell you if and where their sentence was carried out.”
“I thought witches were punished by being turned into statues in the Stonetary and that was it,” Demi said.
“Oh, but they are,” the Great Ballena said. “Only, for witches whose offences are more… questionable or debatable, are they sentenced. The Seven Sisters claim it is for unforgivable crimes, but us Romms know the truth.”
She aimed her eagle-eyed gaze at Milsindra. “So. You brought them to me to find out if Kian was indeed a Romm. Well, she is. Now, if you please, I am very tired and my pillows are extremely comfortable.”
“Hold up,” I said.
I was not letting this giant seer lady get away with dismissing us after spending under five minutes with us. She was the only one who had listened to us here, even if it was only briefly. And the only one who didn’t seem to be petitioning to have us handed over to the DSA or thrown into a magical well.
Plus, I had some major questions…
"You’re telling us you can see the future,” I continued, “and all you want to do right now is sleep? You can’t tell us anything or give us some kind of idea of what to expect? Or what to do next?”
The Great Ballena let out a rumbling gust of laughter. It took me a moment to realize that the chirping that chorused afterward was the parrots laughing too.
“My dear girl, I am not a crystal ball,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Her head slumped to side and she fell into what looked to be a deep and restful sleep.
Thud!
Jules crashed onto the ground. As he scrambled to his feet, dusting himself off angrily, we cracked up. Even Milsindra chuckled. Although it was Demi who held out a hand.
Jules glared at it and instead stumbled to his feet by himself, eyeing her suspiciously.
“Don’t think I don’t know about your whole weird, plant-powers thing.”
“I was just trying to help,” Demi said. “Which is more than you and your horrible band of criminals have tried to do for us.”
Jules said nothing, however, directing his dark gaze to Milsindra.
“So,” he said.
“So,” she nodded, looking stumped.
“She didn’t exactly say we have to free them,” he said thoughtfully, a rotten idea clearly percolating in his mind.
Mid-snore, the Great Ballena wheezed, “Oh yes, and do free them. If I find out you’ve done anything other than that, then I will succinctly foretell of your demise, Jules Whistledaisy.”
Jules scowled, stalking out of the tent. “Hate it when she does that.”
Milsindra gave us one dark look before also stalking out.
“Well, you heard her,” she said savagely, turning her back on us. “You’re free.”
Although, as the next few hours were to prove, we weren’t really the dictionary definition of ‘free’. Not with the Siamese twins dogging us 24/7, never letting us out of their sight, or even responding to anything we said, only casting each other the odd significant look.
For the rest of the night, Romms pointedly staring and whispering about us got way old. Although they did at least allow us some ‘food’ – some mush that looked – and tasted – like liquefied cardboard.
“Some freedom this is,” I grumbled, forcing it down my rebelling throat.
“At least we aren’t on Ross Island,” Demi said.
“Are we supposed to know where that is?” Kian asked.
“Antarctica,” Demi said. “It’d be too cold for me to summon any plants.”
“That’s what you’re thinking about right now?” Kian demanded incredulously.
I said nothing. Demi had a point. Even if it was still boring and frustrating being stuck here, at least the well hadn’t chucked us into a volcano, or somewhere else equally unpleasant.
That night, I woke up a few times, pretty sure I could hear the sounds of lions fighting – had Dion actually been telling the truth? Although the next morning dawned much the same. We ate the same stale dish de cardboard for breakfast. No one talked to us. The Siamese twins stalked us. All we could do was hope that somehow the Olympians would find us.
“Persephone can be mighty stubborn when she feels like it,” Demi said confidently.
Kian shrugged. “Maybe they’ll be able to trace us somehow?”
Jules, who had seemed far away and out of earshot, burst out laughing. “The Romamagi have lived on the move since time began, hiding out. Yet if you’re so desperate that you have to believe in the most tragic and loco pipe dream, then by all means...”
Striding away, he suddenly stumbled, cursing.
We cracked up as he tore at the vines binding his feet that had tripped him up.
“Nice one,” I told Demi.
“I didn’t like his tone,” she said stiffly.
Jules scrambled to his feet, glaring at us darkly. “I’d be careful if I were you. The Great Ballena can be flighty and forgetful, and the rest of us Romms have no illusions about what you are.”
“You don’t know anything about us,” Demi said, eyes flashing. “In fact, I find it ironic how all of you, who profess to be so against ‘the Establishment’ and the rest of the Mathusalem witches, are just as judgmental and close-minded as they are.”
Rifling his dreads, Jules glared at us, then stalked off.
“That dickwipe really gets on your nerves, eh Demi?” I said, giving her a side hug.
The last time I’d seen my friend this fired-up was when Timmy had accidentally stepped on one of the tree roots in her garden back in Speranță.
“Well it’s true,” Demi said, dusting her hands off and making little leftover vine pieces fall to the ground, “Lately, everyone’s against us – making assumptions that we’re practically monsters. I’m tired of it.”
“I am too,” I said, lowering my voice. “What do you say we try and make a break for it?”
I’d been waiting for the right opportunity to bring my maybe bad idea up. And now that the Siamese twins were occupied visiting the bathroom, this was as good a chance as I’d get.
“When?” Demi whispered.
But Kian’s frown was firm. “I still want to find out about my parents first – maybe some Romms here would know. And we haven’t really found out if they will help us.”
“You want to ask them?” I said, gesturing to a portly boy with a mullet who, catching my eye, stumbled and ran away. “Or should I? ‘Cause as far as I can see, they won’t even talk to us, let alone tell us anything useful or help us.”
“You may have a point,” Kian said with a sullen nod, plucking a flower out of the ground and ripping it in half. “Fine. My vote’s for leaving.”
Demi glared at her.
“Oops,” Kian said. “Mother Nature here, forgot.”
The next day, we had nasty cardboard paste for breakfast, and continued on travelling with the Romamagi, through a hilly landscape that would’ve been beautiful if I wasn’t burning with frustration. The Siamese twins still weren’t letting up on
their stalking. The other night, I’d even woken up to catch them – one of them, anyway – awake and staring. Creepy.
The only thing moderately interesting was just how often the Romms used their magic and for what pointless tasks. As a poofy-haired mother scolded her sullen teenage son on not doing his once-a-week teeth brush, with a wave of his hands and a big-toothed smile, his teeth looked visibly lighter – and his mom let up with a sigh. Another older man, mid-sneeze, suddenly stopped and thanked the guy beside him – since the flick of his hands had apparently stopped the sneezing tumult.
Some of their spells seemed to be more important. Milsindra charmed the low walls on our path to grow tenfold to obscure our passage, while Jules transformed a particularly suspicious-looking flock of crows into fruit flies. “Never know who the DSA is employing these days,” he explained cheerfully.
Then there was how they transformed one particular poor fluffy English sheepdog, aptly named Ploofer. At intervals, they’d transformed the gray and white guy into a rug, a blanket, and, most perplexing, a hairy candle.
And every day my PV’s: Burn them, burn them all, was getting louder and more tempting.
“Why do you think they never went to Dollar Tree?” I asked Kian, forcing myself to change the subject.
Arguing with my PV was growing increasingly pointless – probably because these days, my only alternative to ‘burn them all’, was ‘slightly burn a few and demand freedom’. Which would be majorly risky – since I had no clue just what their dark magic was capable of – or what they’d try doing to Demi and Kian if they had the chance.
Kian shrugged, scowling. “Probably didn’t want to give me the satisfaction. Bastards.”
She was in a low mood too. Mainly since no Romms would speak to her or respond to her questions about her parents, no matter how kindly she pleaded.
“Guys?” Demi said, indicating a building we were nearing.
“Looks promising,” Kian said sarcastically.
“Maybe if you’re into graffiti,” I said, eyeing the tag-splayed wooden exterior.
The structure was about the size and shape of an outhouse, and the Romms ahead of us were going in, but not out. How was there enough room?
That’s when I heard a muffled ‘Flrryingflyng Narnarwhanarrrle’ chanted in about five different off-time voices. Hold up.
As we got pulled in and the door slammed shut behind us, Jules and Milsindra yelling, “The Flying Narwhal!” confirmed it.
“You’re kidding me,” I said, blinking furiously at the familiar odd-lettered sign I was seeing. “Even Romms go to the Flying Narwhal?”
“Of course,” Jules said silkily. “Cruestacio’s an old friend. And who do you think gave him Gully?”
I was pretty sure that Cruestacio had said something about it “bein’ a gift from me late sister,” but I decided not to bring that up. If the Romms stole, used dark magic and did God knows what else, would them lying about pointless crap really be that much of a shocker?
Clearly the outhouse had been the Romms’ portadoor. Although the why for them being here was less certain. Did it have anything to do with us, or was it just to kick back?
“Don’t bother asking for Cru’s help,” Milsindra said easily as we walked in. “We pay him more than you do.”
As we entered, Cruestacio’s face lit up, then fell. He scratched at one of his barnacles guiltily. “Yer friends ‘ve been lookin’ for yeh,” he said. Catching Jules’ expectant glare, he added, “Though unfortunately I havenae seen you. Havenae.”
“Thanks for that,” Kian said deadpan.
As the fifteen or so other Romms who’d come along clamored through the bar, Cruestacio leaned in to address us in a whisper, “Yeh should’ve ken better than to be messin’ with the Romms, yeh should’ve.”
“We didn’t mess with them,” I snapped. “They stumbled on us in the Stonetary.”
Now Cruestacio’s bushy brows inverted into a disapproving V. “Well, what were yeh doin’ there then?”
“It’s a long story,” Kian said shortly, going to flop on one of the bar stools.
I couldn’t really blame her. No way did I want to go over the whole sordid story with Cruestacio and reflect on, once again, how stupid I’d been to trust Walario or hope that the Seven Sisters trial would have gone any differently.
“I saw that,” Demi snapped at Jules, who was at the bar beside her.
“Saw what?” he asked, archly cocking a brow as he sipped at a brass goblet.
“You stole that man’s drink,” she said, stabbing her thumbnail at a man with hairy dog-looking paws, whose head was slumped onto the wooden bar, snoring.
“Got some kinda nasty shifter disease, Percival has,” Cruestacio confided to me. “Diff’rent parts comin’ ‘nd goin’, poor lad.”
“Do you gypsies ever tell the truth?” Demi demanded, sliding the brass goblet in front of Jules back in front of the sleeping guy.
With a flick of his wrist, the goblet slid back in front of him, and, taking a long, slow sip, Jules asked, “Are you monsters ever not boring?”
“If boring is trying to do what’s right and telling the truth, then yeah, I guess we’re that,” Demi replied, head held high.
Jules chuckled, shaking his head. “You still haven’t got it.”
“Got what?” I asked, intervening.
Jules’ amber eyes went hard. “That ‘what’s right’ and ‘the truth’ are just a big joke. Just whatever the establishment says they are. Whatever justice the Seven Sisters dole out in their little cement palace. There is no such thing as right or wrong or the truth. And even if there were, they wouldn’t hold any value here.”
He sipped at the goblet, which, when he let go of it, continued hovering in the air just in front of his lips.
“You and everyone else like you – all the other witches and shifters and even Olympians, you all think you know the Romamagi,” Jules said scornfully. “But you don’t have the foggiest idea why we even began doing what we do in the first place. It’s the only way to survive properly, without starving or suffering or subjugating yourself to someone.”
His lips assumed a dubious expression. “Sure, you can try being good little girls and toeing the line. Try to appeal to people’s better sensibilities that don’t exist but” — he hawked a laugh — “more likely than not you’ll just end up how you are.” He leaned in, his eyes glittering, his smile more a snarl. “Screwed.”
“We’re not screwed,” I argued. “We got out of the School for the Different, and we never thought we could do that. And we’ve had a bunch of close shaves, but we have a home now. We have freedom.”
Jules shook his head, his grimace spreading. “Unable to visit hardly anywhere, unable to trust hardly anyone at all. Constantly having to watch what you do, where you go — that’s not freedom. Telling yourself half-truths to fall asleep at night.” He caught Demi’s eye. “That’s not freedom.”
“Well it’s more freedom than we’ve ever had,” Demi shot back. “And if you and the Romms want to give up and become bitter criminals because the other witches are corrupt, then fine. You can even tell yourself that that’s the best way, giving up. Not fighting for anything but yourselves. But Tala, Kian, and I, we know better. We know that there is still good in the world. We’ve seen it.”
Jules’ upper lip curled, but he said nothing, finally stalking off in the direction of the bathroom.
“You two are quite the speech-givers,” Kian said pleasantly, sitting down. By the looks of it, Cruestacio had taken pity on her and given her some crusty crust, which she was munching on thoughtfully.
“It’s not quesadillas,” she said. “But it's not inedible.”
“As long as it tastes better than it looks,” I said dubiously. It was still the color of dried dust.
“What’s that?” Demi said, eyeing a withering cactus beside Kian.
“I migrated it from some rando shelf over there,” Kian said calmly.
Damn, she had been
busy while we’d been arguing with Jules.
Demi’s face brightened, and she got to work, waving her hands as the succulent spread out into a happy bloom. I had to hand it to my bestie, Kian sure knew how to keep Demi’s spirits up.
“Now that we’re all happy,” Kian said pleasantly, “what’s the plan?”
Raucous laughter echoed over from the far corner. There, somehow and for some reason Cruestacio had fastened a box TV to the ceiling, and a group of Romms was craning up to look at it.
Tilting my head, on its screen I could make out a blue-lipped, purple-dressed newscaster in front of a smoldering wreck of a many-windowed building that looked familiar — the Royal Palace of Amsterdam.
“Still no clues as to the new location of the DSA headquarters. Although this time, the DSA are exerting extra effort to ensure that no one leaks the location to the public. So as to ensure the protection of the precious objects and employees housed within-”
The Romms who were standing directly under the screen, watching, were elbowing each other and snickering.
I stared at them, then shooed away a wolf with creepily human-looking blue eyes who’d wandered nearby. Then, looking around again to make sure that we weren’t being overheard, I whispered, “You don’t think….”
“They moved the DSA base for mucho money?” Kian said darkly. “Yep, wouldn’t put it past them.”
“But wouldn’t that be good?” I said, “I mean, if they know where it is, we could maybe find the lab and the others...”
“Pfft,” Kian said, shaking her head. “You really think the DSA would’ve had them do it if they had the slightest suspicion they’d blab? There’s probably some kind of magical threat involved, where if the Romms tell anyone, all their first-born keel over with the plague or something. Anyway, you’ve heard them talk – they’re imperium in imperio.”
“Uhhh…” I said, my mind going blank. We’d barely broken out of school a couple of months before, and already I was forgetting everything.
“An empire within an empire,” Demi supplied quietly.
“Okay. Whatever. Still,” I argued. “It’s something. It’s the best lead we’ve got.”