Traveller (11 page)

We walked to the center of the courtyard together. When I slipped my hand into his, he didn’t pull away, which earned me some dirty looks from a group of glittering young gypsy girls watching us. I ignored them.

Michael smiled when he saw a young couple standing under a tree. He introduced us.

“Emerson, this is my brother, Ryan, and his wife, Leah.”

Leah had long brown hair, green eyes, and freckles on her nose. Although definitely dressed like a gypsy girl in a sequined tank shirt, tiny skirt, and high heels, she smiled and actually looked friendly. She reached out and shook my hand.

“Pleased to meet you.” She gave Michael a wink, and he blushed. “Nice work, Mikey.”

Ryan grinned. Shorter than Michael and Patrick, his eyes were brown instead of blue. He wore a suit very similar to his brother’s, and when he and Michael started talking, Leah pulled me away, linking her arm through mine.

“These aren’t the best of circumstances, but I have to tell you, I’m so glad you’re here.” She spoke very quietly. Obviously, she didn’t want Michael to hear.

I blinked at her in surprise. “You are?”

Leah nodded. “I’ve never seen him like this around a girl before. He looks so…happy.”

We glanced back to see Michael scowling at us, and giggled. “Trust me. He’s happy,” she said, and I knew I’d found a friend.

“If you say so.”

“Give him a chance,” she said. I planned to do more than that. What I had in mind was more like a military siege that would end only in absolute and total surrender.

“He’s not that bad,” she continued. “He’s rather brilliant, actually. He’s the first Traveller I’ve ever heard of to attend university.”

“I’m sure you’re all very proud of him.”

“Not all of us.” Leah bit her lip. “I feel like I should warn you. There are people who want to force him to quit school, and they could use your presence here as a reason.”

“But how does my being here have anything to do with Michael going to school?”

She smiled a sad little smile. “Would he have ever met you otherwise? I hope I’m wrong, but I thought you should know.”

“You are awfully nice, Leah.”

She grinned at me. “So I’ve been told.”

Ryan and Michael came up behind us. “What have you been told?” asked Ryan.

“That I’m nice,” she said.

Ryan and Michael both started to laugh. Ryan pulled Leah into his arms. “Don’t listen to a word, Emerson, unless she says kind things about her loving husband or her wonderful brother-in-law.”

Patrick and Margaret stood across the courtyard from us. Patrick’s jaw was clenched, and Margaret seemed ready to cry. Leah noticed, too.

“Poor Margaret,” she said, and Ryan echoed her words.

“Poor Margaret.” He shook his head. “Looking to cause trouble again. I think we should say ‘Poor Patrick’ here, or maybe ‘Poor Ryan.’ It’s isn’t easy being married to the likes of you, you know.”

Leah gave him a kiss on the cheek. “It’s a daily struggle, I’m sure.”

“Come on,” said Ryan. “Let’s greet our guests.”

Michael took my hand, pulling me closer and being adorably protective. I had to work very hard to suppress a smile of victory. I’d been wrong comparing him to my feral kitten. Next to that kitten, Michael was going to be a piece of cake.

“The council will meet shortly. Margaret will tell them about her dreams, we’ll give them the logical explanation, and all will be well.” Michael gave me a little smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “And then we’ll go to the funeral.”

“Are you sure I should come?” I remembered the sound of Tad’s mother weeping, and it made my heart ache.

“It’s better if we all pay our respects.” A bell tolled from somewhere deep within the compound, and Michael sighed. “It’s time.”

Chapter Twelve

These people are nuttier than a squirrel turd.

~Grandma Sugar

The sky darkened as we walked toward the council meeting. I looked up and realized a huge plastic dome covered the entire complex. Rain pelted the roof, but inside it remained dry and warm.

Michael noticed my interest. “That dome makes living outside in northern England ever so much more enjoyable.”

Leah and Ryan walked just ahead of us, and overheard our conversation. “Michael designed it. He’s a genius,” said Leah.

Michael actually blushed, and I gave his hand a squeeze. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“I can’t cook,” he said, rubbing his chin, “and I’m a terrible dancer.”

“Well, I can cook.”

“I know. I sampled your brownies.”

“Sample them anytime, big boy,” I said with a wink, enjoying his befuddled reaction to my teasing. “I can’t dance either. That’s why I chose mixed martial arts as my talent for pageants.”

Michael came to a dead stop.”You beat people up at a beauty pageant?” He bit his lip to keep from laughing.

“Well, I didn’t beat up the other girls, although I kind of wanted to at times. Some of them were awfully mean, but it didn’t seem right to mess up their hair when they’d spent so much time and effort on it. I usually asked for volunteers from the audience instead.”

The council area, just ahead of us, consisted of a large stage set with a long black table, chairs, and microphones. A bunch of unmatched benches and stools had been arranged for the audience. Michael found a place for us to sit in the back, not far from Ryan and Leah.

“How did you learn to fight?” he asked.

“I signed myself up for karate lessons at age four. I was precocious. I brought the permission form home from preschool and made Daddy fill it out for me. I competed nationally until last year when I started college.”

“Did you ever win?”

I leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Darlin’, I
always
win.”

The expression on his face made me laugh. “I’ll consider that a warning,” he said softly.

I sat back in my seat, folding my hands primly in my lap. “I studied judo, taekwondo, kendo, and stick fighting, too. The only thing I didn’t try was sumo.”

Michael snorted. “Why ever not?”

I answered him seriously even though he thought I’d made a joke. “Grandma Sugar wouldn’t let me. At around eleven, she said enough was enough, and insisted I start doing pageants, too.”

“Did you like it?”

I shrugged. “To tell you the truth, once I learned the rules, it wasn’t that different from karate. A battle is a battle, no matter what the field looks like, and beauty pageants are a battle. Trust me. I just planned out a strategy and did what was necessary to win. I learned to walk the way they walked, and talk the way they talked. The rest came pretty naturally due to a bit of a competitive streak in my nature.”

“What was your biggest win?”

“Junior Miss Kentucky was huge. And I came in first for the talent portion of Junior Miss America.”

“How did you end up in York?”

“They have a fabulous literature program, and I want to be a professor someday, but I had a bit of an ulterior motive. Since my mom is from this area, I hoped to find her family, but I’ve had no luck at all.”

“Maybe I can help, once we solve our little Moktar problem.”

I gave him a grateful smile. “That would be wonderful, but I don’t know much. My middle name, Jane, was her mother’s name, but I don’t have a clue about her dad’s name.”

“Where did the Emerson come from?”

“Ralph Waldo Emerson. She was also a lit major,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Just like me. I’m lucky I wasn’t a boy. She might have gone for Waldo.”

Michael smiled. “You’re definitely better as an Emerson.”

The council, twelve older men and women wearing long black robes and acting very serious, approached the stage and everyone got quiet. Their cloaks made them look like a row of crows on a telephone wire. My heart began to pound in my chest as they sat down on stiff, high-back chairs and stared out at the crowd. I slipped my hand nervously into Michael’s.

A tall man with a shock of white hair and a wooden gavel chose the place at the center of the table. Michael’s father sat next to him.

Michael whispered in my ear, “The council members represent all of the Traveller communities in northern England. The man in the middle is Monroe Spinner, the leader. He’s a good bloke. I’ve known him my whole life.”

Monroe rapped his gavel on the table four times. “Please come to order. Today, we are here first and foremost to mourn the death of one of our own. I’d like to start with a moment of silence.”

The gypsies grew still, the men a sea of somber dark suits and shaved heads. The women were a very different story. Their dresses were so wild and bright it looked more like they were going to a club than a wake.

Bowing my head, I thought about the boy who died and his poor mother. She would live forever with a hole in her heart. I didn’t know her, but I knew what that felt like.

Monroe cleared his thought. “Now let us begin. I understand Margaret Nightingale would like to speak.”

Margaret stood, wobbling a little on her high heels as she walked to the stage. She looked as nervous as I felt, maybe even more so. A microphone stood at one corner of the stage. Patrick sat in the audience, his arms crossed over his chest, a dark scowl on his face.

“I had a dream about the Dweller.” Her voice sounded unsteady, hesitant.

“Go on, Margaret,” said Monroe.

“I saw her in a field of new grass. She wore white, and lightning filled the sky above her. Candles lit her way. As the wind picked up and it started to storm, the candles were extinguished one by one.”

Margaret backed away from the microphone and made her way through the silent crowd to her husband. He turned away from her when she sat down. She looked like she might cry.

The group of girls who’d given me dirty looks sat a few rows away. One of them stared at me with a nasty smirk on her face. Exactly the sort of gypsy girl I’d imagined Michael cavorting with in my imagination. She had long black hair, dark come-hither eyes, and big gold hoops in her ears. Voluptuous and sexy, she exuded confidence. Her eyes kept finding their way back to Michael, lingering on his face, but she was pretty darned interested in me, too. If looks could have killed, I’d have been dead by now.

One of the women on the council, a bony little thing with gray hair and hard eyes spoke directly to Monroe. “Dreams in autumn always come true.”

“That’s Mavin,” said Michael. “She’s very old school.”

“She looks like a witch with a ‘b’ to me.”

He nodded. “That, too.”

He put an arm around my shoulders. A casual gesture, but I shot the group of gypsy girls a triumphant look anyway. They all seemed less than happy, especially the busty one.

I leaned close to whisper in his ear. “Who is that girl over there with the sizable bosom?”

He glanced at the group of girls. “That would be Nella.”

“She doesn’t like me.”

“She doesn’t like anyone.”

Michael turned his attention back to the stage. I stared at his profile. He might not be aware of it, but he was wrong about Nella. She definitely liked the tall, blue-eyed, wall of muscle in the seat right next to me.

There obviously wasn’t a huge selection amongst the gypsy community. Once they weeded out their first cousins and close relatives, slimmer pickings remained than in a small town in rural Kentucky. Michael was probably a rather hot commodity, and I could understand their resentment as an outsider tried to pluck their juiciest peach. But even if I understood why they disliked me, it didn’t make me inclined to change my ways. I wanted Michael just as much as they did, maybe even more.

Monroe pursed his lips. “That’s what is said Mavin, but dreams can be interpreted different ways.”

Another council member, a woman with soft curls and bright blue eyes spoke. Her hair looked like it had once been red, but had faded to a silvery gray. There was something kind about her, and I liked her immediately. I liked Monroe, too.

“Perhaps what our Margaret saw was the untimely death of one of our own, and the reason for our sadness today.”

“Thank you, Anselina. That could very well be the case,” said Monroe.

“But the dream happened after the death.” Even Mavin’s voice was annoying, like nails on a chalkboard.

Anselina gave Mavin a hard stare. “Sometimes dreams work that way. I, for one, am more interested in hearing about what occurred the night our boy died.”

Monroe nodded. “So am I. Would Michael, Sean, Quinn and Anthony please come here? And bring the Dweller, too.”

My heart stopped in my chest. I did not want to get up in front of these people, especially the group of nasty girls. Michael took my hand and whispered in my ear. “Imagine it’s a pageant, and you’re going to win.”

His word helped to propel me forward. I’d dealt with jealous girls my whole life. Southern pageant girls took catty to a whole new level, although these gypsy girls may have had them beat. I took a deep breath, which also made me feel calmer, and we walked to the stage. The boys who were with us the night Tad died joined us.

“Let’s start with Sean.”

Sean approached the microphone. Smaller than Michael, he looked very young, so young a bit of acne still dotted his forehead. He had dark eyes and a big dimple in one cheek.

“I was supposed to hunt with the one we lost that night. We planned to meet at sunset in front of York Minster. That’s what we always did if we couldn’t leave together.”

Sean clenched his hands. “He didn’t show up. I waited for an hour and called his cell phone. He never answered.”

“What did you do?” Monroe folded his hands in front of him on the table.

“I couldn’t hunt alone, of course. As I walked back to the compound, I got a call from Anthony and Quinn. They said they’d found him.”

“Anthony and Quinn, please tell us what happened. Which one is Anthony and which is Quinn?”

I hadn’t noticed it before, but they were twins. Their different tattoos and piercings were the only things that set them apart.

One of the boys stepped forward. “I’m Anthony, sir.” Anthony had a spider web tattoo on his neck and gages in his ears. Quinn had a small tattoo of a knife at the base of his skull.

“Quinn and I were on our patrol when we smelled one of them. It stood over a body. We assumed it was a Dweller. We chased it away, but our boy was already dead.”