Chapter 7: New normal

Back in the camp, we do what customs demand. I share my meal with the clan, sitting next to Tamara, who is now playing nursemaid to both me and Rana. I can feel Puri Daj's gaze on me, even though I don't turn towards her and she doesn't address me.

But I can't even pretend to take part in the conversations and the laughter around me.

He has found a place to the side, near the fire but out of the way. He looks unfamiliar without the armor and sword at his side. Unfamiliar also because of what we have shared.

Rana flashes me a challenging smile when she sees my gaze. But I am not in the mood for a child's games. So I just shake my head and settle my eyes on my bowl.

She isn't one to give up so easily, though. Instead, she gets up, provocatively slow and sending me a glance every few steps to make sure I notice her. She goes over to the fire and gets another bowl of the stew. Then, she just stands there, looking back at me, the challenge still clear in her eyes.

I don't like it but I shrug. "Go ahead." It is not a fight I am willing to engage in.

Hips swaying from side to side, she makes her way over to where he sits.

I can feel a definite growl coming on.

Tamara has now noticed her cousin, too.

I hold her down as she wants to jump up. "Let her be. She needs to do what she needs to do."

"But –"

"It will play out sometime. Either here and now, or at some other point. At least here, you can see what is happening."

She would still run over if I didn't hold her down, though.

Instead, I concentrate on the humming of the bond and on my feelings. I cannot send him a message in words, but I can make my pulse race and my hands sweat. A warning.

He doesn't change his posture but I can feel him tense.

A few heartbeats later, she kneels down beside him.

I cannot hear what she says, but her body language says it all. The curve of her spine, the shoulders far back to show off her cleavage, at the same time keeping her eyelashes down and playing the shy little girl.

I clench my teeth hard.

So far, he hasn't moved an inch but now he turns his head away from her.

She has sat the bowl on the ground and keeps talking. When he doesn't answer or turn back around to her, she stretches out a hand to touch his arm.

I breathe through my gritted teeth to keep the angry hiss inside.

But there is no need.

In one smooth movement he is getting up and is already ducking out of the tent and into the night.

I relax my hand on Tamara's arm. I breathe out deeply: "She has her answer. Now you can go and make her life miserable."

Tamara doesn't need the invitation, she is already on her way over and before Rana can even react she has slapped her squarely across the face.

I wince at the force of the blow. That will leave a mark.

She proceeds to shake her and yell at her until a few other women get up and drag both of them out of the tent.

For a while, everyone is frozen in shocked silence. Then, one by one, low conversations start up again.

I look at Puri Daj to see how she has taken the spectacle. But her face gives nothing away.

So I turn to the woman next to me: "Evelyn? Can you explain it to me, please? What happens if a mulengi talks to one of the travelers."

Her face is creased in a frown. "Should not happen. Travelers do not talk to mulengi."

"I know. But Rana just did."

"Rana – stupid. Dead man did right. Walk away." She gives me a smile: "Is not forbidden, talking when you're a shadow. But is like the begging and pleading of a fly and not worthy of a man. Of course is forbidden to answer. Brings shame."

"Thank you. You have much to teach me."

She gives me a friendly pat on the back: "Is good, Bari-chey. You – different."

I smile back at her. Yes, different.

After a while, the incident is outwardly forgotten. Musicians are unpacking their fiddles and a sort of battle of songs between the women and the men starts. Tamara comes back alone. She bends down to whisper something in Puri Daj's ear, who just nods and sends Tamara to the rest of us.

I try to catch her eye but she avoids me. So I stay for another while, but finally I can't take it anymore and get up.

Outside, the night air is cool but clear. I breathe it in deeply. It is a welcome change from the rains that had everything soaking wet and the air almost too humid to breathe for a whole month.

Before leading my steps to our own home, I go over towards the wagon Tamara shares with her family. No door is locked with the travelers and I go in unhindered.

She tries to suppress her sobbing the moment she hears me. I ignore her for the time being and go over to Kara. Humming my favorite nursery rhyme, I lay my hand on her cheek ever so softly. She is fast asleep but she is in the dream world of normal nights and not anymore in the realm of the passing.

"She will wake up on her own in the morning, you can tell Tamara that."

She doesn't answer. In the dark, all I can make out is her shadow sitting huddled in a corner of her bed.

I sigh. "If you want me to, I can take the sting out of that bruise."

"You can?" Her voice is full of the tears she's shed.

I cautiously sit down on the edge of her bed. "Sure. I can heal it just like other things."

She thinks about it. "No", she finally sighs.

"Alright", I nod. "It is probably better that way. It is meant to hurt for a reason."

I get up and go to the bowl of fresh water next to Kara's bed. I dunk one of the linen cloths into the cool water, wring it out and bring it over to her: "Here. Cooling it will keep down the swelling."

She takes it from me and winces slightly as she puts the cloth on her face.

"He won't bring shame on you and your family. And he would do exactly that if he talked to you. You know that, right?"

I get no answer, so I sigh and turn to leave. "Good night then, Rana."

"Bari-chey?" she calls me back.

"Yes?"

"It is still a stupid rule."

Against my will, I smile. "Yeah. That it is."

He's waiting for me in the dark of our new home.

"Hey."

"How's your patient?"

He's tracked my movement through the corral. "Better. Rana, too."

"That her name?"

"Yeah."

"She get in trouble?"

"Yeah."

"She deserves to."

My reasons for agreeing with him have more to do with that growl and hiss I felt coming on than with any righteous indignation, so I just shrug. "Cut her some slack. She's 16. Was raised in the city. A rebellious child who doesn't know what she's doing."

His eyes reflect the moon as he turns to look at me. "If you look for trouble, trouble will find you."

"I didn't. Look for trouble. It found me anyway."

For a moment, the silence between us stretches.

Then I sigh: "I can't sleep in all this jingly stuff. I'll have to get rid of it."

Without words, he turns.

He keeps the bond void of his emotions, but there's something. Something in the way that he told me I was beautiful. Something in the way I didn't like to see him with Rana. I can't put my finger on it and I don't dare to try.

I've been raised to avoid touching anyone who wasn't my nurse or my sisters, the healing being the only exemption. He's learned to avoid all contact. And still, we've longed for a bit of human warmth and we've allowed us the small grace that comes with a hand that holds yours when you're hurting or a back that spends warmth on a cold night.

I slip into my long shirt, the one that I normally wear under my leather pants and woolen sweater. "Done."

He doesn't turn back to me so I just slip under the covers on my side of the bed.

He still doesn't move.

"Not tired?"

"I'm plenty tired."

"But?"

"But this isn't right."

"Didn't we have this conversation just yesterday?"

"I didn't know yesterday."

Frustration makes me sigh. "Deadman, I'm not a different person than yesterday. Neither are you."

Now he looks at me after all: "You sure?"

"Just come sleep."

Slowly and deliberately he makes his way to the backside of the bed. He's avoiding me the same way he did in the beginning.

"Deadman, please", suddenly I feel so tired that I don't think I can take this. "You're the only friend I have. I don't want to lose you over something I can't change."

I half expect him to answer with the standard reply, that I shouldn't see him as a friend.

But he surprises me: "Why do you think this happened to us?"

"Which part?" There are honestly too many things that have happened to either of us.

"The link. I thought about this tonight. We wouldn't be here without it. Or, I certainly wouldn't. If by some miracle I had lived through that night, I'd be fighting someone somewhere."

I shrug. "I could just as easily have perished in the storm. I was solidly out of food. So I'd not be here, either, most likely." I've thought about the same thing once in a while. But I have no answer for him. "I can ask Puri Daj if you want. Maybe she knows."

Then I feel something through the link. "You're in pain."

"It's alright, Bari-chey."

"No, it's not." I sit back up and start humming a few notes. Physical pain is not something that you can hide easily from me, especially not if you're linked to me.

"You are tired. It will heal on its own."

Instead of listening to him, I sing the first notes of the song that takes the pain and brings sleep.

"Stop it, Ghost."

He's had ample chance to learn the difference between the basic songs so he knows that I'm threatening him.

"Show me, then."

Sighing, he obeys. He slips his shirt over his head. The scar from our first meeting is visible as a slight pink line on his white skin. But on his side above the hip, the skin is dark against the pale moonlight.

"What did you do?"

He shrugs. "Repairs to the wagon. One of the wood beams slipped."

There are scratches but most of the damage is internal. Softly, I lay my hand on it.

He shudders but he stays still.

He is right, it would heal all by itself. But I don't like seeing him in more pain than he is already in. And this pain is easily treated.

It is a simple melody, swaying back and forth in repeating rhythms to make the blood flow back to where it belongs. I can feel the muscles relax under my hand as the bruises start to fade. Simultaneously, his pain lessens and finally disappears. As usual, it fills my heart with a joy that is stronger than the drain of my power.

He laughs softly when he feels it through the bond. "Sometimes I think you try to heal everything that has ever ailed me all over. And make the scars disappear on top of it."

I sing one last repeat of the melody but leave my hand where it is for a moment longer. "Would that I could."

"Would that I could give you something in return."

"But you can." I lean back against the wall. "Teach me."

He settles himself next to me.

Fragments of music and laughter drift over to us.

He closes his eyes as he listens to it for a moment. When he opens them again, there is a peaceful calm in them that I don't know from him. "Alright. I will teach you. If you understand nothing else about us, about the travelers, then this will guide you: Being together is everything. Being alone is something that is never good and always suspicious."

"You like your space, in your houses and your gardens. You go on walks on your own. Unless it is in the depth of winter and you're freezing, you like to have a bed or a room to yourself. Travelers are different. Travelers need their families close. Literally close. Townies think travelers are always standing or sitting a bit too close to them. They think it's to prepare a scam."

He laughs softly. "In truth, it often enough is. But you've seen them when no gadje is around. They are never alone. Unless they are very sick or getting punished."

"Tamara slapped Rana across the face. Then the women dragged her out. I found her in the wagon all by herself."

He nods. "The worse punishment by far, to be excluded from the group. Even if it's just for one night."

"She wanted to show her how it feels", I didn't have that thought before. "To be outcast. To be alone."

"You have to understand, Bari-chey. Travelers, wherever they go, are strangers. They always take a gamble. No one cares if they get hunted or killed. They have only themselves."

I nod. I understand. "Say my name."

"Ghost."

"No, the other one."

"Eliza", he says very quietly.

"Everyone cares. Where princesses go. What they do. How they behave. But in the end, there was still no one. You are the first person, you know that? The first one who I told."

He is silent for a moment. "You asked me to run if they found you, mira printesa. But I'm not going to. Not even if you command it."

I puzzle the translation together: "Did you just call me your princess?"

He smiles. "I wouldn't leave Your Highness to fend for herself, either."

It is no use arguing with him when he has made up his mind about something. "So let's make sure it doesn't happen for as long as we can."

"You don't miss your old life?"

"I miss my sisters and brothers sometimes." Hell, there are days when I even miss my father. But: "I can be useful to about everyone else, but not to myself, Deadman. I don't get sick in the same way others do. I do not even starve as fast. But a poison or a blade can kill me like anyone else. And I cannot give myself my own energy. I'll be helpless when they come for me."

And this is the better scenario. The one where my other skills still give me a chance. The one that worries me is the one it is not a poison or a blade. Where it is something darker.

He considers my words for a while. "Helpless you are not, Bari-chey. But it is good to be prepared before entering a battle."

"Are you a seer, too, now?"

He laughs softly: "No. But I do not think the fates have planned for you to live in a wagon with me until you're old and grey."

The fates can kiss my ass.


You know me, I live for reviews, so if you have the time, drop me a line!