OK so this chapter sucks but I have to post it anyway. R/R
The man advanced towards the two terrified girls. His shadow covered their tiny figures. The sun was almost disappearing under the horizon's line now, and there was no possibility anyone would come and help them. Anita was weeping silently, and Lynna looked about to start doing the same thing.
But, before he had any chance to do anything, someone behind his back grabbed him and threw him on the floor. The man gasped and swore, surprised. He tried to stand, but instead he just sat there, looking straight forward.
The other man forced him to stand up and hit him hard on the jaw. He fell on the floor, his face bleeding.
When their saviour approached, the three girls realized it was no other than Clopin.
"What the hell happened here?" he said, examining Adele's face.
"Él-él – He-he-he att-ttacked us – beating gato, cat, I mean…" Anita said, nervously.
She didn't have time to complete her phrase. The man had stood up and grabbed Clopin's shirt. The two men started a terrible fight. It was impossible to say who was going to win. They would probably have fought for hours if Lynna hadn't approached them carefully and hit the stranger on the nape of his neck with her flute. He fell on the floor unconscious.
"Oh God!" Lynna said, taking a hand to her lips. "I think I've killed him! Is that a problem?"
"It will be a problem if a guard appears" Clopin said, firmly, while turning Adele's body around and raising it up. "We will talk about this later. Now let's go before that man wakes up, because I don't want to have to fight him again. One of us might end up dead."
Lynna grabbed the basket and was ready to start running away, but then she remembered the cat. She glanced at it. It was trying to stand up, failing completely. There was blood on its fur. Lynna felt she just couldn't leave the poor thing there.
"Anita" she called out. Her friend stopped walking and turned to face her.
"What?" Anita said, worried.
"Take this basket" Lynna said, handling it to her friend and walking towards the cat. It was almost completely black, save for a white spot over its right eye and ear. The cat stared at her with its green eyes, and bared its teeth when she reached out her hands to hold it. It tried to stand up and run away, but it couldn't. When Lynna held it in her arms, it desperately struggled and bit her. But she did not let go of it.
"Sorry to interrupt you" Clopin said, obviously irritated, "but we are going to have problems if a guard appears. We may even be arrested by attacking a citizen."
"We did not attack him!" protested Anita.
"Well, try convincing a guard of that" he said, ending the pointless conversation, and the three of them started to run; Anita carrying Shankar and the basket – and the effort to run without dropping any of them made her run slower than usual – , Clopin carrying Adele's body in his arms, and Lynna carrying the struggling cat.
Miriam almost faded when Clopin entered her tent carrying her unconscious daughter in his arms. He laid Adele on some orange cushions which were on the floor while Lynna went to get a cup of water.
"What happened to my poor Adele?" Miriam asked, kneeling down beside her daughter.
"Well-well, it's a long story, Miriam..." Anita started, stuttering.
"Is she dead?" Miriam interrupted her. "Oh, please, tell me she is not dead!"
"Don't even think of that!" Lynna shouted, pouring fresh water on Adele's face. Anita immediately pressed her ear against Adele's chest. For a second, her eyes froze in fear, because she heard nothing – but then, a pound, and another, and she sighed, relieved.
"She is alive" Anita said, standing up. She walked towards Shankar, picked him up and sat down, putting him on her lap. The poor chicken had been practically thrown aside when everyone entered the tent. Since then, Shankar spent his time staring curiously at the girl who had bought him from the fat woman. He seemed to understand now that she could be trusted, and didn't try to run away from her anymore.
"I will bring Panya here" Clopin informed, and left.
"What the hell happened, Lynna? Who did this to my Adele?" Miriam asked again.
Lynna, who was much calmer than Anita, explained what had happened. She was sitting with the cat she had saved. Her neck and arms were full of bruises from the cat's fighting to break free, but now the cat laid quietly on the floor, licking its paw.
Lynna lifted the cat's back paw, and said:
"It's a girl. What should I name her?"
"Are you going to keep this cat?" Anita asked.
"Of course. I can't just leave her to live on her on."
"Aww..." Adele moaned, rolling on her improvised bed.
"Adele, my dear! Are you alright? How many fingers do you see?" Miriam said, placing her hand in front of Adele's eyes. The girl was feeling too dizzy to answer, and instead she just took a deep breath and took her hand to her forehead.
"Man... It hurts..."
Adele tried to sit down, but she was too weak to do that. Lynna tried to distract her friend by telling her she was going to keep the cat they had saved and that she was thinking of a good name for her, but Adele was too irritated now to find amusement in anything:
"So while I was unconscious and bleeding to death you were thinking of a name for a cat? What a nice friend you are."
Of course, she was exaggerating. She only had a small bruise on the place her head had hit the floor when she fell.
Luckily for Lynna, Clopin soon arrived with Panya, and the old woman started to take care of the injured girl. Anita stood up with Shankar in her arms, unsure of what to do.
"Should I leave?" she asked quietly.
Adele opened her mouth to say something, but Panya declared that it would be better if everyone except Miriam left the room. Adele tried to protest, but everyone obeyed.
"Clopin?" Lynna said, once they were out of the tent. "Is Adele going to be alright?"
"Of course, Lynna. Panya can do wonders to injured people. Anita knows it very well, don't you, Anita?" he said, smiling. Then Anita noticed there was something wrong with him.
"You are bleeding" she said, pointing to his forehead.
It was true. On the left side of his face, there was a wound with blood coming out of it. He took his hand to his face, and left out a painful moan.
"It's nothing" he said.
"It's not 'nothing'" Lynna said. "Anita, let's take him to my tent. My mother will prepare something for us to eat and we can make a curative on him." Lynna was eager to show her gratefulness to the gypsy king, and without waiting for an answer, used one of her arms to pull him. Her other arm was busy carrying the cat.
Anita hurried and went after them, holding Shankar. They soon arrived to Lynna's tent, where her mother gave them some water and a hot meal. They washed Clopin's wound and told Lynna's mother about what had happened. She was very impressed about how Clopin had saved her daughter and her friends.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Anita asked, after they had washed his wound.
"Yes, yes, you don't need to worry" he answered, smiling. Anita was thrilled by how his smile was so cheerful and at the same time comforting.
When she went to sleep that night, she remembered that smile, and smiled too.
One month later
Anita woke up and yawned. She had gone to sleep quite late last night, but she had to get up and go the streets to get some money.
On the first days after her accident with the fire, she had dedicated all her attention to training Shankar to do some tricks. Cluck in the rhythm of some songs, fly over a footstool and even dance with her. The chicken was a fast learner, although sometimes he messed up one trick with another. One day, he had tried to fly over the footstool while clucking, and landed clumsy on the footstool, making everything – himself included – fall down. But Anita still loved him, and put a golden ring around his right paw, so everyone would know that this was now a gypsy chicken.
Since Anita couldn't dance with her castanets, she had tried to create a new dance with her fan. It turned out to be a good idea, and now she was able to earn her money without the castanets. But she missed dancing with them, and she went to see Panya everyday to know if she could start dancing with her castanets again.
Shankar had woken up too. He was walking around the tent, moving his head forward and backward as he walked. She chuckled at the sight.
"Come, Shankar, come. It's time to work" she said. The chicken stared at her for a moment, and when he realized she was going to leave, he followed her out of the tent. He had learned to trust Anita, but ran away if anyone else tried to touch him. Especially Adele. The girl seemed to have a talent for scaring the poor thing.
Speaking of Adele, the egg she had earned from Dino had surprisingly opened some days after the sunset events to reveal a little pretty bird. Adele had named it Fiore. The little bird thought Adele was his mum, and followed her everywhere.
As for Lynna, she and Hana, as she had named the cat, had developed a resigned but affective relationship. Hana didn't show any signs of caring about Lynna most of the time, but she would silently slip onto Lynna's lap when she sat with her friends to chat. Sometimes, Hana just lay on the floor and stared at the blonde girl, as if the cat was observing and protecting Lynna with her green, wise eyes.
"Adele! Wait for me!"
Anita ran after her friend, with Shankar clucking and racing after her. Life had been easy for the past month, and Anita almost didn't think of her father now. And whenever she did, she felt guilty for not thinking of him as much as she thought she should. Every day she would dance and laugh with her friends, but when night came she would remember her father, of whom she had had no news since she left him, and cry. She felt a horrible daughter for laughing while her father could be in danger, but the happy aura around her made it impossible for her to feel sad when she was with her friends. It was a strange feeling; to feel guilty for feeling happy.
Right now, her mind was completely filled with happiness. She had been dancing with her friends on the street, and now they had started a race game, which consisted in simply run among the crowd as fast as they could.
"This is not fair!" Lynna exclaimed when they stopped. "You don't have to carry your pet; Fiore simply flies after you."
"It's not my fault that my pet is the best" Adele replied, taking Fiore in her hand and putting it on her shoulder. The bird brushed its small head against Adele's cheek.
"Oh, please, don't make me laugh" Anita said. Her face was red from the exercise and she was very tired, but she would not lose a chance of displaying her chicken's abilities. "Can your pretty little bird do this?"
She opened her fan and stepped two times with her left foot and one time with her right foot on the floor. Shankar immediately started to dance with her, not looking like a drunk man anymore, but almost gracefully.
"Hmpf" grumbled Adele. "It's a matter of size. Fiore is too little to dance."
Lynna and Anita simply laughed.
When they were going back to the Court, in the evening, they walked past a young man sitting on the floor, his chin in his hands. When they were almost in the end of the street, the man shouted:
"Anita!"
The girl turned around, and stared at him, confused. Suddenly, her eyes lit up and she smiled.
"Sal!"
Anita hugged the young man with affection. They talked to each other in Spanish and looked extremely happy.
"Lynna, Adele" Anita turned to her friends. "This is Sal, an old friend of mine. We used to travel in the same group when we were children."
Sal was thin like a rod, and taller than Anita. He had big brown eyes which looked forward with fear, as though he was facing a big man with big fists. His entire body language made it look like he was constantly afraid, making Lynna and Adele want to laugh at him, but they simply smiled to hold the laughter back.
"Hello, Sal" Adele said, shaking his hand. As she did it, his whole arm moved along with his hand, making Adele smile even more.
"Good evening, ladies" he said, in a really strong Spanish accent. His voice was low and sharp. "I am delighted to meet you."
He looked somewhat uneasy, but Anita did not notice that. She was too happy for meeting her friend to notice anything.
"So, where have you gone to after Dad and I left? What have you been doing? Tell me, I want to know everything!" She clasped her hands in an almost childish joy, while walking towards a well in the middle of the street and resting her hands on its border. "How is everyone? Are they in Paris too? Are you going to stay for long? Tell me, tell me!"
Sal looked down. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully, and not knowing what to do with his hands.
"Is something wrong?" Anita asked, smiling, after a moment of silence. She couldn't imagine he would have a bad new for her, so why be upset?
"Anita… I have something to tell you" he started, biting his lower lip. "I… I have come alone. I left the group."
"Oh" she simply said. "Is that what you wanted to tell me?"
"No! No, it is… What I want to say is… I've met your father" he said, quickly. Anita widened her eyes.
"My father? You met him? Oh, please, tell me, how is he doing? When is he coming?"
"I… I was just in my way to Paris, some days ago" he started. "Then I heard some noise in a forest nearby." He stopped, looking aside. Anita walked to the place right in front of him.
"Was that my father?"
"It was Philip Bolder and his men."
Philip Bolder… Anita hadn't pronounced that name, not even in her mind, for a long time, and the sound of it hit her thoughts like a heavy bell which hasn't been rang for a long time. The name lit something up in Adele and Lynna's mind, and they slowly remembered the story Anita had told them.
"Oh God" Anita exclaimed, taking a hand to her mouth. "What were they doing there?"
"They were with your father" he said, quickly, as if he wanted to end that conversation as soon as possible.
Again, his words hit Anita like a heavy bell. Her eyes widened with fear.
"What did they do to him? Is he well? Did they hurt him? Where is he now? At some lodging? Is someone taking care of him? I need to go and see him immediately! Please, tell me where…"
"ANITA!" Sal interrupted her, grabbing her arms. He stared at her for a moment hopelessly, and said, slowly:
"Your father is dead."
A deadly silence reigned among them.
The words slowly made their way through her troubled mind. They echoed, and slowly started to make sense…
Your father is dead.
She shook her head.
"You lie." It was the only thing she could think of.
"Anita, please, face reality. Do you really think Bolder would let him escape alive? When I arrived, they were attacking him, and he was almost dead. I wanted to do something, but what could I do against twenty armed men? I watched everything."
"You lie" she repeated, dumbly, staring into nothing.
"Anita" Lynna said, putting her hands on her friend's shoulders. Lynna was worried – Anita looked like she was about to do something insane. Adele did the same.
Anita slowly released her arms from Sal's grasp. She took a few steps aside, looking straight forward.
Your father is dead.
The words echoed in her mind, not in Sal's sharp and desperate voice, but in a cold and cruel one.
Father. Is. Dead.
"This can't be true." she said at last. Sal sighed and put his hand inside his coat.
"I was hoping I could show you this later, when you were calmer, but I guess I'll need to show you now. When Bolder's men took his…" he hesitated. "…his body away, they dropped this. I got it when they were gone." He handed her something. She quickly took it, and almost dropped it the instant she realized what it was. Lynna and Adele approached to have a better look at it.
It was a green hat with a small yellow feather, all covered in blood.
Dad's hat, Anita thought.
The next thing she knew, she was running towards the well and throwing her head into the big hole, crying like a mad girl.
"Anita!" Lynna and Adele immediately held her arms to stop her from falling into the well. Shankar started to jump nervously.
"Leave me alone! Let me throw all my afflictions into this well and die at last!" she screamed.
"Anita! Don't do this!" Sal shouted, with fear in his eyes.
"Why shouldn't I?" she shouted back, her eyes insane. "My father is dead. When I left him, I promised I would meet him again. Now I need to go meet him! I need to go meet him…"
She started to cry, and laid her head in Adele's chest. Adele held her tight, trying to comfort her.
Anita couldn't think of anything. So she just cried as scandalously as she could, trying to find comfort in her tears.
But she found none.
Él: he
gato: cat
