Ay! Tengo que hacer mucho tarea hoy! A four-day weekend, and I've wasted the whole damn thing! Notice how I keep doing this instead of homework...



In visions of the dark night
I have dream'd of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
--Edgar Allen Poe, "A Dream"





"Do you know why you're the only one of us with dark hair?"

A seven-year-old Olrox looked up from the water of the small creek near the manor. His older brother, Alexandru, perched in a tree limb overhead. The small woods surrounding the stream provided some exquisite climbing trees, and also shade for the minnows, which darted through the shallow parts of the creek like quicksilver.

"As if you'd know..." Olrox spat. He never really knew when Alex said something truthfully, or with the intent to be obnoxious.

Alex hung upside-down by his legs. "You're not really our brother, you know."

"Yes I am," Olrox retorted sullenly.

A mischievous sparkle came into Alex's eyes. Once again, his brother had risen to the bait. "No, not really. Mother and Father bought you."

"That's stupid..."

A delighted giggle answered from the tree. "They did! They bought you from a band of gypsies. You just don't remember because you were too little."

Olrox didn't find this the least bit funny. "They did NOT, Alex! You're a liar!"

"Mother still has your gypsy clothes in a trunk; I've seen them myself."

"No, you haven't because they're not there!"

Alex cackled with mirth from the safety of the tree. "Gypsy!"

Olrox snatched up a pinecone, stood, and whipped it at Alex's head. It ended up bouncing off a branch instead. "I'm NOT a gypsy!"

"What's all this about gypsies?" Both Olrox and Alex looked at where the voice had come from, near some bushes downstream. Two figures emerged from the brush. It was Mihai, with Tatiana not too far behind. Mihai was twelve, practically a grown-up and the unquestioned leader of the siblings. He could settle this.

"Mother didn't buy me from gypsies, did she?" Olrox's eyes brimmed with tears.

"Did Alex tell you that?" Mihai shot a quick glare toward the tree. Olrox nodded. Mihai sighed, and laid a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder. "Or course she didn't buy you. You were born just like the rest of us. You should know not to listen to Alex by now."

"It's not my fault he has no sense of humor!" Alex called down.

What could have been an argument was diverted when Tatiana skipped between them, twirling her skirts and holding her shawl so that it looked like wings. "I'm a gypsy!" she announced in a singsong voice. Her vivid imagination had already embraced the idea.

Alex sneered. "Gypsies don't have blonde hair, stupid."

Hands akimbo, and quite annoyed at that remark, Tatiana looked up into the tree. "They MIGHT."

Alex mimicked her tone. "They MIGHTN'T."

Mihai ended it. "Alex, shut up; you don't know what you're talking about, anyway."

Tatiana and Olrox smiled, and Tatiana stuck her tongue out at her petulant brother before dancing her way over to the other two. "If I can't have blonde hair, then I'll just turn it brown, like Olrox's."

Alex sniggered. Mihai and Olrox sat down on the bank, and Olrox returned his attention to watching the minnows and trying to catch one in his hands, a futile endeavor. Tatiana took her shoes off, held her skirts out of the way with one hand, and began to daintily hop from rock to rock across the stream.

"Careful, Tatiana," Mihai cautioned.

Olrox added, "Mother's going to be mad at you if you get your dress wet, 'Ana."

"I won't," Tatiana assured them. She climbed up a big rock in the middle of the stream and sat down on top of it. A beam of sunshine filtered down through the trees, making the crystalline water sparkle cheerfully and cast reflections on the rocks. Tatiana looked up into the beam of light and heaved a theatrical sigh. "I wish I were a mermaid."

Mihai grinned. "I thought you wanted to be a gypsy." He was dutifully ignored.

Alex poked his head through the foliage. "You're too ugly to be a mermaid, 'Ana."

Tatiana made a face and went back to her daydreaming. Olrox spoke without looking up from the minnows, which still eluded him. "Would you live in the ocean, or in a river?" At ten and seven, Tatiana and Olrox were still young enough to appreciate the finer arts of playing make-believe.

Tatiana grinned and shifted so she was sitting Indian-style. "Neither. I'd live right here in the stream, so you could visit me."

Mihai quirked an eyebrow. "The creek's a little too small for a mermaid to fit in, I think."

His younger sister shook her head patiently. "That's why I'd be a fairy-sized one. I'd have to have the wings, too, of course. That way, I could get up on top of the rocks to sun myself." She paused to yawn and stretch luxuriously, as a mermaid would.

Alex piped up again. "A fairy-mermaid?! Sometimes I think you're wrong in the head..."

The offended girl didn't even deign to look in her irritating brother's direction. "I'd turn you into a newt, too." She really should have been paying attention; if she had, she'd have noticed Alex take his shirt off and wriggle his way out over the middle of the water.

"Newts like the water!" Alex screamed as he jumped off the branch. Tatiana cried out as she was drenched by the mighty splash. She glared daggers at Alex when he surfaced, who innocently spit water into her face. Mihai tried to stifle laughter while Olrox rolled on the ground, helpless with mirth at the sight of the bedraggled gypsy-fairy-mermaid.

Tatiana stood up indignantly and made her way back to dry land. "You're horrid, Alex! A horrid, horrid, monstrous little boy! Father doesn't belt you enough!" On the shore, she wrung out her skirts and shawl, praying they'd air dry before anyone saw she'd gotten wet, shivering slightly from the frigid creek water.

At a look from Mihai, Alex decided it would be a good idea to climb out as well and get dressed. He giggled evilly as he swam over, teeth chattering slightly. "It wouldn't matter. I don't even feel it anymore!"

Olrox had given up on the minnows, and Mihai had informed the group that one of the barn cats had had kittens, so the band spent the rest of that day in the barn inundating themselves with hay, dirt, and the scent of animal sweat. As they headed inside for dinner, one of the housekeepers, a large, grandmotherly woman named Constanta, scolded them for coming in dirty. "Gracious, children! Look at you; you're absolutely filthy! One would think you were a bunch of ragamuffin gypsies!" She clicked her tongue reproachfully and bustled off down the hallway. Alex nudged Olrox with his shoulder, as much as to say 'See, eh? See? I told you.'



"'Ana, WHY?"

"Because it's important."

"Why don't you just ask Mother?"

"I will; I just want to get the idea first."

"You already know how to braid!"

"I know how to braid my own hair; doing someone else's is different. Now sit still! You're making it fall out."

A twelve-year-old Olrox sat on the end of his sister's bed, getting his hair french-braided, and looking very put-upon. Tatiana would be leaving for France soon; their grandparents in England had scraped up money to enroll her in a convent school, insisting that she at least should get a formal education.

"I do very nice braids on myself," Tatiana explained. "So, just in case anyone should ask me, I ought to be able to braid other girls' hair, too." Deciding to start over, she took the braid apart with her fingers and brushing it out.

"Ouch!" Olrox nearly jumped. "That hurt!"

"Oh, stop whining, you big baby; it's just a little tangle."

With a little sigh, Olrox glumly sat still as the brush ripped his hair. Tatiana left in a week, so he supposed he should enjoy her company while it lasted, even if it was rather painful.

"You'll visit?"

Tatiana nodded, and then remembered that her brother wouldn't be able to see. "Yes. There's a long break over Christmas, just so the girls can go home."

Olrox tried to mentally calculate how many days there were until Christmas, however, this seemed to make his head hurt (though it may just have been Tatiana and her ruthless hair brushing technique). He spoke again to take his mind off of the snapping, tearing noises coming from the back of his head. "Don't you dare forget to write to us. I'll write."

Tatiana separated what was left of Olrox's hair and began a new braid. "Of course I'll write. I'll write every month, at least. If I'm REALLY lucky, I'll be able to read your handwriting."

"There's nothing wrong with my handwriting..." Olrox replied in a small voice. He was answered by a derisive snort, heralding a temporary end to the conversation.



A sixteen-year-old Olrox sat watching his brother pace. Mihai and Gabriela had been married for a little over a year, and were about to have their first child. Half the household had flocked to the east wing of the house where the couple lived, most of them were out in the hallway, or had wandered off to the kitchens to enjoy the impromptu break. The room adjacent to Gabriela's was where the immediate family had been corralled, including Mihai, who was told a bit brusquely by Constanta and Rosie, Mihai's mother, to keep out of the way.

Olrox had been watching Mihai pace for a good thirty minutes, and he didn't know about Mihai, but he was getting rather dizzy. Alex had, up to this point, tried to ignore his older brother.

"For Christ's sake, Mihai; sit down!"

Mihai fell into the nearest chair, fingers drumming on the armrest. He wasn't a highly-strung man by nature, but today certainly seemed an exception. Elie sat nearby, looking highly amused. "I went through four of these, you know. It's over before you know it." It didn't seem that Mihai believed that sentiment.

Alex stalked over to a table and poured a glass of brandy.

"I really shouldn't be drinking right now, Alex."

Alex snorted. "Who the hell said it was for you?" With that, he hooked back the liquor faster than was probably good for him and sat down, looking slightly sedated.

Silence reigned for a few minutes. Olrox, wishing to mitigate his brother's anxiety, made the unusual attempt of starting a conversation. He said quietly, "Are you guessing she'll have a girl, or a boy?" (The female help, especially the older ones, had been prattling on for months, speculating on the gender of Gabriela's firstborn. One of the loudest had declared confidently that it was sure to be a boy, as Gabriela was 'carrying low.' Their curiosity thus piqued, Mihai and his brothers had carefully observed the poor expectant mother. After conferring, their verdict was quite succinctly summed up by Alex, who stated, "Well, damned if I know, it looks about the normal height to me." Baffled, the men abandoned their amateur dabbling to the household women, who obviously knew a great deal more about the unique science of 'pregnancy divination' than they.)

Mihai shrugged, only half paying attention between glancing at the clock. "Doesn't matter." Elie nodded approvingly. Alex pondered for a moment.

"If I had to have one," he said, "I think girls make less noise, generally speaking."

Elie curled his lip, though he made an honest effort not to. "I shudder at the very notion of you with a child..."

Miffed, but not going to let it show, Alex strode across the little sitting room and rested his hands against the back of Elie's chair, leaning over tauntingly. "Come now, Father; at your age an open window makes you shudder." The teasing smile of his childhood was now a galling smirk. Elie twisted and looked up at his son.

"I'm not too old to teach you respect, Alexandru." He grinned and his eyes twinkled, framed by laugh lines. Knowing their father as they did, the young men knew he could very well follow through with what seemed like a joking threat. Not to be mistaken, Elie wasn't in the habit of beating his family, but in a house such as his, with children such as his, some arguments tended to be settled manually. In an act of great prudence, Alex winked, shrugged his shoulders in surrender, and went back to his own seat, closing his eyes and smoothing his beard in what appeared to be thought.

Olrox sighed. It seemed impossible for peace to be kept between them for any length of time. Especially lately...

Suddenly, Mihai leapt from his chair. "What's taking so long?!"

Olrox and Alex both jumped in their seats. Elie started, but soon began laughing. "Give the poor woman some time, Mihai; it's only been an hour!"

After that, nothing much happened, and Olrox gradually dozed off.



He woke up slowly, rising from the depths of sleep to consciousness. Olrox was cold as ice, and curled up into a ball under the covers. The chill remained, and, much as he fought it, wakefulness was inexorably creeping up on him. 'It must have been the nightmare I had. Silly to think something like that could ever happen, I suppose, but it seemed so...' he threw the blankets off his head, to reveal a bed that most certainly was not his own.

"...So real..."