Adversity (5 page)

***

Kali

For a
week solid, she went to the village, sometimes with Drina, but more
often alone. Drina’s pregnancy hadn’t been easy, and she needed her
rest.

Kali
worked each day, prepared to earn her keep, desperate to persuade
this particular clan that it needed her around. The clan was a
large vitsa made up of a number of families, wealthier than most,
and a couple of unmarried men had watched her with interest. Not
that she encouraged them. She wasn’t interested in any of
them.

She knew
she was swapping one keeper for another, but the sooner her father
performed the ceremony declaring her no longer a novice, but a
chovihani in her own right, the sooner she could prove herself and
her magic. She would show her people how she turned toward the
light and away from the dark, unlike her father. She would be more
important than her father, well-respected, and perhaps her husband
would be kind and gentle.

Perhaps.

Her
father held power, too. He had once been esteemed, even cherished,
by his clan, but he wasted everything when he turned to black
magic. His power was corrupted, twisted by his greed and vanity, by
the things he had done to assert his position. With any other
parent, she would have been greatly desired; the clans would have
fought to contain her in one of their folds. But in his desperation
to beget a seventh daughter, he had taken steps that would lead to
them both being unofficially ostracised.

She swore
to herself that she would never be the same as him. She ignored the
darkness that pleaded with her whenever she used her talents. The
darkness had followed her since childhood, and deep in her heart,
she knew it came from her father. She knew he had turned to a
darker side to strengthen his power, to make sure she was born,
even if her birth would eventually lead to her mother’s early
death.

She had
to keep her magic pure. She had to stay away from the curses a
chovihani was expected to cast on those who wronged them. Everyone
expected her to be as dark as her father, which explained why the
various gypsy clans had shunned her, and yet that was why they
wanted her, too. She was to protect her people, and when she
married, she would leave her father’s clan and join her husband’s
vitsa to become a part of his people. Perhaps her new alliances
would expect her to harm those who interfered with them. How was
she supposed to be that person who decided when someone deserved a
punishment of dark magic?

She would
be different, and her children would cast away the darkness around
her. Her children would be the light. She had sworn to herself long
ago that she would cleanse herself of her heritage, no matter what
it took.

But the
shadows, clouds on her heart, followed her to the village, and drew
closer every day. On the way back to camp, the air was heavy with
humidity. The heat combined with the increasing sense of time
running out made her panic, and she broke into a run, the dry earth
hard under her bare feet.

She
almost ran right by the woman from the village, the bitter woman
who would somehow raise a gypsy child. This time they met on a dirt
track next to a field of glorious green. Only then did she see the
darkness surrounding the woman and understand how the woman had
invited darkness into her heart a long time ago. Kali was unsettled
to see a manifestation of evil so clearly, and openly. Worse, such
acceptance of darkness came from one of the gaje, a non-gypsy who
should not have knowledge of such magic.

The woman
was accompanied by a young man, most likely her husband, Kali
realised. The villagers had called him a boy, Kali remembered, but
his wide shoulders and straight posture declared him every bit of a
man to Kali. His hair was white blond, his eyes, ice blue, and his
complexion similar to the woman. Again, Kali felt a twist of
discomfort at the memory of the baby’s image she’d had when telling
the woman’s fortune. When the woman set her gaze on Kali, her face
lit up.

“
You! I need to speak with you.”

“
Marusya, we don’t have time,” her husband said in a
deliciously deep voice that ran right down to the tip of Kali’s
toes. She couldn’t take her eyes from his face. What was wrong with
her?

“
Oh, go home, you half-wit,” his wife snapped. She may as well
have been shouting at a stray dog, for all the care she held in her
eyes and voice. He glanced at Kali, his eyes full of embarrassment
and shame, and walked away. Trying to contain her shock at the
woman’s rudeness, Kali’s stomach still quivered at the memory of
her own foresight, and how uncomfortable she felt with the man’s
shame. Terrified of the darkness closing in on her, Kali took a
tone with the woman and openly challenged her.

“
Marusya, is it? I am no dog to be ordered about. Neither is
your husband. Perhaps your barren womb is punishment for your
misdeeds. Consider that when you treat another like
dirt.”

Kali
stalked off, chest heaving with fear as the woman screamed insults
after her. Had she lost her mind? She had broken the golden rule.
The gaje left you alone if they thought you meek. They forgot to
put you down if you acted put upon already. Now she had made an
enemy out of a bitter woman with a broken heart, because she
couldn’t swallow a cruel taunt, and that made her no better than
anyone else. Why had she spoken so? Because she was distracted by a
pair of blue eyes? Was she obsessing about her future?

She could
not throw everything away like that. She would have to move on
again if Marusya caused a fuss. She would have to leave Drina
because she opened her mouth.

Sighing,
she hurried back to camp, hoping to make up for the day’s
mistakes.

Amelia

Another headache kicked in, so I napped before dinner. My
dreams were disturbing, more unsettling than usual, even though not
a lot happened in this last dream, aside from Kali getting all
blushy-faced over a hottie. Oh, and losing the rag with his
wife
. Boundaries,
Kali.

Still, I
felt more connected to her than ever. She had lost her mother, too.
She also felt ostracised because of mistakes her father had made.
How could I not relate to her? I carried guilt because I couldn’t
remember my mother’s face unless I saw it in a photograph. I felt
alone because my family members made decisions that kept me out of
the loop. I had been in danger for perhaps my entire life, and not
one of them had seen fit to warn me. They preferred to treat me
like a child incapable of comprehending the situation. Even now,
they weren’t talking. I still didn’t know where my grandfather was
or how he had managed to fake my grandmother’s death certificate. I
didn’t even know if I was still in danger. I was as frustrated as
Kali.

She,
however, was determined to redeem herself. I couldn’t disagree with
that sentiment.

All of
the talk of darkness and black magic sickened me. Kali—and I—had
felt true fear in the dreams, and the memory of that sensation
followed me around all evening, lingering in the
background.

Byron and
Nathan were both lost in their own thoughts at dinner, and I felt
so alone that I thought about the spirit board again. What if
Nathan had been wrong? What if Mémère really wanted me to use it to
contact her? I had to try, but I also had to make sure nobody would
interrupt me.

Byron
excused himself quickly from the dinner table, barely meeting my
eyes as he said goodnight. Nathan wasn’t much better, and I could
see he was preoccupied with thoughts of Perdita again, which didn’t
surprise me. He had become pretty one dimensional since he’d
discovered his mate.

Left
alone at the table, I found it hard to force food past the lump in
my throat. The night was silent, and all I had was a wolfhound and
a view of an empty, dark garden. Shadows licked the window, and I
had second thoughts about the spirit board. In my dreams, I knew
what magic felt like. Okay, so maybe magic wasn’t real, but the
darkness Kali had felt had crept along my spine, too, and I grew
wary at the idea of messing about with it.

I stood,
almost falling as my knees suddenly buckled. Stabbing pains in my
head had crippled me night after night, but I usually managed to
cover the agony. This time, I struggled to breathe, gasping for
breath as an invisible sledgehammer pounded at my skull.

“
Christ,” I groaned, half-crawling up the stairs and hoping
nobody would see me.

Half-hoping they would.

I made it
to my room without passing out. Something was definitely happening
to me. Whether it was a brain tumour or something mystical, I
needed help. I had wanted to talk to Nathan about the dreams and
explain everything, but I couldn’t put into words how disturbingly
realistic the dreams were. I couldn’t explain how bad the pain was,
because I wasn’t a werewolf, and as far as my family was concerned,
that meant I couldn’t handle pain or responsibility. Or, you know,
the actual truth.

With a
plan in mind, I gathered up some candles and tried to calm myself.
Negative energy would attract negative spirits, or so Mémère would
have said if she’d been around. She had often told me of the old
days, back before she met and was mated to Opa. She made a living
performing psychic readings for people. Fortune telling was the
more accurate term. Her mother, my great-grandmother, held séances,
and was pretty much a psychic bad-ass. I wished I could have met
her. I might have understood more about the magic in the
world.

Opa
hadn’t liked Mémère telling stories of the past. He had warned her
never to speak of magic to me, which meant he’d stolen it from me,
stolen my heritage and my capacity to understand. Sometimes I
wondered if I would ever again feel anything other than anger and
bitterness toward him.

Nathan
and Byron might have been arrogant enough to think they were the
only “special” people in the world, but there had to be other kinds
of magic and folklore that were real. I knew it. Deep in my soul, I
knew that the entire planet was full of forgotten magic, like veins
of power under the surface. If I could only open one… maybe I could
find a way to get my grandmother back to me. My parents even. And
maybe I could find a way to stop Perdita’s death, because that’s
what the curse was to her: a death sentence. That Nathan would
mourn her was a guarantee, no matter how long my family all chose
to ignore the consistent outcomes of our curse.

My
grandmother’s death had only confirmed what we already knew, that
the men in my family were cursed with lycanthropy, with the hunt
for their soul mate, and with the early death of their beloved, and
the curse would remain until a girl was born to break it. My birth,
though, hadn’t changed anything. We learned that, for sure, when my
brother unexpectedly turned into a werewolf for the first time at
the age of sixteen.

Even if
the curse didn’t kill Perdita, the werewolves who hunted us might.
We weren’t sure if the wolves wanted to murder me so I couldn’t end
the curse, or if they wanted to end Perdita’s life to lessen the
chances of our family line continuing. Either way, they were out
for blood, at least while the curse was active.

That
thought worked as an incentive. That I needed help was a certainty.
I didn’t know enough about what was to come or enough about my role
in ending the curse. My grandmother had known a lot more than we
ever expected, and maybe there were secrets she still had to
share.

I lit the
candles, shivering a little as the flames flickered and swayed as
one. The tapers stayed lit, which was the main thing. I pulled out
the spirit board and placed it on the floor in the centre of the
candles. Mémère had once told me there was power in the flames, and
more importantly, that they helped us focus. A lack of focus while
dealing with a spirit board wasn’t a road I wanted to travel down,
especially if its magic was real. All I needed to do was believe,
and a whole new world would open up to me.

Staring
at the flames, I realised I had always been open to more than my
fair share of the unexplainable. I had always had faith. It was the
one thing that got me through the horrors of the past, and the only
thing that pulled me forward into my future. My faith was not based
on religion so much as it was an optimism that everything would
work out in the end. I had faith that I would find my way through
the darkness and come through the other side a stronger, better
person. A faith that I could ask for help, and help would be given,
one way or another.

Something
in my subconscious knew things I didn’t, and it was dying to let
them out. I already held the secrets, and all I needed to do was
find the key to opening them. I was ready for whatever I had been
waiting for my entire life.

Excitement squirmed in my belly as I touched the cup on top
of the spirit board. I hoped the board would work with me. A shiver
ran through me as the latent energy came alive against my skin. I
sensed the energy there, a wriggling darkness dying to escape. I
had to make sure it didn’t, so I spoke words I’d heard Mémère say
when Opa wasn’t around—words I’d read in books that offered
protection or aimed to soothe, not provoke. All of the candles’
flames extinguished as one and then rekindled. A thrill of
anticipation had the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight
up.