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“You feeling better?” Caitlin asked her as
she smoothed out the top coverlet of the bed.

Papin smiled sweetly at her. “I’m good,” she
said. “Thank you, Caitlin. And I’m sorry about today. I know you
wanted me to say it were rape.”

“That’s all right,
dearest,” Caitlin said.
Gypsy
bitch!
“It was hard enough to say what you
did say, I know.”

Papin didn’t answer.

“Did it help at all, seeing the expression
on Mike’s face? I told you there would be some healing as soon as
the words were out of your mouth. Was that true?”

Papin hesitated. “Oh, sure. It helped a lot
seeing him all…” Papin swallowed and Caitlin could see she was
wrestling with herself about something. “Seeing him all upset and
buggered. It was real good.”

“See? I told you.” Caitlin patted her hand.
“And now we just have to do one more thing and we’ll put it all to
rest and won’t that feel good?”

Papin nodded, her eyes watching Caitlin’s.
Was the girl afraid of her? Perhaps she was just tired. “It will,”
Papin said.

“You do want to stay here in camp, don’t
you?”

Papin nodded. “More than anything.”

“Well, once we do this one little thing, you
can count on being here for always.”

“And Sarah, too.”

“Yes, dearest, of course. And Sarah, too.
Now let’s go over it, then you can sleep.”

Papin struggled to sit up. She didn’t look
pregnant yet, Caitlin observed. But she did look filled out in all
the right places, as Caitlin knew her husband, Brian, had also
observed.

“I’m supposed to go to Auntie Fi’s first
thing in the morning,” Papin said, as if reciting, “and slip the
ground-up mushrooms you give me into her tea or whatever’s to
hand.”

“That’s right.”

“And you promise they’ll just make her sick
and no more?”

“They’re not poisonous, just mildly toxic.
What next, Papin?”

Papin looked at the ceiling as if trying to
remember the next steps. “You’ll make sure me mum comes to the
house with the thermos of poisoned soup. What if she drinks the
soup before she gets there?”

“She won’t. I’ll tell her it’s for Fiona on
account of her being sick. Don’t worry. Nobody is going to eat the
soup.”

Papin nodded. “And when me mum comes in, I
run out and fetch Mr. Jamison saying I think me mum’s trying to
kill me auntie.”

“Very good.”

“You’re positive she won’t get in real
trouble?”

“Of course, dearest. She’ll be briefly
detained in her cottage—just long enough for you to miss your
flight to the States.”

“Won’t she just try again?”

“We’ll think of something for the next time.
And the next time. You do trust me, don’t you, Papin?”

Papin nodded sleepily and scooted back under
her covers, her eyes closing. “I do,” she murmured.

“Good night, dearest,”
Caitlin said, leaning over to make a kissing sound by Papin’s cheek
but stopping short of actually touching her. She stood, then blew
out the candle and went to the interior of the cottage. Out the
front window the riff-raff gypsies had gathered to play their music
and tell stories.
Even without
grog
, she thought with amazement. She’d
have to get Brian to put an end to all that.

She sat in a chair by the window to await
Brian’s return from camp patrol, and gave herself a few moments of
pleasure re-living the expression on Mike Donovan’s face when he
realized he’d been fingered as the father of the gypsy skank’s
unborn child. She smiled and felt the tingling sensation of pure
joy as she re-envisioned his eyes, shocked and uncomprehending, his
shouts of disbelief and shame.

Yes, it would have been so much better to
have been able to drag him to jail and hung for rape. That little
turn of events had been supremely disappointing. But it just meant
that a greater pleasure waited.

The death of his dear sister Fiona and the
execution of his lover for the crime would do in the meantime to
make up for the annoyance of his escape today.

I wonder, Mike, when you hear of their
deaths, if you’ll feel anything like what I felt when you put that
rope around Aidan’s neck—the only man who ever truly loved me— all
because of the lies of that American bitch.

She watched Brian climb the porch stairs to
their cottage.

And best of all? It’s only
the beginning
.

16

Papin was wearing a purple sweater and
sitting on the ground by the main cook fire playing with the gypsy
babies when Sarah came out of Fiona’s cottage the next morning.

She acts like nothing’s
happened,
Sarah thought with amazement as
she trotted down the steps and walked purposefully toward her
adopted daughter. One of the gypsy women saw her from over Papin’s
shoulder and scooped up her toddler and ran toward the interior
part of the camp where the gypsies had set up their main
settlement.

Papin twisted around to see what had
startled the woman and, seeing Sarah, her eyes widened in alarm.
Before Sarah could reach her, Papin was on her feet, but Sarah
lunged for her and grabbed her by the arm before she could move
away.

“Just one minute, young lady,” Sarah said,
cursing how ridiculously maternal she sounded. “I need a word with
you.”

“Caitie says nothing good can come from you
and me talking, Sarah,” Papin said, her face contorted into a
grimace as she attempted to unhook Sarah’s fingers from her
arm.

“Oh, does she?” Sarah
forced herself not to shake Papin until her eyes rattled. While she
didn’t let go of her, she did force her voice to remain calm.
“Whatever you think you’re doing, Papin, it will
not
work. Whatever mad
idea you’ve got for saying Mike is the father of that baby, will
not work, do you hear me?”

“Well, I’m sorry, Mum,”
Papin said. Sarah could see a few people had stopped their chores
and were listening to them with evident fascination. She watched
Papin’s eyes and it was clear she noticed them too. “I knew you
were hurt about me not telling ya about the baby, but how could I
tell you?” Papin said, raising her voice now. “I knew how you
burned to be in Da’s bed. How could I tell you it was
me
he chose over
you?”

“I think you’ve got your pigtails screwed in
too tight, Papin, if you think for one moment that anyone believes
you and Mike were lovers.”

“They all believe it!” She waved her free
hand toward the camp. “Just like Caitie knew they would.”

“Why
are you spending time with that woman? You’ve heard the
stories we told about Caitlin before you came—”

Papin finally pulled her arm away. “Yes, I
heard them and now I know they were not true.”

“Not
true
? You’ve known her all of twenty-four
hours and you believe her lies over the people who love
you?”

“Is this love? Really? Doesn’t feel that way
to me. You don’t care who you hurt to get what you want. Not me or
Da or John. I saw it in Wales…I saw it the first time I met you.
You let Evvie die because she was too slow!”

Sarah gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
“That is not true,” she whispered, the pain and grief of the dear
woman’s death still not muted enough to bear hearing her name.

“It’s what I believe,” Papin said, tears
streaming down her face. “I believe every thing bad that’s happened
to us is because you needed to do things your way no matter who got
hurt. Ask Da if it’s not true!”

“Papin…” Sarah reached out for her
again.

“Don’t touch me!” Papin said, jerking her
arm and taking two steps away. “I’m sick of people saying they love
me only for what they can get out of me. Fact is I hate you,
Sarah!”

“Papin!”

The girl turned and ran from the camp
center, pushing past the group of people who had gathered to hear
the argument. Sarah stood helplessly, watching Papin go, then
turned her back on the gawkers and walked back to Fiona’s
cottage.

It wasn’t until she was back inside Fiona’s
living room Sarah realized she hadn’t told Papin they were
staying.

***

Gavin saw her coming down
the path from the corner of his eye. It was hard not to see her,
wearing that outlandish purple jumper—
in
all this heat?
He gave his fishing pole a
shake hoping the bait would look a little more alive to whatever
fish was eyeing it below the surface of the pasture pond. Da said
he was crazy to think he’d pull anything out of it and he was
determined to prove him wrong.

Da.
Gavin hadn’t been there yesterday when the whole ruckus went
down but he’d seen the aftermath, with Brian’s blokes dragging Da
out the front gate. At first he thought they were just playing
around. It didn’t seem possible—not in any universe he could
imagine—that they were actually throwing him out.

How could that be? The fecking place was
called Donovan’s Lot!

Or at least it used to be.

Gavin watched Papin pick her way gingerly
down the path to where he stood at the pond’s edge. “Oy, Papin,” he
said. “I can’t have a lot of chatter, mind, or I’ll never catch
anything.”

“I’ll be quiet,” she said, sitting in slump
at his feet and knocking over his canteen.

“Something the matter?”

She looked up at him and he
could see she’d been crying.
Aw, I don’t
want to deal with crying
. He jerked his
pole and tried to concentrate on how the line pierced the placid
surface of the water.

“Are you serious, Gavin?” she asked. “Were
you not there yesterday? Did you really not hear?”

“Oh. You mean yesterday.”

“Aye, where I announced to the world that Da
was the father of me baby?” She looked out over the water.

There was a moment and then Gavin spoke.
“So, that’s not the truth of it, then?”

She snorted and looked down at her hands.
“What do you think?” she said quietly.

“Then who?”

Papin acted as if she hadn’t heard him and
Gavin watched her straighten out her legs and pull at the grass to
sprinkle it onto her legs. Just when he gave up and turned his
attention back to the fishing line in the water, she cleared her
throat.

“You remember Ollie?”

Holy shite.
“It was Ollie who got you up the
spout?”

She nodded.

“And that was the reason he was fighting
with Eeny.”

“Just say it, Gav,” Papin said jumping to
her feet. “It was me that got Eeny killed. I know it! You don’t
think I don’t know it?”

He stumbled back a step, surprised at her
outburst. “Hey, settle down, Papin. You’re scaring the fish.”

She hugged herself and turned her back on
him.

“So why’d you say it was Da?” Gavin asked.
“So people wouldn’t know you were the reason Ollie killed
Eeny?”

She turned to look at him like she would
burst into tears any moment. He didn’t know why she was so upset
but he knew it was probably something he said.

“I’m sorry, Papin,” he said. “I always say
the wrong thing. You should talk to Auntie Fi or someone. I’m a
right berk when it comes to talking to girls.”

She shook her head and sank back to the
ground. “No,” she said. “No, you’re not a berk, Gav. You tell the
truth and there’s few girls don’t like to be dealt with
straight.”

“So
was
it because of Eeny you blamed it
on Da?” He frowned because he was working hard on trying to figure
out how blaming Da for it would help anything.

“No. It was because I was mad at Da. And
Mum.” She ripped more grass with her hand and flung it back to the
ground. “And someone told me it would help.”

“Mad because of you having to leave and go
to America?”

“Yes.
And
for the two of them breaking up
in the first place. But now that I’ve slept on it, I don’t think it
was such a good idea.” She looked up at him and he thought her face
looked like that of a little girl. “Can you forgive me,
Gavin?”

“Forgive you? Cor, I’m just glad you didn’t
pin it on me!”

She smiled ruefully and that made him glad.
He seemed to be cheering her up some. She had such pretty brown
eyes. Almond-shaped, like most gypsies.

“And I’ll miss you, Papin,” he said, reeling
in his line to cast again. “You and John both. Heaps.”

“Well that’s one good thing out of all this
anyway,” she said with a sigh. “We’ll not be leaving after
all.”

“You won’t?”

She stood up and shook the grass from her
clothes. “No. And it’s Caitie who helped me see how to do that.”
She put a hand on her still-flat stomach. “Now that I’m going to be
a mother meself, I need to start figuring out solutions to my
problems. That’s what Caitie says.”

“Well, she’s probably right about that at
least.”

“Have you seen Da since…you know,
yesterday?”

Gavin shook his head. “Camp’s in lockdown.
Nobody allowed to leave right now. I’m sure he’s fine. Besides,” he
laughed, “he’ll need time to work off that temper you put him
in!”

He watched her face crinkle up into a smile
and she laughed, too. “Oy, you shoulda seen how mad he was! If he
coulda reached me, I know he’d a killed me!”

“You’re likely right about that.”

“You think he’ll forgive me?”

“You know Da.”

“Yeah. I do.” She stood on tiptoes and gave
Gavin a quick kiss on the cheek. “Sorry if I buggered the fishing,”
she said. “And thanks for the talk, Gav. You’re the best big
brother a girl could ask for. I feel tons better.”