The Snow Gypsy
Lindsay Ashford
Chapter 1
Spain: April 18, 1938
The snow has lingered longer than usual this spring. It shrouds the orange and lemon groves in the valley below the village of Capileira and sends fingers of white up the scars in the hillside where the sun never reaches.
The girl sets off in the cold pink dawn, urging the goats out into the street, up the steep path that leads to the mountain pastures. As she climbs higher, a veil of scented smoke drifts up from the fires of rosemary wood being lit in the houses. For a while the only sound is the tinkle of the goats’ bells. Then the cries of ravens tear through the morning air. They swoop over the herd, hungry for blood. The girl knows she must be vigilant. They will take a newborn kid if they get the chance.
Her breakfast of bread and cheese is eaten on a moss-covered rock, from which she watches the sun rise over the Mediterranean Sea. If she holds her hand above her eyes, she can make out the misty peaks of Morocco on the other side of the water. The goats tear at the tender new shoots of gorse and thyme, their udders swaying as they roam the landscape.
She is on her way back down when flakes of snow begin to appear. At first, they are soft and sparse, circling like almond blossoms as they fall. Then, as the wind gusts from the glacier on the top of the mountain, they turn into showers of icy splinters that sting her eyes.
A blanket of cloud smudges the sky, and the goats huddle closer, spooked by the sudden change in the weather. Fresh dung showers the path. The smell pinches at her nostrils. But it’s not just the flurry of snow. Something else has scared them. Someone is shouting. Angry voices rise from the ravine that separates her from the town far below. The girl can’t see over the ridge. But what she hears makes her blood freeze. A voice she knows, rising above the moan of the wind.
When the shots ring out, the goats stop dead. She fights her way through the jam of wet fur and scrambles down the mountainside. Shards of loose rock jab the worn soles of her boots, and thornbushes snag her clothes. She catches her foot in a gorse root and lurches forward, grasping at spiny branches to save herself. But the goats have followed her. They crowd around, a forest of legs blocking her way. By the time she reaches the valley floor, the ravens are already circling overhead.
Snow is falling like feathers on dead faces. Bodies lie where they have fallen. The wind tugs at their clothes, the colors bleaching as the blizzard buries them. She lurches from one lifeless form to another, frantically sweeping eyelids, noses, mouths. She drops to her knees beside two bodies that lie together, letting out a howl of anguish. She cradles their heads, pleading for some sign of life. But their white shrouds are red with blood.
Snow is falling like feathers. Angels coming for departed souls.
Shuddering with sobs, she flings herself down between the woman and the boy. Clasping two cold hands, she closes her eyes, willing the blizzard to go on. If she lies still for long enough, it will take her, too. It won’t be a frightening death like theirs. She will simply fall asleep.
But the goats won’t leave her alone. They cluster around, nibbling at her boots, pulling off her hat. She kicks out at them and closes her eyes tighter. One of them is making a strange noise. More like a cat than a goat. She wonders if this is the beginning of death—hearing sounds that don’t make sense.
The noise grows louder, more urgent. By some instinct she lifts her head. At the outer edge of her vision, something moves. Not downward like the snowflakes, but upward. Pinkish white, streaked with red, like a newly skinned rabbit. It looks like an arm—but it’s far too small to belong to the body lying in the snow. She blinks, thinking she must be hallucinating. But it’s still there—that desperate, flailing limb. And that thin, insistent cry.
She stumbles to her feet, her legs numb and clumsy. The body is some distance from the others. The wind tugs at a skirt the color of chestnuts. Black hair tumbles from a woolen cap that has fallen sideways. The eyes are open, staring into the sky. And there, in the folds of a shawl patterned with peacocks, is a tiny blood-smeared scrap of life.
The girl reaches out. The fingers that grasp hers remind her of the bunched tentacles of squid in the fish stalls at the village market. She wonders how something so small can feel so strong. Her eyes travel from the hand, along the arm to the body. A girl child. Still attached to its mother by a twist of sinew and veins.
With its frosting of snow, the woman’s face is ghostly. A trickle of dark red oozes from a wound at the base of her neck. The girl wonders how the baby can be alive when the person who gave birth to it is dead. But as the thought enters her head, she catches a slight movement—the twitch of a muscle on one side of the mouth. The lips slide apart like melting ice.
“Please . . .” The woman tries to lift her head. The eyelids flutter, blue-veined skin almost translucent. Her voice is a rasping whisper. “Take my baby.”
The eyes are cloudy black, like the two halves of a split olive. They hold hers for what seems like eternity, until she feels as if she’s falling into the fathomless land behind their dark centers. And then, without a sound, the head falls back into the snow.
The baby gives a piercing wail, as if it knows. The girl stares, bewildered, at its little purple face. She grabs at the shawl, tries to wrap it around the child’s body. But the cord gets in the way. Her hand goes to her waist, feeling for her belt. But the leather sheath where she keeps her knife is empty. In the scramble down the mountain, she has lost it.