The Snow Gypsy(72)

Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know. That kind of fear kills you without you realizing. Like bleeding inside.

She needed to keep those words of Bill Lee’s in her mind. There was still so much she didn’t know. But tomorrow she would make herself go back up the mountain by the other path. The one that led to Maria’s house.





Chapter 26

Zoltan had already set up his market stall when Rose and Nieve passed through the village square on their way to school the next day. Nieve ran to say hello. After five minutes Rose literally had to drag her away.

“Come on—you’ll be late for school!”

“Will you come and see me dancing on Saturday?” Nieve called over her shoulder.

“Yes, of course!” Zoltan called back. He arched his eyebrows at Rose: a look that said, Are you coming back?

When she returned to the square, Zoltan was serving a queue of customers. She went to buy some lace for Nieve’s dance costume. Then she went to the place where Zoltan had tethered his mules, pleased to see that the sick one had recovered enough to come to market.

“It’s healed up completely,” he called to her. “You’d never know there’d been a wound there, would you?” He scooped some cherries into a bag and brought them over to her. “It’s been busy this morning,” he said. “Lots of people getting ready for San Juan. The young men have a custom of hanging cherries on the doors of the girls they’re in love with. These are for you, by the way.” He smiled, cocking his head at the mule. “From him.”

“Thank you.”

As she tucked the bag away, he laid his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length as his eyes searched her face.

“I was worried about you yesterday,” he said. “I thought you might come—and when you didn’t, I . . .” He hesitated, frown lines creasing his forehead. “Are you okay?”

Rose nodded. “I’m sorry you were worried. I just needed some time to take it all in. I went for a long walk—up to Capileira—and it did help. I’m going to go and find Maria now.”

“You don’t want to wait until tomorrow?” He glanced at the baskets of fruit glistening in the sun.

“It’s kind of you to offer—but I need to go there on my own this time.” She saw the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. “I’m prepared for whatever she can tell me, however bad it is. I just need to know—to get it over. Do you understand?”

He nodded. “Just remember I’ll be here. If you want to talk.”

She raised her hand across her chest, feeling for his fingers on her shoulder. “Thank you.” She wanted to kiss his hand but was afraid of sending out the wrong signals. Instead she drew it to her cheek and held it there. His skin felt warm and it smelled of cherries.



Maria Andorra was milking goats when Rose found her. The pungent, earthy smell of the animals hit the back of Rose’s throat as she pushed open the door of the shed behind the farmhouse. She held Gunesh’s lead tight, afraid that he might break free and cause chaos.

“I thought you’d be back.” Maria raised herself stiffly from the low milking stool, rubbing her left hip.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Rose said. “But I need to know what happened. Where it happened. And when. Otherwise I . . .”

“You can’t really believe it?”

Rose nodded.

Maria picked up the pail of milk and covered it with a metal plate. “Come with me,” she said.

Rose followed her through rows of potato plants until they reached the stream that ran through the farmland. Maria set the pail down in the shallow water, picking up stones to lay on top to keep the current from dislodging it. Then she eased herself down onto the grassy bank and patted the space beside her.

“It was the day after Easter. The eighteenth day of April. As I said, I don’t keep track of the months up here—but that’s one date I do always know, because it’s my birthday.” Maria spread out her hands, turning them over to examine the knotted blue veins that snaked from the wrists to the knuckles. “I turned seventy that year. Your brother brought me a present. Something he’d made himself. A horse, it was.”

Rose felt the tightness of threatened tears in her throat. She clenched her jaw, fighting them back.

Maria took a clay pipe from the pocket of her skirt and tapped it against a stone. “It was a lovely thing. He’d carved it out of elder wood.” She stuffed a pinch of tobacco into the pipe and held a match to it, sucking in short, sharp breaths. The smell reminded Rose of sitting on the steps of Bill Lee’s caravan on that May evening, just weeks ago. If she’d known then what lay ahead, would she have set out on this journey?

Maria took the pipe out of her mouth. “I remember how we laughed when he gave it to me, because he was wearing some old clothes of mine and the sleeves were far too short—you could see his hairy arms. I had to give him a shawl to cover them up. That was how he got away with going to the village in daylight, you see.”

“Disguised as a woman?” Rose had a fleeting sense of something drifting up from her subconscious, almost within reach—but too fragile to grasp.

“He told me he had to meet someone in Pampaneira,” Maria went on. “It was to do with getting him and his girl out of Spain.” Maria sucked on the pipe, casting a wary glance at Rose. “Did you know that she was pregnant?”