The Snow Gypsy(79)
“Are you sure you’re okay to go walking up the mountain?” Zoltan asked.
“I think it’ll do me good,” she replied. “I need to strengthen the muscles that I sprained. Don’t worry—I’ll stop and rest if I think I’m overdoing it.”
“Well, if you’re sure.” He fastened the buckle on the second set of panniers and gathered up the lead reins of the two mules. “Is there anything you want me to get you while I’m in the village?”
“Could you call at the post office again?”
“Do you want me to go to the mill as well, just in case?”
Rose’s face clouded. “If anything’s gone there, it’ll probably be on the fire by now.”
“How long is it since you wrote to those people in Granada?”
“Nearly three weeks. If there’s nothing waiting for me, I’m going to write more letters. If I keep pestering them, they won’t be able to ignore me, will they?”
“I hope not.” He glanced at Nieve, who was playing with Gunesh on the grassy bank behind the cottage. “She doesn’t talk about Lola, does she? Do you think she’s forgotten her?”
Rose shook her head. “When we first arrived, she cried a lot. After she started school, I hardly dared mention Lola for fear of upsetting her so much she wouldn’t be able to do the things that normal children do. Talking about it is too traumatic for her. I think she’s buried the pain deep inside.”
Zoltan nodded. There was a faraway look in his eyes that hinted at pain he, too, had buried. He pulled on the reins, and the mules lumbered forward. “Nieve,” he called, “are you ready?”
Rose set off a few minutes after waving them goodbye. She wanted to get up the mountain while it was still early, to get to the flowers before the sun parched them of dew. She had water, fruit, bread, and cheese in her rucksack—enough to keep her going for several hours. And if anything happened—if her ankle gave way again—she would send Gunesh back down to raise the alarm.
She followed the course of a stream, walking beneath trees whose boughs hung over the water. There were maples, junipers, holm oaks, and willows. Elder trees dropped tiny snow-white florets, as delicate as confetti, each time the breeze stirred the branches.
As she climbed higher, the woodland gave way to a region of gray rock and pincushion plants—cacti the size and shape of the Moroccan leather footstools she had often glimpsed in the dark interiors of Spanish houses. Dotted among them were rockroses, with wrinkled pink petals and yellow centers. This flower was on Maria’s list. She intended to extract oil from it, which she said was good for nervous complaints, and make a brew of the petals as a gargle for ulcerated throats.
The next plant Rose spotted was a larger cactus—the prickly pear. Maria wanted the flowers that sprouted from the leathery green flesh to make a cure for amoebic dysentery. Picking them was a tricky process. It took nearly an hour to gather enough to fill one of the muslin bags the old woman had given her.
With two out of the five on her list accounted for, Rose decided to take a break. There was a flat rock just above the place where the prickly pear grew. She lowered her rucksack onto it and settled down to take in the breathtaking view of the valley and the sea beyond.
Something on the edge of her field of vision made her look up. A huge bird glided noiselessly over her head. It was bigger than any she’d ever seen—its red-brown wings glinting as the sun caught the feathers. A golden eagle. She watched, mesmerized, as it glided over an outcrop of rocks before soaring up toward the peak of the mountain.
Somewhere up there, where fingers of snow still clung to sunless crevices, was the little shrine Zoltan had described—the one dedicated to the Virgin of the Snows. She wondered how long it would take to reach it from here. Judging by the steepness of the terrain, it was certainly not something to contemplate with a newly mended ankle.
She thought about the story Zoltan had told her, about the traveler caught in a blizzard on top of the mountain, who had prayed for help and seen a vision of the Virgin Mary. What was it Zoltan had said? He begged to be saved, if he was worthy. It made her think of Lola, who must have taken the same route as that long-ago traveler to get to Granada. If anyone was worthy of being saved, she was. And yet she was locked up in a ghastly prison cell with no prospect of release.
Rose closed her eyes, summoning up the image of the statue she had seen in the church of Nuestra Se?ora de la Cabeza, of the Black Virgin in the gold-spangled dress.
Please, God, if you’re real, set Lola free.
It was the first time she had prayed since leaving England. She felt as if her faith were hanging by a thread. The sense of peace she had felt in the church at Capileira had been fleeting, swept away the very next day by the grim facts Maria had divulged. Could a few murmured words, however fervent, really alter the course of a human life? Had that traveler been saved from the blizzard because he prayed, or would he have survived anyway? Did the Virgin Mary really appear to him on the mountain, or was he hallucinating as hypothermia began to shut down his brain?
There was no straightforward answer to any of those questions. The scientific rigor that had been drummed into Rose as a student was of no use in pondering such matters. Faith was not about facts or certainties; otherwise it wouldn’t be faith. Believing was what counted. Even when the odds seemed impossible. Did she believe?