The Snow Gypsy(87)

Lola heard him shut the door. In the thick silence of the little room, her tears poured out unchecked. She groped in the pocket of her skirt for a handkerchief. As she mopped her face, Nieve opened her eyes. There was a wild, frightened expression in them, as if something monstrous were sitting beside her.

“Nieve—cari?o—it’s me, it’s your mama,” Lola whispered.

The look of terror turned to one of blank incomprehension. With a rasping sigh, Nieve turned her face to the wall.



Rose didn’t think she would be able to sleep. The most she had managed in the past thirty-six hours was a brief, fitful doze in a chair by Nieve’s bed. She took a blanket outside and laid it on the grass in the shade of an elder tree whose branches almost touched the wall of the cottage. She lay down and placed the edge of the blanket over her face to keep off the flies. As she closed her eyes, images tumbled around her head like dead leaves in a winter storm.

The sight of Lola had been a shock. Rose knew that her own appearance must be far from normal. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed her face or brushed her hair. But Lola’s time in prison had taken a heavy toll. Her already slim body was almost skeletally thin. Her lovely face with its proud cheekbones was hollow and pallid. The journey from Granada must have drained what little strength she had. And then the trauma of seeing Nieve like that . . . Rose clenched her hands together, digging the nails into the skin. “Oh God,” she murmured. “Did I do the right thing?”

Demon voices hissed back at her, telling her that in bringing Lola to this place, she was jeopardizing a life that already hung in the balance. What if Lola caught typhus, too? In her weakened state, she was unlikely to be able to fight it. But what else could Rose have done? Lola would never have forgiven her if she hadn’t sent that telegram, if she’d left her hanging on in Granada until it was too late . . .

Rose felt as though her brain would burst out of her skull. Was this the beginning of the disease taking hold? Was she becoming delirious? Or was it just exhaustion and distress? She tried to regulate her breathing, tried to drive out all other thoughts as she silently counted in and counted out. She thought of the little book she had brought with her from England, written by a woman who had spent most of her life offering comfort to souls in torment through the high barred window of a hermit’s cell.

All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

How could she believe that? How could anyone believe it, faced with the imminent death of someone they loved?

Because every individual being, from a flower to a child, is of concern to the creator of life.

Those words, penned nearly a thousand years ago, had been a touchstone for Rose since her student days. The note at the front of the book said that Julian of Norwich had not always been a nun, that there were hints in her writing of an earlier life as a wife and mother, and that she had possibly lost her family in the plague epidemic that had swept through England the year before she had taken her vows.

If that was true, how could she have gone on believing?

Rose opened her eyes, gazing up at the blur of leaves and sky above her head. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that this was the same tree whose wood Nathan had used to carve the little wooden horse he had given to Maria. She tried to imagine him sitting beside her now, working away with a knife while he talked to her. What would he say? What would he want to tell her?

She must have drifted into sleep pondering the answer. When she opened her eyes again, the sky had turned from bright blue to indigo, and a sprinkling of stars could be seen through the silhouette of leaves and branches.

The vestige of a dream drifted across the edge of her mind. She tried to catch it before it slipped away. Nathan was in it—she could see him riding across a meadow on Pharaoh, his favorite stallion, laughing as the wind tugged at his clothes. He pulled on the reins suddenly, bringing the horse to a standstill. He jumped off and knelt on the ground, pointing to something white.

What is it? What are you trying to tell me?

But as she grasped at it, the image faded.

A sudden cry had her jumping to her feet. The horribly familiar sound of Nieve calling out in pain had a new intensity—loud enough to penetrate the walls of the cottage. Rose ran inside. Lola and Zoltan were both by the bedside. They looked up with tortured faces.

“I don’t know what to do,” Lola wailed. “She’s in agony.”

Rose couldn’t reply. The sight of Nieve thrashing around, her eyes wide with terror, was unbearable.

“I’ve tried to give her some more of that stuff Maria brought,” Zoltan said, “but she just spits it out.”

Rose nodded. “It’s so hot in here.” She went to unlatch the window.

“What about the flies?” Zoltan said.

“They don’t seem to be so bad at night—and they can’t make her any worse than she already is,” Rose murmured. “Let’s at least get some air into the place.” As she pulled the window open, she saw the garden lit up by the rays of the moon, which was just rising. Something caught her eye, glowing white on the edge of the garden, where bare rock rose up from the grass. She had a sudden sense of her mind grasping at something fleeting and elusive—something of potent significance that she couldn’t pin down.

“I have to go outside,” she said. “I won’t be a moment.”