In my dream it is snowing and I am outside in the sparkling air, as comfortable as a fox or a deer in the deep woods. I am wearing a long, heavy skirt, with a bright shawl wrapped around my shoulders. A cooking fire glows in a ring of stones dug into the cold earth. The flames heat a pot of broth that hangs from a metal trivet over the fire. Behind me is a huddle of tents and wooden carts, and a couple of ragged boys playing in the snow. I am watching and waiting, and the smell of the fire mingles with the smell of the tall pine trees. I am waiting for someone, waiting for him to return to me.
And then Sebastian is there, running over the snow, his face full of young, strong joy. He takes me into his arms and we kiss, and our mouths are warm and sweet as honey. The white world fades and the red sun burns low on the horizon. But there’s something I need, something I’m looking for; I try to remember. Sebastian, I say urgently, you’ve got to help me find the fire token. What is it? Where is it? He looks at me so tenderly and strokes my hair; then a rough voice calls out, “Prala! Av akai!” Brother…my brother… Three dark-haired riders, wary-looking men with strong, proud faces, are waiting for him under the trees, holding the reins of Sebastian’s black horse. One of them comes nearer, leading the horse and speaking urgently to Sebastian. Then Sebastian lets go of me and leaps into the saddle. I can’t stay, he says. My brothers will help, I have to move on, move on, move on…. He gallops away with the men, and I am left alone as the sun sets and the world blazes into fire.
When I woke up, the dream was still bright and alive, like a picture in my mind. I looked at the little alarm clock by my bedside and groaned. Three o’clock in the morning. I just wanted to go back to sleep, to my dream world where Sebastian’s kisses were real.
The dream. I suddenly sat up, bolt upright, my heart racing. My brothers will help. But Sebastian didn’t have any brothers; he had been an only child. His brothers, the riders in the snow…those men on the wild-looking horses, what did they remind me of? My thoughts were jumbling over one another, struggling to make sense, as scraps of forgotten conversation rose from the layers of my mind. I hope she haunts you, Celeste had said. But I don’t believe in ghosts, do you, Sarah? Yes…I think I do…the old beliefs…The dead can come back; the dead can come back to haunt the living; that’s what the Romany people say….
That was it; that was the connection—those men in the dream, they reminded me of the traveler boy, the Gypsy we had seen on his shaggy pony out on the moors. And Sebastian’s brothers—what had Sebastian told me of his long and restless existence since Agnes’s death? I lived for a while with some Romany wanderers. They were good to me, like brothers.
Was there a connection? My brothers will help, the dream Sebastian had said. But perhaps I was just grasping at any wild idea. Yesterday my mind had been full of images of the woman with the amulet, and now I was buzzing with dreams of Sebastian. Was it all just crazy nonsense, brought on by worry and lack of sleep? Or had my dream really contained a message of some kind?
There was only one way to find out.
The following Sunday Harriet ran after us down the drive just as we got near to the school gates. I guessed she had been hanging around, waiting for us to appear.
“Hey, Evie,” she said, panting. “Where are you going?”
“Out,” I said shortly.
“Can I come with you?”
“You younger ones aren’t allowed out without a mistress,” Helen replied.
“But that’s not fair. Anyway, they’d never know. I could walk behind you.” Her face screwed up, as though she were trying not to cry. “I just want to get out of here for a while.”
“Don’t be silly, Harriet. It’s impossible,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Look, perhaps we could ask Miss Scratton if you could come another time,” Sarah said kindly. “But we can’t do it today. Why don’t you run back to school and curl up with a book or something? We’ll see you later.”
Harriet’s black eyes were mutinous with disappointment. “Oh, all right,” she replied sulkily, as we hurried through the gates and set off along the rough lane that led to the village. I seemed to feel her eyes boring into my back as we left her behind.
“Poor Harriet,” murmured Sarah. My conscience twinged. I would be extra nice to Harriet when we got back, I promised myself. I would play Scrabble with her after supper, whatever she wanted. I would let her think I was her best friend; I would do anything—but right now I had to get to the travelers’ camp.
We walked briskly, and had soon passed the churchyard and reached the far side of the village. The field by the road had a sad, untidy look. Four or five trailer vans and a couple of beaten-up cars were parked, seemingly haphazardly, around the edge of the field, and here and there piles of scrap metal, a broken chair, and a stripped-down motorbike added to the sense of transience and confusion. Someone had strung some washing to dry on a line, and the clothes flapped stiff and frozen in the chill wind. There were no gaily-colored wooden carts, no exotic women in bright skirts, nothing of the storybook image of the ancient Gypsy folk. A low hum of pop music was coming from one of the trailers, and the smell of cooking. Three horses were tethered by coarse ropes to the fence, and they stood patiently, nuzzling against one another, waiting.
“Do you really think we’ll be welcome?” Helen wondered, as we hesitated by the gate. I was glad we weren’t wearing our conspicuous school uniform, but instead were dressed for a Sunday-afternoon walk to the village in our jeans and jackets.
“We’ll soon find out,” I replied, pushing the gate open and walking into the field. A dog barked; then a girl opened the door of one of the vans and ran down the steps. When she saw us she stopped and stared wordlessly. It was the young girl we had seen out riding.
“Hello,” I ventured. “Is your…um…brother around?”
The girl continued to stare at us, then turned and fled back into the trailer. We heard voices and then the door opened again. The boy we had seen before stepped out, eyeing us warily. I guessed he was about seventeen. He had untidy brown hair and broad shoulders and a closed, defensive expression. I nudged Sarah in the ribs.
“Sastipe,” she said haltingly. Sarah had made the effort to learn a few Romany words before our visit, and had persuaded us to do the same. “Devlesa avilan.”
Greetings, my friend. It is God who brought you….
The boy looked up in surprise, then growled, “I can speak English, you know.” He stared at us for another moment, then broke into a reluctant grin. “Your pronunciation is terrible. But at least you tried. Devlesa araklam tume—It is with God that I found you.”
“Thank you,” Sarah replied delightedly. “So…can we talk to you?”
“Sure. I won’t bite.” He smiled at her again. “I’ve seen you out riding. You’re not bad. Quite good, in fact. What do you want to talk about?”
Sarah hesitated for a second. “It might sound stupid….”
“Wait a second.” He turned and stepped back into the trailer and spoke briefly to the people inside, then zipped up his jacket and walked over to us. “Let’s go somewhere else. My mother’s resting. I don’t want to disturb her. She doesn’t really like…I mean, it would just be easier.”
We walked down the lane, away from the village, and found ourselves taking the path that led to the little river, hardly more than a stream, that ran down to Wyldcliffe from the hills above. The boy said his name was Cal, and we told him our names. “So what brought you to the camp? Most of the locals avoid us like the plague, especially since all that trouble about those dead animals being found in the village. We’d never do that,” he added quietly. “We have too much respect for our fellow creatures.”
“We don’t think it was you,” Sarah said in a rush. “I’m sorry if you’ve been given a hard time.”
Cal’s face clouded over, and he stopped to lean against the old stone bridge that spanned the river’s shallow bed. “Yeah, well, I don’t care what people say about me, but some of those stuck-up girls from that big school at the Abbey have been giving my kid sister grief. They’ve been hassling Rosie when she’s riding her pony, calling her names, making fun of her. That’s out of line.” He looked up suspiciously. “You’re not from that place, are you?”
“We are, but not all of us think like that, I promise you,” said Helen. “We don’t like those kinds of girls much either.”
Cal didn’t look entirely convinced. The news that we were from the Abbey seemed to have put him on his guard again. “That’s easy to say. Perhaps I’d better go.” He began to walk away, but Sarah ran after him.
“Please, Cal, please look at this. Look,” she said, pulling something out of her pocket. “This is a photo of my great-grandmother, Maria. She was one of the Roma—like you. And these were her parents.” She showed him another photo of a handsome dark-skinned young couple sitting outside a vardo, or traditional wagon, a little wooden house on wheels with a campfire nearby. The mists of my dream moved and swirled in my head again…. “Maria was adopted into a rich gaje family,” Sarah went on. “The girls at the Abbey gave her a really hard time when she was there. She knew what it felt like. And I haven’t forgotten her. I’ll never forget. That’s why we’re not like those girls who were mean to your sister.”
The boy took the faded sepia photograph in his hands and examined it. He gazed at Sarah for a second. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, giving back the photo. “I should have known. I should have seen it in your eyes. You’re beautiful enough to be Roma anyway. T’ave baxtalo. You are welcome here.”
Sarah blushed scarlet. “Thank you.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk. What do you want to know?”
I pushed forward eagerly. “Has your family been coming this way for a long time?”
“As long as I can remember this has been one of the winter stopping grounds. Doesn’t makes sense, really, as it’s miles from anywhere. We usually stay nearer to towns in the winter. But there’s a kind of tradition in our family not to let too many years go by before we come back to Wyldcliffe. Something to do with an old promise.”
“Do you know anyone called Sebastian?” I said, my heart in my mouth.
Cal thought for a while, then shook his head. “Can’t think of anyone called that.”
“Oh.” Disappointment washed over me. I had been clutching at straws, perhaps, but I had been so convinced that my dream had meant something. “Are you sure? Sebastian Fairfax?”
A flash of amazement passed over Cal’s face. “Fairfax?” he said. “Do you mean Fairfax James?”
“I—I don’t know…maybe. Who was he?”
Cal looked around cautiously. “My dad told me about him before he died. Said he had to hand on the tradition. Fairfax James was, well, a sort of legend for us. He was a conjurer, a kind of wandering magician.”
“Oh my God…”
“Fairfax traveled with our family for a while, in the old days, way before I was born, performing at fairs and shows. Then there was some kind of trouble—I don’t know what—and he disappeared, but not before he helped our family. A deed worthy of a brother, my dad said.”
“A brother—that’s exactly what Sebastian said! So when did he know your family?” I asked anxiously.
“That’s the uncanny thing. Dad remembered seeing Fairfax when he was only a kid, and Fairfax was about twenty years old. But Dad said that my grandfather had known him too, years and years ago, and yet Fairfax was exactly the same age even then. He doesn’t change, just turns up for a while, then vanishes. They say that every generation of our family is destined to meet him at some point in their lives. That’s why we keep coming back here. In case he needs us.” Cal looked defiant. “In case he comes back from the dead.”
“It is him—Fairfax James is Sebastian; it has to be!”
“But what has he got to do with you?” asked Cal in astonishment.
“I know this sounds crazy, but we know him,” said Sarah.
“And he sent me a kind of message,” I added hurriedly. “He said his brothers would help, and I think that must have something to do with your family. I need to find a fire sign, something to do with fire—a token or symbol or object. Do you know what it might be?”
Cal frowned, then shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t think of anything.” He looked at us warily. “Are you sure this is for real? You’re not winding me up?”
“I promise you, Cal, it’s nothing like that,” pleaded Sarah. “I swear on everything that’s precious, on Maria’s memory—”
His expression softened. “Okay, Gypsy girl. How about you come and meet my kid sister? You can show her your picture and tell me more about all this. If Fairfax really has come back to our family, I want to be ready for him.”
He held out his hand to Sarah. She hesitated, then took it in hers. “Thanks. I’d love that.”
Cal turned to us. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring her back to the school before it gets dark.” They walked away in the direction of the travelers’ camp, and Helen and I set off back to the school. I was thinking furiously. It was good that we had made contact with Cal, and good to see the light in Sarah’s eyes when she talked to him, but I was still no nearer to what I needed. I kicked a pebble on the path in frustration. Sebastian had once known the Gypsy travelers—that much was clear—but how could they help? And what was the fire token?
My stomach was tight with fear. I tried not to think about what might be happening to Sebastian: how the light in his eyes might be fading, how the threads that bound him to this life might be getting ready to break. I had to make progress—and quickly. There was a little over a week until the new moon. It would rise on the fulfillment of my hopes, or their utter annihilation.