“Gábor! It’s Duci. The baby is here, but she is not breathing right. And Mama’s spells aren’t working.” Izidóra’s eyes were wet, her face pale.
Gábor sprang up, our lesson forgotten. “My sister’s baby. She’s come early.”
I stood as well. “Noémi will help, I’m sure of it. Mátyás and I will fetch her and bring her to the camp.”
He shook his head. “Mátyás can’t come with you. Men are not allowed near the birthing mother. It is bad enough we bring gadzhe women into camp.” He met my eyes at last. “Thank you.”
I felt a flash of relief that Gábor was speaking to me again, and then Mátyás helped me mount and we rode headlong to Eszterháza.
Once we’d explained everything to Noémi, she paused only to collect her satchel from the stillroom. I hesitated near the horses.
“I should stay. If you have to cast a spell, I’d only be in the way.” Or worse.
Noémi clutched my hand. “I’ve never been to the Gypsy camp. I can’t go alone. Come with me.”
With some misgiving, I remounted Starfire. The two of us rode together through the town and into the fields beyond. Gábor met us just outside the Romani camp. The tang of woodsmoke filled the air, and wind hissed through the tents. The camp seemed strangely deserted: no children shouted, the campfires smoldered untended. Perhaps everyone had been sent away, for privacy.
Keening rose above the wind, and I shivered. Or perhaps the Romanies could feel, as I did, the stillness in the air of something gone awry.
Starfire snuffled against my shoulder, and I shooed her into the meadow. “I’ll wait here,” I said to Gábor and Noémi. I could not risk breaking spells that might save a child and its mother.
Gábor turned to Noémi. “Romani custom dictates only a few women are allowed to be with the mother, to protect the baby. No men are allowed—and certainly no gadzhe. Izidóra knows you are coming, but my older sister may be alarmed. You’ll need to work quickly. My mother and grandmother have gone to gather plants for a salve, but they will return soon.” His warning hung unspoken: they will not approve.
I watched as Gábor led Noémi to a nearby tent. He scratched at the side, and Izidóra appeared, her face white with strain. She murmured something to Noémi, who nodded and ducked inside after her. Gábor returned to me, his lips set.
“Noémi is a good healer,” I said. “If there’s anything to be done, she’ll do it.”
“I know it,” he said. “The villagers all look up to her.”
Silence sprang up between us. I tried not to hear the cries spiking from inside the tent. If this is what it meant to birth a child, I was no longer certain I wanted one.
I snuck a glance at Gábor. His eyes were on the horizon beyond the meadow, anxious and unfocused.
I put my hand on his arm, and he jumped. “I’m sorry,” I started, then paused. I wanted to undo the stiffness between us, but I could not say I’m sorry I did not kiss you. “I’m sorry your sister is suffering.”
He nodded in acknowledgment.
A snatch of song carried across the air to us. Gábor stiffened. “My grandmother.”
“So soon? But there hasn’t been enough time for any sort of spell to work.”
“I’ll try to delay her. Go warn your cousin.”
“But—”
Gábor was already gone, striding through the meadow toward the trees. I looked back at the tent, my stomach cramping.
I couldn’t do it. If I interrupted Noémi, I might ruin her spell as surely as if I’d broken it. Gábor would understand that. And as long as he kept his grandmother away, Noémi would not need a warning.
As the minutes crept past, I began to relax. Soon, Noémi would be finished, the child would be well, and it would not matter if Gábor’s grandmother returned.
But then a woman emerged from a clump of trees on the other side of the camp, a basket of herbs over one arm. She didn’t appear to see me. She strode through the camp, her gaze focused on her destination—the tent where Noémi worked.
I had to stop her.
Propelled by a terrible instinct that something dreadful was about to happen, I started forward.
“Bitte!” I called, my feet snagging in the matted grass. “Stop! Do not go in!”
The woman turned a startled face to me, then shook her head in anger. She didn’t slow, so I sprinted forward, intercepting her just before the tent and throwing my arms around her.
The tiniest buzz of magic brushed against me and I froze. Noémi’s spell. The woman shoved me away, and I fell, gasping at the impact as my shoulder and hip hit the ground. But that slight pain dissolved as fear ratcheted through me.
I scrambled to my feet, trying once more to block the woman’s entrance to the tent. She scratched at my arms and shouted, but I scarcely heard her.
The buzzing was stronger now, the magic vibrating just beneath my skin, a thousand tiny pricks of pain burning in my blood.
The Circle ends. The spell was starting to fray. “Noémi!” I cried. “Stop!”
Too late. A slight catch in the air, then an explosion of heat and light, a conflagration that seared my eyes, even outside the tent. A brilliant intensity of pain, then the light vanished like a snuffed candle.
Izidóra burst from the tent, a small bundle cradled tight against her. Her eyes were wild, terrified. The Romani woman threw her arms around Izidóra and the infant as if she would shield them.
My legs would not hold me, and I dropped to the ground.
Noémi stumbled out of the tent. “Anna. Istenem. Anna!” Her face was white. “Binding Saints save us.”
Gábor came rushing toward us. “What happened?” His eyes flickered from his sister to me, curled on the ground. “Are you all right?”
I put my palms against the packed dirt to push myself upright, and my eyes snagged on the talisman I wore.
It blazed with light.
Gábor crouched to brush his fingers across it, then launched a string of sharp-edged words. He turned to my cousin. “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know. I had cast one spell, to ease the baby’s breathing, and was casting another to warm her when the spell seemed to snap. All the magic broke from it.”
An older Romani woman stumped toward us, her face dark with anger, her breath coming in harsh jags. She stopped before me, her shadow falling across my face and still-trembling hands. In that half shadow, the talisman blazed even brighter.
The woman swooped down and grabbed my wrist, ripping the talisman from my arm. She held it close to one eye, pressed two fingers against it, and then began shrieking. I threw my hands over my ears. I could not seem to stop trembling.
When she’d finished, she shouted something at Gábor, then stumped off again. The other Romani woman—Gábor’s mother?—ducked into the tent. A low murmur of voices emerged, one steady and soothing, the other thready and broken.