Once a Gypsy Read online

  Graham sighed. “I tried, but she gave me the slip.”

  “Don’t you think, Graham? First the gypsies, then her, and now the necklace. Can’t you do anything right?”

  Mr. Shane hadn’t been there, staring at his mother’s face, listening to her cry as she realized what had happened to Danny. If he had wanted Graham to handle Rose differently, then he should have been out there searching, just as Graham had been. Instead he’d been holed up in his little castle, entertaining guests and doing promotion for the manor. All he cared about was business, always business. And now… now he wanted to tell Graham how to handle his mother?

  “You once told me you would do anything for this place, for your family.” Mr. Shane’s fingers curled around the armrests of his office chair. “Yet, from what I can see, the only people you really seem to care about are some gypsy and his daughter. When it came to your own mother, you dropped the ball.” Mr. Shane shook his head in disgust. “I thought I could trust you like a son.”

  “Helena might be a just another gypsy to you, but you don’t understand. She’s a great woman.”

  “Look here, I said you could hire them in the hope that you could help Danny. Danny’s gotten no better—maybe it’s time we call a spade a spade and cut our losses. Hiring them has been a poor business decision.”

  “No one ever says no to you, but you know what? I’m saying no to you. I’m not firing her or her dad. You can fire me, but I’m not doing it.”

  “You know you don’t mean that. You could never walk away from this place, from your brother.” Mr. Shane glared at him. “I think I’ve put up with enough of your feeble attempts to be open-minded. Gypsies aren’t to be trusted.”

  “You’re blaming Helena and Seamus for something that has nothing to do with them. You’re the one who got greedy and read from the codex. This is your fault.”

  “Maybe you need to go take a look at your brother to see where your loyalties should lie.”

  Graham jerked to his feet, knocking his chair to the ground. He put his hands on the edge of the desk and pressed his face toward Mr. Shane. The man didn’t move.

  “Don’t you dare use my brother to force your hate on me. I’ll never hate Helena or her father. They did nothing wrong.”

  Mr. Shane smiled. “Then prove it. Prove to me they’re not thieves, that they were worth taking a risk on—or you’re all going to be gone, and I will take things into my own hands.”

  Graham slammed his fists down on the table. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Mr. Shane scowled. “I’m not wasting any more time on this crazy idea that this gypsy is the answer. If I find Rose first, I’m putting her in a restrictive institution.” Mr. Shane turned his chair toward the window and away from Graham. “I hear that Hollow Oak Park Mental Health Center is taking patients. If I pay them enough, they’ve assured me that they are willing to do whatever it takes to make her comfortable. They are well practiced with neurosurgical procedures—even lobotomies for the right amount of money.”

  “You wouldn’t—”

  Mr. Shane’s chair squeaked. “I didn’t say I wanted to take things this far, but something must be done. What happens now is up to you and your little gypsy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Helena walked into the kitchen and was met with the sounds of whisks and electric mixers. Mary had her back turned as she worked away, washing fresh strawberries next to a stack of gold-rimmed glassware.

  “Mary?” Her voice was thick and scratchy from the long morning of talking with Angel. She lifted down an apron from the stack of freshly washed linens as Mary turned from her work on the counter.

  “What’re you doing here?” Mary looked shocked; the little mole under her nose even wiggled with surprise. “Your mother better?”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “Your first wages are over there.” Mary pointed to a bin of sealed envelopes. “Graham told me you might be taking this week off.”

  “I gotta work.” She drew the strings of the apron tight. She rifled through the plastic bin until she saw her name. Then she pulled the envelope from the rest and stuffed it in her purse. A slight sense of relief passed through her as she thought of how badly she needed the money.

  “What in the bloody hell are you doing here? Don’t you have tests that need taking?” Mary frowned.

  “I need to work. I can’t afford to take the tests right now. Maybe next year.” She tried to keep her emotions in check—after the row with Mam and Rionna, she had nearly forgotten about her girlish dreams.

  Mary put down a strawberry and dried her fingers on her apron. Around her neck was a beautiful gold necklace Helena hadn’t noticed before, but as Mary moved it disappeared beneath her uniform’s collar. “What’re you thinking, lass? Do you think you’re gonna be working in these kitchens forever? That I’ll let you do that?” Mary reached into her back pocket and pulled out her mobile. “What time do your exams start?”

  “I don’t know. Eight o’clock? Eight thirty?” Helena tried to sound dismissive, but for months she had known the time, right down to the minute. They were supposed to be there fifteen minutes ahead, find a seat, and have two pencils and a calculator for the mathematics portion of the test.

  Mary punched the buttons on her mobile. “There.” She stuffed the device back in her pocket. “Now, I don’t care whether your trailer burned down or not. You can’t be here when you need to be taking those exams.”

  “I can’t, Mary. Like I said, I need the money.” Helena turned her back on the kitchen matron and stumbled her way to her station. There was work to be done. She pulled a knife from the butcher’s block.

  Mary stomped over to her. “I hired you so you could see what it was like to have your own money, and to be able to make your own choices. Don’t you understand that? I know what it’s like to be in your shoes.”

  “How do you know what it’s like bein’ a Traveller?” She sat the knife down, letting it clink on the metal counter. “I appreciate you givin’ me this job and all, but ya don’t know what it’s like.”

  “I may not have been a Traveller like you, but I grew up Catholic in a Protestant town. We were poor, some days barely able to keep the clothes on our back or the shoes on our feet. There were nine of us children and each of us had a job, all in an attempt to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. I can see that’s what you’re trying to do for your family. I just want to help you, to keep your family from having to go through what we did… to keep you from having to do the things we were forced to do…” A tear came to Mary’s eye.

  Helena put her hand on the woman’s arm. “What happened?”

  “At sixteen, I was forced to quit school and marry a man twenty years my elder. He used me as his wife.” Mary’s cheeks flamed and a thin veil of sweat drew on her forehead. “After a while, I wasn’t enough and he started going to other women.

  “Who would’ve thought a man in his forties would need more?” Mary said as she waved off the thought. “After a while he saw me as nothing more than a drain on his finances, a waste of time and space, and he put me to work. It started out easily enough, meeting men at the local pub for a friendly conversation, but soon he was forcing me to do things, to act in ways that God himself couldn’t have imagined.”

  Helena shivered at the thought. What if this happened to Rionna after she married Brian?

  “That’s how I met my Herbert. He was so sweet and kind. He saw me at the pub waiting for one of my clients. We chatted for a bit until the man arrived, but then Herbert, being the jealous type he is, wouldn’t hear of the man taking me away from him. That man ended up in the hospital with thirty-five stitches.” She stuck out her chest with pride. “And I never went back to my first husband.”

  “So you and Herbert aren’t married? Or did you get a divorce?”

  “We’re married in our hearts, and if God is just, he’ll see the union as we do.” She crossed herself. “I didn’t tell you all this to scare you, but
you need to take risks… Let your head be your guide, but don’t forget to follow your heart. If you always follow the easiest path, it will only lead to a life filled with disappointment.”

  The door to the kitchen opened. Graham walked in, his red kilt glaringly out of place in the sterile grays and whites of the kitchen. “Are you ready to go?”

  Helena stared at the kitchen matron, then at Graham. Her hands shook as she pulled the apron from her waist. “One thing first.” Helena checked the clock on the wall. There was just enough time. “Graham, can you take me to Danny?”

  Mary smiled like the mother of a beloved child. “That’s a good lass. I knew you had it in ya.”

  Graham followed closely behind her as they made their way into the basement infirmary. Danny lay on his back, his silver hair damp with sweat.

  Graham stared at her. “You can do this. I know you can.”

  She’d helped Rionna and Gavin, but it was still hard to believe she could have the power to help a boy who had far deeper wounds than the burns upon her sibling’s flesh. His wounds were more complex, more psychological.

  The air of the infirmary hung on her, humid and foul. Closing her eyes, she grounded her body, then laid her right hand on Danny’s chest and her left on his forehead.

  “A libha sarog. A karkn lugil. A dha ogaks moniker, d’umiik a libha nalks, dha karkn fhas, dha lugil kuldrum.” She repeated the prayer in English. “The blood is red. The flesh has pain. In the old one’s name let the blood dry, the flesh grow, the pain sleep.”

  Danny’s breathing steadied.

  The energy in her sparked and tickled her hands slightly. She could feel the silvery tendrils of energy as they moved up his body and then down to his feet. There was pain in his back from the bedsores of the long-ill, but as she searched there was a deeper pain too. She tried to force the energy there, to that unknown place, to that deep need. Almost as if she had hit the limits of her power, the energy retreated back to her hands.

  His heartbeat slowed beneath her palm. The movement of his chest steadied in the rhythms of sleep again.

  Her hands fell down to her sides as she opened her eyes. The boy’s flesh was a shade pinker, but it could have just been wishful thinking. Aside from the hue, he was the same.

  “Danny?” Graham asked, his voice horribly hopeful.

  “Don’t.” She reached out and rested her hand on Graham’s arm. “I couldn’t reach him.”

  Anger and guilt coursed through her. She was so weak. So useless.

  “Let’s go.” She turned away from Danny and moved toward the door.

  “Wait. Just another second,” Graham called after her.

  She turned. “Graham, I’ll try again. I prom—”

  She stopped mid-word as Danny’s face twitched. His eyes fluttered open. Danny blinked a few times, and his mouth trembled as if he wanted to speak.

  “Danny?” Graham cupped his brother’s face with one hand.

  The boy looked up, and there was a shimmer of light in his eyes. The boy gave him a glimmer of a smile, and then his eyes closed and he disappeared back into his mind.

  • • •

  The room was filled with people fiddling with their hair and tapping their yellow pencils. A woman wearing a khaki suit stood at the front of the hall, holding a thick stack of papers in her arms. Another woman, the moderator, sat at the table staring at her watch.

  Another of the test-takers, a man, leaned over to a girl in the desk next to him. “Thank Mary it’s almost over, right?”

  “I know,” the woman answered with a flick of her hair. “I’ve already started the paperwork to attend Limerick University. I don’t know what I’m more nervous about: passing the test or starting school again.”

  Helena sank down in the hard wooden chair and pulled at her uniform pants. She wasn’t the only one who was nervous about what the future held.

  The man glanced over at her, and Helena smiled. The woman he had talked to lifted her nose as if, even though Helena was in her work uniform, the woman could tell that she was out of her element.

  The moderator coughed, bringing the room to attention. “The exam will begin in exactly fifteen minutes. You’ll have four hours to complete the compulsory Irish exam. We will then break for lunch, after which you shall all return and take the second half of the Modern Language exam. Tomorrow, we will be administering the Applied Sciences, followed by…” The woman’s monotone voice carried on in the background as she warned against cheaters and the like.

  All Helena could concentrate on was the white booklet the woman set down in front of her and the way the letters on its cover seemed to blur.

  • • •

  After two days of exams, Helena was relieved they were nearly over. As she stood in the kitchens and waited for Graham, a few cooks worked away at early morning preparations. It felt strange not to be working beside them, but truth be told, after the last few days she was knackered. She had been seeing Danny each day after her exams, trying to make him open his eyes again, but nothing had happened. It was almost as if the stress of the exams had weakened her powers.

  Thankfully today was to be the last day of exams, albeit in her worst subject—economics.

  She fiddled with her hair and made sure all the loose ends were tucked away. Helena glanced down at her mobile. 6:45.

  Where was Mary? She was always in before six o’clock.

  Leaning back against the steel counter, Helena tried to slow her breathing. The time would come for the test, and then she’d never have to deal with the pressure of the exams again. Her foot tapped against the tiled floor.

  Helena glanced back down at her mobile. 6:46.

  A flat of spuds was waiting to be peeled and chopped in the dry storage. Unable to sit still, Helena put one hand on the counter to steady herself as she reached up and pulled down an apron from the stack above her station.

  A necklace fell with a clatter upon the counter and landed on her fingers. The diamond pendant was covered in blood, making it look like a bloody tear. An unchecked scream ripped from her throat.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It had taken almost fifteen minutes for Helena to speak. The kitchen was full of staff members. Graham had his arms around Helena, protecting her from the probing questions of the people that surrounded them.

  “I’m telling ya, I saw Mary wearin’ the necklace yesterday. Now she’s missin’ and there’s blood,” Helena said, her face buried in his chest.

  “Don’t worry.” He couldn’t stop the fear in his voice. “I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

  “Graham, Mary’s never late to work. You know it as well as I do somethin’ is wrong.”

  “I haven’t checked the infirmary; maybe she’s down there with her husband. It’s hard to say. You don’t need to worry. I’ll handle this.” Graham leaned to whisper in her ear. “Besides, you need to go. You have to finish your tests.”

  She gave him a simple nod.

  “Hey!” Graham called out, trying to get the attention of the staff above their chatter. The noise briefly lessened, and then started up again.

  Helena let go of him, stuck her fingers in her mouth, and gave a sharp whistle. “Aye… Listen up!”

  The stunned crowd stopped and turned to face her.

  “Thanks.” Graham put his hand to the small of her back.

  “What happened?” one of the waiters asked, as the crowd around him quieted.

  “It was nothing… I only saw a spider.” Helena’s hand balled up tighter.

  “Jaysus. Are you putting me on? I didn’t finish my morning prep for a pissy spider? I’m gonna be behind all day.”

  Another man stepped to the front of the group. “Don’t talk bollocks. There ain’t no way she’s screaming like that for a bleedin’ spider. Tell us what’s goin’ on.”

  Helena’s skin was hot under Graham’s touch, and he tried to reassure her with a light pat of his hand.

  “We might as well tell them.” Helena whispered. �
��Maybe someone has seen her.”

  “All right…” He turned to the mass of people. “Has anyone seen Mary Margaret this morning?”

  The crowd shifted, and everyone shook their heads.

  “If no one has seen Mary Margaret, it is my belief that we have a problem.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Mary Margaret’s missing. And she was last seen wearing this.” Graham lifted the bloody necklace, and a gasp rippled through the crowd.

  • • •

  The university hall’s doors were closed, and students were milling around, anxiously checking their watches, as Graham escorted Helena to her exams. A woman in a khaki suit opened the doors, and the students milled in. Graham gave Helena a quick peck on the cheek, and she made her way into the exam room. She must have had the strength of a thousand women to be able to pull herself together to do what had to be done. Any man would be lucky to have her—even if the man wasn’t him.

  Graham made his way back to the car.

  His mobile rang from his sporran, and he pulled it out. “What’s it about?”

  “Mr. Kelly?” a woman asked timidly.

  “Aye.”

  “I’m calling you about the infirmary,” the nurse said, her voice trembling. “Herbert’s missing. He musta snuck out sometime this morning. I’m sorry to tell ye this, but in our search, we found Chester’s wallet under his mattress… right next to a knife covered in dried blood.”

  The woman was quiet on the other side of the phone line as he struggled to make sense of exactly what she meant.

  “Why does he have Chester’s wallet?”

  “Well, me and the other nurses have been talking. We can’t be sure Herbert was accounted for the morning that Chester was murdered.”

  “You’re saying that you think he is responsible for the chef’s death?”

  “From what we have found, I’m thinking so.”

  A sickening ache grew in his gut. “Have you seen Mary Margaret?”