Gypsy: Chapter 4

“You and your mother came to my village. She was ill…we tried to help her. We would go and play in the river Daniel, looking for the emerald crystals. Remember? The emerald crystals Daniel, for your mother…”

“I never knew my mother, I’m an orphan.” I stared at her.

This was impossible. How could my memory of her feel as real as she claims our friendship, and yet, everything is so dreamlike? I grew up as an orphan. They had told me my mother had died when I was born and the doctor just handed me over, without a family I was forced to leave at the age of 16 when I set off on my own.

That’s when my disgrace began. When the war broke out, all was lost. The village I called home was burned to the ground as the people fled. I left them. I left and did not return until this year of my 24th birthday. In that lost time I had traveled all over the worlds, searching for an answer to an unknown question, drinking my way back into sanity; which is how I came across meeting this Desert Rose. Her face was so familiar, and yet, that of a strangers.

I looked at her as she stared at me with disbelief and sorrow. Her jeweled eyes sparkled with the threat of tears. She just shook her head; the shield displayed in her eyes was lowered as a surrender. She stepped closer to me, embracing me with her sweet aroma. Her arms were warm and her scent intoxicating. I let my mind drift into memory as my eyes slowly closed, a wave of calmness engulfing my senses.

I remembered the scents in the village with the singing carts. It smelled like her…all of it. The people frowned at me as I walked down a narrow pass into the trees next to the river. I was smaller, everyone seemed so large to me. My heart was pounding. I looked around at the trees and the people; they were all foreign to me. The faces were kind but sad as I was lead to a little shack between the trees. I knew what had happened. I knew what was going on. I looked at the river beside me as it began to dance and blur with hot tears. What’s happening?

~*~

The Rose began to pull away but I clung to her, wanting the memory to continue, I needed her. I had needed her and I couldn’t remember why. I had to remember. “Please…stay.” I whispered to her, the pictures in my mind started to fade and soar away, I reached for them, trying to cling to their lighted trails as they danced into the blackness of my consciousness, but it was for naught. It had faded and I let go of the Rose, careful not to make her wither any further, but her tears still remained.

“I know you didn’t mean to do it Daniel…but, it happened…and you were banished from me…from everyone. You can’t follow me Daniel. I told you never to follow me…”

The haunting voices began to echo again in the distance and the Rose’s eyes darted, her feet poised to flee but I grabbed her arm, begging her to stay but her eyes had read my thoughts and had already come up with an answer to her own liking.

“Come with me, just tonight. Into hiding…but that’s it. You can’t follow me back to my village; no one must know we’ve met. You’re better off if my people believe you’ve died.” With that her feet leaped from the fallen log they had rested on and we ran into the darkness, blindly.