Into the Free

Into the Free by Julie Cantrell

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Authors: Julie Cantrell
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and leave me with the taste of ash in my mouth, this boy’s heat is simmering in my blood and energizing my bones with a wild and willing warmth.
    The old woman smiles at me with broken teeth. For the first time, I look directly into her eyes. I remember when she caught me spying, as she wrapped her head in a blue scarf and winked to let me know she had seen me hiding behind the poplar tree. Even then, I thought of her as kind.
    But now, I see she has what Jack calls cat eyes. One brown, one green, as if she’s been cursed. Instinct kicks in, and I’m no longer sure whether to be charmed or alarmed. What if Jack is right? Maybe these vagabonds really are planning to steal anything not tied down. Maybe they plan to steal me. Maybe they’ll sell me in the next town to a ball-round man with oil beneath his nails. Maybe I need to stop pretending I can run off with the gypsies. Maybe I should run right back home to Mama.
    But the worry stops as soon as the old woman speaks again in that same thick tongue that makes me feel safe. “Ne boyitca.” I stare back at her, wondering what she has said. She repeats in her broken English, “No fear.” Again, she can read my mind.
    None of the other children seem worried. They are listening to the stories about jewels and gold and wealth. The locals are enchanted by the shaking strings and handsome hummers. They too are entranced by the soothing syrup of the old woman’s voice.
    There are countless wonders here, but it’s easy to set focus on the boy with the harmonica. He smiles at me, and my fear sinks deep into his feral eyes, pulling my worry right down with it. I want to stay with the gypsies. With the boy in the loose white shirt.
    As night gathers, the excitement starts to drift away for the local children. Parents sweep in from the fringes to gather their kids. One by one the crowd disappears, until no one is left but me and about sixty travelers, many of them children, circled together counting money. It is clear I no longer belong, but I don’t want to leave. I want to learn to play the harmonica and dance in the streets. I want cat eyes and tattoos and layers of jewels that sparkle and shimmer. The elderly woman, sensing my longing, reaches for my hand and says, “Time for home.”
    Twirling my peacock feather, I sit still in her candle-drawn shadow and stare down at the graves. The smell of fresh citrus fills the air and uneven flames lick the night. The boy from my dreams slips his harmonica into his white shirt pocket and rises from his graveside seat. He jingles when he moves. The string of coins around his waist must be a collection from all the girls who have swooned for him. I imagine them chasing him as he leaves town after town after town. His long, firm body stretches into darkness. If he were older, no woman in Iti Taloa could resist his charm. Certainly not Miss Harper, the nervous librarian who has become a close friend to me over the years, who finds romance only on pages of books. Not Mama, a lonely dreamer who may never return to the world of the living. Probably not even the Catholic nuns, who have vowed to avoid men, who seem so secretive and sinless in their long black habits, shuffling through town. Surely they have never laid eyes on the likes of him. He’s pure magic. And he is walking away.
    “Why so down, Little Yellow?” the cat-eyed woman asks, referring to the yellow scarf still draped around my head. “I bet somebody at the home look now for you. You know the way?”
    “I know the way,” I say. “I never get lost.” As an afterthought, I add, “I’d make a very good gypsy.” This brings rounds of laughter. The boy in the white shirt does not laugh. Instead, he turns and looks at me with such a smile my face turns warm and pink. I quickly look back to the woman.
    “Bah,” she says. “Too young to go alone.”
    “I wouldn’t be alone,” I answer. “I’d be with you.” I make an awkward gesture to the group.
    “Come now,

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