The Gypsy's Companion

Chapter One | Cassandra

I continued to wander through the dark woods, my voice hoarse from screaming, my eyes red and sore from the wind and dirt. I stumbled from tree to tree, grasping each one and hoping to hear my sister's voice. If I could hear her, it would mean she wasn't gone. She hadn't been chosen. 

"WHY?" I wailed into the trees, "Why her? Take me! Leave her alone!"

Once a month, when the moon is hiding, the faeries come out and take the most beautiful girl in the woods. Our camp has been lucky, we haven't had a girl taken in over 3 years, the last one was my mother. Sometimes, the whole forest is lucky, and the faeries take some village girl who wandered in by mistake. We disfigure ourselves when we come of age, taking a knife to our face or an ear. Smearing dirt on our faces is how we disguise ourselves, the faeries only like pretty things.

This month was to Karen's coming of age ritual. All the women in the camp take you out to a clearing in the woods and hand you the knife. You bend down in front of the river and carve your own face. Nothing too pretty, nothing that would render you unable to work or see. Just a few scars that take away any beauty that might have been there.

The women in my  family had always been pretty. According to Clara, the wise old woman whom everyone loves, says it's because my great great grandfather was a man from the village who fell in love with my great great grandmother. He joined the camp and after some heated debate, they got married. Ever since then, the women in my family have had to be extra careful about what we look like.

It was a curse. My mother had had a deep scar that ran from the corner of the right eye to just below her bottom lip, and she had still been taken. My mother's mother had been taken when she was pregnant with my mother's sister, who had never been born. Every woman in my family is taken at some point. I hated my great great grandmother for that.

A crunch of sticks and leaves brought me out of my thoughts. Who could it be? I hid behind a tree until I knew if it was friend or foe. The crunching grew closer, and I could tell they were footsteps. So, human, not animal. The footsteps were loud and heavy, definitely not a gypsy. We knew how to be light on our feet so as not to attract attention.

As I pondered who it could possibly be, I heard a gasp. They'd spotted me. I spun out to see who it was and came across the least likely thing I thought I would find.