The Wolf of Dorian Gray - A Werewolf Spawned by the Evil of Man

Chapter 13 - Romani Secrets Part 2

When she was about ten years old, her father returned from seven days of labor in the nearby fields. She ran to greet him as he set down a coarse sackcloth and said, "Da', yo' home! Can we paint the carvings t'night? Can we please?"

"Arvah, my Chey," he replied, "but dikh, I ha' some drab fo' tu." As he said this, he removed a precious gift that was wrapped carefully in the sackcloth. It was a set of charcoal and oil paints. It had cost nearly all of his wages to buy such an expensive gift.

Tears welled up in Sage's eyes as she hugged her father fiercely. "Thank tu, I'm so baxtalo to have my Da'."

They set to making brushes themselves with hair delicately plucked from the tail of their piebald Cob horse. Sage had raised the horse from a pony and had named him Buttercup. Buttercup was one of her closest playmates and she would spend long hours riding and grooming the horse.

When the paints that her father purchased ran out, her mother took her deep into the forest at night to gather herbs and berries. She taught her the names and uses for all of them. Together they mixed all the different bright colors needed for painting. As the women worked, they would chant in the old tongue. Her mother forbade Sage from doing so when she was not present. One day, she asked her about it cautiously. "Dya, why can't I sing the Romani chants without you?"

"My Chey, it's too dook, ta' mix the drab and the bol. The spells of making are strazhno—too dangerous. Our power comes from the herbs taken from the earth, an' our souls is channeled an' focused thro' our voices. When I tell fortunes, I use the power o' namin', to summon the Mulo spirits. Do no' use these things lightly, an' never link all three."

"I won't Dya." But she practiced all of it as often as she could. If her mother hadn't been so busy with the cooking and cleaning, she would have seen Sage chanting under her breath as she mixed spectacular colors and painted fantastic images.

When she was twelve, Sage began scouring the forest for the perfect color of pink. It could only be found in the rare pyramidal orchid. It was very difficult to find and by the time she had gathered enough for her paints, the sun was hanging low in the sky. In her rush to return home, Sage became hopelessly lost.

Her parents grew worried when their daughter did not return that evening, and set out together with an oil lamp to search the fringes of the dark woods. It was there that they were set upon by a group of local laborers, greatly displeased to have their work taken by the wandering tinkers and who had resorted to highway robbery in the forest. They had been drinking and had worked themselves into a fury over imagined slights and evils at the hands of the Romani people. They seized and beat her parents mercilessly. They spit and cursed at them, before looping two coils of rope around the limbs of a great oak tree. There they hung the husband and wife. The mob exited the forest and found the family's Vardo at the edge of the trees. They burned the beautifully decorated wood to the ground. They mercilessly killed Buttercup and urinated over the corpse.

The next morning, Sage eased the stiffness in her joints caused by a night spent under the stars. She stretched and warmed her hands before making her way towards her home. As she set out, she used the daylight to retrace her steps. She moved quickly, fearful of her parents' anger and worry. The forest was strangely quiet that morning, as if grieving. She reached the clearing where the violence had taken place the previous night. It was the shadows of the two forms swaying lightly in the breeze that she saw on the ground first. She raised her eyes slowly and with a burgeoning sense of dread. At the sight of her dead parents swinging from the trees, her breath was crushed from her chest. She fell to her knees in disbelief and shock. Sobs racked her body as she bawled in dismay and anger. She refused to leave the bodies, but was unable to approach any closer to cut them down.