Unspoken

Chapter 17 Lonely voices

How long had it been since Alin had left her to see if things were safe?
He had said he would not be long, but it was growing dark already. She did not want to be alone in the forest at night. Her father had warned her about the animals.
Milena shivered. It was starting to get cold. Alin had told her to wait for him, but he had not come back.
Milena bit her lip. She was not sure what to do. She wanted to go back to her family.

Nearby, an owl hooted and Milena flinched. Owls were bad luck. Everyone knew that. They were messengers of death.
Not wasting another second, Milena climbed down from her hiding spot. She did not want to die. 
Remembering the direction Alin had taken her earlier, she ran back towards the campsite.

She could see the wagons in the distance. Smoke was circling above the tree tops. 
Milena smiled. Dinner would be ready soon and she was hungry. She quickened her pace.
“Momma! Poppa! I’m back! Alin!”
Milena pushed through the bushes and entered their site.

And she froze in place.

The smoke she had seen had not come from the campfire at all.

They were the remains of their wagons.

Milena’s eyes went wide and her lip started to tremble. “Momma?”
She took one step forward and tripped. She gasped and looked back on what she had fallen over. “Alin?” she cried. She rolled him over and stared at his lifeless eyes. “Alin!” She shook him, but he did not move.
Milena stumbled away from him in tears and she looked around the remains of the kumpania.* That’s when she saw the others.

Temir and Thurya lay together. Her body draped over his as if she had cried over him.
Branko, their leader, had been stabbed several times and was lying in a puddle of his own blood, on the steps of his burned out wagon.
Milena was too frightened to go near him.
The small body could only belong to Konstantin, Branko’s son, though there was nothing left to recognize him from.
Milena sobbed. Kostia had been her friend. The one she would probably have been promised to once they were older.
Crying and hugging herself, Milena stumbled around, trying to find her parents. “Momma? Poppa?” she sobbed and wiped her eyes.
She found them, buried under debris and wood. Her father’s body was shielding her mother’s.  A large chunk of wood was still stuck in his back.
Milena screamed and ran.

But there was nowhere to go.

She tripped again. This time over her aunt Ziva.

The next time she tripped, she didn’t bother to look.

Breathing heavily, with tears blurring her vision, she crawled to one of the wagons that had not completely burned out. She rolled herself in a ball underneath it and cried.
Her hunger was completely forgotten. The cold no longer existed.

Her family was gone.

She was all alone in the world.

Milena shot up crying and sweating. For a moment she did not recognize her surroundings.
She ran a hand through her hair and tried to calm herself. The memories that had plagued her nightmare had unsettled her.
Her family.
All gone.
Murdered by gadje.*
Alin had gone back too soon. If he had waited a little longer he would have lived.
Why?
Why had they murdered her family? They had done nothing wrong.
That was the last time she had spoken. Not a word had left her lips since that tragedy.
Milena shivered.
Since that day, she had forgotten how to speak.
Perhaps, if she had remembered, she could have screamed last night when Jackson…
Her lip trembled.
She wanted to go home. She wanted Ramiro’s soothing voice to chase away her memories.
She wanted her friends.
She wanted people she could trust.
She even missed Dorin. He might have been gruff and curt, he was a good person. She would accept him now, if he were to offer, if it would mean she could be home again.
Tears fell down her cheeks and she brushed them away.
There was no use in crying.
She had survived that day. She would survive this too.