Plain Kate

It was too much. Drina hurt and hating her—her silver gone—her place vanishing—her shadow twisted away. Coming into camp, she caught her foot in a rabbit hole and fell. The water spilled. The bucket tumbled under the feet of the horses; Xeri shied and struck at it, and two of the staves cracked, and when Kate picked it up she was crying.

But worse was coming. It took her all of the evening to water the chickens, fill the kettles, and tend the fires, and through it all no one spoke to her, though there was whispering.

Where the men’s fire should be, the Roamers had put up a big tent, which she had only ever seen bundled and strapped beneath the biggest vardo. “Council tent,” said Behjet, who caught her looking. “This business in Toila was bad, Plain Kate. We must decide what to do.”

What to do with her, he did not say. She knew it, anyway. I knew this, she tried to remind herself. The test. After Toila, they were going to decide.

All the men went inside, and the women spoke only in their own language. Drina, she heard, gadje, Toila, market, knife, blood, witch. Blame.

Kate settled onto the back step of the red vardo and tried to mend the bucket in the fading light. Inside she could hear Daj muttering and puttering, and Stivo—gruff, angry Stivo—singing a lullaby that her own father had once sung to her. She knew the tune, though he sang in the Roamer language: “Cheya, Drina, mira cheya.” Daughter, dearest daughter.

The fire burning inside the council tent cast the men’s shadows on yellow canvas—shadows so crisp and solid they looked like people made of shadow. Smoke billowed, dragonish, from the vent in the roof. In the women’s circle, the cooking fire smoldered and sputtered, smoking in the damp. The woods pressed close and the river muttered.

Plain Kate worked and listened to Stivo sing. Drina’s voice didn’t come. The night closed in.

One of the women came around with a splint and lit the lanterns that hung from the back doors of the five vardo, which Kate had always thought made the wagons look sweet as fireflies. But tonight—the lantern washed down over her as she struggled with planing a stave for the broken bucket. And after a moment she saw the way the shadow of the step made a fluttering line on the damp grass. Nothing broke that line. Of her own shadow there was no trace.

Kate stopped. Her hands went numb, her stomach seized, her breathing snatched. Gone. It was finally gone. Into the gathering dark, she hissed: “Taggle? Taggle?”

From the shifting dark shapes of the horses a smaller gray shape sauntered. The cat leapt onto the steps beside her. His shadow fell—alone—across the grass. “I found the horse,” he announced. “The one that gave us such a horrible ride. I scratched his ankle.”

“Ah,” she said automatically. She couldn’t even gather the courage to tell him, to speak the horrible thing aloud. My shadow. “Taggle—”

He had heard something, anyway. “Katerina?” He pricked his ears at her. His tail twitched and he sniffed at her, as if looking for the wound. “Are you hurt?”

“Taggle, my shadow—” But suddenly, inside the vardo, someone was shifting. The steps wobbled; the frame creaked. Daj pushed the curtain aside, and her shadow fell across Kate. My shadow, she thought again. But neither of them spoke. Taggle leaned his comforting warmth into Kate’s side.

Feeling Daj’s eyes on her, Plain Kate bent her head and tried to work. The curved length of the wood was clamped between her knees. She drew the plane over the wood toward her. Pale shavings curled up like carrot peelings. “Deadly work for such little hands,” said Daj at last.

“It’s not hard.” Though it was hard. Mending a bucket was a cooper’s work, and Kate had never done it. She had to guess how the wood might swell or shrink, bend or straighten, and the stave had to be perfect. If the bucket leaked, she thought, the Roamers would surely cast her out. Still, she said again: “It’s not hard.”

“Well, it looks hard,” said Daj. “Leave off now, kit, you’ve lost the light.” She plucked down the lantern and peered into the vardo. “Not much room in here, I’m feared. Full as the king’s pocket. Why don’t you pitch the bender tent, have a night on your own.”

Alone. At Daj’s words, Plain Kate did something she had never done. She let the plane slip.

The blade skipped off some knot in the wood and sliced into her forearm. She watched it cut a strip of skin like bark. Taggle howled.

Daj almost dropped the lantern. “Mira!” She rushed and stumbled down the steps, yanking off scarves. “Aye! I’ve jinxed you!” Plain Kate’s arm was seeping blood the way the bog seeped water. Daj tied the scarf around it, tight. The pink flowers were at once soaked through.

“Blood,” hissed Taggle, and over him, Kate said, “Oh.”