Embrace The Twilight. Maggie Shayne

the same as the other times,” Andre said, rising slowly from Belinda’s body. He’d examined the wounds, all without touching the corpse. Then he glanced at the weeping old mother. “I am so very sorry, Melina.”

      “The demon has found us again. We must bury her quickly and move on,” someone said.

      “What good will it do?” Katerina asked. “It will only pursue us, find us again, just as it has ever since our tribe was cursed by the birth of my dear little sister.”

      Melina gasped, and Gervaise frowned deeply. Andre put his hand on Katerina’s shoulder. “This is not the time-”

      “You all must know it’s true! The first time this demon took one of our people was the summer Sarafina was born. I’ve studied on this, consulted the spirits. Every sign, every omen, tells me she is somehow bound to the creature that stalks us. She’s the reason it plagues us so.”

      “That’s madness!” Sarafina shouted. She looked at the faces around her, the speculation in them as they studied her.

      “You knew it was near,” Katerina said. “You always seem to know.”

      “I am a seer.”

      “It attacks only by night. You, more and more, are becoming a creature of the night yourself. Up until all hours, sleeping long into the day.” Her gaze swept the others. “You’ve all seen it.”

      Melina nodded her head in agreement. “It’s true.”

      “I sleep when I’m sleepy,” Sarafina said softly. “That does not mean I am in league with this creature.”

      Katerina looked around her, perhaps saw the doubt of her accusations in some of those faces, and shrugged. “If it isn’t you the demon follows so persistently, then I say we should put it to the test.”

      Frowning, Sarafina searched her sister’s face, her eyes, for some clue what she was up to. “Test?”

      “Leave us. Leave the tribe. Stay behind this time while the rest of us move on. If the demon follows again, even without you among us, that will be proof of your innocence.”

      Andre stepped forward, putting a protective arm around Sarafina’s shoulders. “I won’t permit it, Katerina.”

      “Nor will I,” said Gervaise. He studied Sarafina’s face, leaning heavily on his staff, his back bowed and his once jet hair long since gone to silver. “We are all frightened and aggrieved at the loss of Belinda. But turning against one another is not the answer. We must not let this evil divide us.”

      Now everyone present was nodding, including the two young men who had returned from the camp with rifles. Everyone except for Katerina.

      Gervaise fixed his stern gaze on the two sisters. “You two will prepare Belinda for burial.”

      Katerina paled visibly. Sarafina felt her own blood run cold at the prospect and blurted, “Surely you can hire a pair of gorgios- ”

      “You two will do it.”

      “With respect, Gervaise,” Katerina said, “my home and all my possessions have burned in a fire caused by my sister’s carelessness. I must see to it that I have shelter tonight.”

      Gervaise crooked a brow and rubbed his chin in thought. He truly was the wisest man in the village, but he was unused to having his commands questioned. “You, Katerina, will share your sister’s shelter and her possessions. It is high time the two of you learned the meaning of family.” Then he glanced at Belinda, and his voice softened to a mere whisper. “Do neither of you understand the role you play? Your mother is dead, and, since last summer, your grandmother, too. You are the seers. And you are the Shuvani. ”

      Melina shook her head. “I said from the start, they are too young to be the tribe’s wise women.”

      “They are all we have.” Gervaise patted her gently before refocusing on the two sisters. “Now do your duty to Belinda. She lies dead while you fuss and fight. Do not shame us.” He glanced at them. “Belinda is trapped between the worlds. You know what must be done?”

      “I know,” Sarafina said softly. She glanced at her sister. “Gather sticks,” she said. “We’ll need a small fire.”

      Gervaise set the young men a few paces away on either side, close enough to guard the women while they worked over the body, but far enough away to give them the privacy that was necessary for the rite. Katerina had taken Melina back to camp, to set her to work gathering the clothes with which Belinda would be buried. While she was gone, Sarafina arranged twigs and sticks carefully on the ground beside her cousin, but not too close.

      Katerina returned, three bundles of dried herbs in her hands. She handed her sister a bit of each. “Are we ready to begin?” she asked.

      Sarafina nodded, and lowered her torch to the pile of twigs and sticks. It caught on the first try, a very good omen. The flames spread rapidly. Fina jammed the torch into a notch in a nearby tree.

      “First the thyme,” she said, and they each tossed a handful of the herb into the fire.

      “Next the sage,” Katerina whispered. “And last the rosemary.”

      They cast the remaining herbs into the fire in the correct order, then began to walk backward and countersunwise around it as fragrant drafts of smoke billowed to the heavens. “Belinda Rosemerta Prastika,” they whispered together. They walked round the fire, round the body, and increased their pace, chanting the name of their cousin over and over, a little louder each time. Seven times around the fire they went, and Sarafina felt the power they raised growing stronger all the while. At the end of the seventh time around, they stopped, each at the same instant, faced the body and lifted their hands.

      Sarafina felt the energy-and, she hoped, her cousin’s spirit with it-shoot forth from the circle they had trod, straight into the heavens.

      Letting their bodies relax, they stood still and silent, each in her own thoughts.

      Sarafina closed her eyes and sighing, lowered herself to the ground.

      “The ritual is the job of the Shuvani, ” Katerina said. “One of honor. And we have done it well. Preparing the body is not.”

      Handling a dead body was a despised task among the tribe. When their own grandmother had passed, she had been bathed and dressed in her finest clothes even while she lay dying. No Gypsy wanted to touch the dead.

      “Perhaps Gervaise wishes to teach us the lesson of humility,” Sarafina suggested. “Quiet, now. Melina returns.”

      Melina carried a bundle of clothing, a pail of water scented with herbs and oils, and a soft cloth. She glanced at the small fire that had been left to burn itself out but said nothing. She had lived a long time and had no doubt seen the fire before. She knew better than to ask its meaning. The death rites were secret, known only to the Shuvani, passed from grandmother to granddaughter. Sarafina and her sister had learned them from their grandmother, as they had so many other things.

      Melina knelt, watching in silence, waiting for the two of them to do the job they had been given. Sarafina thought in that moment, that even her hardhearted sister felt moved.

      So they knelt, and they gently undressed the shell that had been Belinda. They washed the young woman carefully, even though every touch made chills race up Sarafina’s spine. Belinda was not yet cold, but cool to the touch. She tried to keep the cloth between her palm and Belinda’s flesh, but sometimes it slipped.

      When the washing was finished, the two women unrolled and unfolded the red fabric Melina had brought; then they laid it out beside Belinda. Sarafina rolled the dead woman up onto one side, because she knew that while touching the corpse chilled her to her very marrow, her sister simply could not bring herself to do it. So she rolled poor Belinda, and Katerina tucked the cloth beneath her as far as she could manage. Then Fina lowered the body gently onto the cloth and rolled it up onto its other side, so Katerina could pull the fabric