Maybe I’m angrier with this woman than I thought…
“No!” Kaula’s mouth drops open. She glances to Tammy. “Tell them. What…happened. The story.”
Tammy shakes her head. “I can’t, honey. I wasn’t there. I remember you were late the day we left Rue, and that you seemed upset, but you never said anything to me about what you were doing. And back then, you were always fighting with Richard. I thought it was personal, so I didn’t push.”
Kaula turns, her gaze skimming over me to land on Jeffrey’s face. She lifts a finger, pointing at him. “No, it isn’t you. There was another boy. A man. He was the one…” Her breath comes faster, and she presses a hand to her chest. “I don’t remember. But I didn’t hurt anyone. I would never hurt a child.”
“But you did hurt me,” I say, some demon inside forcing the words out, zinging them at the woman whose actions cast a morbid shadow over my entire life. “You put a bag over my head and carried me away from my family while I cried for help. Then you said I was cursed to die, and to prove it you told me things that were going to happen in the future, things that all came true. And every time they did, I got more terrified, and my stutter got worse, and I—” I break off with a gulp, cutting a glance Jeffrey’s way. “I’m not…” I lift my fingers to hover in front of my mouth, afraid to jinx myself. But when I whisper, “I’m not stuttering,” my voice is calm and steady.
“No, you’re not.” He rests a hand on my knee under the table. “You’re doing well. Keep going.”
I swallow and slowly shift my focus back to Kaula. “It’s been so…hard. I was afraid to make plans, to take any path I couldn’t finish before I turned twenty-six. I even broke up with a boy I loved because I couldn’t bear the thought of—”
“The boy!” Kaula cuts in, nodding. “Yes. The boy! I saw the boy. Very tall. Dark hair, dark eyes. I told you not to be afraid. I told you there would be healing of the bad blood. That the curse ends with you and the boy.”
The heat rushes away from my face. “I…I don’t remember that.”
“Yes, and that we would meet again in the woods,” Kaula maintains, her face more animated than it’s been since we arrived at the campsite.
My mouth goes dry, and my stomach churns. “Yes, I… You did say we’d see each other again in the woods, but…” I swallow. “I thought it was a threat. That you were waiting in the forest to take me again. But I don’t…” Flashes of that long-ago day flicker in the darkness at the back of my mind.
Had she said something about a boy?
“Do you know who this boy might be?” Tammy asks.
I nod. “Yes. Rafe, he…” I trail off, meeting Jeffrey’s gaze again as the hairs lift on my arms and that eerie, steered-by-unseen-forces feeling returns. “He was here, I think. A day or two ago. With his wife.”
“Oh, no.” Kaula’s lips turn down. “That isn’t right. He’s still here. He must be. It’s all going to be okay. I should have stayed until I was sure you understood.”
“You should have just talked to me, instead of stealing me away and scaring me half to death.”
“The people looking after you would never have allowed it,” Tammy says in a tone that begs for understanding. “Some strange Roma woman walks up to the little princess in the park and wants to talk, and those people just let it happen? No chance. They would have had her arrested.” Her mouth tightens. “Or worse, knowing your family.”
“My family did terrible things a long time ago, but my parents aren’t violent people. They…” I sigh, my thoughts racing as I try to imagine what my parents or my nanny at the time would have done in a situation like that. But no matter how much I want to think the best of them, I keep coming to some not-so-nice conclusions. Finally, I admit, “Maybe you’re right. But if you hadn’t taken me, I might never have known about the curse at all. My father never mentioned it, not until I brought it up myself when I was older. He doesn’t think it’s real. His older sister is fine.”
“When the firstborn doesn’t have royal blood, it skips that generation,” Manfri says, making me think he knows more about this than he’s let on. I narrow my gaze, and he lifts his hands, his fingers spread wide. “Or so I’ve heard. That’s the story. I don’t personally know anything about your aunt, I swear.”
Kaula makes a soft, pained sound, and her eyes begin to shine. “No. I was trying to help. I wanted you to know you were free, that all would be well. It was the clearest vision I’d ever had, a gift I had to share.”