Free The Fall of Light by Niall Williams

rolled. Their wild whinnying was lost amid the fall of
     thunder. Then, with an unspoken accord that sometimes moved through their tribe and connected them with traditions of ancestors
     lost, the gypsies went out into the crashing electricity of the dawn and cast their hooks into the river.
    Moments later, they had fished the Foleys onto the bank and believed they had received their answer from the universe.

10
    The brothers did not discover this story for two days. Then they rose from their cots in the caravans and walked
     out around the camp in the still morning. Smoke was rising in thin curls and men were standing watching it. Some of them looked
     at the Foleys from beneath their eyebrows. They studied them for the immutable signs of some hidden destiny and then looked
     away into the ashes as though not daring to face it. When Tomas saw their horses he crossed to them and they smelled each
     other and the horses made a quick whinnying of greeting. Teige stroked his pony’s neck and blew in its nostrils and let its
     long face rub against his own, and his brothers did the same, making gestures old as time. The gypsies threw phrases to each
     other in their language. One of them bent down and poured from the beaten blackened pot into four earthen bowls. He handed
     them up to one
of
the others, and the two
of
them carried the food to the brothersby the string of horses. None of them began yet the telling of their story. From the fire the other gypsies stood and watched
     the horses and the brothers eating. They looked for how the men ate their simple food and if it found favour. When they saw
     that it did, they felt the burden of their future ease a little and unbowed their shoulders. The Foleys ate. Birds sang minor
     notes in the crooked trees. After the deluge, the sky that emerged was clear with slow-moving white clouds that held no rain.
     A light breeze carried the air. When the Foleys had eaten they handed back the bowls.
    “Go raibh maith agat,”
Tomas said in thanks.
    One of the gypsies took the bowls and nodded. He handed them away and then pointed to Teige.
    “Him? Teige,” Tomas said.
    “Teige,” said the gypsy.
    “That’s right,” Tomas said, and named each of them. But though he did, he saw how the gypsies did not look from Teige to the
     twins. They looked at the youngest Foley and let their looking be seen now as though to allow it be translated and the desperation
     of their need be naked.
    “Mario,” the gypsy said toward Teige, and watched to see if that name would mean anything to him.
    “Teige,” Tomas said, as though there had been some confusion.
    The gypsy who had pointed nodded and waved his arm for Teige to follow him, and they all walked down to where the white pony
     was tied on the raised ground by a stand of ash trees. When it sensed them coming, the pony turned its head and pulled on
     the rope and made fast its tethering. Its eyes opened and rolled as though at the approach of ghosts. Its left foreleg trod
     blindly at the broken ground. The gypsies murmured to it. They spoke more softly than they spoke to women. But they did not
     come any closer. They waited for the brothers.
    “That’s the girl,” Tomas said. The brothers waited for the horses to smell them and smell their own horses off them. “It’s
     you they want to handle her,” Tomas said with his back to the gypsies and without turning to his youngest brother.
    “Why?” Teige said.
    “If you can explain gypsies, I’ll tell you.”
    “Ride her, Teigey,” said Finan.
    “Go on, Teigey.”
    “Sos.… Sos.” Teige sounded the ease he wanted the horse to feel and stepped toward it. “Sos, sos, sos.” He soft-clicked his
     tongue against the roof of his mouth. The pony turned her head and looked away from him and still watched him sidelong on
     the boundaries of her domain. Her pretend disregard did not mask her fear, and stray electric flickerings of it ran in the
     muscles
of
her shoulders and made them