Free Stone of Thieves (Robbin' Hearts Series Book 2) by Diane J. Reed Page A

“We are a welcoming people. But we need time to . . . how do you call it? Make friends. You watch—tomorrow they will sing you songs and tell stories. You won’t be able to shut them up.”
    “Where’s my mother?” I demand with a hiss, my fists clenched. Creek sets down his bowl and grips my shoulders so I can’t dash toward her and take a swing.
    Jesus Christ—add a little food to my belly and I become a bitch! My own violence unnerves me, but at this point I don’t give a fuck about her gypsy pals or anything else on Italian soil. After being haunted and shot at
twice
in this god-forsaken country, all I want is to find my mother and get the hell out of here.
    The woman crouches down on her heels and feels the ground for a stick, then pokes the fire, releasing a shower of sparks into the night air that look like stars.
    She rests her elbows on her knees, quietly staring at the fire as if searching its orange and yellow and crimson hues like a crystal ball. God as my witness, for a second I thought I saw an image of my own face in the flames, swallowed by a sudden burst of red heat. When the woman lifts her gaze to us again, she appears to stare beyond me to where the last bloody inch of sun is slipping behind the horizon.
    “
Dili pisliskurja
, the woman mutters softly with a sigh. “Don’t you understand? Your mother is in your back pocket.”
    She throws her stick into the fire and rises to her feet.
    “Now it’s time to go to sleep.”

Chapter 9
     
    I toss and turn on the downy blankets that remind me of Granny Tinker’s old quilts, my eyes squinting at the rising sun.
    Did that strange woman last night mean my “mother”—as in, my “ancestor”—is in my back pocket? The renowned Martiya? Or is she trying to tell me my mom’s dead, like all the rumors claim, and her soul departed into the stone, too?
    Anxious, I wriggle the ruby heart from my jeans and hold it in my palm.
    Creek showed me the ragged letter he’d stolen from the de Bargonas while we were on the trail yesterday. With my heart in my throat, I’d unfolded the damp, yellowed page from the envelope—it was simply addressed to the de Bargonas eighteen years ago and had Alessia’s name printed in the middle with these words:
    Istituto Mentale: montagne
.
    Mental Institution . . . mountains.
    Even I could figure out that much in Italian.
    The message seemed cryptic, as if the family didn’t want any more details about their daughter. And it was a long time ago. The “crazy nun of Venice” who used to see angels could have passed away, or killed herself, by now.
    I glance at Creek lying beside me. We’re nestled on a bed of blankets that the gypsies gave us in the small woods beside their camp. It’s dawn and I can feel the dampness rising from the earth, collecting on my cheeks as dew. Last night, we slept beneath the stars, each one twinkling as bright as my hopes to find my mother. And I can’t help gazing into the star-like cracks at the center of this ruby in my hand, wondering if she’s somehow in there.
    “Alessia,” I whisper low enough not to wake Creek, “are you here? Have you left your body—are you in the stone, too?”
    But the ruby feels cold, as asleep as the rest of the camp. Sighing, I stare up at the sky and the seeping blue color that’s slowly becoming vibrant enough to wipe out the stars. The sky’s so vast and unbroken here that it practically gives me vertigo, as if I’ve fallen into a glass-like sea, and I hold onto fistfuls of grass to keep my bearings. I’ve never slept on the ground before—at Bender Lake, Creek and I always used his platform high in a tree. All around us are young people on blankets, messy-haired children and teens who’re less than twenty years old, I guess, and I wonder if that’s a gypsy custom for them to sleep outside. The rest of the camp are in old fashioned wagons or small trailers tucked up against the trees, hidden from dust and wind. There are no cars