Okay, so I'm a little bit hesitant about posting this, and posting the first chapter is the only thing I'm going to do... If people want to read more, they'll have to tell me, but if they don't, I'll keep it just to this chapter. R&R more than welcome.

This novel/la was started in November for NaNoWriMo as my second novel. It's the back-story to a finished novel of mine, telling the story of a young girl who will do great things.

Enjoy.

PORTELLAN- A LOVE STORY.

PART ONE.

A WASTED CHILDHOOD.

Chapter one

Patience.

Once upon a time there was a girl they called Gypsy. A girl who would one day have the world at her feet. A girl who had dreams. Once upon a time the grass was greener on the other side, and I was climbing over the hedge. I was different from them, and I knew it; I had a future.

I was born in the wagon of a travelling show, a show that had once been the best renowned in the world- we had been stars, we had been as rich as kings and queens with barrels of gold to cart around with us- and that show was now the biggest flop in the country. We were broke. The only money we could now acquire, with our limited comPany, was the money my mother got thrown at her as she danced. My father would do whatever he could, sometimes he traded in horses, buying them and training them to sell for an unfair price to the rich Parents who came to buy them for their spoilt little children.

I always knew that I was different. I wasn’t born a star, but I knew that one day I would be one. My family had become Gypsies long before I was born, doomed to the travelling life with only as much as we could carry, but I knew that one day I would change that. I was only a young girl, but by the time I had decided what I wanted to be in life, I was a sMart young girl. I knew I wanted a better life, but now the question was how.

How to begin my story? When? I think that my life began before I was born, and I should like to tell the story of my birth on a cold night in the middle of August, when the tapestries fell from the walls and the candles fluttered in an invisible breeze. I should like to tell you how I got my name, Gypsy, and why they call me Veronica, but I think that would not be wise. That was my Past, and the moment when my future began was a night in the middle of winter. I think I shall begin my story there.

It was cold outside; I would say two or three degrees below freezing, but not quite cold enough to stop the snow that we knew was coming. It was the middle of December, and the sky above our wagon was the colour of black velvet, dotted now and again with a thin layer of grey that the clouds created. There was little moonlight where we had come from, the streetlamps pushing it out and away from the people below, but we had started to move to the next city a few hours before, and already I could see the effects of the light pollution fading, and silver strands of moonlight playing across the grassy clearing that we had begun to Pass through before reaching the moors. Papa told us that we would reach the next town better if we stopped for the night, just when we hit the moors, since it would be better to steer the horses through in the daylight.

“We can stop once we hit the hills,” he said with a little smile in my direction. I was sat at the far end of the wagon, a Pack of playing cards dealt out in front of my, the thick Paper bending beneath my fingers as I spread them out in an order I had known seemingly since birth. A game of Patience to take up the time. There was nothing much better to do.

“Yes.” My mother was preoccupied, staring at the wall in front of her, her fingers picked relentlessly as an open seam in her dress.

“I should sew that for you, Mama,” I told her absently, flicking a card over and frowning at what it revealed. “I have better fingers for it than you do.”

“Yes,” she said hazily, lifting up a hand to run through her thick auburn hair. I went back to my card game without saying much else. Some evenings were like this, cool and quiet between us. We needed no conversation since there was nothing that needed to be said, and pointless jabbering, I had learned, was never appropriate when my Mama wanted to think about things. I always thought that she was thinking about her dancing, about her moves and her body language; she had to have her rest, I thought, but I learned much later that it wasn’t the dancing she would think about. She knew enough about dancing. She thought about us; me and my sister, and my brother whose death had caused her so much pain.

“Where are we headed Papa?” My sister poked her head out from underneath the bed cover where she had been resting, no doubt reading some stolen roMance novel she had found back in Bellzance. I never questioned these things.

“To a town just outside Portellan,” Papa replied. He was sitting far up front, hiding himself from view with the set of red velvet curtains I had sewn myself. “Don’t you worry Angelique,” he assured her confidently. “We’ll get us some good work there.” I glanced at Angel with a look that said I had seen it all before, and she returned my identical gaze with one of smouldering comPassion. Maybe this time, we thought, he would be right.

“Where is Portellan, Papa?” I asked. I stood from the table and tiptoed down the swaying wagon so that I could be by my father’s side. He had seated himself inside the little box built to the front of the wagon, and piled inside blankets and pillows to keep himself warm against the frigid chill of the winter night.

“Not far away,” he replied without looking at me.

“How far?”

“A couple of months or so.”

“Not far then,” I agreed. I sat beside him, slipping into the blanket that he had wrapped around his shoulders. “And how far are the moors?” I knew we had been across them before this year, or at least something that Papa called Moors, but I couldn’t remember when. Was it as long ago as April or May? Or could it have been earlier? It seemed like years ago, years and seasons that have Passed with lightening speed.

“I can see them now, look.” My Papa tapped my shoulder underneath the blanket and then stretched out to point across the swelling distance before us. At first I saw nothing, only an inky blackness that would have been depressing had I not seen it so Many times before, and then as my eyes slowly adjusted to the gathering doom, I could just Make out a few hills, trees here and there and little sprigs of plants that jumped out of the grass. I had seen the moors before, of course I had, but the view was breathtaking. The ground beneath the rumbling wheels of the wagon seemed to stretch out into the far distance, for as far as I could see there was nothing but open sky and fields.

“They’re beautiful in the moonlight,” I breathed. “Angel,” I called back inside the wagon, dipping my head momentarily back into the warmth and comfort, “come here a moment. There’s something I want you to see.” Angel slipped out of the bed and tripped outside into the cool air, sliding into the blanket instinctively.

“What?” she asked haughtily. “What do you want me to see?” Her dark blue eyes scanned the area in front of us hastily, sweeping over the beauty of the upcoming moors and seeing nothing.

“Look at the moors, up there. Aren’t they beautiful?” She stared out again, this time with a purpose, her eyes squinting as they adjusted to the darkness as my eyes had done before her. I watched her face, creamy and Pale in the silver moonlight. With just her cheekbones highlighted by the orange candle glow from inside the wagon she seemed ghostly, unreal against the hard wood of the wagon behind her and the Patchwork blanket that was wrapped around her chest.

“Yes, I suppose they are sort of nice,” she admitted after a little while. Papa stayed silent, watching where our horses were treading in case of a loose cobble of large pebble that could have been displaced from the town we had just left. I smiled at him, and then saw the gooseflesh that was developing on his bare arms.

“We should stop now, Papa. It’s getting colder, and darker, and it’s late and you’re cold.” I touched his arm encouragingly, hoping he might listen to me. He shook his head, dark locks of hair jumping on his scalp as his face moved in a negative motion.

“No,” he said. “To the moors before we rest.” I sighed. There was no arguing with Papa; he was a stubborn Man from years of severe negotiations and sixteen years of child-raising. He definitely would not be swayed.

“All right then, Papa.” I looked over at Angel and nodded at her. She got to her feet and I followed. “Good night, Papa,” I said, bending low to kiss his temple affectionately. I moved out of the way so Angel could say goodnight and when she had we both moved back into the warmth of the wagon, trembling with the belated effects of the icy air.

Mama was still sitting where we had left her, in a deep reverie that even our kisses goodnight could not break. Together, in a practices state of unison, Angel and I undressed and climbed into the bunk bed that we shared next to the table where my card game had been abandoned thoughtlessly. I climbed onto the top bunk, lying so that I was facing the open wall the furthest away from the bed, and then I popped my head over the side of the bed.

“You would never guess we were sisters,” I said to her with a curious expression on my face which I could almost see in my mind’s eye. “Sometimes I think you hate me.”

“I never do,” Angel denied, poking her head out so that I could see the sincere expression on her face. “I never hate you; how could I hate you? You’re a Part of me.” She frowned, and looked over to see if Mama was looking at us, or even acknowledging our conversation. “We’re a special kind of sisters-”

“And we share a special bond,” I butted in, repeated what Pap had told us ever since we could understand his language. “Yes, I know we’re special Angel, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder what life would be like if there was only the one of us.”

“What has that got to do with you hating me?” Angel asked in confusion.

“Nothing,” I told her honestly. “I just wondered, and I was wondering out loud is all. You don’t hate me then?”

“I love you Gypsy,” she said earnestly. “You know that.”

“Yes.” Papa always said that twins should love special, that we should share a bond that no other people could Make with us. I didn’t understand it; if Angel and I were so similar, so close in bonds, then why were we so different as well? How was I supposed to understand her when I didn’t know what she was thinking, and I couldn’t get inside her head like she could mine?”

“Good night Gypsy.” Angel’s head disappeared a moment later, and I heard her breathing level out almost instantly.

“Good night Angel.”

I had been asleep for some time when a rattling at the door of the wagon shook me awake. My eyes were crusted over and I couldn’t breathe out of my nose for the cold that I had brewing, but I sat up instantly anyway, earning myself a hard bump o the head that tipping the whole caravan. I looked around as best I could, searching in the pitch darkness for some kind of light that I could adjust my vision to and finding none. I waited in silence, hoping that by some miracle it would be only the wind knocking at our door, and not some beggar trying to steal our window shutters- that had happened before only a few weeks ago, and so my guard was up.

Exactly one minute and fifteen seconds later- I had been counted with baited breath- there was another rattle at the door, this time the curious noise resembling something more like a knock, or a huMan tap. Again I waited, and when nobody below me stirred I leaned over the edge of the bed. We were stationary now, having stopped at some point during my sleep for the night, and Papa was in bed at the other end of the wagon with Mama. Angel was snoring peacefully below me.

“Angel,” I hissed quietly, hoping she might be sleeping lightly enough to hear me. “Angel?” She didn’t stir, didn’t move an inch, so I tried to wake her up again. I leaned as far down from my bed as I dared, feeling the blood rush to me head, and prodded at her sleeping form until she began to move.

“Angel?” I tried again, somewhat louder, and this time I received a groan. “Angel, there’s somebody outside. What should I do?”

“Don’t talk to me about your nightMares,” she mumbled and rolled over. I felt the bed move as her body hit the wall.

“Angel. There’s somebody outside, and they’re banging on the walls. I don’t think it’s the wind.”

“Deal with it then,” she grumbled sleepily. “Tell Papa, tell Mama, open the damn door yourself. I don’t care, just let me sleep.” I felt rather than heard her pull the pillow over her head then and ignore me, but I didn’t care.

“Papa, Papa!” I cried out louder still, knowing that my voice would have to carry down to the other end of the wagon.

“What?” came the slurred, sleepy and drunk-sounding reply off Papa.

“Papa there’s somebody at the door, and it ain’t the wind either.”

“You sure?”

“Yes Papa, I can hear ‘em.” I heard a sigh, and a little breath escape my mother’s lips as she too awoke from her sleep, and then my Papa climbing from his best, slipping on a shirt and the striking of a Match. The light Made my eyes hurt, and so with great relief that I had done my job, I slid back under the bed covers away from the burning candle and Angel’s moans at her disrupted sleep.

The candle light bobbed by my bed only a few seconds later, and I heard Papa undoing the latch on the door. There was silence for a moment, and then my father’s distressed intake of breath.

“Luca, Luca quick,” he said, his voice gruff and dark with emotion. “There’s a lad out here, a lad out cold. It’s snowing and he’s out cold, quick get the blankets and get him inside.”

I peeked my head out of the bed for long enough to see my father rushing outside in just his boxers and a shirt with a blanket he had grabbed quickly- this was obvious since it was one of our best, and it was now soaked through with melting snow- and my mother rushing to his aid with more blankets and pillows.

“Angelique, Gypsy,” Papa’s comMand came for us to dePart from the warmth of our beds. “Come and help me get him inside before he freezes.”

We jumped from our beds with little Passion or care for the lad outside, only being so obedient for the fear of a good beating if we didn’t listen to Papa in his state of such high emotion. Together, in nothing but our nightgowns, we stumbled out into the freezing night, out bare feet slipping straight into the snow that had already formed on the group. I restrained a little shriek and started about helping Papa lift the unconscious boy from his bed in the snow around him.

With our help Papa managed to get the boy into the air- he was much lighter than I had iMagined he would be upon first looking at him- and we carried him in stilted steps up into the wagon where our Mama had prePared a Makeshift bed at the other end of the wagon, near her bed she shared with Papa. As soon as we could, Angel and I let go of the boy and ran back to our beds to hide in the covers and warm our frozen fingers and toes. Angel cursed loudly enough for me to hear her, but that Papa wouldn’t tell what she had said.

“Damn you and your bloody ‘do-good’ attitude,” she whined. “It’s all your fault.”

“That the lad didn’t die you mean?” I answered back with rather more sarcasm than I had planned.

“Well, he might die in here for all we know,” Angel snarled back, shivering violently.

“Sorry.”

“So you should be.”

We could hear Papa at the other end of the wagon fumbling around to light another few candles and strip the boy of his wet clothes. A few rough curses later we heard a sigh from Mama, and the squeak as the springs on the bed settled a little further into the Mattress. Papa approached us after another few minutes, in which we both held out breath in apprehension.

“Gyp? Angel?” We poked our heads out of Angel’s bed, curled up in the bed clothes.

“Yes Papa?” I asked, shivering as the bottom of my wet nightgown brushed the top of my thigh.

“I want you girls to go back to sleep. The lad’s out cold, and will be until his body kicks in again. It’s freezing out there; it’s a wonder he’s not dead. I don’t know where he’s come from, but if he wakes and tries anything funny with either of you, y’all give me a shout. Understand? I want no communication between you until I’ve established where the hell he’s from.”

“Yes Papa,” we said in unison and nodded in agreement.

“Good, now get some sleep. It’s very late, and with any luck we’ll be moving on tomorrow.”

“Yes Papa.”

“Good night Papa.”

“Good night girls.”

I climbed out of Angel’s bed and into my own, leaning my head far over the side to see if I could catch a glimpse of the boy. I couldn’t, and so with a resigned sigh, I lay back in bed and tried to fall to sleep.