Disharmony

As she’d been learning the craft, she’d felt worst about the Gaje who were sick, or who came to see them terrified that someone they loved was going to die. She could feel their fear, their desperation, but more than that, with the unwell, she came to smell, to almost taste, their illness: a foul and putrid energy sucking and gnawing at its host. The stench grew so strong it became in her mind a creature, a monstrously fat, syrupy slug – a blonde and sticky tubular beast grown fleshy and fetid on her clients’ innards. It was eyeless, with only a round needletooth-ringed mouth that was always open and feeding.

When the image had first popped into her mind during a reading with an ageing Gaje grandma – Mrs Ungur – Samantha had screamed. Lala had apologised profusely, and tried to take over the session, but Mrs Ungur had stood, obviously in great pain, begging for Samantha to continue.

‘You can see it!’ she’d cried, papery hands outreached. ‘You see it. It hurts. Help me!’

Samantha had stared at the woman, horrified. She’d tried to go back to the reading but she could only see the slug chewing flesh lazily, and before she could turn the next card she had run from the caravan, sobbing.

Her cheeks now burned with the memory as she ran through the bush. She’d prayed every night for Mrs Ungur, who had died within a week. She’d tried to forgive herself; she’d been only nine at the time.

Since then, she’d learned to ignore the slug. She’d discovered a way of making him see-through in her mind, translucent. It helped her to continue the session without any nausea, the way Lala wanted her to, and she’d embedded into every reading special prayers to the Goddess Gaia, asking Her to help her client. And something weird had happened. Many of her sick clients recovered. Like, much more frequently than they should have, according to their doctors. And word had spread, slowly at first, but by the time she was twelve, the Gaje knew exactly which towns Milosh’s camp would be visiting next, and she and Lala would almost always have a full day of work, five days a week, even when the roads were closed because of snow.

She’d heard Lala and Esmeralda arguing late at night, when they thought she was asleep, about the jealousy of the other Roma witches and what they could do to protect her. She’d also heard Milosh, constantly cursing in his drunken, ferocious voice, pressuring Lala to make her work harder. Lala always stood up to him, until one night Milosh had slapped her down – his own mother – sending her to the floor of the caravan with a closed-fist swing.

Drawing close to the camp now, Samantha thought about that terrible night. She’d sprung from her bed, ignoring Lala’s number one rule: never disobey Milosh. She’d launched herself, fists flying, at the only man who fit the definition of ‘father’, in that she’d lived under his roof for as long as she’d been conscious of anything at all. That night, though, he’d been her enemy. One of her blows connected, but it had merely landed harmlessly on his hairy chest.

He’d punched her to the ground, where she cowered next to Lala, and suddenly it had seemed as if the air in the van had become hot and blood-red, seared to boiling point by Milosh’s anger. It sprayed from his scalp, shoulders and eyeballs in a fine crimson mist, smearing all surfaces in fury. She had learned early on, when she was only four or five, that others didn’t see such things, but for her that red haze had been as real as Lala’s tears. And it had grown thicker as Milosh reached for her. Lala had wailed, clutching at Samantha, and her son had kicked out at Lala’s ribs, her cries ceasing with a woof of pain as the air was booted from her lungs. Then he’d reached for Samantha…

Right now, remembering, Samantha stumbled in the grass near the horses as she realised something.

She’d done it then too!

The buttery light, the honeyed energy, the glow through her skin. She had pushed. She’d been terrified for Lala and suddenly the red wash in the van became watery, as though someone stood with a hose at the door, jetting it away. Milosh had stared at her in astonishment and then terror; he’d dropped her and run from the caravan. Now his eyes hooded when they met, and he glanced away quickly.

And he’d never touched her again.

Samantha’s heart raced. So I made Milosh put me down, she thought. And I did the same thing yesterday with that psycho with the sword.

She tiptoed back through the sleeping bundles at the campsite. Only Nuri was awake, the old woman prodding expertly at the fire. Thank Gaia she hadn’t yet put the big black coffee kettle onto the coals – the scent of Nuri’s coffee could wake the dead.

What exactly did I do? she wondered. How does it work? Can I do it again?

As she approached the fire, Nuri caught her eye, gave her a wide, toothless grin, and winked.

Dwight Juvenile Justice Detention Centre, Sydney, Australia

June 29, 10.12 a.m.

Although every surface of the huge industrial kitchen in the Dwight Complex was polished to a gleaming shine, Luke always thought it smelled funny. Lurking beneath the soap and disinfectant was a very faint, dank aroma, something dark and dirty, like an old onion had rolled under a cabinet and was moulding and rotting away, reminding him that nothing in here was ever really clean.

Facing him, across the shining tiles of the kitchen, stood a less subtle example of this fact. Chef Nick. One elbow leaning against the handle of the giant upright dishwasher, the other hand, as always, holding a cigarette, Chef Nick looked like no one you wanted around your food.

‘He’s the head of the kitchen?’ whispered Zac.

Luke raised his eyebrows. Grinned.

During his second week here, when he’d first laid eyes on Chef Nick, Luke had determined to eat nothing that wasn’t sealed in a package. Nick had long, grey, greasy hair, and the top of his head was usually wrapped in a faded bandana darkened with sweat at the brow line. Luke had never seen him without a cigarette between his yellowed fingers, and he’d quickly joined Dorm Four’s obsession with watching and waiting for the inevitable long cylinder of ash to tumble from the end. Nick’s face was always glossy with sweat. Luke figured that the grease was doing a great job of feeding the twin patches of acne that pocked his cheeks. The white-tipped pustules were always plump and angry-looking.

But Luke had quickly learned that he didn’t have to worry about Chef Nick dropping ash into the food. Chef Nick did none of the cooking or cleaning in Dwight. That was what Catering Studies Lab was for. From week two on, every inmate of Dwight had CSL once a day, and if you were put on punishment, you got two or three CSL ‘lessons’ a day.

CSL stood for Child Slave Labour as far as Luke was concerned. He figured he’d peeled a thousand potatoes in here, scrubbed the gunk from two hundred twenty-litre pots, and had rubbed his hands raw at least thirty times making these tiles gleam.

Now that Zac had been here for a week, Luke thought, he had a lot to look forward to each day in CSL.

Chef Nick took a deep drag of his cigarette. Luke watched the ash. It held.

‘Bread today, maggots,’ Chef Nick said.

Kitkat groaned. Making the bread was heavy work and seemed to take forever. The eight members of Section Six, Dorm Four, moved towards the two massive mixmasters down near the ovens.

‘Black, Nguyen, take the flour down with you,’ said Nick. ‘Two bags.’

Luke sighed and led Zac over to the coolroom, stopping at a stack of sacks resembling large white pillows. Luke wished they weighed the same as a pillow. He bent his knees and grabbed one of them. ‘You get on the other end,’ he said to Zac. ‘And make sure you bend your knees or you’ll be on sick report tomorrow with a bad back.’

He and Zac hefted the twenty-kilo sack of white flour and began to shuffle their way down the kitchen towards the ovens.

‘Did you bring the Yellow Stainers?’ said Zac quietly, as they passed Chef Nick.

‘Yep,’ said Luke. ‘What’s your plan?’

‘We need to dehydrate them,’ said Zac. ‘I was thinking of using the clothes dryer in the laundry, but I figure that if we put them in an oven on low, it’ll work just as well.’

‘So are you sure these are going to make people sick?’ said Luke.

‘Sick as,’ said Zac. ‘I told you I know what I’m doing with plants. You wouldn’t even be questioning me, though,