nevertheless always there when you needed it. Although you had to make room for the junk. It was a kind of mobile wrecker’s yard: always full of spare parts found on the side of the road. Lala told Samantha that this was because the van was cursed. It broke down more than any trailer, bike, car, wagon or horse the camp had ever owned. Still, Sam had watched knock-down brawls in the dust as the boys fought to ride up front of the golden chariot.
At this very moment, she’d have paid money for her spot in the back.
‘Why are you so cranky?’ she said quietly to Tamas, pretending that Mirela and Shofranka were not listening to every word.
‘Stop being witchy,’ said Tamas. ‘I’m not cranky.’
Tonight he wore jeans just like her, and a soft, dusky-brown T-shirt the same colour as his skin. It was almost as good as his usual uniform: jeans-and-that-was-it. Although the T-shirt was loose at his midriff, it gripped tightly around his upper arms. He wore his silver amulet out over the top of the shirt and a red bandana to hold his hair back from his eyes.
Samantha watched him blink those outrageously long lashes a few times. She outright stared. She couldn’t help it. Her mouth felt dry. She licked her lips.
And then she felt Tamas lean – maybe it was only two millimetres – a little closer into her.
She had to blink a couple of times. And then she coughed. Why did her mouth get so dry when she was around him? I swear to Goddess Gaia that I would kiss the gypsy king for a glass of water right now, she silently declared.
Music pumped from the front of the van. She didn’t think she’d ever heard the song before.
‘What’s that song?’ she said, suddenly in love with it.
‘It’s olden-day music,’ said Shofranka.
Tiny Shofranka, a year younger than her thirteen-year-old cousin, Mirela, didn’t say much, but whatever she said, it could always be relied upon.
‘It’s Huey Lewis and the News,’ Shofranka continued.
‘What?’ said Samantha.
‘That’s the name of the band,’ said Shofranka. ‘Huey Lewis and the News. The song is called “The Power of Love”.’
‘How do you know that?’ said Samantha.
‘
‘Are we there yet?’ said Tamas.
Shofranka said nothing. She leaned back against a greasy carburettor and mouthed words along with the song.
‘Don’t you wish you were up front with the big boys?’ Mirela said suddenly to Tamas.
Samantha could have killed her.
Tamas reeled right back until there was nothing but air between her jeans and his. ‘Why don’t you shut up, Mimi,’ he said. ‘Unless you want me to tell Aunt Esmeralda exactly what you’ve been doing from five minutes ago until the second we get back to camp.’
‘Well, she would bust you boys just as bad as she gets me,’ said Mirela. ‘On account of you taking us when she told you not to.’
‘Yeah? Well, what’s she gonna do to me?’ he said. ‘I’m not scared of Esmeralda. It’s you who asks how high when she tells you to jump.’
‘Oh really?’ said Mirela. ‘I guess that’s why I’m in the back of the van on the way to the Carnivale, hmm? And if you’re not scared of my mamma, you sure put on a pretty good act the other day, dancing around like Beyonce to the tune of that wooden spoon.’
Samantha tried to zone out to their bickering, but they were on a roll, and although she knew they were just arguing to pass the time, the verbal arrows they shot at one another ricocheted around the small space in the van, glancing off walls when they missed their target and piercing her skin instead. They stung slightly, minor irritations, but because she was already so on-edge they dragged her mood down further.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on emitting calmness. Within a minute or so, Tamas and Mirela laughed more as they hurled their insults. Their emotional darts disintegrated to dust as soon as they touched her.
She’d always been able to do this and never really thought about it properly until now. She’d just put it down to the power of positive thinking. She’d read about it online: if you think good thoughts and wish people well, you can send out positive energy.
Suddenly, she snapped open her eyes and hugged her knees up to her chest. What if I can make it stronger, she thought. Much, much stronger? What if that’s all the honeyed light is? She thought about the two occasions that she’d felt the light: with Milosh and with Scarface. Both times I’ve been overwhelmed by two emotions: terror and love. Do I have to feel both for it to work? Can’t it be just one or the other?
She decided to try to find out. And love, she figured, was much nicer than terror.
She closed her eyes again to focus and thought about what she loved about Tamas. Her lips parted. A slow, delicious smile lit up her face. She leaned back against the wall of the van, breathing deeply. The music and voices around her faded and she wished she could lie there forever, dreaming about him. She flicked open her eyes to find Shofranka staring at her.
Sam smiled tightly and turned away, determined to press on. She forced herself to turn her thoughts to Mirela; to find the reasons that she loved her crazy friend. She pictured some of the mad things they’d done together and soon giggles bubbled up from her stomach; she pressed her lips together to stop them bursting from her mouth.
So now I have these feelings, she thought, what do I do with them? She tried to imagine gathering the happy sensations together, squishing them all into one big lump. And in her mind they became a slowly spinning sphere, made up of billions of dots of brilliant energy, fizzing, spitting and spinning about one another.
And now what? she wondered. In her mind, she kind of nudged the ball, prodding it carefully. Immediately, she felt its edges blur, particles breaking away, dispersing into a soft light that radiated from her skin as it scattered, like glowing dust motes. She buzzed and tingled all over.
Wow.
She fell back against the wall of the van. How great is that?!
Suddenly, feverishly excited by the feeling, she gave the ball a great push.
The ball of light exploded, spraying outward from every part of her body.
And then everything happened at once.
First thing she thought was that they’d been in a car accident: Shofranka, Mirela and Tamas were piled on top of her and the van had screeched to a stop.
And then Tamas began kissing her neck.
Mirela, pushing her hands past him, groped at the tangles in her hair. Shofranka was at her feet, stroking her hands, her eyes glazed.
‘Hey! What are you lunatics doing?’ Sam yelled. ‘Get the hell off me!’
And then the sliding van door slammed open. Luca and Hanzi pushed through the doorway, wrestling one another to be first to climb into the back of the cabin.
Tamas was crushing her now, and Mirela’s efforts to push past him were becoming increasingly frantic. Samantha struggled to shove them off her, but one arm was pinned and the other hand was gripped by Shofranka in a death-hug. She couldn’t move; it was becoming difficult even to breathe. Over Tamas’s shoulder, she saw that Hanzi had overpowered Luca and his huge shoulders now took up the very last of the space and the air in the van.
She freaked out.
‘GET OFF ME!’ she screamed.
Her heart bashed about in her chest like a trapped bird and she felt it pumping pure panic into her bloodstream.
This time a white energy blasted out through her system and Shofranka immediately dropped her hand as though burned. Hanzi desperately wriggled his way back out through the doorway of the van. She breathed in as the night air flooded into the cramped space.
Mirela slid backwards, leaving Tamas, still on top of her, staring blankly into her eyes. She pushed him back a little and he sat up, dazed.
