Read Online Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) by Nina Milton - Free Book Online

to waste. They were always warning you not to confront burglars on your own. I had once confronted a murderer on my own, and I never want to repeat that experience. Robotically, my hands went to my head, to the curls that were now just ten centimetres long. A flash of fear shot through me. I hadn’t meant to move. I’d meant to stay stock still until I had a plan. Now I’d lost the element of surprise and I still didn’t have a plan.
    “Hey.” It came out all croaky with an unsteady waver at the end. “Hey!” That was better. I stepped off my path into the night shadows in the hope the intruder would hurtle past me, through the gate, and down the road.
    A low burr of sound came out of the porch, but nothing rushed by. I crept closer. There was some sort of bundle in the corner. It stirred like an animal, but it was too big, even for a dog. I grabbed my bag and held it in front of me as protection, which on later reflection made it seem more like an offering.
    Something white floated out from the darkness of the bundle. A pale hand. “Sorree … sorreee …”A form uncurled and stood. A slight frame, a narrow face veiled by a fringed shawl.
    “Would you like to explain what you’re doing?”
    “Sorree,” she said again. “I fall … sleep.”
    “In my porch?”
    “I … you … Sabbie Dare?” She had a strong, uncertain accent that reminded me of something.
    “How d’you know …”
    “My name is Brouviche.” I could see how slight she was, both shorter and skinnier than me. She still held out her hand. In the palm lay something I recognised instantly—one of my business cards.
    “You were waiting for me?”
    “Please.” She pulled off the head scarf. Her hair gleamed like jet. She flicked the hair out of her eyes. An image flashed into my mind. Carnival night. The wind along the street. The smell of cordite in the air. The dark, narrow lane. A gypsy dressing in frills of red.
    There is danger. It starts with death .
    The death of Abbott.
    “You were at the squibbing. You’re Kizzy.”
    I’d given her my card, and she’d found my house. When had she got here? It could have been any time since I left early this evening. Underneath the wrappings her face was as pale as hoar frost.
    “You’d better come in.” I unlocked the door. Every client I invite in begins as a stranger, and some of them are very odd indeed. I didn’t feel threatened by this young Romani.
    The heating was off in the house, but it was warmer than outside. I put on the lights and filled the kettle. The girl hooched up against the arm of the sofa, her fingers knotted together, her brown eyes trained on my movements. “I am not Kizzy,” she said. “Kizzy is my sister. I am Mirela Brouviche.”
    “Oh, gosh!” I could see now. Her eyes had less command than the fortuneteller’s and she looked younger, hardly old enough to be out at night. I pulled a stool from under the breakfast bar and sat on it, facing her across the coffee table. “So, why were you in my porch?”
    “Is sister.”
    “Gypsy Kizzy?”
    “Is gone.”
    “Gone?” I echoed.
    She gave an abrupt nod. “One morning, I wake. Kizzy not in bed. Not in house. Not in work. No place. And clothe gone too.”
    The kettle clicked off. I made some tea because I wasn’t sure how she’d take her coffee—maybe thick and black in tiny cups? She didn’t look up to explaining and I wasn’t up to asking.
    “I count. One week. Two week. I ask, where can she be? No one know.” Mirela took fast little sips of her tea, like a bird at a fountain.
    “She’s been missing for two weeks? But that’s when I saw her, two weeks ago. I saw her at the carnival.”
    “Two weeks, yes. I count each day. Think: today, Kizzy will be back.” She paused to sip her tea, wrapping thin fingers round the mug to warm them. They seemed to me to be the fingers of a child; hardly longer or fatter than my niece Kerri’s fingers. “When we first come here, Kizzy say, ‘don’ worry,