A snippet from Rumer and the Red Cardinal, my young adult WIP (Work in Progress)

Rumer lost track of time. The orphanage girls had a practiced makeup routine that she used to turn herself into a ghostly waif in fifteen minutes flat. Paloma was far more meticulous.

Rumer would have been bored silly, but Paloma kept up a light banter, and explained every step she made to separate the girl from her former life.

When all was said and done, Rumer couldn’t believe her eyes. She wondered if anyone from the orphanage would even recognize her if they passed her on the street.

Gone was her plain pinafore, and the prim, tall orphanage girl who only used makeup to create bruises and sallow her cheeks.

“Welcome home, Chi Shugra,” Paloma said.

“What does that mean?” Rumer asked.

Paloma’s eyes danced. “It means: Pretty girl.”

It was all so bewildering. Rumer had always attracted attention as a very tall girl. She’d never realized that anything else about her might have attracted stares.

“I’m actually pretty, aren’t I?” Rumer felt her eyes welling. At the orphanage, it hadn’t mattered. But now, in the presence of a gorgeous Romani woman, it did.

“Of course, you’re pretty, chey. All of God’s creatures are beautiful.”

“Paloma, this is sorcery!” Rumer laughed. “I’m a completely different person! I’m not even sure that I’d recognize myself if I met me on the street.”

Paloma had cut six inches from her long black hair, and dyed it to a dark auburn shade that might almost look magenta in bright sunlight. Then she sprayed it with a sweet smelling liquid, and worked it expertly with a round brush to turn long straight hair into a bevy of soft curls. Rumer’s lips were now rouged, and her eyes were transformed by smoky overtones. She now wore long turquoise earrings in her newly-pierced ears, and four one-inch bangles along her left arm, which told other Romani that she was unmarried and looking for a husband.

The smell of patchouli running down her right arm enveloped them in a feminine camaraderie that she had had never known about before now.

“I hope you approve, chey.”

Rumer answered with a smile that brimmed with wonder. She leaned close to the mirror, and rubbed away the grime to get a better look at her face, and the smokey tones of her eyes. Her bangles sang with every movement.

“And you’ve made me a marriageable age, too!”

Rumer laughed. Her thoughts flashed to Orsino or Flavio dropping to one knee to request her hand when they saw her again, just to get a rise out of her. Even among the Romani and lower classes, fourteen year-old girls didn’t marry unless they were with child.

The authorities were looking for a sickly orphan girl with long black hair. Now, to the outside world, she appeared to be a vibrant young woman of seventeen. She knew now that her old self could disappear, and that would help keep her safe until she could again return to the orphanage. But, more importantly, it would also keep the Wanderers safe from the dangers that swirled around her like malevolent wraiths.

“You know what you need to do, don’t you, chey?”

“Yes, I do,” Rumer said. “A disguise is no better than half a novena.”

Paloma laughed. “Catholics have such funny ways of saying things. But yes.”

Rumer spun to watch her dress swirl in the mirror, and laughed again. For a girl practiced in espionage and deception, she was completely unready for the cacophony that came with acting like a Romani woman.

“That’s the idea, chey. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I am a dancer, and even when I’m walking long distances between towns, I hear music. So listen for the music all around you, and follow its lead. It could be the sweet meandering of a brook. The trill of a woodland thrush. Or the clipclop drumming of the horses on a cobblestone road.

“Music is all around you, chey, if you stop long enough to listen, it will bring you much joy.”

The thought made Rumer smile. She was a city girl with no memory of woods alive with songbirds, or the rush of a broad river splashing with trout. She was terrified by everything that lay before her. She’d never slept outside, nor cooked around a campfire, nor heard the raucous call of wildlife as they hunted for prey under a gibbous moon.

Now, Rumer was the hunted. She was the prey. And it wasn’t a game.

And yet. In the flush of emotions, she touched something that was very much like excitement. She was eager to travel with the Roma, and see things she’d always wanted to see.

Outside the river lapped against the pier in a soft, sweet cadence, and seabirds squawked for a cheap meal.

It was music to her ears.

Rumer took one more look in the mirror, and nodded to Paloma.

“I’m ready.”