Lost And Found. A Story.

His new blue coat held a golden trim that glinted off the setting southern sun.



Hear the chimes, did you know that the wind when it blows,

It is older than Rome and all of this sorrow.



He shook the sleeves, pulling them past his wrists and pushing them back up. He was warm next to the large fire they'd built, full from the stew they had shared.



As many of their group wandered into the brightly colored carriages surrounding the fire, Draco kept his place and laid back on the cool grass, gazing at the stars.



See the new pyramids down in old Manhattan?

From the roof of a friend's I watched an empire ending.



He didn't shift as footsteps approached, and the glow of flames illuminated an old woman towering over him. She stood shakily, peering down with dark eyes.



"The winter season is beginning, bird child. Will you stay with us for long?" Her voice wheezed from her throat like the growl of a wolf and she grasped her shawl tightly around her frail body.



The boy looked up once more at the stars, seeing new constellations cover the sky.



Heard it loud and long, the river's Om,

Time marching on to a madman's drum.



"I do not know, Matilde," The young boy kicked his legs out restlessly. "I don't know where I'm supposed to be now. I may stay for the season."



She nodded and turned to her carriage, walking more steadily than she could stand.



He sighed to himself. He was a child, but he knew she was sick. She was old. How would the winter treat her? He didn't know if he wanted to know that answer.



He rolled to his side, his golden, curling hair splayed and twined with feathers. There were so many more than he'd had in the fall.



Don't forget what you've learned all you give is returned,

And if life seems absurd what you need is some laughter.



He counted every star twice before he fell asleep.



And a season to sleep and a place to get clean,

Maybe Los Angeles, somewhere no one is expecting.



The band of gypsies traveled further south, attempting to out run the harsh winter that was clipping their heels. They would reach towns and cities and have magick shows for coins, sells potions and good luck charms and read palms. Draco helped make potions and learned every line in the human hand, watching the movements of the old woman. She liked him around her. He liked her to be happy.



He watched the silhouette inside the turquoise carriage move, dousing all but one small, flickering candle from within. The camp was quiet, much as it was at these hours when he'd sit beside the embers of the fire and look at the late Capricorn sky.



On a detox loft through a Glendale Park over sidewalk chalk,

Someone wrote in red, "start over."



The silhouette moved towards another figure, enveloping them and pulling them to lay down, and the soft sounds of rustling cloth and breathy voices reached his ears. That was Tazia's tent, the beautiful woman who would dance with her hips covered in gold chains and bells, covered by only yards of silk material wrapped about her olive skin.



She would always give Draco extra portions to meals, and wink and dance for him when the streets of towns held no people on winter evenings.



He felt an odd tightening in his chest, as though his heart was itching against his ribs. He rubbed the place roughly and looked away from the carriage, recognizing Dal's voice, the large man who had saved him that fall day when he faced Blaise.



So I muffled my scream on an Oxnard beach,

Full of fever dreams that scare you sober...

Into saltless dinners.



Matilde opened the tarp of her brightly colored carriage and waved her hand at the boy, motioning that he join her. He sat at the edge of her low, carved table as she dealt cards onto the solid wood.



She muttered words in a water-like tongue, placing her hands above the arrangement of faded cards before taking his hands and placing them under hers, above the tarot design.



He closed his eyes and followed her voice, chanting the words he didn't know a meaning to.



She hushed, her low breathing making the bright candle waver and wan.



The candle burned out and he opened his eyes, surprised at her, and seeing her already flipping cards and shaking her head, a small smile playing at her lips.



Take the fruit from the tree, break the skin with your teeth.

Is it bitter or sweet? All depends on your timing.



"What do the markings mean?" His hands were growing in size already, his twelfth summer approaching, and he brushed his finger against the Queen of Cups, her card so illustriously etched in calligraphy and ink.



The woman stilled his movement, breath catching, "Bird, we do not touch the cards unless we can cleanse them of our touch. They are a prayer. They mean what we wish them to mean."



He pulled back his hand, feeling burned and mistrusted, and turned to leave her carriage. He slept under the stars.



Like a meeting of chance with the train station glance,

Many lifetimes had past in a instant reminded...



They spent the cold months on the Italian shores, the weather cold - yet warmer than it could ever be in germanic territories. Draco had cried when he'd first seen the sea, each blue wave rising and cresting, so powerfully.



He would sit on the rocks of ledges overlooking the waters, while the band of travelers built fires and danced nearby. On the nights when Tazia sang songs to Dal, he'd walk among the waves pulling his feet into the shore's sand. The birds would circle, large albatross and trilling gulls behind each of his steps.



And as he looked at the constellations, he felt a shudder reach through his hands and heard Tazia's screams echo from the camp.



Of a millstone house in a seaside town,

When your heart gave out in a mission bed.



He ran. He ran to the scent of fire and incense, his hair whipping around his face, the feathers slashing across his cheeks with the wind.



But in the firelight, it wasn't Tazia's limp body fallen across the dusty clearing.



So your wife gave birth to a funeral dirge,

You woke up purged as a wailing infant,

In Krug Thep, Thailand.



He slumped, defeated, cradling Matilde's small body. Her breath was gone, her eyes were dull, and he cried. He cried for her. He cried loudly. He cried because she couldn't.



As the sun rose, Dal had dragged him away from her, wrapping her figure in a dark red blanket, throwing white sheets of mourning over her carriage. They would bury her on the ledge at mid-day.



And when the gypsies slept, he slipped into her carriage and grabbed the box that she kept her secrets in. And he ran.



He ran to the shoreline, where the he fell to his knees at the water's kiss. What was there left? He was left.



He played with the lock on the chest, and picked the box back up, hefting it under one arm and walking northwest. It would be summer soon.



Hear the chimes, did you know that the wind when it blows,

It is older than Rome and our joy and our sorrow.



Didn't birds go north in the summers?