The Shadow of the Gypsy on White Snow
The crisp, frosty air of January seemed forever steeped in the scent of burning Christmas candles and the bitter tang of Mums unchecked tears. The last days in the city had blurred into a painful haze. Emilythat was the girls name nowhadnt even made it to the school carnival. Mum, through trembling hands and tears, had still been stitching her costume as the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, embroidering the green dress with beads that shimmered like real emeralds. But the celebration never came. Instead, there was the endless, swaying train ride, snow-covered fields like a giant patchwork quilt outside the window, and a cold lump of sorrow lodged beneath her ribs.
Dad he had simply ceased to exist. Not physically, no. He had dissolved, vanished from their lives as if hed never been there at all. And then came Grandma, his mother, with a face as sharp and unyielding as an axe. Her words carved themselves into Emilys memory forever, precise, honed, lethal: *”We only put up with you for our sons sake. Youve overstayed your welcome. Go back to the village you came from. Hell pay child support, but no contact. None.”*
And there they werestanding on a snow-dusted patch of ground in front of Grandmas crooked but cosy cottage. They unloaded their meagre belongings under the scrutiny of a dozen curious eyes. The neighbours. They had come out as if watching a play. Some stared in silent, sour pity. Others with barely concealed spite. Once, Emily remembered Mum saying, these same people had fawned over the “city girl” who had married well. Now they only saw a fallen woman, cast from her pedestal.
The holidays ended in a blink. The new school greeted her with icy silence and sharp, scrutinising stares. She was an outsidera white crow in a city dress, with ribbons that now seemed absurd and painfully naive. The girls, a cackling flock of magpies, descended on her at once.
“Look at that, a right dolly in a skirt!” someone shrieked with laughter. “Legs like twigs!”
Emily curled in on herself, wishing to disappear, but their gazes burned right through her.
After school, the torment continued. The pure, fluffy snow that had seemed so inviting that morning became a weapon. Hard-packed snowballs, hurled with venom, flew at her from all sides. Each strike was precise, cruel, knocking the breath from her lungs and bringing treacherous tears to her eyes. She fell to her knees, arms shielding her head, ready to surrender, to vanish into the snowbank.
Thenchaotic shrieks and laughter turned to cries of pain and fright.
“Give it back, city girl! Harder!” rang a bright, reckless voice above her.
She lifted her tear-streaked face. A boy stood in front of her, shielding her from the onslaught, crafting and launching snowballs with machine-like speed. The bullies scattered.
“Run! Its that mad Gypsy!”
He turned to her. And yes, he did look like a gypsy from a storybookolive skin, thick black hair escaping from a worn ushanka, eyes like burning coals, alight with mischief. He held himself with deliberate roughness, hands on hips, gaze defiantbut the smile tugging at his lips was startlingly kind.
“Youre the one from the city, yeah? Im Jack. Well, Jackie to mates. Crying wont help. From now on, youre under my protection. No one touches you.”
He said it with a solemn, boyish gravity, clearly having heard the line somewhere and memorised it. Then, embarrassed by his own grandiosity, he flushed beneath his tan.
That was the beginning. Jack, of course, wasnt a gypsyjust stuck with the nickname for his looks. They were startlingly alike: both buried in books from the creaking, musty village library. Jack had already devoured every Jules Verne and Jack London novel. Travel was their shared obsession. Theyd sit for hours on the hill above the Thames, wind whipping their faces, watching barges drift toward the horizon. They dreamt aloudhe of sailing the world, she of singing on a grand stage, her voice carrying across the ocean.
Years passed. Childhood friendship melted into something deeper, tender and unspoken. Jacks father bought him a motorbike, and that became their ticket to freedom. They raced down country lanes, wind screaming in their ears, her arms tight around his waist as she whooped with joy. They fished in distant lakes, picked berries in the woods, rode “to the edge of the world,” as they called it.
“Em, youre blinding today. Prettier than yesterday,” hed say, looking anywhere but at her, though his gaze always flickered back. “Just stay clear of those city lads. They swarm round you like wasps to jam.”
“Jealous, Jackie?” shed laugh, heart singing at his clumsy words.
And how could he not be? The ugly duckling had become a swan. Her voicerich, velvetfilled the village hall at every concert. She won the county talent contest. There was a magic in her now, a glow: her grey eyes bright as emeralds, her step light and sure. And he he stayed just Jack, the “Gypsy,” who felt plain beside her.
Then came that sweltering June. Exams were done. All that remained was collecting their certificates and heading to the city for university. Both dreamed of journalism, of studying side by side. That day, Emily had her final rehearsal before graduation, while Jack ran an errand for an elderly neighbourfetching medicine from the nearest town. He always helped, never refused.
On his way back, the sky split open. A biblical downpour. Lightning seared the air, thunder shook the ground, rain fell in sheets so thick you couldnt see your own hand.
Emily was singing her last song when a primal dread seized her. Something was wrong. The air crackled with disaster. She couldnt breathe.
Then the door crashed open. A classmate stood there, drenched, wild-eyed, sobbing.
“Jack Em, its Jack” she choked out. “The rain he couldnt see the lorry”
The world didnt tilt. It shattered. Sounds vanished. Only silence, and the scream tearing from her own throat, one she couldnt hear.
There was no graduation ball. Just a black dress, a coffin too small to hold her universe, and silence. She never sang again. Her voice had died with him.
Every evening, like clockwork, she went to him. The cemetery became their new meeting place. There, under whispering leaves or crunching snow, she spoke to him for hourstelling him about her day, about Mum, about the gaping hole hed left. She wore herself thin reliving that day, searching for the moment she could have changed it: begged him to stay, waited out the storm, calledanything. A futile, torturous grief.
The years that followed were filled with study, then work. She became a brilliant journalist, then editor at a regional broadcaster. Success, respect, comfort. She had everything. And nothing. Emptiness was her constant companion.
Once, years later, she asked her mothergrey-haired and weary, never recovering from the double blow of her husbands abandonment and the loss of the boy shed loved like a son
“Mum, why doesnt time heal? Hes still with me. I feel him every second. He wont let go.”
Her mother looked at her with endless sadness.
“Maybe, love, its you who wont let go of him.”
After a long, leaden winter, spring finally came. Sunlight warmed faces, and people spilled into the streets, hungry for warmth. Emily walked home slowly, turned down an unfamiliar laneand froze at a voice, sharp as a knife to the heart.
“Gypsy, over here! Go on!”
Her pulse stuttered. She turned, slow, afraid to frighten the vision away. On the football pitch, a game was in full swing. At its centrea dark-haired boy, maybe eleven, weaving past defenders, driving the ball into a makeshift goal with fierce precision.
Emily pressed against the cold fence, hardly daring to move. The boy caught her stare. Their eyes met for a breath. Flustered, she looked away and hurried off.
But she returned the next day. And the next. She hid behind old oaks, drinking in his features. Learned the three-storey building nearby was a childrens home. Her heart ached with painful hope.
One evening, she arrived late. The pitch was empty. Dusk thickened. Disappointed, she turned to leavethen saw him. At the far corner of the fence, fingers curled in the wire, watching her. Waiting.
“I thought you werent coming,” he said softly.
Emilys breath caught.
“Lets start again. Im Emily. And you?”
“Jack. But everyone calls me Jackie. AndIm not a gypsy. Just dark.” He smiled. And it was *his* smilekind, shy, crink
