Piper LeVine, A Gypsy's Truth

  Chapter One

  It hurt to breathe around the huge aching lump in my throat. My bags were packed and had already been added to the car. My parents made me wait until dark before they’d let me leave.

  My father met me at the waiting car. His black and speckled white hair was combed to perfection. The expression on his face was the same as always. He was not smiling, but still presented a pleasant yet businesslike demeanor.

  He looked around again, checking our surroundings. I wasn’t sure if he was looking for paparazzi or the mysterious ‘they.’ Both Dad and my mother said, it wasn’t worth my worrying over.

  “Your grandmother is expecting you.” At last, his cool gaze met mine. “No need to include her in this.” Again, I tried to swallow the lump. “I expect you to behave in such a way that you will not cause any embarrassment. There will be no talk of last night.”

  “Why didn’t you-”

  “None.” He squeezed my shoulder painfully. “Do as I ask and nothing will change.” His fingers were biting into my skin, but his sharp words hurt more. I pushed his hand away, got in the car and closed the door. The tinted glass divider rose up separating me from the driver.

  Finally alone, hot, stinging tears coated my cheeks and I hugged my knees to my chest and buried my face. Katrine had come to my room and tried to talk to me while I’d been packing and things only got worse.

  We fought about my hair and my boyfriend and in the end, we hadn’t left things on decent terms. I was never on good terms with Harold, but this time knowing what I knew it was painfully different this time.

  I was different.

  It was well into the blackness of the night when the driver told me that we would be reaching Grandma Sidney’s house in a half hour. I grabbed my makeup bag and opened up the handheld mirror. The tears had taken away all of my eye makeup, and my green eyes were crimson and puffy. My fair skin blotchy and my golden blond hair, with its blatant and unwelcome scarlet stripe down the right side, was in tangles.

  The stripe had shown up a few days ago and it had upset my mother immeasurably. I didn’t understand the real reason why at the time. I’d only been upset that she hadn’t believed me when I had explained that I hadn’t dyed the red stripe in. It showed up out of nowhere. I had tried to bleach it to match the rest of my hair, but it didn’t take.

  Foundation helped, but there was no changing the swollen skin around my eyes. I shoved my arms through the sleeves of my black leather jacket and zipped it up. I wound my golden tangles into a bun and secured them with bobby pins. The red burgundy stripe was impossible to hide, but I did try. Pink lipstick covered up the purple shade of my lips.

  When the car pulled onto the steep, winding street, I took a few deep breaths. I wanted back the ignorance I had yesterday. It would not be returning, and despite my father’s promises I knew that nothing was ever going to be the same.

  Humane Animal Shelter and rescue signs reflected in the glow of the headlights as the car rounded the last corner. Grandma Sidney ran the animal shelter, and was outside of the one-story entranceway waiting for me. Her shoulder-length hair was a deep black and was pulled back into a low ponytail.

  I promised myself that I would not tell her what had happened. This was the only place I had felt completely safe, and I refused to let that change. I smiled as brightly as I could while explaining that I just missed her too much to stay away. I had never lied to her before, and I don’t know how convincing I was. She didn’t push me, though I thought she might the way she was studying me.

  “Are you hungry?”

  I shook my head. “No, just tired.”

  Johnny with his long brown ponytail came in first, carrying my luggage. Tony was right behind Johnny with the rest of my things. Tony’s hair was almost as dark as Grandma Sidney’s, though most of it was buzzed off. He reminded me of one of those tough faced older generals you see in war movies. Tony worked for my grandma for many years and was considered a family friend.

  “I’ll go unpack.” I started to follow my luggage to my room, but I stopped walking when I heard Sidney sigh.

  The new guy grandma had mentioned, whom I hadn’t met yet, gave a nod when she dismissed him, but did not turn back towards the door. “Something else?” My grandma asked him, but he was looking past her and right at me. I didn’t want to meet anyone at the moment, so I turned back down the hallway.

  “That’s my granddaughter Piper. She’s much too young for you so don’t get any ideas, Ivan.” I stopped again when I heard the challenge in my grandma’s voice and turned back to peek around the corner.

  His tanned face flushed, and she stepped toe to toe with the young man. “No, none at all,” Ivan answered.

  “Good, because she’s off limits. You understand that, don’t you, Ivan?”

  “Yes-”

  “Because if you don’t, you’ll be a lot worse off than just out of a job.”

  Tony passed me in the hallway, smiling, but didn’t rat me out for eavesdropping. “Trouble?”

  She continued to look hard at Ivan. “I don’t think so, just clearing things up.” Grandma Sidney turned toward Tony. “Thank you for your help with the luggage. Would you please see to feeding the animals, and get that horse unloaded, bathed and fed.”

  “Of course.” Tony opened the front door and stared Ivan down as he walked through it. Johnny was chuckling as he followed the other two out. When the door closed Sidney went straight to her room. Based on previous experience I knew she was going to call my father.

  I picked up the corded land line that Sidney liked to keep and covered up the mouthpiece. She dialed, and my dad picked up on the second ring. “Good evening, Mom. How are you?”

  “What is wrong with Piper? You said she was just missing me. What happened?”

  “She and Katrine are bumping heads and she always does better with you.”

  I could hear my grandma stomping around in her room as she spoke. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I have no reason to lie to you.”

  “She’s seventeen years old Harold. It’s time she-”

  My dad cut in, “Maybe she misses that boy she’s seeing. He’s probably the one who convinced her to put that stripe of red in her hair. She looks like a hoodlum.”

  “Rick is a very nice young man, and I told you Piper didn’t dye that stripe into her hair. Her hair just stopped accepting the bleach in that spot.”

  There was a muffled voice in the background on his end. “I have a lot to do, Mom. If there’s something I can do to help Piper let me know.”

  Sidney hissed out a frustrated breath into the mouthpiece. “It’s too late for that, don’t you think?”

  “Goodbye.” He hung up on both of us. The hurt sound Sidney made brought back the stinging tears to my eyes, and I blinked them away. I waited until she hung up before I did.

  The last thing I wanted was to be left to my own thoughts, so I unpacked and was texting my best friend, Nina Goodwell, when the lights started flickering. I hadn’t realized how late it was. Fatigue started catching up with me. There was thunder outside, and the rain was welcome as it soothed my nerves.

  Grandma Sidney knocked only once before opening the door and seemed disappointed when she found me texting on my phone. “Talking to your boyfriend?”

  “No, just texting Nina,” I answered, sounding a little shaky, at least I didn’t cry.

  Grandma walked over to the bed where I was sitting and took the spot next to me. “What’s wrong, Piper? I get the feeling this is over more than just some boy. You’ve only seen him a handful of times.”

  I decided to stick as close to the truth as I could. “I’m mad at my parents.” I shrugged and set the phone down next to me. “I’m glad that you insisted on my growing up here while Dad was busy with his campaigning. This is home to me now. I don’t want to go back.” Technically, my home was with my parents by my heart was with Grandma Sidney. The times I got to stay with her I always treasured.

/>   “That bad, huh?”

  “I’ve only got one year left before I go off to college, and I’d really like to spend it with you, Grandma Sidney. I was here almost all of last year.” Hiding from my parents might have been an immature reaction, but after hearing what I had and knowing what I did, I was sure they weren’t going to want me to return anytime soon anyway.

  “You know it’s fine with me.” Grandma Sidney hugged me tightly and kissed my cheek. “You’ll have to continue to pitch in. You know how I feel about idle hands.”

  “I don’t mind helping out.” I made sure I was smiling, but she was looking at me as though I was a stranger.

  Did she know?

  She stood up and tussled my messier bun. “Goodnight, sweet angel.”

  “Goodnight.” When she closed my door, I plugged in my cell phone and turned off my light. Then I buried my face in my pillow and sobbed until the numbness set in. It was better than the tears that kept coming. My mind was flooded with questions.

  How did this all happen? How could they keep this from me all these years? Who am I? Do I look like her? Have I ever met her? Does she know me? How could she give me up? Who else knows? Who came to our door in the middle of the night, and why?

  When I went to sleep, I was sure I would dream about the faceless, nameless woman who had hurt Katrine and hadn’t cared if she’d ruined a marriage when she’d had an affair with Harold. Instead, I dreamt of black trees bursting up out of the ground and spooky, shadowy figures lurking in the darkness.