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"You give th I didn’t know I had," I said "You make me better"

She blushed "I don’t knohat to say"

Eht soul I need your fire--the one inside you

"You don’t have to say anything," I said And then I was seized with the sudden urge to kiss her, and I did

Though ere dead tired, the Gypsies were in a buoyant , and after a few cups of hot, sweet, highly caffeinated sos, they’d won us over They were natural storytellers and beautiful singers; innately char-lost cousins We stayed up half the night trading stories The young guy who’d thrown his voice like a bear did a ventriloquist act that was so good I almost believed his dummies had come alive He seemed to have a little crush on Eingly, but she pretended not to notice andthe First World War, the British army had taken all their horses, and for a while they’d had none to pull their wagons They had been left stranded in the forest--this very forest--when one day a herd of long-horned goats wandered into their cah to eat out of your hand, so sooats turned out to be nearly as strong as the horses they’d lost So the Gypsies got unstuck, and until the end of the war their wagons were pulled by these peculiarly strong goats, which is how they becahout Wales as Goat People As proof they passed around a photo of Bekhir’s uncle riding a goat-pulled wagon We kneithout anyone having to say it that this was the lost herd of peculiar goats Addison had talked about After the war, the arer needed, disappeared again into the forest

Finally, ca rolls for us and sang a lullaby in a lilting foreign language, and I felt pleasantly like a child The ventriloquist caht to E card On the back was an address in Cardiff where he picked up h On the front was his photo, with dummies, and a little note written to Emma She showed it to uilty only of liking her, sa roll at the forest’s edge Just as ere drifting off, I heard footsteps in the grass nearby, and opened ain after having spent the evening talking with the Gypsy boy

"He wants to coily "Where?"

"The boy With us"

"And what did you say?"

"I told him it was a bad idea But I didn’t say no, precisely"

"You knoe can’t take on anyone else," Emma said "He’ll slow us down"

"I know, I know," said Millard "But he’s disappearing very rapidly, and he’s frightened Soon he’ll be entirely invisible, and he’s afraid he’ll fall behind their group one day and the Gypsies won’t notice and he’ll be lost forever in the woods aroaned and rolled over to face Millard He wasn’t going to let us sleep until this was decided "I know he’ll be disappointed," she said "But it’s really ih," Millard said heavily "I’ll give hihed, and for a while she tossed and turned, restless