The Dutch don't like us. They mutter, "Gypsies!" in their gurgled tongue and pull their children inside, closing shutters and slamming doors. The Germans didn't care for us either, but at night a number ventured out to throw money at our dancing feet or have their fortunes told. In Holland, there is no such curiosity. Netherland winds blow frigid, but I suspect our welcome would be equally biting among the yellow jonquils and bright tulips of spring.

My father returns to the clearing where we prepare to spend the night. Lifting my skirts, I run to greet him. "Father! Did you find us a ship to America?"

He towers above me, standing in scarred leather boots I've never seen him without. Black hair and beard curl around his face like winter fur.

"We sail tomorrow," he says, bending to lift me. "I booked passage with a Dutch steamer leaving for England at midday."

"England? Why must we go to England? Can't we go straight to America?"

"It's not so easy, Wren. We must first get across the North Sea to London. From there we'll travel to Liverpool."

"When will we reach America?"

Our journey pounds our hearts and spirits. Exhaustion dampens hope. Hungarian plains have long since disappeared beneath Austrian mountains, rich German forests fading behind the lip of the Netherlands. Deep into September, nights are growing cold and winter chases us, a ravenous pursuit.

"America is still far away, beyond Great Britain and across the Atlantic."

"But Father, the farther we travel the harder it will be to return. How will we see Mama and Papa again? When will I play with my friends?"

My brother, Stephen, feeds a sapling into the fire. It crackles like a howling witch. "We're not ever going to see them again. Can't you understand it?"

Father sets me down. "Don't taunt your sister. We may well return when the Habsburgs lose their hold on our people. Perhaps family will follow in our path."

"Really, Father? Might we return one day?"

He loses patience easily, with both me and Stephen. "America is far away. Stephen and your mother are family enough. Your Aunt Panna is your dearest friend."

"You see," Stephen says and then ducks when Father throws a twig in his direction. "What I tell you is truth."

"Stop, please," Mother says. "There's no call for bickering."

"I'm only teasing with her. Come to the fire, Wren. Tonight we'll dance and the worry will be forgotten."

The throb of my heart pounds through to my back. Hairs rise along my neck. I lift my skirts and run across the camp to my father's sister. "Nénike, do you know how far it is to America?"

She shuffles a deck of hand-painted cards on the top of a water barrel. "It's very far. Across a great ocean."

"Stephen says we'll never see Mama and Papa again."

A shadow creases her brow. "The Empire's greed and hunger for power destroys much. Many families have been divided by the violence. We're fortunate to have escaped with our lives. We're lucky to have each other."

I look into her tired face. "Tell my fortune, Panna. Please, Nénike."

"You've heard your fortune. A hundred times."

"I know nothing of my future in the new world. Tell me of my future in America."

Her hair gleams dark as rich Carpathian soil, her skin amber as honey. The hoops of her earrings sparkle like quicksilver in the glow of the fire. She's a beauty and many say I look just like her, comments I take as the most sincere of compliments. She's my father's sister, our clan's shuv'hani, a medicine woman with the gift of clairvoyance and power over the forest, seas and air. It has been said that in time my powers will exceed hers, for I was born beneath a Venetian Veil, and to be born with even a shred is to be foreordained to wisdom and vision. At my birth, the entire amniotic sac draped my infant face and predictions of my glory have followed me forever after.

Without looking at her cards, Panna cuts them twice, flipping them one at a time across the cover of the water barrel. I stand on tiptoes admiring the deftness of her wrists. The first card reveals a lone silhouette on a sloping hill holding a yellow lantern behind a fringe of bare branches. She gathers the cards together and starts again.

"Will the cards tell of those we left behind?"

"Do you want to hear about the others or about yourself?"

I grin, for even as she scolds me, I feel the warmth of her love. "I want to know everything. I want to hear about everyone."

"One reading at a time," she says, pressing a clove of garlic in my palm.

"Yes, Nénike."

She turns the first card, the impish satyr, a gray figure with a man's face and the horns and hind legs of a goat. Scooping it back into the deck, she shuffles again before starting her spread. The Two of Koshes appears upside down, one carved rod embedded in dirt outside the door of an old Gypsy wagon, the second splintered beneath the vardo's wheels. It's not a good way to start a reading, even worse being upside down. Panna seldom alters the lay of her cards, but she slides this one to its upright position before turning the next.

The Three of Chivs reveals a handsome Gypsy man sitting cross-legged in baggy trousers and a sheep-skin vest. Three silver knives protrude from a scrap of red carpet at his feet. His expression is grim.

My heart races. I scratch the top of one foot with the heel of the other and lick my lips, chapped raw from the northern wind.

Collecting the cards, she tilts her head back, letting her black hair fall across her bare shoulders. I touch my lip and sniff the sharp smell of the garlic.

The next card overturned is the Seeker, a fool on horseback oblivious to his danger as he gallops toward a bridge that has been washed away. This is followed by the image of a burning tree shadowed by a faceless figure wielding the scythe of time.

"Is that the card of death?"

She tosses the remnants of a laugh into the air. It sounds like a strike on tin.

"Predictions aren't always as they seem. Cards may foretell the death of a bad idea or ill habit, perhaps the passing of a season."

Biting her lip, she reshuffles, but the same cards reveal themselves again. Her breath is louder than the sound of the crackling fire as she hesitates and turns the Five of Bolers, an old woman smoking a pipe beside a wagon with no wheels, its axles embedded in the dirt. She takes a card, the gruesome drawing of a dead hare hanging by one foot, and slides it up the sleeve of her blouse and I'm not sure if she's hiding it from herself or from me.

"Let's begin again," she says, rubbing the clove of garlic in my hand before turning the next card. "I've not shuffled properly."

It shows the portrait of a dark-eyed priestess, a dagger pointing toward her heart.

"The Queen of Chivs," Panna says, her voice grating as gravel down a steep embankment.

I lean even closer. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she assures me, fidgeting with the deck.

"Tell the truth. I see it in your face."

"We mustn't make the journey."

"But Father already has the boarding tickets. We sail tomorrow."

"If we go, many among us will die."

"No one will die. Father will protect us as always."

"You mustn't go, Wren. You're in horrible danger. Tell your father you wish to stay behind."

Clutching the garlic, I leave her to her cards and run to my mother, sitting on the...