“Thanks awfully,” I said in my best village-twit voice, taking the reins from the Gypsy and giving them a flick.

“Ya!” I cried, and Gry began to move at once.

We had gone about a quarter of a mile when suddenly the Gypsy spoke.

“You lie like one of us,” she said.

It was hardly the sort of remark I should have expected. She must have seen the puzzled look on my face.

“You lie when you are attacked for nothing … for the color of your eyes.”

“Yes,” I said. “I suppose I do.” I had never really thought of it in this way.

“So,” she said, suddenly animated, as if the encounter with Mrs. Bull had warmed her blood, “you lie like us. You lie like a Gypsy.”

“Is that good?” I asked. “Or bad?”

Her answer was slow in coming.

“It means you will live a long life.”

The corner of her mouth twitched, as if a smile was about to escape, but she quickly suppressed it.

“In spite of the broken star on my Mount of Luna?” I couldn’t resist asking.

Her creaking laugh caught me by surprise.

“Mumbo jumbo. Fortune-teller’s rubbish. You weren’t taken in by it, were you?”

Her laughter set off another round of coughing, and I had to wait until she regained her breath.

“But … the woman on the mountain … the woman who wants to come home from the cold …”

“Look,” the Gypsy woman said wearily—as if she were unaccustomed to speaking—“your sisters put me up to it. They tipped me off about you and Harriet. Slipped me a couple of bob to scare the daylights out of you. No more to it than that.”

I felt my blood freeze. It was as though the faucet that feeds my brain had suddenly switched from hot to cold. I stared at her.

“Sorry if I hurt you,” she went on. “I never meant to …”

“It makes no difference,” I said with a mechanical shrug. But it did. My mind was reeling. “I’m sure I shall find a way of repaying them.”

“Maybe I can help,” she said. “Revenge is my specialty.”