was going on, all at the same time, as Gregor and his boys shifted quietly from one foot to the other. But without being able to see them clearly, I couldn’t be sure. The only thing that I was clear about was that they were angry.
“Well, we are done here,” Gregor said suddenly. “Tomorrow we will finish the cleaning. But only if you tell us to do so, of course.”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s really going on,” Turk said.
But Gregor was already leading his guys up the stairs. Their feet clumped heavily up the steps, and I heard the big front doors swing open and closed.
“Come on,” I said. “These batteries won’t last forever.”
Outside, the night was warm and the first stars were coming out. It would have been a perfect night to be with Ileana. But she was busy tonight. Busy as in “I’m mad at you.” So instead I was getting ready to go home with my least favorite relative after a happy day spent cleaning out a derelict building and, for all I knew, messing around with some ancient jenti curse. How did I get so lucky?
Overhead, Gregor, Vladimir, Ilie, and Constantin were all flapping and gliding around the mill.
“Hey, you said you were going to guard this place,” Turk shouted.
“We are,” Gregor said. “From up here. Go home, gadje.”
So Gregor thought someone was watching the mill, too. Someone he wanted to see him and his friends.
Turk shouted something else to him, but he lifted himself up beyond the sound of her voice, and the others followed.
“Some guys have all the luck,” I said.
“What?” Turk said.
“Nothing,” I said. “Come on. We’ve got a fascinating evening of homework ahead.”
We got into the Volkswagen and drove off.
As we were crossing the river, Turk said, “That was a weird day.”
“Like many in New Sodom,” I said.
“Those guys who hang with him, they’re like servants more than friends. They hardly ever talked.”
“They just didn’t want to talk to us,” I said.
“Bunch of snobs,” Turk said.
“Takes one to know one,” I said.
“How does he get them to do what he wants?” Turk said.
“He’s from an important family,” I said. “That’s all I know.”
“Oh, yes. Duke Gregor. What a joke,” Turk said. “What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Hey,” Turk said. “Do you think he put those marks there to try and scare us?”
“Are you scared?” I asked her.
“Nooo,” Turk said slowly, like I’d asked her a very dumb question.
“There’s your answer,” I said. “If Gregor wanted to scare you, he would.”
“Hah,” Turk said.
“All I know is, I’m pretty sure Gregor’s not telling the truth,” I said. “I think those marks meant something important when they were made. The question is whether they’re new or not.”
Turk shook her head.
“I don’t like it, Cuz. I don’t like any of it.”
15
But whatever Turk didn’t like, she had no cause for complaint on Sunday. She complained anyway, of course. But the jenti tore through the second and third floors of the mill all morning while Turk told them they were doing it all wrong, and Gregor told her to kindly shut up.
An avalanche of junk came through the windows and bounced and crashed onto the ground around the mill. By noon, the outside looked like a yard sale at an insane asylum, but inside the floors were clear and you had a sense of just how big this building really was.
“Not so ugly now,” Gregor said.
“It feels like something could happen here, all right,” I said.
“It will,” Turk said, passing out brooms. “It had better. Sweep, creeps.”
We knocked down cobwebs, swept the floor three times, and dusted the walls. The funny thing was, it started to feel like fun. We broke up into two teams without anyone saying, “Hey, let’s break up into two teams!” Turk, Gregor, and Constantin were one. The other was Ilie, Vladimir, and me. We each took half the long room and tried to beat the other getting done first.
When we were finished with that, we took a break for drinks.
“These walls are good brick,” Vladimir said, wiping his mouth. “Washed and scrubbed, they would be handsome.”
“We don’t have a ladder that long,” Turk said. “I’ll have to get one.”
Vladimir jumped to the top of a wall and hung there by one hand, clutching the bricks.
“You have brush and water, please?” he said.
“Brushes, sure, but no water yet,” Turk said. “We can’t go running down to the river for a bucket every few minutes.”
“There is water,”