I was nineteen the summer that I first met her. It was warm and muggy that year, and the city was miserable. I needed a job badly, so I took a position in a steamy. It was there I first saw her.

I was walking through a cloud of smoke and it was as if she just appeared. She was carrying a basket of laundry, and she looked up. Our eyes met, and I stood still, my shirt stuck to my back with sweat and steamy water.

She smiled. "Hello." That was all she said at first. She went on her way, brushing lightly against my hip as she passed.

I stared after her. One of the other men nudged me. "She's trouble, Torin. Don't get involved with her."

The next day she came to me during lunch. "You're Torin, hm?"

I nodded, swallowing a bit of sandwich. "And you are..?"

"Catriona. People call me Cat." She brushed her hair behind her shoulder and it zigzagged wildly down her back.

I grinned. "Ah."

She sat down beside me. "How long have you been here, Torin?"

And that was the beginning. We ate lunch together after that and it wasn't too long before she came home with me.

She had this look she gave people that put them under a spell. Her eyes would widen as if in surprise, and she would draw in her breath. It put me in mind of an animal.

One night we were talking. "Torin..."

"Mm..."

"Torin...you've got to take me out of this place. If you don't, I'll lose my mind."

I rolled over on one elbow. "What do you mean? My flat?"

She laughed, but looked at me earnestly. "No. Your flat is fine. I mean this town, the steamy, all of it. It puts me in mind of a factory, it does. And I'm not the factory kind."

"Sure, you aren't!" I wrapped an arm around her. "You're the only one of your kind, Cat."

She laughed again and went back to sleep, but I lay awake for a long while, thinking of something she had said the first night. "I'll stay as long as there's no price on love."

"Love always comes with a price," I had said then. "You don't mean that?"

"I do mean that. And no matter what you're thinking now, you wouldn't want me any other way than this," she declared confidently.

One day I quit my job at the steamy and told her we were leaving. We walked out of that town with our belongings on our backs. She walked beside me, laughing and stepping so that her zigzag hair bounced. I caught a few strands and wrapped them around my hand for a while. That night we slept on the roadside, and for a few nights after that as well, until we came to a small market town.

She nudged me. "You're good at tinkering, Torin. We'll set up here for a while." So we did. I spread out my tools and waited for business to come along. And come along it did. That day I repaired five pans.

After a few days in that town, Cat woke me up with a nudge. "We'll be moving on today."

I sat up sleepily. "Will we?" I mumbled.

She nodded and rose. "We will." We left after breakfast that day, me following Cat's bouncing hair down the road. The sun caught her hair and turned the zigzags light brown as she skipped ahead.

I couldn't help laughing, and she looked back at me. "What are you laughing at?"

"You," I grinned.

She grinned back and skipped a little further, then ran back to me and grabbed my hand. "Come on, Torin!" She pulled me along and we ran until we were breathless.

"Where are we going?" I panted when we paused for breath.

"Nowhere. Everywhere!" She tilted her face up to the sun.

"Everywhere and nowhere, is it?" I wrapped my arms around her. "Make up your mind, Cat."

She extricated herself from my embrace, shaking a finger at me. "No one tells me to make up my mind for me."

With that rebuke, we were off again, headed south towards Kent. We stopped in the towns to pick fruit and Cat's skin grew golden. Mine grew tan and my palms became callused from handling the fruit and branches.

The work was good, the pay was adequate. It was enough to keep us both fed and clothed, and we even had enough to go on a fling in the pubs every once in a while. Cat and I stayed in a different place each night, moving from inns to tents to haystacks as the fancy struck us.

Autumn came, and I thought we should settle down before the frost struck. I brought up the matter one night while we were sitting by the fire.

"Cat?"

"Mm?" She looked at me across the fire, the flames flickering over her pointed face.

"It'll be cold soon." I paused, unsure how to say what I wanted to say.

"And what better way to keep out the cold than by staying close to each other?" Cat grinned.

I smiled, but it was like stretching something that didn't want to be stretched. "And there won't be any fruit to pick."

"Ah, we'll find something." She tossed her hair over her shoulder.

"Cat...don't you think it's time to be settling down?" I rested one arm on my leg. "I'll find a house and soon we'll have a warm fire in the hearth. A rug by the hearth, and maybe some babies, too..."

Cat's pointed face seemed to have grown even more so, her cheekbones throwing shadows over her mouth. She shook her head. "Poor, foolish Torin. That may sound good to you but to me? It sounds like hell."

My mouth dropped open. "Cat...I..."

"You think you're lord of everything, don't you?" She stood angrily. "Well, I'll tell you one thing, Torin. You might be lord of half the world, but you don't own me!"

We had been drinking, sharing a flask of whiskey, and Cat threw the flask at me. I caught it just before it shattered in my face.

"Well...well...you don't have any sense!" I sputtered.

She turned on me with her animal-like eyes flaming. "Torin, you're a fool!" She caught up her coat and ran out into the night.

Me? I finished the flask and laid down to sleep. The next morning I awoke and Cat was gone still. The fire had gone cold and I was all alone. I went about my business that day feeling as through I were dreaming. Sometimes I would reach out my hand to see if Cat was near, but I never felt the answering touch of her hand.

Many years passed, and it wasn't until I was married and had two children. I heard someone on the street mention Cat.

I turned to the speaker. "Cat Molloy?" I repeated. "Cat with the brown zigzag hair?"

He nodded. "Though her brown hair has faded some."

"Is she here?"

"Here? No, not yet. She'll be here before the summer's out, I'd wager." The man shook his head once as if in admiration.

I went home, looking up at the sky. Cat? Here? I wasn't sure what I'd do if I saw her again.

That summer a gypsy caravan came to the town. The gypsies mostly kept to themselves in the fields and in town, but a few of them would venture out. Among them was a young fiddler who I met in the pub one night. He had dark curly hair and a laughing face.

When he walked in, I heard someone call, "Romany! Look, it's Romany Brown!" Everyone cheered, and Romany bowed, flourishing the bow of his fiddle.

"Play us a tune, Romany!" The call was taken up by others around the room.

Romany nodded to each caller in turn, grinning as he positioned the fiddle under his chin. Then he started to play. Before long, everyone was clapping or stomping to the beat of Romany's tunes. When he was finished, Romany went to the counter, bought a cup of beer, and left.

Cat arrived before the summer was out, as the man had guessed. I was walking along the street when I saw the familiar bouncing hair. It had faded, but it was still as long and luscious as before.

"C-" My lips started to form her name, but I stopped as she headed for the outskirts of town. I followed her, mimicking her every turn.

A covered wagon sat near the outskirts of the town. Cat went up to the wagon and went inside.

I stood there, puzzling. Cat in a gypsy wagon? Sure, she would settle down with a gypsy - if she settled at all. I shrugged, turned, and went home. A few days later, the caravan departed. I watched it go with a keen sense of loss. Cat was leaving again. This time with another man that wasn't me.

I woke up the next morning beside my wife, a vision of Cat fading from my eyes. She had been dancing around the fire like she used to do when we slept along the road. I sighed, got up, and went to work, trying to put Cat out of my mind.

I asked about Romany Brown in the pub that night and they all said he'd left with the gypsy caravan. "Shame, too," one man said. "I'll miss his music."

"He's got himself a wife now," another said. "A pretty thing named Cat. As fine as a bee's wing, she is."

"Cat?" I seated myself at their table.

"Aye, Cat." The speaker nodded at me. "They say she's a rover, puts even a gypsy's patience to the test."

I laughed. "I can well believe that."

"Oh? D'you know her?" They all watched me over the rims of their mugs.

"I did." I shrugged and took a drink. "We were both younger then."

In the coming days I worked hard to put Cat out of my mind and keep my wife in it. I came home to her and my children each not, acting overly glad to see them when I felt in my heart that it was Cat I wanted to see.

Gradually I forgot her. Until one day. I was coming back from a trip to <somewhere> in a wagon and I was nearly falling asleep. Then I caught sight of a figure on the side of the road.

I thought nothing of it until a large wolfhound rose from beside the figure, hackles raised menacingly as it let out a growl.

The figure stirred and sat up. "Hush," she said sharply, nudging the hound with her foot. Her eyes met mine and I realized it was Cat.

"Cat..." I said her name softly, bringing the wagon to a stop.

"Torin." She was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, a shawl around her shoulders. "Well? Aren't you going to ask me to get up?"

I broke my silence. "Come on, then." I held out a hand, marveling at the change time had wrought in her. She sat on the seat beside me and the hound jumped into the back of the wagon.

I glanced at her as we rode. Traces of her beauty still remained, but most of it was hidden, faded by the passage of time. And other things, too? I wondered.

She pulled a flask out of her hip pocket and took a long pull. "I suppose you'll be wondering what I've been doing with my life."

I eyed the bottle. "I can guess part of it."

She laughed and her throat was scratchy. "I was married."

"So I heard. Romany Brown."

"He tried to settle me down but I wouldn't have it. I left him and our child three years ago. Now it's just me and Bran." She smiled back at the hound, who thumped his tail on hearing his name spoken by her.

"I married, too."

She leaned back, an eyebrow raised. "And you're still married, no doubt?"

"Yes." I couldn't help smiling.

Cat wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. "Drop me off at the pub when we get to town."

We rode in silence until we reached the town. I stopped the wagon and started to get down to help Cat, but she elbowed me. "You stay here." She jumped down and whistled for Bran, pausing just inside the door of the pub. "Thank you, Torin." She waved and was gone with a swish of her shawl.

I slapped the reins on the horse's back and drove away, rocking with the motion of the wagon. "Cat and her dog." I laughed suddenly, my sadness dissipating into the dark. Cat would make it in the world by herself.