Blood Magic

  “You okay, honey?” Gram Judy paused.

  “No.” I stared down at her face. What did I know about her? Only what she’d told me. Like I’d said to Nick, she could have always been another person. She showed up right after Mom and Dad died, and we only vaguely remembered her. Not enough to know if her personality had changed.

  My stomach flipped, and I slid off the toilet in case I needed to use it.

  “There, there, honey.” Judy rubbed her hand in circles on my back. “There, there. Did something else happen? What’s wrong?”

  Pressing my forehead into the cold porcelain of the toilet lid, I just shook my head. But I couldn’t let this beat me. I wouldn’t be able to function if everybody was the bad guy. It couldn’t be Gram. Why would she have bided her time like this? She could have murdered us in our sleep anytime she’d wanted to.

  The thought was oddly comforting. I sighed and twisted so that I was curled on the tile floor between the toilet and the sink. I offered Judy my hands, and she began washing them with her cloth, eyes lowered. The pinch of her lips let me know she wasn’t going to give up.

  I bit my lip against the sting of peroxide when she began dabbing it on the cuts with a cotton ball. Like cold water, it woke me up enough that I asked, “Judy, do you remember anything else about Nick’s mom? Anything … weird?”

  Sitting back on her heels, Judy kept my hands folded in hers and cocked her head thoughtfully. Her silver hair was bound up in a single braid, and it swung heavily, the tip just brushing the tiles. “It was, God”—Judy frowned and glanced up at the ceiling—“a year, maybe, since I’d married Douglas. His mama, what was her name? Daisy?”

  “Donna,” I whispered.

  “Yes, that’s right. She and Robbie had been going out for a while before I arrived, but they broke it off rather suddenly at the beginning of their senior year. Doug and I were a little worried, because Robbie had gotten much quieter and some of his tastes had changed, you know, like he quit the football team and spent more time studying. It wasn’t as though he didn’t study at all before that, but it was strange how suddenly it happened. But then, he was growing up, and getting prepared to go up to St. Louis for college.” Judy reached up and tugged at a piece of hair that had escaped its braid. Her French manicure looked dull in the bathroom light.

  “What happened, Judy?” I wrapped my wounded hands together and pressed them gently against my swirling stomach.

  “I woke up one night. I’d had a headache all day, and went downstairs to get some milk. I heard voices outside, and it was so late. Two in the morning or so. I peered outside. Donna was there, crouched by the front porch. She was doing something to the ground at the bottom of the stairs. I opened the front door to invite her in. I thought maybe she couldn’t sleep, either, and came here for—for, I don’t know. To be closer to Robbie. They’d only been apart a week or so, and I remembered what it was like when you were first in love.” Judy smiled tightly, and her fingers twitched away from her hair. She folded her hands together. “Be that as it may, I went out and she ran. I looked at what she’d been doing, and there was something half buried. I lifted it out of the dirt. It was a little pouch made of thin leather, like an Indian medicine bag.” Judy held her fingers up to indicate the size. “Robbie came out. He asked, ‘What’s wrong, Judy?’ I showed him the bag and told him what I’d seen. I remember how he frowned and stared out into the darkness after Donna. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ he said. I gave him the bag and told him it would be okay. That she’d forgive him. He didn’t seem to believe me. The next afternoon I asked him what it had been. He shrugged it off, said it was a folk charm. Nothing to worry over.”

  A tiny movement in the corner of my eye made me look at the bathroom door. Nick stood there, one hand against the doorjamb, fingers clutching it tightly as if he needed it to stand up.

  “Nick,” I whispered, using the toilet to push myself up. I went to him, touched his chest.

  “I, uh, came up to see how you’re doing.” He didn’t look at me, though. He was staring at Judy.

  She stood, too, and with all three of us in the bathroom it was pretty crowded. “Let me patch up your hands, Nick,” she said, bringing her handfuls of home nursing supplies with her. She dumped them into the sink.

  I got out of the way, and Nick just stood there, watching Judy’s fingers move. His shoulders were stiff, and I wanted to press up against him, to kiss his neck and rub my hands over the tight muscles. Help him calm down.

  Casually, Gram Judy said, “Donna left before graduation, I recall. Mr. and Mrs. Harleigh said she was going up north to stay with an aunt.”

  Nick’s head jerked up, and he met Judy’s eyes in the mirror. “She was institutionalized. It happened on and off for my whole life. She was nuts. Is nuts.”

  Judy nodded sympathetically, then patted his hand.

  I stepped forward and put my hands on Nick’s waist. But since Judy was there, I left a lot of air between us. “Did you really think she was doing magic?” I asked Judy.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She scooted Nick back and began putting away the Band-Aids and other things. Nick took one of my hands, and we stood side by side while we listened. I wished I could still see his face without it being obvious.

  Judy closed the cabinet with a snap. “I suppose that’s what she thought. At the time, I wasn’t very interested in that sort of thing. But I spent several years in Hungary, you know, after Doug and I divorced, and I learned quite a bit about folk beliefs. There were these two ladies I stayed with who never left the house without money tucked in their left shoe to prevent being cursed. And I swear one of them cured a little baby of a fever just by bathing her in a bowl of milk and singing a little song.” She smiled. “I prefer Tylenol, of course, but it’s not my place to judge. And I’d never dismiss the power of prayer.”

  “We think someone is trying to use magic to hurt us, Gram,” I said, diving straight into the deep end, so that the truth would drown us all. “The same person who killed Mom and Dad.”

  “What? Oh, no, dear, that’s not possible. You can’t really hurt people with folk magic. Especially not somebody like your dad, with his head screwed on so tight.”

  I squeezed Nick’s hand. “Do you really believe Dad, the Robbie you knew, would kill Mom? He didn’t just go crazy like everybody said.”

  Judy slowly shook her head. “Oh, Silla, now, I don’t know. I’m not sure we can know.”

  “We can.” Taking a deep breath, I nodded once. Determined. “Come back downstairs and I’ll show you.”

  NICHOLAS

  Silla led me downstairs and sat me at the kitchen table, like I was brain damaged. Maybe I was. I kept thinking about my mom, about her being my age and desperate for something, and then I shied away because I didn’t want to think about her at all. The sick-sweet smell of puke, and Mom bent over the toilet, yacking on herself. Me, slamming the bathroom door and hiding in my room, thinking of the needle rolling across the bathroom tiles.

  I watched as Silla grabbed a dried-out flower from the vase in the hallway and put it on the table before Judy. Silla pricked her finger and whispered in Latin to make the shriveled yellow petals brighten and stretch out. Judy gasped, but I didn’t feel the wonder this time. My brain felt like cheese.

  “Oh.” Judy blinked and reached out to poke at the flower with her bony old finger.

  “Don’t even need salt anymore,” Silla whispered, leaning back into her chair.

  As Judy lifted the flower and inspected it, clearly needing a moment for the reality of the magic to sink in, Reese took turns glaring at me and Silla, presumably because she’d spilled the beans to Judy without asking him. I tried to take some comfort in his irritation, but only kept thinking about Mom. Trying to plant magic at Silla’s house. Being in love with Silla’s dad.

  “We need a plan,” Reese said. “Silla, tell us what happened.”

  Silla gripped her coffee mug and told them about Josephine and Wendy at school. She didn’t me
ntion my suspicions about Lilith. When she finished, she ducked her head for a gulp of coffee, and Judy shook her head. “Doesn’t that just beat all? I am particularly keen to meet that old bag and give her a slap or ten.”

  Reese opened the spell book flat on the table, holding the corners down with his spread hands. “Here’s what sounds like the best protection charm. We need something silver to hold it in, like actual silver charms, unless somebody wants to skin a cat and tan the hide for leather.”

  Silla pressed her lips together. I winced. Judy said, “Oh my God!”

  “I didn’t think so.” Reese cracked a humorless smile. “In that case, it’s more complicated, because we have to make a potion and soak the silver in it. And the potion requires some things we don’t have. Rue, agrimony, and motherwort, the first of which I ordered online but won’t be here until Wednesday. Large feather from wild bird, a black candle—I got a bunch of those yesterday—salt, of course, blood, of course, fresh running water we can get from Meroon’s stream, and focus stones, whatever the hell that means. Thanks for that ambiguity, Dad.”

  “I have agrimony and motherwort,” I said, unlatching the lacquered box slowly. My hands still felt like lead. I needed to get over this already. I flipped the lid open, and Reese and Judy leaned around to peer inside.

  “Damn,” Reese said. “This was your mom’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s … tons. This is excellent. A turkey feather?” He ran his finger along the blood-letter quill.

  “That’s a blood-letter. Not an ingredient.”

  “There are crow feathers all over the cemetery,” Silla said.

  “Okay,” Reese muttered, totally distracted as he lifted out bottles, read the labels, and slid them back in. He held out a triangular vial filled with tiny silver beads, and smoothed a thumb over the lettering. His dad’s writing. The vial slammed back into its slot a little too hard.

  “So that’s everything, right?” Silla chewed on her bottom lip. “Except silver and focus stones.”

  I nodded.

  “Nick and I should run out to the mall in Cape Girardeau for charms. It’s open until nine. We’ll look for stones, too. Or something.”

  “I’ll get the feather and spring water, and start cooking up the potion. It’s supposed to soak in the moonlight overnight. Moon’s just past full, but hopefully there will be enough … oh, shit … it isn’t—” Reese looked at the window.

  “Bright and sunny,” Gram Judy said breathlessly. “And we’re due for a starry night.”

  Reese blew out a sigh. “Great. So.”

  The four of us stared at each other. It was intensely surreal. Four people in a country kitchen, plotting bloody magic. With a psycho, body-snatching murderer stalking us through flocks of birds.

  Silla broke the silence. “Before we go, we need a password, so that we can know we’re all really—really ourselves.”

  Reese looked grim. “Good idea, bumblebee.”

  We were all silent again. But instead of it being weird, I suddenly felt like we’d been waiting for this exact moment. Everything since I moved here had built up to this. Everything since before I was born, maybe. Who knew how far back this went?

  One of the lightbulbs in the brass chandelier flickered, breaking the moment.

  Silla whispered, “I am in blood stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

  Reese rolled his eyes. “Something we can all remember?”

  “You can’t remember Macbeth, you heathen?” A ghostly smile caught the corner of her lips.

  “Out, out, damn spot?”

  “How about this one: ‘Stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires.’ ”

  Automatically, I replied, “I’d like to see your deep—” but thank God I stopped before I said something unforgivable in front of her grandma.

  And her brother.

  Reese scowled. “Let’s go with something simple, okay?”

  Gram Judy held up a finger. “I’ve got it. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!”

  SILLA

  The phone shrieked, and I almost fell out of my chair.

  I leapt up, hoping it was Wendy, and grabbed it off the cradle. “Hello?”

  “Silla?”

  My mouth fell open and I turned to face my family and boyfriend in abject horror. “Ms. Tripp.”

  “I’m very glad that you sound all right, Silla. I wanted to check up, and also to make very certain that you’re coming to school tomorrow. It is imperative that we move your appointment up from Friday to discuss this incident with Ms. Cole this afternoon.”

  “Incident?” I clunked my head back against the wall. Reese was practically ignoring me, his nose still tucked into Nick’s box, but Nick and Gram Judy watched me supportively.

  “Ms. Cole is very disoriented, and there is a witness claiming you and Nick Pardee attacked her. I’ve spoken with Nick’s father just now, and we’re all very concerned.”

  “Is that—is that what Wendy said?” I whispered, eyes finding Nick’s.

  “I’m afraid so. She’s quite upset, and at home now.”

  I closed my eyes tightly, my throat closing. Oh, God, Wendy. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Silla?”

  “Yes,” I whispered again. My voice wouldn’t work properly. “You’ll be in tomorrow?”

  “I …”

  “I insist. I don’t want to get the police involved. It’s better if we can just sit down and talk about this. Is Judy Fosgate your legal guardian?”

  “What? Legal guardian?” As I said it, Reese lifted his head. “I don’t have one, I mean, I don’t think. I’m almost eighteen and it didn’t … didn’t come up.”

  Reese swung out of his chair and came toward me with his hand out while Ms. Tripp said, “Well, Silla, someone is responsible for you. I—”

  I didn’t fight as Reese slipped the phone from my limp hand. “This is Reese Kennicot. What can I do for you?” I backed away, right into Nick. He put his hands on my shoulders.

  “Yes,” Reese said, looking at me. “She’ll be there. But there wasn’t anything illegal happening—if you thought so, you’d have called the police.” He paused and shook his head, rolling his eyes. “We’re grateful for your concern, Dr. Tripp—oh, are you a doctor in your field? No? Well—fine. Yes. You are. But that doesn’t include interrupting my family’s evening. Have a good one.” He hung up, slamming the phone a little too hard.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I have to call Wendy again.”

  “And you should go, too, before it gets dark. The less you’re out at night, the better,” Reese said, and for a moment, I saw all of my dad in his face. It made me smile a little. And I reached up to squeeze one of Nick’s hands.

  I ran upstairs to use the phone in the hall to call Wendy again. “Silla?”

  “Oh, Wendy, thank God.” I slid down the wall to sit on the carpet in the dark, my knees pressed against my chest. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” She hissed the word. “Sorry, I don’t want my parents to hear. They don’t know anything’s wrong.”

  “Ms. Tripp is probably going to call them.”

  “Ugh. Gross.” A door shut, and Wendy spoke quietly but in her regular voice. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  I needed to tell her. I wanted to explain everything. But how could I tell her? Not over the phone, that was for sure. I’d have to lie, for now, at least. Maybe later … maybe later I could show her the magic. She deserved to know, since it had used her now. “I’m so sorry, Wen.”

  “It’s okay, it was probably just low blood sugar.… I have to go, Silla.”

  My heart clenched. “Okay. I’ll talk to you later, or in the morning.”

  “Sure thing. I—I’m sure I just need some sleep.”

  “Night, Wendy.”

  “Night, Silla.”

  As I hung up, a sickening feeling bubbled up from my sto
mach. I curled into a ball, forehead on my knees, and held it in. But I hadn’t imagined it. Wendy, my only remaining friend, had been afraid to talk to me.

  December 1942

  Philip has left me.

  I could not keep him here.

  He left to serve as a medic in this war that has nothing to do with us—we who have lived beyond the scope of human things. I am fifty-three years old and look not a day over seventeen, and Philip, who was born a century before me, who has raised himself above them—We are better than they! They do not need or deserve our help!

  It has been a year since he sailed. I came to stay with the Deacon again, who is the only thing that can cheer me. Everywhere is depression and hardship, but Arthur reminds me that all things end. He who has lived for centuries, whose blood is so strong and pure he barely need think on something for magic to happen. He says, “Philip will come home to us. He always does.” When I rage and tear at my skin, he smears the blood away and turns it into nectarines. He has made a bower for me, like Titania’s flower bed, under Kansas willow trees. I am shaded from sun and sheltered from rain, falling into the earth where it is warm and peaceful. I feel the heavy distance between me and Philip, and I feel the world tremble with death. It lulls me to sleep.

  Philip’s few letters have been filled with melancholy and veiled anger. I do not know how he can have lived for so long and continue to believe that men are good. “I can never make up for all of this death and pain, Josie,” he writes. “Not with a million charms.”

  I write back, “Stop trying, Philip. Let go of it. Do what you can, but you are not God.”

  “If there is a God, Josie, he has failed us all.”

  I want to say to him, Philip, you can do more than turn water into wine. Why should you worry about God?

  NICHOLAS

  “Tell me your life story,” I said over a basket of chicken fingers and fries. Fluorescent lights glared off every surface in the food court, making me wince.