The Living Blood

  I love you, Mommy.

  Jessica heard her daughter’s musical voice whisper across her consciousness, and Jessica laughed. David met her gaze, grateful, and she realized he must have heard a special message from Fana, too. Telepathic messages were the only display of power Fana allowed herself since the storm. She was afraid of herself, Jessica knew.

  “We know you love us, sweetie, but it’s good to hear it. We both love you so much.”

  Khaldun wishes you well.

  Jessica’s spirits soured, and David seemed to stiffen. They both knew that Fana was in communication with Khaldun, and there didn’t seem to be much they could do to prevent it. He was a friend, after all; Fana had told her how he had tried to rescue her from the Shadows, and maybe Khaldun was the only one who could reach Fana now. But Jessica still wondered what kind of teacher he would be. Was Khaldun still imposing his message that mortals were to be shunned? She hoped not.

  “Tell him he must be good to you, Fana,” David said.

  He is very good to me. He is a good teacher.

  “Then learn well, my princess,” David said tenderly, running his hand down the length of his daughter’s hair. “Be safe, and learn well.”

  Instantly, Fana’s eyes and attention were gone, drawn back to the window. It was a rare thing, perhaps only once a week, that she communicated her thoughts at all, just enough to let them both know she was still somewhere inside that silent, thoughtful exterior. As if she wanted them to see that she was in a cocoon, but the butterfly within her was alive and well. It wasn’t enough to suit either of them—Jessica missed her baby as much as she missed Kira—but it was something. They had learned to be grateful for even the small victories with Fana.

  And Fana would come back someday. Jessica knew that. Maybe she had a fledgling gift of precognition, or maybe it was only a mother’s instinct, but she knew that with all her heart.

  • • •

  “Lucas, stop.” Alexis was laughing, but she still sounded firm, if sleepy.

  “Stop what?”

  “You know what, fool. That bathroom is right next door, and you know I get loud. The last thing I need is for my mom to hear me hollering and carrying on again.”

  Lucas, dressed in his favorite seventies-style, red dashiki after the morning’s meditation, leaned over Alexis and kissed her mouth. He’d burrowed his fingers underneath the covers to touch her between her legs while she was sleeping, but she’d awakened. Sometimes, when he was careful enough, he could give her pleasure long before she woke up. He enjoyed that, watching her sleeping face contort with a smile. Those were special smiles. He knew they had shared a time when neither of them believed they would smile again. He didn’t remember the time, but he knew it was there, a brooding hole in his memory.

  Alexis’s eyes were playful as she gazed up at him after their kiss. “Listen, old man, don’t you know you’re almost sixty? You better not overexcite yourself.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Lucas said wryly, patting the firm lump in his groin.

  The truth was, Lucas hadn’t had such a strong libido since he was an adolescent. He’d hated to admit it, but he’d been feeling his age by the time he married Rachel. Slowly, without notice, their lovemaking had dwindled from twice a week to once a week, then to once every two weeks or less often. But those days were far behind him now. Lucas came back from meditation hungry for Alexis each morning. His desires and his body no longer knew limits, and poor Alex was having a hard time keeping up. It had become a running joke between them.

  “We need more privacy,” Lucas said, sighing. “We should build our own house.”

  Alexis sat up in bed, alert and concerned. “Well, if that’s what you really want, we can do it.” As usual, although Alexis argued loudly for her own way when she wanted to, she was more often ready to accommodate, as if she owed him something. He had told her many times he believed the debt went the other way around.

  Smiling, Lucas pressed his hand to his wife’s cheek. “Nope,” he said. “I like sharing a house with your family. I’ve missed having a full house ever since I was a kid.”

  “Well, you’ve got one now, all right.” Suddenly Alex looked at the clock. “Shoot! Are the boys up yet? It’s late, and the meeting is today.”

  “I’ll go check. As long as you’re not just trying to get rid of me.”

  “Not even a little bit, baby.”

  Jared’s bedroom was across the narrow hallway, and his door was still closed. Jared had the same faded Michael Jordan poster on his door he’d kept since he was six, and thinking of Jared’s younger days always flooded Lucas with memories, both good and bad. None of the new ballplayers could compete with the legacy of Mike, apparently. Lucas opened the door without knocking, the parents’ privilege. “Jared? What are you still doing in bed? It’s almost breakfast time.”

  The room faced east, so it was bright. “Oh, shit,” Jared mumbled, stirring beneath his quilt. His head was buried beneath his pillow, defying the sunlight.

  “Watch your mouth in front of me. I’m not telling you again,” Lucas snapped. He was genuinely annoyed to hear Jared use profanity, but it also tickled him to notice Jared’s oncoming manhood bubbling to the surface from time to time. The way he spoke. The way he walked. Lucas had not believed he would have the chance to watch this boy grow up.

  “Sorry, Dad,” Jared said, sounding more awake. His head popped up, his hair mussed and his bleary eyes unfocused. “The alarm didn’t go off. For real.”

  “And you were up all night talking again. I know Moses is about to go home for the summer, but you can’t neglect your chores. You asked for horses, so you need to get down there and feed them. Both of you. And you’ll be at the table on time.”

  “Yessir,” Jared mumbled, swinging his legs out of the bed. Lucas noticed a growing number of wiry brown hairs growing on Jared’s long, pale legs. Puberty at work.

  A second young man’s voice came from the futon on the floor at the other end of Jared’s room, this one accented and deeper: “Yessir. We are sorry, sir.” Moses’s dark face broke into a sleepy, sheepish smile.

  It came again, the déjà vu. Sometimes Lucas felt his old memories trying to reconstruct in a back corner of his mind, but he could never quite find them. He remembered Jared getting sick. He remembered going to Africa. He even remembered something about Rachel, seeing her looking well, saying good-bye to her again. But he did not remember the clinic in Botswana, nor how he had met this Tswana child. Alex had assured him it was best the memories were gone because it had been a terrible time, but Lucas nonetheless felt robbed. The memories were his, and he wanted them back.

  Swallowed within those memories, he was certain, was the precise instant he had fallen in love. Luckily, the love itself had remained intact—the first time he’d seen Alex’s face when he’d awakened, his heart had recognized her immediately even though he had forgotten her name—but he wanted to remember how it had come. Why it had come.

  It wasn’t love, Lucas, it was good old brainwashing, pure and simple, Alexis always joked. But he knew it was far more than that. He had been willing to die for her. No, he had died for her. And when the thought descended upon him, he felt a disconcerting shiver of disbelief throughout his body, an unnameable awe. He had died for her. And she had convinced David to bring him back.

  “These boys aren’t up yet?” Alex said from behind him in the doorway. Her arm slipped around his waist, and he hugged her close, enjoying the fit of their hips together. “See, I knew I heard somebody playing rap music in here late last night. You boys think you’re slick, but you’re not.”

  Suddenly, Jared and Moses were on their feet, scrambling. Lucas was amused to see Jared instinctively begin to pick up the clothes he had thrown on the floor the night before, trying to straighten the room. Alex might not ever have had any experience as a mother, but whatever power it was that strong black mothers held over their children—the same power Lucas’s own mother had possessed, and his grandmother b
efore that—Alexis Jacobs-Shepard had a healthy dose of it.

  “We’re up, Alex. We’re just getting dressed,” Jared said.

  “No problem, Dr. Alex,” Moses chimed in. “We won’t be late to breakfast.”

  Moses, at sixteen, was slightly taller than Jared, but Lucas noted with surprise how tall his own lanky son was. Apparently, Jared had inherited Lucas’s height; he was only fourteen, but he was already five foot ten. Jared might have grown up to be a basketball player after all, if his life had taken another course. Now, Jared was being groomed for something far more important. Basketball, at best, would only be a hobby to him. He would be a giant in other ways.

  Downstairs, the airy dining hall seemed to have a life of its own. With the onset of spring, Bea and Randall Gaines had crammed the hall with flowers, giving the room perfume and cheer. The dining room’s French doors leading to the porch were open, allowing a cool breeze. The magnificent cherrywood table in the center of the room had seating for twelve; the places had already been set with plates and glasses of orange juice, and the table was crammed with fresh-baked breads, boxes of cereal, and fresh fruit. The room smelled of bread and brewing coffee, and Lucas’s stomach stirred. Breakfast was his favorite time of the day.

  And there would be many, many other days, Lucas remembered with the same wonder. Alexis had not yet chosen to undergo the Ritual, but she probably would in time. And while he had already decided Jared would have to wait to grow up—he ought to be a man first, Lucas thought, probably even thirty or older, before he made such a choice—Lucas had no doubt that his son would choose immortality. The contentment Lucas felt, at times, was nearly overwhelming. It made him remember only distantly the man he had once been, plagued by loss, sickness, and uncertainties.

  That man was truly dead. Lucas sometimes wasn’t entirely sure who had been reborn in his place, but that was all right. The past was over now. There was no room for anything but the future.

  By the time the grandfather clock chimed once to signal that it was eight-thirty, the dining hall was filled with talking and laughter. Cal, Nita, and their toddler son, Hank, had made their way to breakfast from their detached house hidden a few acres back in the woods, and Cal greeted Lucas with a hearty hug while honey-skinned Hank ran ahead into the dining hall calling for his Gramma Bea.

  “Looks like you’ve got some new wrinkles today, Doc Shepard,” Cal said, winking, his daily greeting. Lucas had never told his friend outright what had happened to him during that storm on Star Island—he hadn’t been forbidden to tell, but he honestly felt awkward about it, as if Cal might think he deserved some kind of special treatment—but somehow Cal just knew. Damn him.

  “Well, none of us are as young as we used to be, Cal,” Lucas humored him.

  “Got that right. Some of us more than others.”

  The two Africans arrived, both of them wearing matching white tunics and pants. As always, Lucas felt a small thrill just to be near them. The instant he’d met the taller one, Teferi, he’d realized with shock that he was the same bronzed man Lucas had seen when in the Peace Corps those many years ago, the man who’d saved the woman’s life with his blood. Teferi, in a real sense, had dictated the course of Lucas’s future. It was as if their meeting and everything that had followed had been preordained.

  And it had been, of course. But the realization sometimes still knocked Lucas on his ass.

  Soon, all twelve of them were at the table with their heads bowed. Some of them were family by genetic blood, others by immortal blood, others by their common mission. They linked hands around the table. As usual, a thirteenth chair sat empty, for Fana. Waiting.

  “Lord,” Bea said, breaking the stillness, “we are truly thankful for this food you have brought us to begin our new day. Please bless us and bring love to our hearts. Most of all, Lord, please bless the proceedings that will take place later today, and give wisdom to all of those present. Please help us do your work. And bless the blood, Lord.”

  As was their custom, the table repeated in unison, “Bless the blood.”

  Amen, Lucas thought, squeezing his wife’s hand as hard as he could without hurting her.

  He met David’s eye and nodded at him, and David nodded only curtly in response. As usual, this immortal seemed to want no part of Lucas’s gratitude, nothing remotely like hero worship. Lucas was disappointed he hadn’t been able to make more inroads with his new brother-in-law, who kept himself at a distance, but on a few occasions, usually when he and David chopped firewood together, they compared notes on the sisters they had married. David was more loose then, and they shared their laughs and complaints freely, almost like friends.

  In the end, they both always got quiet, admitting it was downright baffling to them: How had they deserved such luck?

  Amen to that.

  60

  Fana liked it under the water.

  She’d discovered the feeling long ago, when she was much younger, the morning she’d allowed herself to sink down into the bathtub until the water completely covered her face and swallowed all the noise. Sarah had left her alone for just a moment—Just sit still, child, I’ll bring the soap—and she’d lain there with her cheeks puffed full of air, holding her breath, her wide-open eyes watching the gentle ripples on the water’s surface above her face. The warm water was lulling, loving. Being under the water had reminded Fana of another time, the time before she was born, those easier days before. No hunger, no fear, no sadness. Just being.

  The not-real place was like that to Fana now. There was nothing but water as far as she could see, a panorama of clear, green, beautiful liquid, an endless ocean. And now, unlike the time in the bathtub, it didn’t matter if she opened her mouth or stopped holding her breath or even fell asleep while she lay there. The water never choked her. She breathed the water through her lungs as effortlessly as her blood flowed through her veins, and the water felt cool or warm, depending on her mood. There was no Bee Lady to try to make her decisions for her, not now. Fana made all the decisions in the not-real place.

  And the decisions were always delightfully simple, such as whether she wanted a school of sleek, silvery fish that surrounded her to tickle her by wriggling against her body, what color the water should be, what color the sky should be. Easy decisions. It was all up to her.

  Not like before. Not like the other times. She had closed up the not-real place to unwelcome visitors, no matter how much they might try to get back inside. She could feel Them trying. Oh, yes. The Bee Lady was still trying. But Fana was far too strong for her now. She had always been, but believing it made all the difference. She wished she had believed before.

  Of course, Khaldun came to see her. Often, she would open her eyes and see his bearded face above her, shimmering through the water. Sometimes, she shook her head at him slowly, and he went away without argument. He knew she didn’t always feel like talking to him.

  But other times, because she knew he wanted her to, Fana would sit up and allow Khaldun to decide what she would see in the not-real place, so the water vanished. He brought her books of Great Words that he read with her: the words of the prophet Jesus Christ as he recalled them from his own memory, the Holy Qur’an, the Torah. He taught her chants and foreign tongues. And he took her places, too, allowing her to see them exactly as they existed in the Real Place, where her mommy and daddy and all the other people without trances lived; she saw Jerusalem and Peking and, of course, Lalibela. She saw rain forests and deserts and waterfalls. And creatures, too! She saw creatures swimming in the depths of the oceans, and birds flying in flocks that blocked the sunlight, and furry animals of all varieties. She touched them all, and felt their spirits on her fingertips. She knew she was privileged to be able to touch them that way.

  But always, always, she wanted to go back to the water. Her water. Her quiet place.

  Khaldun’s face sagged into a stern frown whenever she was ready to leave him again. She might see him once a year, or once a day; it was so hard to te
ll how much time went by in the not-real place. “Why are you hiding, Little Light?” Khaldun always said.

  Fana knew why, but she didn’t want to say the words.

  “I know I am often in Sleep, Fana, but I am an old man, and I have earned it. You cannot move to the next world before you have learned the ways of this one. You are not ready to Sleep so much, my child. You are wasting your abilities this way. The world is waiting for you, Fana. It always has been.”

  Sometimes Fana thought he was right, that she should shake herself awake and spend more time with Mommy and Daddy. To leave her peaceful water and go back to the way she’d been before.

  Fanaaaaaa

  But something bad might happen. Khaldun knew it, and she knew it. Bad things had happened before, and bad things might happen again. When she was away from the water, the memories came much more easily to Fana, crashing unwanted into her head: a naked baby afloat alongside a waterlogged palm frond in a flooded street. An entire neighborhood of families crushed beneath their collapsed rooftops. And people flying end over end, tossed like paper in the wind, their bodies making crunching noises when they were hurtled against walls or lampposts. Broken. All because she had been so proud. All because she had made it rain.

  In the water, Fana didn’t see so many horrible pictures in her mind.

  Where are you today, Fana? Why don’t you say hello to me?

  The voice Fana heard wasn’t Khaldun’s—it was a faraway voice, from somewhere else, and she wondered how long the voice had been speaking to her while she lay in her endless pool of water. It was Moses!

  Oh, I see how it is. You’re going to ignore me, will you? Well, that’s just like you. You’ve always been so stubborn. Your bad manners shouldn’t surprise me by now.

  Fana felt herself smiling.

  Still, she didn’t speak to him. She hoped he would go away, because she wanted everything quiet again. If she listened to Moses, she would have to listen to the screams in her memory. After all, she had hurt Moses once, too. She hadn’t meant to, but she had.