Blood Magic (35 page)

Fortunately, I was saved from going inside by a honk. Silla opened the door to Reese’s truck as I turned. She slid out and went around to the tail to grab something out of the back.

I put my elbow up on the edge of the truck bed. She had Mom’s lacquered box.

Silla offered it to me. “I don’t want this in my house.”

My chest tightened. “Oh. Okay.” And here I’d been looking forward to telling her what I’d done to my eyes. Thinking maybe it would distract her a little, make her excited about the magic again.

Releasing the box into my hands, she stepped back, arms wrapped around her stomach. Before she turned away, I saw tears on her cheeks. Her hair hung lank around her face. All the quick pain of rejection broke up, and I just wanted to make her stop hurting instead.

“Silla, aw, Silla.” I set the box hurriedly on the asphalt and reached for her. She didn’t turn around, but she let me hold her shoulders, and even leaned back against me. I pressed my cheek against her hair. Her hands slowly slid up and crossed over her chest, and she gripped my fingers tightly. We still had each other. We did. I had to believe that. She wasn’t rejecting me,
even though the magic was part of me—was something I wanted. This was just a violent reaction to grief. It had to be.

“I see her everywhere, Nicholas.”

“Josephine?” I didn’t really want to say her name, and whispering it made it a little better.

“Yeah. I can’t believe she just left.”

“Neither do I.”

“Everyone I look at—that’s her. I couldn’t go into Dairy Queen because Mr. Denley was there, staring at me. I froze, just waiting for him to pick up a knife and come after me. And in the grocery store, I was even afraid of a toddler.”

I squeezed her, guilt sort of poking at my ribs since none of this had even occurred to me. While I’d been thinking about me, about my magic and the town believing us, about the first dead body I’d really seen, here was my girlfriend falling to pieces. I sucked. I’d make it up to her. “We’ll figure something out.” The protection amulets. We’d make them. We’d make them, just the two of us.

“I can’t stop crying, either.”

I hugged her as tightly as I could, trying to make her feel like I wasn’t going anywhere.

After a long moment while cars drove slowly past and wind blew the warm sunlight off my face, she said, “Why does she get to be alive and Reese is dead?”

I was helpless. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“You broke my masks, Nick.”

“What?”

“My masks. You ruined them.”

She didn’t sound angry, but I started to pull away.

“If you hadn’t been able to see through them, I’d never have even thought for a moment that I didn’t—didn’t need them. But you just waltzed in and looked past and saw me and everything I was and could do—you knew the magic, you knew all the secrets.” Her chest heaved and her voice hardened.

I let go of her, hurt. She kept her back to me.

“No one ever told us. The stupid, horrible secrets. Magic! Blood magic. And Dad knew it, and never told us. It’s his fault that he died, and that Mom died. Reese was right. It doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger.” Silla whirled on me. “I know how he felt now, how Reese felt.” Her hands balled into fists and she raised them between us. “Look! I want to hit something, destroy something. Anything. I’m so
angry
, Nick. Reese was right, and now he’s gone and I’m alone.”

I winced. I thought she had me, but how could I say that? Her whole family was dead.

“I’m sorry, Nick.” Her eyes closed. “I just need … I don’t know what I need. Take that box away from me. Please.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have listened. Maybe I should have pushed back. Because I was getting angry that I’d finally picked up the magic on my own, used it well and without being haunted by my mom’s stupid choices, and now Silla didn’t want it. Didn’t seem to count me at all as somebody to need. Who needed her. I didn’t know what that meant for us.

So I took my mom’s box, and I left.

As I walked away, I heard her open the truck’s creaking door. I heard her tears. But I only tightened my grip on the box until my messed-up hand began throbbing again. Reminding me, over and over, that the magic was part of me.

Gram Judy drove us to the church in her little Rabbit. I just tried not to puke and watched the bright morning zip past. It wasn’t very funereal. There was so much color everywhere: autumn leaves, blue sky, brilliant sun. All bold and sure of themselves. The opposite of how I was feeling. Reese would have said something obnoxious, but nothing appropriate occurred to me.

My stomach turned over, and I wished I’d brought the quickly vanishing bottle of Pepto-Bismol I’d been gorging myself with for the past twenty-four hours. It was worse when I managed to be hungry and nauseated at the same time. A stomach that growled and burbled simultaneously was certainly a recipe for some special kind of torturous hell.

“Silla, honey, how you doing?” Gram Judy asked as she paused at a stoplight. “We’ll get through it,” she continued when I didn’t respond.
Like we did before
rang in the subtext.

I glanced at her. She’d dressed as nicely as I’d seen her since July, in a raw silk suit and giant pearl earrings. Her hair was up in a chignon and clipped in place with jeweled pins. It had been
her idea to add a pearl necklace to my pink sundress, and a gray cardigan because it was too cold. She’d even gotten out a pair of scissors and trimmed a couple of the more outrageous chunks of my hair, and clipped barrettes in a pretty pattern. I looked like a little kid out for Easter, not her brother’s funeral.

We arrived at the church, and I took the cowardly route of letting Gram Judy play nice instead of doing so myself.

I was only here for one reason.

I left Gram at the front pew, greeting people and shaking hands, and climbed up to the communion table, where I could stand before the coffin. The wood was shiny yellow. I touched its smooth finish. My hand was pale against it. I averted my eyes from the open half. I didn’t want to see him, even though I’d agreed to the open casket.

Yaleylah shuffled and murmured as it gathered behind me. There was sniffling and the slick clacking of heels on the floor. To my right, Mrs. Artley played a quiet tune on the piano.

Now was the moment.

Closing my eyes, I dug into my purse for the spell book. Such a small, old-looking thing to have caused so much pain. I pressed it to my stomach. Memories of it flashed through my head. Unwrapping it at the kitchen table, shoving it at Reese, holding it open on my lap, listening to his deep voice as he listed ingredients.

My stomach lurched. I’d never laugh with him again over grilled-cheese-and-tomato sandwiches, or yell at him when he left his sweaty running shorts on the bathroom floor, or accuse him of drinking too much, or make fun of his questionable girlfriend choices, or push him into getting an engineering degree
instead of
farming
, for God’s sake. Reese, who was smart and took care of me and—

I couldn’t breathe. My chest pinched, and I leaned into the coffin. I wanted to slam my fists into it, to break it into a thousand pieces and fling them everywhere.

Finally I looked at him. It wasn’t him, not really. As unrecognizable as my own face had been in the mirror this morning. A waxy death mask. His hair was combed back, the stubble I’d teased him about gone. Face peaceful—but falsely so. It wasn’t like when he slept. It was empty.

I tucked the book against his chest. “I’m so sorry, Reese,” I whispered. I never should have made him try the magic. Never should have let myself feel the burn of its power, or believed it could bring any beauty into our lives.

All it had brought was death. And now I would bury the magic with my brother.

After the funeral (which sucked), I dropped Dad and Lilith off at home and walked back down the road to Silla’s house. I wanted to avoid the forest path and cemetery.

Cars flooded the street, and I had to pick my way around them. As I approached the house, an empty sort of dread settled in the pit of my chest. On the roof, about a dozen crows roosted. Watching everything. Not really doing anything. Not playing or squawking like crows usually did but sitting there. Chilling. Occasionally one flapped its wings.

I walked faster. Silla was probably going nuts. And tonight,
after everyone was gone, we’d make those damn protection amulets, finally. So that bitch couldn’t hurt anyone else.

Silla was in the kitchen, dutifully accepting casseroles and Jell-O salads in her pink dress. A clunky silver bracelet pressed against the bones of her wrist. I’d never seen it before—but it made me realize that she wasn’t wearing any of her rings.

I stood at the door as she let church ladies hug her and shook men’s hands. Her lips barely moved as she spoke.

Wendy burst in, and hugged Silla. Her shoulders shook, and Silla just clutched at her back, eyes dry. The kitchen was invaded by drama club kids, pushing around and trying to get to Silla to tell her how damn sorry they were.

The whole thing was sorry.

I was about to force my way in, too, to rescue her from the swarm, when Silla rescued herself. She smiled tightly and said something. Wendy hugged her again, and Silla just pulled away, shoving through the crowd.

“Silla.” I reached out.

She blew right past me. For a second, I went cold, thinking she still wanted me to go away. But I’d seen that look on her face, the torn-up expression and her eyes not seeing anything or anyone.

I dashed up the stairs after her.

On the second floor, she pushed into a purple bedroom. I followed, and stopped suddenly. Masks covered the walls, staring at us with a hundred empty eyes. I don’t know how she slept under so many eerie faces. I barely managed not to frown at them.

Silla flung herself onto the bed, grinding her face into the pillow.

The empty eye sockets of a white and green checkered mask glared at me from over her head. It wore a jester’s hat.

“This is creepy, Sil.”

She flipped around and sat up, eyes wide. “Nick!”

I held up my hands. “I thought you could use a punching bag.”
See, this is me, the new and improved Nick Pardee, available to girlfriends and crazy people in their time of need
. I never would have been here for any of the girls I saw in Chicago. But I couldn’t imagine not being here for Silla.