The Blood Keeper (The Blood Journals) (22 page)

“Jesus.” I covered my face with my hands.

“You’d be able to feel it then, how strange it is in some other person. It’s unbalanced and different, like … walking on loose stepping stones.”

I looked at her through my fingers. Couldn’t decide if sitting there was better, or if maybe I should stand up and pace.

Her expression was tender. “I would only learn your body that way if I took time to practice.”

Practice. Learning my body. I pushed my chair back and got up. “We should talk about something else.”

Just then the kettle whistle began to shriek. Mab snatched it from the stove. Whispered for it to hush.

I took the opportunity to try and steady my breathing. The sloppy way her hair fell wasn’t helping. Neither was the way she stood up on her tiptoes to pull mugs down from a cabinet. It made her thin little dress slide up over her body.

I stared hard out the window. Until Mab had poured boiling water into a teapot. She brought it and two little mugs to the table. “It has to steep,” she said.

“Great.” I returned to my chair. “So. You possessed me to figure out what’s wrong. And you did. Lay it on me.”

Folding her hands together, Mab said, “There was a curse in that doll. In the homunculus, I mean. That I transferred there from where it had been bound in the roses. I believe some of that magic infected you when you destroyed the doll.”

“A curse? Are you joking?”

She shook her head.

“What’s going to happen? What’s it doing to me?” I pressed my fist into my chest.

“I don’t know, exactly. But I know how to help.”

“How?”

“A cleansing. It’s a ritual, and it will drive the curse out of you.”

“How do we start? What can I do?”

Mab pulled the teapot nearer to her and lifted the clay lid. She smelled the steam and set the lid back down.

“Mab!”

“Unfortunately, I can’t do it tonight.” Her mouth twisted into a sorry frown.

“Why?”

“There’s an ointment I need to make and then bless under the moon.”

“I don’t understand all this.” I folded my arms on the table and put my forehead against them. I pressed down. The headache behind my eyes wasn’t horrible. But it was easier to think when I wasn’t looking at Mab. Not that there was much to think about. It was either believe her or get up and leave.

I didn’t hear her stand. Her hand just landed on my back, rubbing cool circles against my spine. “I promise you’ll be well. I felt exactly what the curse was doing. I felt where it is, how it’s twisting around your heart. You have a little bit of time before it does permanent damage.”

One weak laugh escaped.

“Will.” She said it firmly. I sat up. Mab took my hands and turned me in the chair so that she could face me. Her chin tilted down, and her hair fell free of the knot. Fear shook through me. I hated that. I wanted to pull on a brave cloak. Desert camo like Ben’s.

Mab put her hands on my face. “Listen to me, Will Sanger. I will help you. This is what I do.”

I didn’t say anything.

“You came here because you thought I could help. Me. Out of everyone you know, you came here. You found this place, because you were meant to.” She brushed her thumbs under my eyes. “That red in your eyes is like rubies, Will. It is beautiful, because even when this magic is dangerous or dark, it is also beautiful. And I understand it.” Mab took a deep breath, and I suddenly wondered if she was afraid like me.

She said, “It is who I am.”

When the tea was ready, I pulled a fleam off the peg hanging on the side of the refrigerator and, with a tiny tap, cut my thumb and let one drip plunk down into Will’s tea. It was willow bark, and hopefully, it would reduce his fever. The bark was part of a
batch I’d made up just last week. Fresh and blood-quickened. I whispered a thrice-blessing against the surface of his tea and offered the mug.

“You put blood in it,” he said, eyeing it suspiciously.

“To quicken the magic.”

Wincing, Will said, “Drinking tea with your blood in it … basically goes against everything I’ve ever learned. About diseases. And cannibalism. And … religion.”

“My blood already marks your chest, and blood is the element that makes my magic work. If you’re squeamish, I don’t know if I can help you.”

“It isn’t about being squeamish. It’s just this all takes some getting used to.” He didn’t look away from the mug of tea.

I took a moment and studied the creasing at the outer corners of his eyes, the pinched skin. This was much to take in, to understand. I’d grown up with it, always believed in the power of my blood. Perhaps for Will, this was tantamount to me being given proof that magic was
not
real, and that my entire outlook on life was skewed false. I wished I could touch his head and transfer the understanding, could help him feel the truth of it.

Walking around the table, I held my hand out to him again, this time the one with the wounded thumb. “Blood is the conduit of magic. It is the house of power.” He very gently took my hand and ran his thumb over my palm, examined my fingers one by one. I shivered at the touch, and my eyes fluttered closed of their own accord until Will pressed lightly on the tiny cut I’d made with the fleam.

“That really doesn’t hurt?” He kept ahold of my hand, cradling it in both of his, and looked up at me.

“Yes, it does.”

He dropped my hand. “I’m sorry!”

I drew it back, and then rubbed the cut thumb against my fingers. “It’s just the way things are. Necessary to the magic. You have to sacrifice something to gain something.”

Revulsion and fascination twisted through his expression, but he kept leaning toward me. “That doesn’t sound very worth it.”

“Oh, it is. You only have to adjust to it. Like walking out into a bright afternoon. It might hurt your eyes, but you take it and get used to it and then after a moment you can see all the colors of the world.”

“Still. Sucks.” Will shrugged one shoulder. “It would be nice if you could just … do it.”

“Well, eventually you can. If you get good enough at it.” I glanced out the window, thinking of Arthur, who never had to bleed for anything.

Will smiled. “Better.”

“It’s dangerous. You have to work hard to get to that point, and that’s as it should be. Nothing should be free. Think about guns. If it hurt you to shoot a gun, don’t you think people would think harder about when and where and why they did it?”

Slowly, he nodded. “That does make sense.”

I pulled my chair around next to his, and while we sipped our tea, answered all of his questions. I explained to him about the blood kin, about being the Deacon and why I existed. I told him how the blood worked with intention and symbols, but what it really got down to was willpower. About patterns and nature and listening to the whisper of the trees. He wanted
to know how I’d learned it all, and so I talked of Arthur more, and of Mother, of the books she’d given me and insisted I read instead of the texts on my homeschooling lists. Not only old journals from other witches but Shakespeare and Milton and Goethe and Malory. Histories of alchemy and witchcraft.

In turn, I asked about him. He told me about growing up in a military family, about their constant movement and all the shifting and change. About wanting to travel the world, see everything, taste and touch all of it. His rootlessness stirred sympathy in me, but it didn’t seem to bother him—permanence wasn’t something he longed for.

My mug had been empty for nearly an hour when I finally asked if I could have some more of his blood.

“Why?” It was only a question, matter-of-fact and simple.

“To prepare for the cleansing, I need to bless an ointment that’s charged to you—to your blood. So I need a few drops. It will work better.”

He paused for only a moment before saying, “Yes.”

I took the fleam out again and tapped one of the blades into his wrist. His whole face peeled back and he groaned, more from surprise than pain, I think. As his blood spilled into the empty mug, he couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

Unable to resist, I scooted the mug aside when it was full enough and healed his wound. It only took a drop of the blessed water we kept in the refrigerator and a small word breathed over his skin. He shivered as the flesh knitted back together and the blood stopped. Only a tiny pink line remained. I smiled up at him, our faces close.

My breath caught as I saw the crescents of red in his eyes.
It wasn’t natural, but for one moment it seemed as though it should have been.

He watched me with those acorn eyes, and I was suddenly more nervous than I’d been about anything. His hands were so warm around mine, it felt like the energy might burn up to my elbows. All I thought about for a moment was breathing his breath.

A crow cawed outside and I jumped, squeezing Will’s wrist too tightly. “Sorry,” I said, and glanced off at the stairs.

Will asked, “Is something wrong?”

“I should check on Lukas. It’s getting late.”

“What time is …” His eyes shot past me to the grandfather clock and widened. “It’s after seven. I have got to go.”

“Oh.” I paused, half twisted toward the stairway, and fought disappointment. “All right. The ointment should be ready tomorrow, but call me if anything changes.”

He ran a hand up the back of his neck and into his hair. “I don’t have my phone to add your number.”

Rushing to the junk drawer, I fished out a dark blue marker and held it up triumphantly. Will offered his arm and, with an air of ceremony, I wrote the Pink House number along the back of his hand. I gave him my hand in the same way, and when he’d written out his number onto my skin, the digits next to each other looked like secret codes in the fading light.

“Wait,” I said, and dashed into the pantry for one of our tied bags of tea. “It’s willow tea, like you had today. Should keep your fever down.” I offered it.

He smiled. “Thanks.”

Though I led him to the front door, I was reluctant to let
go of his hand once we reached the porch. “You can find your way from here?”

“If I can’t I don’t deserve to,” he joked. Will didn’t move, or let go of me. I watched his eyes flicker between mine, tiny little back-and-forth motions. His lips parted just a bit, and I heard the crunch of tires on the pebble drive.

Donna.

Will turned away, releasing my hand. “Thanks for this.” He held up the tea with the hand covered in my phone number.

I waved as he moved across the front yard, paused to lean into the station wagon to greet Donna. Evening shadows stretched from the oak trees and across Will’s back. He laughed at something, straightened, and did a little spin in place as he waved back to me. He jogged backward for a moment, then turned again to vanish down the road.

Gabriel had taken himself off within an hour of Josephine arriving and hadn’t come home yet, so that whole afternoon it was you and me and her. To my surprise, you both stayed in the house. You showed Josephine our little blood marks at the windows that could be powered with a whispered breath and made to draw cross breezes through the entire house. She clapped with delight, and began spinning ideas for how it might be improved, how it could be made permanent with additional sacrifice, or perhaps even tuned in to the sunlight or rhythms of air so that it was self-regulating. It was only a conversation about wind and practical magic, and yet both of you lit up like children
.

I began to understand. She was obsessed with the blood, with the power it held, in a way I was not and might never be. For her it was the world, it was the purpose. For me it has always been a tool, even when it shows me beauty. She tried a few times to pull me into the conversation, but I shrugged and said a good ceiling fan would do the same trick, out of a perverse thought to differentiate myself from her, even if it wasn’t what you wanted
.

All day the two of you argued and laughed and drew vast plans up on a roll of paper you had dragged up from the barn. I went about my chores, in and out to the garden and icebox, rolling dough and boiling down lavender. When I made tea for myself, I brought you a pitcher and
was shocked to see Josephine crouched on the floor beside a sketch of some complex magical circle, with tears streaking makeup down her cheeks and you softly saying, “He will return, when he’s found his peace again.”

“He’s forgotten all the pleasure in life, Arthur,” she hissed, and I took a step back out of the room. But not before she saw me, her blue eyes wild. She stared at me, then at you, then back at me, and smiled
.

There was no way I could have guessed what she intended to do
.