The Blood Keeper (The Blood Journals) (28 page)

I turned to find him staring down at me with an alert, expectant expression. But it was tough to focus through all the layers of tired. “Who?”

“Wiry thing, strong, curly blond hair?”

“Mab?” I swung the chair around.

“That’s her name. She seems sweet. Can’t imagine what she sees in you.”

Sweet. That wasn’t exactly a word I’d used to describe Mab ever. I shoved Ben back. “I’ll be right down.” I scrubbed my hands down my face in relief and turned off my iPod. “Is she okay? Everything’s okay?”

Ben shrugged as he ducked into his bedroom. “Far as I know.”

Downstairs, just as I was coming around the corner into the dining room, I heard Mab say, “I asked him not to tell anyone, but I’m very sorry it caused trouble.”

I paused, fingers on the wall as I leaned as close to the doorway as possible without revealing myself. Hopefully, I could pick up on whatever she was saying so we wouldn’t get our stories crossed. I mean, she couldn’t possibly be telling them the truth.

“We certainly understand that, Mab. But it is very important for us to know where our son is.” That was Dad.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “It’s truly not far from here, if you’d only let him come for the evening and help us.”

I pushed my forehead against the cool wall to calm my headache. Was she so worried about this curse that she’d come all the way out here to convince Dad to let me go with her?

“What sort of project is this?” Mom asked. She must not have made it out yet.

“Grafting. We’ve got some old apple trees on our property, and I’m learning to graft. It’s part of our homeschooling biology curriculum to do the project and present it to a special panel at a summer camp in July. We combined with some students from Will’s high school to help us with social integration.”

I couldn’t stop my mouth from opening. She said it so smoothly I wondered if she’d practiced the whole way over.
Social integration?

Ben’s footsteps sounded behind me in the upstairs hall. I quickly turned the corner into the dining room. Mom and Dad sat in their usual spots, Dad with his summer-afternoon iced coffee dripping condensation onto the busy tablecloth. Mom had scooted her chair so near him Mab must’ve interrupted her telling him everything Dr. Able said before going for the drugs.

And Mab was in Aaron’s seat, her back straight, hands loosely gripping a glass of water. Her hair was in a braid, so the curls didn’t look like a haystack. She’d put a cardigan over her dress. I stared. It made me think of that old story about Pecos Bill, who lassoed a tornado.

“Good afternoon, Will,” Mab said, following it with what was, in fact, a sweet smile.

She so didn’t fit against the backdrop of the dark wood of
our dining room. The ship’s clock gonged its 1600 hours bell. It took me a second to find my voice. “Hey,” I mumbled.

“William, good, you’re here.” Dad nodded firmly.

Mom smiled, and met my glance with a secret nod.

“I was just telling your parents about our science project,” Mab said. “The trees very much need to be grafted now that we’ve had rain, or it might be too late.”

I nodded and winced, as if I had any idea about trees.

“It’s so nice of you to be helping her,” Mom said, standing up. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Uh, water’s fine.”

Mom went through into the kitchen and pulled down a glass. Filled it with filtered water.

Dad tapped a finger against the table. “You should have said something, son.”

“Yeah, punk,” Ben said, coming in behind me and knocking his shoulder into mine gently. His tone was playful, and he pulled out the chair beside Mab. “Don’t know what you see in this guy.”

It wasn’t really a question, but for a moment uncertainty filled her eyes. And that was horrifying on several levels. Then she glanced at me and smiled. “He makes me laugh, and is so kind.”

I sank down into a chair. Fought not to put my face in my hands.

Ben laughed and shot me a look of incredulity.

“Here, Will.” Mom set the water down in front of me.

“Thanks,” I managed.

Dad sighed. “Drink up so you can be on your way.”

My head jerked up. “You’re letting me go?”

“The doctor said there’s no immediate danger, if you’re feeling up to it. And we aren’t going to punish the young lady for your inconsideration.”

“I am so sorry, Mr. Sanger.” Mab’s hands tightened around her glass and her eyes drooped. Where had she gotten to be such a good liar? “Like I said, we were out in the orchard and the time just flew by before we knew it.”

Dad grumbled but nodded.

I downed my water and ran upstairs before they could change their minds.

While Will dashed to get his shoes, I offered the Pink House phone number and told them a little about Donna, as if she were officially my stepmother. She’d done my hair for me, combing it wet and plaiting it into some semblance of order. And reminded me that I should put on a bra and wear sandals instead of galoshes.

Mrs. Sanger took the number down in a delicate, swooping hand. Her fingernails were painted a very soft pink, and I noticed that she wore a ring next to her wedding band that was lined with tiny emeralds. A gem for powerful love and positive energies. She had an easy smile like Will’s, but something about the way she held herself reminded me of Granny Lyn in the last months; like something inside her hurt so much she had to be deliberate and move only when necessary.

Will’s Dad was more of the pillar holding up the ceiling. Strong and solid like Will, and with the exact same haircut, but
his edges were sharper. He would keep down a storm with one hand. I liked him.

But Ben reminded me of Silla: forcing himself into the world so hard because there wasn’t anything but a big hole in his heart. He was the one who grilled me on the land and my family and the way homeschooling worked. I told him mostly truthful answers, keeping my voice light.

Will came back downstairs in a different shirt, with thick black and white stripes. It said
NORTHERN ROCK
on the front and S. T
AYLOR
27 on the back. I stood up and took his hand. “Ready?”

He wove his warm fingers with mine and nodded. To his parents he said, “I’ll call if it gets late. I promise.”

“Make sure you do,” Mr. Sanger said.

“It was lovely to meet you, Mab,” added Mrs. Sanger.

I smiled at them, and at Ben, who offered me a painted-on smile exactly like Will’s. It made my own smile wider.

Will took me outside, and we got into the station wagon. I’d left all the windows rolled down, and Will leaned back in the passenger seat with his arm hanging out. His brow pinched as if he was in pain. I backed out, twisting around to look behind me, and said, “I like your family.”

He seemed startled, and stared openly at me until we were a block away. The sun was bright all around us, and I could see the freckles under his eyes as well as the red burning in them.

“What?” I asked lightly.

“Just … nothing. I’m glad you like them. I do, too, most of the time. Do you have a radio?” Will reached toward the dash.

“It’s been broken since nineteen eighty-seven.”

Will laughed, releasing the last of the tension he’d carried out of his house, as if it had its own voice. “Damn. How’d you know where I live, anyway?”

I gestured to the map and silver hand mirror in the backseat. “I used the last drop of your blood for a location spell.”

“Of course. That explains everything.”

My fingers tightened on the huge steering wheel, but he was grinning wryly at me. Relief spilled down my arms and I slid one of my hands onto my thigh.

Will reached over the gearshift and carefully wove his fingers through mine, stroking my thumb with his. It sent tiny shivers that felt almost like blood magic tingling under my skin.

We drove in silence through the sticky afternoon, the tires splashing water from the highway, until I pulled off the county road and through the gateway to our land.

“I still didn’t see it,” Will said as we started along the pebbled drive up the hill. I smiled and started to tell him about the wards that kept the gateway hidden, but his hands suddenly gripped his own knees. “Whoa.”

I stopped the station wagon and pushed it into park. “Will?”

His eyes squeezed tightly shut and sweat beaded at his hairline. I clambered out of the car and ran around to his side, jerked the door open, and knelt with my hands flat on his thigh. “Will!”

“Just … just massively dizzy. Give me a sec.” His voice was breathy, and he pushed one hand flat against his chest. “My heart is, like, burning.”

I pried his hand away from his heart and put it against my cheek. He was on fire.

Out of nowhere, the crows dropped down and landed on
the roof of the station wagon. I gripped Will’s hand, closed my eyes, and imagined strength from inside me flowing out through my skin and into his hand. It would run up his arm and feed his heart. With my free hand, I dug through the glove box for my emergency pocketknife. I unfolded one of the blades with my teeth and pricked the tattoo on the wrist of my hand that held Will’s to my face. Dropping the pocketknife, I smeared the blood over my other fingers, then put that hand against Will’s cheek to complete the circuit of energy. Face to hand to face and back around, magic tingled in pulses of heat.

Will sighed through pursed lips, and his eyelids fluttered. “That’s better,” he whispered. “It was, like, I don’t know, Mab, something was pulling at this bruise. That wouldn’t happen if it was a tumor.”

“What?”

He shook his head. “Ugh, I am so glad we’re getting rid of the curse.”

I pressed his hand to my cheek. “We are. Today. I need to know, though, if it’s been building all day, or if it just happened when we crossed onto my land.”

“Definitely just now.” He sat up farther and gazed out over my shoulder at the trees. “It’s been itching, and my head hurts. But it was just now that I got dizzy and it all tightened up.”

I released him, reluctantly, and stood. “Come on.”

Dashing into the woods, I found a redbud tree with low enough branches I could use it as a ladder into one of the taller cottonwoods. After taking too long to unbuckle my sandals, I scrambled up. Drops of water rained down on me as I shook limbs, and when I leapt across to a gray branch of the cottonwood,
I heard Will call out in shock. I was only about ten feet high, but off the ground and in the lattice of trees like this, the forest came alive in a myriad of new layers. Birds fluttered everywhere, and butterflies, too; squirrels ducked into their nests when they saw me, tails twitching; a raccoon stared from a hollow halfway up an elm. The trees shifted in infinitesimal motions, swaying not to the wind but to the turning of the planet.

I closed my eyes and put my cheek against the cottonwood’s trunk, where it shimmered with invisible magic. Strings of power lined everything here, and I could just feel the threads unsettle, the pull of strangeness, a shift in the pattern. Was it because of what I did to Lukas, grounding his rune to the land like that? Or because of what was happening to Will? Did the blood land recognize the roses’ curse?

“Mab!”

I glanced down to where he stood just under me, face lifted and wide with shock.

“Are you feeling better?” I asked him.

“Healthy as a horse.”

“Good.” I smiled at him and took a deep breath. “Catch me.”

Her body relaxed as if she fainted. In slow motion she slipped off the branch and fell toward me. I cussed and held out my arms. She landed hard against my chest and right shoulder, staggering me to my knees. Her arms and legs fell limp. Her head lolled back, and all that yellow hair streamed around me. I yelled her name, shook her, and set her down. The ground under her was muddy and covered in a layer of leaves. “Mab.”

Nothing. She didn’t respond at all.

I saw thin blood all over my hands. Holly’s slack mouth.

Cawing crows snapped me out of it, and I yelled, “Mab!” I put my ear to her mouth and scrambled to find a pulse under her jaw. It was there; she was breathing. Calmly, like she was asleep. “Mab,” I said again, pleading with her to wake up.

She didn’t so much as twitch. I touched her cheek, her lips, her chin, and ran my hand down her arm. No blood. She was warm. Just asleep, I told myself.

No.
Possession
.

She’d left her body, and I remembered that double-vision memory of stepping over her prone form on the floor of the barn.

An owl swooped past my face, its white feathers flapping silently as it sped through the branches. The crows cawed at it, and about half of them took off after it. The others hopped down to me, circling around us.

My heart thudded hard and fast.

Do you trust me
? she’d asked. I’d said yes without even knowing what it meant. Without asking her the same. But now, here, was her answer.

I lifted her into a sitting position, and scooted behind her. She slumped against me. I wrapped my arms around her. Her shoulder pushed into the bruise. I ignored it. Her hair tickled my neck. The damp ground soaked into my jeans. All around me the crows watched, wings spread. When they flapped those wings, I smelled thick rainwater and mud.

Catch me
, she’d said. And hadn’t even considered that I wouldn’t.