The Blood Keeper Read online

  All through the winter I ordered myself to let go of my infatuation. To work, to appreciate the stark beauty of our prairie winter. Crows nestled in the trees around the house, red cardinals and their dour mates, too, along with the robins and sparrows and blue jays I fed with bits of seed meant for the chickens. They were spots of color against the silver, white, and sometimes liquid blue of the sky. Their songs were like bells in the wind.

  Gabriel spent days at a time away from us in the city, where there was jollity and company, he said, and plenty of alcohol to keep him warm. He tried to take me with him once, but I told him he was ridiculous to think having his niece around would have anything but a nullifying effect on his revelry. He insisted and cajoled, but I couldn’t have left you—the thought of you alone in the wild, part of nature yourself, was too delightful to my imagination.

  You would go out into the winter and blend in, all white and gray and blue, vanish for the entire day doing I knew not what. Other days you remained in your bedroom, sleeping, it seemed, or doing something so quiet I never heard you move. I peeked in once, on a day so still I could hear ice cracking, and you lay on your bed so deeply unconscious you hardly seemed to breathe.

  I cooked or tended to the wash and upkeep of our few warm clothes, and many afternoons I read from the surprisingly large library you kept along one wall of the parlor. Collected magazines and old periodicals, books by authors both modern and old. There was little poetry, though, which I missed from school.

  I was alone but never felt lonely, especially with the radio and the birds, with the hope that any moment you’d come downstairs to join me, or come in from the cold and let me take care of you.

  One evening I heard you singing under your breath, “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” as you unbuttoned your coat near the front door. I remembered the feel of your hand against my stomach.

  I told myself it was hopeless, but walked straight to you and began to hum along. I offered my hands, and you took them. We waltzed through the house, and I tried not to think of all the years piled on your shoulders, or your wife and the children you’d certainly had before.

  I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of your hands, pretending we were only a girl and a boy, simple, oh-so-normal, and free.

  SEVENTEEN

  MAB

  The encounter with Will left a residue of wonder against my skin, shielding me from the hard concrete and asphalt of town. It coated my tongue and made me smile at the shopkeepers more brightly than they were used to. Mr. Meldon, who sold me raw rubies, said I was looking mighty pretty, and Pamela Ann in the tea shop asked if I had a new beau. I did my best to answer mysteriously. On the drive back to Eli and Faith’s house, I taught Lukas a simple song, and we sang it in three parts with Donna, around and around, until Donna put her hand on my shoulder gently and smiled with approval.

  We grilled free-range chicken in their backyard, and I kept my promise to show Hannah blue fire. I danced it over my fingers while she stared in awe. Lukas huddled his legs up to his chest, but he did not move away, the brave boy. After dinner Faith had to say my name three times when she wanted me to run inside for extra napkins, I was so lost in my thoughts. When I returned I surprised them all with rare extravagant magic: blowing a gust of wind around the yard to ruffle the row of petunias against the back fence and light the mosquito-warding incense that hung from the trees.

  “Someone is in a delightful mood,” Faith said, patting hair my wind had loosed back behind her ears.

  “She made a new friend today,” Donna put in, eying me.

  I put on a lofty smile and joined the adults at the picnic table. Hannah was busy showing Lukas the plastic dinosaurs in the sandbox. “We’d met before, so it’s hardly new.”

  “A young man, was it?” Eli pretended to frown, but there was a teasing lift to his left eyebrow.

  “It’s nothing!” I insisted, but caught myself too late, thinking of Will’s bare shoulders and the quick way he dispatched my doll. The pull of his smile in that moment he chose to believe me.

  “That’s not a nothing look on your face,” Faith teased.

  I shrugged and reached for Caleb to haul him into my lap for a shield. They took pity on me as I buried my nose in his sticky baby curls. He smelled like barbecue sauce and, I imagined, was in the process of smearing it all over my dress. I let him twist his little hands in my hair and whisper secrets I only half understood. And I thought about the pattern underlying the past month of my life. Since Arthur died, since he shook the world and knocked a stranger out of a tree. Since Will Sanger rescued her but gave himself nightmares that drove him back out to that lake on the exact day I chose to unburden the roses. That he was there at the right moment, come full circle, to delay the doll long enough for me to arrive, and without instruction sensed that he needed to remove the antler binding it all together.

  And here we’d met again, and even beyond that, Will had looked into my eyes and chosen to see the magic.

  This was more than a full circle, it was a woven pattern that wasn’t complete. I didn’t understand it, not yet, but that was my favorite time: when everything was new and filled with potential. Here are the pieces of a great spell, little queen, Arthur might have said. How will you fit them together?

  I had not the faintest idea but only knew that whatever happened next, Will was a part of it, and it would be exciting.

  WILL

  My mind was full of crazy things while I sat across from Ben and Mom and Dad. They’d all three come, instead of just Ben, and we ate at a breakfast place full of local art and self-serve coffee. The conversation went on easily without me. Then Mom took us shopping. By which I mean we trailed after her from art shop to bakery to antique toy store. I quietly followed, thinking of Mab.

  When Mom and Dad headed into yet another store, Ben stopped me. “Isn’t there that train park right up the block?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And we parked right around here,” he said, dragging me along. When we got to the little two-hour lot, he opened the trunk to pull out two plastic grocery sacks. Tossed me one, a challenging smile plastered on his face. I caught it against my chest and dug in. Marshmallow guns. I grinned. The guns were just PVC piping in an L shape that you shot mini-marshmallows out of like blow darts. They looked like the kind of thing Aaron and I would’ve cobbled together out of crap in the garage.

  “Let’s go down to the train,” he said, jiggling a second sack full of marshmallows. “I guarantee I’ll kick your ass.”

  “Better yet,” I said, “we take the car home, load up the girls, and head out to Clinton Lake. For real war.”

  “I don’t think you’re ready for that, kid.”

  “You’re doomed. I know the park way better than you.”

  “I get Havoc on my team.”

  “She’ll never work for you.”

  “I have my ways of getting her to talk,” he said in a crappy Russian accent.

  We let Mom and Dad know. Then it only took about fifteen minutes to round up the dogs and drive out to the park.

  And Ben had stuck bacon treats in his pockets. Valkyrie was an instant traitor.

  The guns, with their biodegradable bullets and silent fire, were perfect for sneak attacks and running around out in the forest. The marshmallows doubled as extra treats for Havoc and Val, though I wasn’t sure they were that great for their digestive systems.

  It was over an hour of sneaking, climbing trees, avoiding the hordes of Saturday-afternoon hikers and bikers and picnickers, before I thought about Mab or Holly or the mud monster again. Or that I was having an awesome time with Ben. That we hadn’t argued. And that Aaron wasn’t hiding in the next grove over.

  The guns were surprisingly hard to load, especially while running, and for best accuracy you only loaded one marshmallow. I chose to stuff in five or six at a time, going for dispersal instead of aim, but Ben turned out to be a stellar sniper. His weakness was Val—she couldn’t be quiet and gave away his position every time
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  We finally died of our million marshmallow wounds, collapsing beside the girls near a stretch of gravel meant for an RV hookup. I sprawled with my arms and legs out, choking as I gasped for air, my diaphragm sore from laughing and blowing my gun. The sky wheeled overhead, all bright blue and white clouds. I imagined I was up there, bird’s-eye, wind slamming me around. I looked down at the state park, at the edge of the lake with all its fingery inlets, and the dam and the highway back to town. There I was, lying beside my brother, both of us sweaty and grinning, Havoc and Valkyrie panting with their legs splayed everywhere in the grass.

  My breath evened out, and I closed my eyes. I thought about Mab and how she’d been so tense in town. Out here was more her: wind in leaves, lapping water on the other side of the trees. Insects buzzing. Ben’s breathing, the harsher pants of the girls. Val’s tail thumping on the ground. The whole world was loud if I listened.

  And apparently also full of a whole lot of things I didn’t understand.

  “What are you thinking about so hard?” Ben asked.

  I didn’t open my eyes. The sun was a hot red glow through my lids. It warmed my face, drying the sweat at the neck of my shirt.

  “You’ve been quiet all day,” he continued. “You can tell me.”

  “Just … weird things. There’s been a lot going on, and I don’t really know what to believe.”

  “What kind of things?”

  I shrugged, grating my shoulders against the hard ground. The grass was thin here. “Just stuff. I’m not sure how to explain.”

  “So. You don’t need advice.”

  “No.” I opened one eye and slanted it at him.

  “It’s a girl, isn’t it?”

  My laugh startled Havoc, and she pushed up and came to lie closer to me. I put my hand on her ribs and patted. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

  Ben said, “I know a woman. Her name’s Lauren, and she’s a combat correspondent. We haven’t had a date or anything, and I don’t know how it’ll all arrange itself. But I know it will. Someday.”

  “That sounds crazy.”

  “I know.” He laughed, too. “It is. But every time I look at her, I have this feeling of … it’s like peace and chaos at the same time.”

  Leaning up onto one side, I studied Ben. He was really trying here. Like we actually knew anything about each other. Or were supposed to. “Mab’s not … I don’t know if it’s like that,” I said. I hadn’t really been thinking about her that way. There was too much else surrounding it. The homunculus. The dreams. Those weird crows. Her being so different from everything else in my life. A colorful piece of total insanity.

  Okay, maybe it was like that.

  I said, “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Trust it.”

  I rolled onto my back again. As if it was that simple. High up, a tiny airplane left a perfect line of white through all the jumbled clouds.

  EIGHTEEN

  Spring came with tiny green buds and thick air. I dug into my garden, planting peas and carrots, tomatoes, and sunflowers, then smaller boxes I filled with herbs for cooking and magic.

  The prairie woke slowly from the winter, and I felt, too, as though I were waking up. I walked the land on my own, while you shut yourself up into your barn with whatever projects a two-hundred-year-old man favored and Gabriel got himself involved in the electoral race in Lawrence. He brought home flyers and asked me to make tiny knit flowers to give away at campaign rallies. I obliged until I realized he was spelling them with tiny flecks of blood to be more than just pretty prizes. It was the first time we truly fought, he and I. It was ugly, and I’d never had my heart race so violently. And it drove him off the land for a month, do you remember? He was so furious he rented rooms in a boarding house along the Kaw.

  One morning I was breaking ice off the well by dropping the bucket again and again, in order to water my young garden, worrying that this sudden frost would kill it all before it had a chance to sprout, and there you were suddenly. You took the bucket and said, “The flowers will like running water better than this.” Together we walked along the Child Greek, and you filled the bucket with fresh, tumbling cold water. You carried it for me up the hill to the garden, and we parceled it out, going back to the creek three times. When we finished, you settled back onto your heels. “This smells like life,” you said.

  I pointed out the different plots, the herb boxes, and told you which were for eating, which for magic. For the first time, you asked me a question: “I don’t see you touch the magic often. Why not?”

  For someone who breathes magic, it must have seemed strange how I avoided it. “It’s a tool, isn’t it?” I said, hoping not to offend you. “When I need warmth but have no stove, I make fire. When I need to find something and my eyes don’t see it, I search with blood and a mirror. When I need protection from things stronger than me, I make an amulet. If I don’t need the magic, I don’t use it.”

  You studied my face, and said, “That is wise, Miss Sonnenschein, but I believe it makes you miss much of the beauty in it. You do not need a sunset, you do not need music, and yet both things make life more than just eating and sleeping. We can survive without dancing, we can survive without love.” Your eyebrows lifted and my breath caught in my chest. “Yet who would want to?”

  My fingers shook, and I dug them into the earth, into the row of baby peas. I slowly nodded, and said without looking at you, “You’re right.”

  “The magic is in your blood. It’s a part of you, and there is nothing wrong with exploring its beauties, beyond practical necessity.”

  There was something new in the edges of your voice, and I glanced up. It was laughter, playing at the corners of your mouth.

  I wanted more than anything to kiss it, to catch your amusement with my lips. But afraid to startle you, or lose the moment, instead I smiled and asked, “Will you show me your favorite beautiful thing?”

  Your eyes widened, as if I had finally surprised you. And you promised that when you could, you would.

  NINETEEN

  WILL

  Almost exactly a week after I tackled the mud monster, I stood in the driveway with Ben. Hot sun pressed down on the shoulders of my dress shirt. I wanted to loosen my tie before it choked me. Ben leaned his elbow on my shoulder. His eyes kept going to the basketball hoop hanging five feet over the roof of the truck. But we’d dismissed the idea of shooting after a brief discussion of the possible repercussions of getting sweaty before church.

  Better to suffer boredom until Mom popped out of the house.

  Plus, I wasn’t sure I could move that fast.

  I rolled my head to stretch my neck muscles. Overnight I’d had dreams about roses clogging my throat until I couldn’t breathe. Since waking, I’d been vaguely light-headed. Probably just from sleep deprivation.

  “You good?” Ben asked, lifting his elbow off me.

  “Sure.” I shrugged. Closed my eyes against the hard sunlight.

  Ben hovered. I peered out through one eye to find him studying my face with a bit of a glare.

  I closed my eye again. His finger pushed into my shoulder, shoving me over.

  Dizziness turned my stomach.

  “Your face is all red,” he said. He gripped my arm. “I think we should go back inside.”

  The sun pounded down.

  “Will.”

  It sounded like Ben had moved away—like half a football field.

  “Will.”

  I shook my head. Blood roared in my ears.

  He touched me, sliding a hand around my back. Said, “You’re on fire,” and pulled me toward the house.

  Looked like it was gonna be my fault we missed church again.

  Roses held me down. My mom brushed hair away from my head. Murmured about a fever, and then the roses pulled tight. Thorny vines circled my neck. I struggled. They piled blankets on me. I told them I was hot. Too hot.
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br />   Sometimes I knew I was dreaming. Other times I couldn’t tell if Aaron was sitting on my bed, or if it was Ben. A second woman danced around my bedroom, arms out to waltz. She bent over me and smiled, tried to coerce me up to dance with her. “This is my favorite song,” she whispered.

  The walls of my bedroom crawled with roses. They clung to the ceiling, digging their thorns in deep. The red flowers nodded at me, all at the same pace. The beat of my heart. Vines swarmed over my body. My mouth was full of petals. I coughed and they floated up. I leaned over the side of the bed and Mom was there, clutching my shoulders, saying my name.

  I gagged on flowers, and puked into a bowl Mom lifted off the floor.

  She rubbed my back and helped me lie down again. I fell asleep.

  It was dark when I shot up out of yet another nightmare. I’d been drowning again. This time in thin, cold mud.

  A tight band of pain hugged my ribs. They wouldn’t expand enough for me to get a solid breath, and I stared up at the popcorn ceiling. It was bare. No roses anywhere. Just my room. The alarm clock said it was 1:43 a.m.

  I ordered myself to relax. Took stock of my physical situation.

  The fever was gone. No sweat. No burning up inside. My head vaguely ached, and I was thirsty. My muscles were sore, but not too bad. Overall, I felt pretty good. But I was wide awake. And smelled sour.

  My vertigo was gone, too, so I made it to the dark bathroom without any noise. In the shower, I just let the not-too-hot water drip off my nose. When I was out and had turned on the light to brush my teeth, I studied myself in the mirror.

  Shadows under my eyes and a pretty tired stoop in my shoulders.

  And holy crap, the bruise from last week, from the antler jamming into my chest, was darker.

  I shut my eyes, flicked the lights off and on, and looked again.

  It wasn’t just shadows or me being wrecked. I touched the dark blotch, and it didn’t hurt from pressure. But I felt it, inside. Like it was a weight pushing in on me. And the edges of the bruise, which had been yellowing before, reached out purple again. Like a fresh bruise. Could I have hit it again? Was it an infection?