Blood Magic Read online

  “I don’t know if this is an appropriate question or not,” Nick said.

  My guts rolled. He was going to ask about my parents. I kept my eyes shut.

  “How come you aren’t playing Lady Macbeth? I mean, you’re the best one up there. Way better than that blond girl they have in the role.”

  Startled, I glanced at him. His hands were on the wheel and his eyes on the road. But he did flick a quick look my way, once and then again. I felt my lips soften and let myself smile. “Thanks. I don’t mind the role, though. The witches are fun.”

  “Yeah, but … I mean, I don’t know much about theater, and I can tell you’re better.” He winced, shrugging as though apologizing for the compliment.

  Inexplicably, I wanted to touch him. To put my fingers on his shoulder or knee. I folded my hands in my lap and watched the winking glass in my rings. Each one reminded me of a different word, or a different expression on Dad’s face. I took a breath and said, “Casting me as a witch was the kindest thing that’s ever been done for me.”

  Nick frowned into the silence, but it wasn’t until we’d passed through the third block of Main Street and were turning up Ellison toward our part of the township that he asked, “Why?”

  I couldn’t look at him while I said it, so I turned to watch the broken brown stalks of old corn flashing past. The gray sky above made the stalks seem almost golden. “Because of my parents.” I paused, and when he remained silent, I assumed he understood. “I read for Lady Macbeth, but there’s a scene where she’s kind of lost it, and she keeps seeing blood all over her hands.” My shudder melted into the vibration of the racing car. “Stokes didn’t want me to have to go through that every performance. Not to mention at rehearsals. And if it was me onstage, nobody in the audience would be thinking about Macbeth or the play—they’d be thinking about my parents.” I licked my lips and looked back at my lap.

  Nick didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like there was anything that needed to be said.

  After another moment, the car slowed and pulled onto the crunching gravel of my driveway. I remembered ruining the white dust under my bloody fingers. If I won the lottery, the first thing I’d do would be to pave the road. Then I’d move to New Mexico.

  NICHOLAS

  I stopped the convertible behind a Volkswagen Rabbit with a mess of stickers on the bumper and rear window. My Sebring’s engine ticked quietly, and I pulled out the keys while I read all the Rabbit’s stickers. Did people really still have SAVE THE WHALES bumper stickers? Answer: yep. And every Democratic presidential campaign sticker since Dukakis.

  Turning, I leaned my back on the door and hooked my knee up a little onto the seat. Still as stone except for the wind in her dark pixie hair, Silla stared at her hands where they clenched together in her lap. Where’d all the rings come from? They didn’t look like cheap crap from Claire’s or Hot Topic. The antique settings twisted in knot patterns and graceful swirls. I’d have bet that at least some of the jewels were real. I drew my gaze up her arms to her face. “Hey, so, Silla.”

  She slowly raised her head.

  “That your car?”

  Her lips parted as though it was the very last thing she’d expected. “Um. No, that would be Gram Judy. She’s rabid.” Silla smiled fondly.

  I wanted to ask her about Saturday night. If I’d imagined it on a dark, lonely night in a cemetery. She looked tired, though. And sad. And what if she said I was crazy? I touched her wrist. “How’s your finger?”

  “My finger?” She lifted it up, and then her eyelashes fluttered really fast. “Oh, um. That. It’s fine. I used peroxide, like you said.” She showed me the Band-Aid wrapped around the cut.

  “You should be more careful.” It wasn’t supposed to sound as condescending as it did. But the Band-Aid on her thumb reminded me so sharply of Mom.

  She moved suddenly, like she’d realized she was on fire, grabbing her backpack off the floor at her feet and opening the door. “Thanks for the ride.”

  I winced while her back was turned, realizing I’d probably scared her off by being a prick. “Sure, anytime. I’ll be at rehearsal most nights, I think.”

  “Oh, really?” She paused after shutting the door gently, and leaned in, maybe a little eagerly. Or I was imagining it. “I meant to ask what you were talking about with Stokes.”

  “I’m going to be on the stage crew.”

  Her smile widened, and was undeniably real. “Good.” Then the smile folded back under the quiet mask she was carrying around. “See you, Nick.”

  “Good night, Silla.” I forced myself not to wait until she’d gotten up the porch and into the house. Instead I fired the engine and zipped out onto the road.

  SILLA

  From the porch, I listened to Nick drive away. It was cool in the shade, and I had my usual moment to wonder what I’d find when I entered the house this time. If I’d invited Nick in to meet Gram Judy, I wouldn’t have to go in alone. It was a weird thought to have: wanting someone to share the horror with.

  I pressed my forehead against the cool front door. Inside I heard folksy strains of Joni Mitchell, one of Gram’s favorites. “You’re in my blood like holy wine,” she sang.

  A cheerful mask would be good: blue like a mountain lake, with silver spirals around the eyeholes. Imagining it covering my face, I pushed open the door.

  “That you, Drusilla?”

  My backpack hit the entryway floor with a thud. “Yes, Gram.”

  “Judy,” she corrected, without looking up from her magazine, when I entered the kitchen.

  Pulling out one of the chairs, I remembered vividly the spell book all wrapped up and safe behind layers of brown paper before I’d opened it and let out all the demons inside. But now the book was tucked under my mattress upstairs. I dropped my chin into my hand and looked at Gram Judy’s magazine. Mother Jones. “Good reading?”

  “Oh, you know, enough to keep me informed and angry.” She slapped the magazine down onto the table and smiled. It looked like the smile of a hungry little terrier, but I’d learned over the past weeks that it was as friendly-looking as Gram Judy got. When she’d shown up at the funeral, we’d all thought she was some city jackal come down to report more on the horrific small-town murder. Reese had barred her from the house until she smacked him on the shoulder and said, “I was your dad’s favorite stepmother—get out of my way and let me cook some supper.” Neither my brother nor I had had it in us to argue. And eventually she’d shown us pictures from when we were little, with her and Mom and Dad on a trip up to St. Louis that neither Reese nor I remembered. It turned into a blessing, because she knew a lot about managing bills and helped us put Mom and Dad’s life insurance money in the right places.

  Her hair was pure white and long enough to braid in a crown around her head—which she had, ever since I’d cut all mine off. It was as close to mourning solidarity as she could get. I didn’t tell her the reason I’d gotten rid of mine was that the ends had been soaked in my mom’s blood. Every time one of the strands touched my neck, it reminded me of talking to Sheriff Todd that night over stale coffee, all my hair stiff and hard with dried brown blood.

  “Silla, honey, what in God’s name are you thinking about?”

  I blinked.

  Gram Judy continued, sighing and reaching for her tumbler of ice and bourbon. “As if I don’t know.” With one snap of her wrist, she finished off the drink and gestured toward the kitchen window. “Who was that boy you drove in with?”

  “A new boy at school. Nick Pardee.” I stood up and went to get a glass of water. I brought Judy more ice so that she could refill her drink. “He’s Mr. Harleigh’s grandson.”

  When I returned to the table, Gram Judy’s frown was thoughtful as she tilted back in her chair. “Oh, from the house back in those woods, is it? Your dad dated a girl from there in high school.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Daisy or Delilah or something. I can’t quite recall. They broke up a few months before he met your mo
m. It was sudden, I do believe. But then, your dad was getting ready to go off to college and whatnot, and that’s never a good time to really tie yourself down to a relationship.” Gram Judy seemed to think no time was a good time to tie yourself down.

  My rings clinked like wineglasses as I rubbed my cold hands together. “He’s joined the crew for the play, and offered to drive me home since it’s on his way.”

  “How polite!”

  I glanced up. Judy twisted open the bottle of bourbon and splashed some over her fresh ice. Her fingers were long and knobby, as tan as the rest of her and as wrinkled. But they ended in a French manicure. She took a drink, watching me over the rim of the tumbler. She wouldn’t ask anything, just let me tell her what I wanted to—or what I had to. That was how she learned everything about everyone without seeming like a busybody. Patience, and the easy application of alcohol. I stuck to my water. “He’s cute.”

  “You should ask him out.”

  “Gram!”

  “Why not?”

  “I just … I don’t know.” The way he looks at me makes me feel like I could burst out of my skin.

  “You have to have a reason. Bad breath? Not handsome?”

  I shrugged again.

  “Silla, really. If you don’t like him, I wouldn’t expect you to date him.”

  “No, I—he seems nice.” I wiggled on my chair. This conversation would never have happened with my mother, who would have immediately started reminding me not to even kiss on a first date. Gram Judy probably assumed I’d already gone all the way with a guy.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Ah!” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “That’s a piss-poor reason. You need to get out into the world again, get your mind off its morbid cycle.”

  “I don’t.”

  Gram Judy lowered her chin and glared at me.

  “Judy, I just …” I shuffled for an excuse, settled on the graveyard. “I think I didn’t make a good first impression.” Though, strangely, it hadn’t seemed to bother him.

  “Oh, posh.” She stretched both her arms across the table and reached for my hands. “Sweetie, it’ll be good for you to go out with someone who hasn’t known you your whole life, who didn’t know you before.”

  I bit down on the side of my tongue and looked at our hands: mine so pale and covered in the rings that looked too heavy against the bones; Gram Judy’s wise and old and elegant. “Because I’m so much less than I was?” I whispered it, knowing it was true.

  She squeezed, and my skin pinched between the rings. “Not less, just a little faded. You need a good romance to remind you about love and put some heat back in that body of yours.”

  That was my limit. Fighting a fierce blush, I tugged my hands away. “I have homework.”

  The best thing about Gram Judy was that she knew when to let go. Leaning back into her chair, she said, “Supper at eight.”

  NICHOLAS

  All the radio stations out here were country or Jesus rock, so I kept a cluster of CDs on the floor of the passenger side and tended to shove them in at random. That afternoon’s lucky selection was an Ella Fitzgerald album. It was scratchy and old, having belonged to my mom, and most of “Over the Rainbow” just skipped.

  Which was fine, since it was only a minute and a half to my house from Silla’s.

  But I punched the radio dial to turn off the music almost as soon as it started. It just frustrated me. Why hadn’t I stopped the car with Silla still in it, on the side of the road, and asked her about the leaf? I didn’t usually mind being rude or even mean. So what if she was pretty? So what if her parents just died? If she was doing magic, I had to know. I’d spent five years ignoring it, pushing the memories away, but I couldn’t get that image of Silla crouched in the graveyard out of my head. When I thought about Mom’s Band-Aid fingers, they were covered in Silla’s rings.

  My knuckles whitened as I gripped the steering wheel. I didn’t want this back in my life, screwing everything up. I wanted to just forget it, to push through my last few months of high school and drive away from Dad and Lilith, and from this shithole where crazy was in the water.

  Except … except I couldn’t stop thinking about Silla.

  Grunting at myself, I parked in the drive behind the open two-car garage. Dad’s other convertible was beside Lilith’s posh Grand Cherokee. How exciting that they were both home. I didn’t want to think too deeply about what they’d been doing all day. Climbing out of the car, I reached in back for my messenger bag, slung it over my shoulder, and headed through the garage door and into the kitchen. Maybe I could get to my bedroom and pretend I’d been there doing homework for the past two hours.

  But no, Lilith was in the kitchen with a flowered apron tied around her waist like a goddamn Susie Homemaker. Her maroon nails were curled into claws and dripped gore as she turned away from the half-demolished chicken corpse. My lips twitched. It was so fitting. “Hey,” I said before she could accuse me of being morose.

  “Nick!” She smiled and took a towel from the granite counter to wipe her hands. “You’re so late. You didn’t get a detention, did you?”

  I blinked. It would be easy to lie, and neither of them would check. But I’d have to spill eventually. “No.”

  She paused. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Around.” I hooked a foot onto one of the tall bar stools under the center island and sat. There was a bowl of jalapeno-stuffed olives next to a ceramic chicken holding an egg that read: THE COOK CAME FIRST. I popped an olive into my mouth. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Chicken caprese.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Up in his office.”

  I ate another olive. Had I been social enough to earn an easy evening alone in my room? It all depended on Lilith’s mood. She continued to clean the chicken. She was taller than me when she wore even short heels, and taller than Dad barefoot. Skinny, long, and sharp, with black hair styled even when she slept, and with this way of arching her eyebrows in constant disapproval. “Well,” I said, standing up from the stool. “Later.” Lilith nodded, and I stared out over the checkerboard tiles.

  “Oh, Nick.”

  “Yeah?” I paused with my back to her. That light tone always meant she was about to slam me with something.

  “We have flashlights in the front hall closet, and also just inside the basement door.”

  Not what I’d been expecting. “Okay, whatever.” I let myself make a face of annoyance since she couldn’t see.

  “For sneaking around the wilderness in the dark.”

  I held my breath.

  The faucet turned on, and I heard the oven door creak open. But it felt like she was directly behind me, flicking her dragon tongue on the back of my neck in order to smell my fear. She’d played this game all the months I’d known her. I know what you’re doing, Nicky, and I can tell your father anytime I want to I took a deep, quiet breath and pushed it away. Dad heard me go outside every evening, too. It wasn’t like Lilith could possibly know about Silla and the cemetery. I turned, flashed her a smile, and said, “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

  I tromped up the curved stairs, one hand loosely dragging along the twisted steel banister, bypassed the second floor completely, and ran up to my attic bedroom. The chaos of my room was always a relief after the starkness downstairs. I’d plastered my walls with movie posters and flyers I’d taken from bulletin boards back home. They were confetti-colored reminders of what I’d loved and what I wouldn’t get here in Yaleylah, punk rock bands and slam poetry in particular. Not to mention coffee shops and being able to walk to Lincoln Square. The only nightlife around here was the bar on the corner next to that Dairy Queen.

  Dumping my bag on the desk, I grabbed my angriest CD and shoved it into the player. NARKOTIKA hissed to life in a rattle of drums and pounding keyboard. I turned the sound up, then dragged a small box out from under the bed.

  The trunk was scratched and old, d
ecorated in lacquer with black birds flying against a purple sky. The key had broken off in the locked position when I threw the trunk across the room once after Mom left. A couple of years later, I had pried it back open. Now the bronze lock hung ruined, and I flicked it aside before opening the box.

  Inside were three rows of six small wooden compartments, and slim glass jars slid perfectly into fifteen of them. Each jar contained powder or chunks of metal, dried flower petals, seeds, or, in one, gold shavings. In another, tiny, rough rubies. The jars were labeled in small, perfect handwriting: carmot, iron, bone dust, nettle, blessed thistle, snake scales, and more. In the three empty compartments were black squares of vellum, thin lengths of wax, and spools of colored thread. The tools of Mom’s trade. Her bloodletting needle was a sharp quill. I ran my fingers along the speckled brown feather. Turkey, I guessed. I’d never thought to ask her when she was around.

  I ripped down five brightly colored handbills from my walls and knelt on the floor again, tearing them into rough shapes. Triangles, squares, and jagged lightning bolts in yellow, red, and orange. I put them flat on the floor, then pulled the jar labeled holy water out and uncorked it. Dipping the quill into the water, I drew a circle in the palm of my left hand. I didn’t push hard enough to cut. Not yet.

  Mom and I had played this game a hundred times when I was small. She drew a circle on my hand with the water, then cut her finger and used blood to etch a seven-pointed star inside the circle. It tickled, and I always laughed but never tugged my hand away. Mom would kiss each of my fingers and tell me I was strong. Then she’d prick my palm quickly. A drop of my blood welled to mingle with hers, and my whole body was warm and tingling. She pressed her finger into the blood and anointed each of the paper shapes with a bloody fingerprint. Together, we whispered, “Paper shapes fly free, dance high, watch over me,” in a continuous round.