The Blood Keeper

by Tessa Gratton

  “Now, Lukas,” I said, and he rolled down and onto his back. I moved with him, stretching the tendrils and slamming their ends into the ground. Into the earth.

  The rune of stalwart action flared into a red so brilliant I winced away, wishing I could throw off the blood-sight glasses.

  Lukas groaned, and I whispered his name, and I yelled a blessing to the earth, a song to link them together. He sang it with me, tuneless and hard, and the wind tore over us.

  The glare of magic faded.

  I shivered and said, “So it is done, and Lukas is familiar to the blood land.”

  Overhead, thunder cracked. Rain poured down and I lifted my head, tossing aside the blood-sight glasses. Warm water slipped down my face, streaming down my neck and plastering my clothes to me.

  Donna joined us, and we helped Lukas sit. He hugged me, and leaned in to Donna. The three of us remained, exhausted, in the open yard as the rain washed us pure, the sky blessing our magic.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  We stole kisses every chance we could, but when Gabriel joined us on our walks or after supper for hot chocolate by the fire, we hid the truth of the thing blossoming between us. For my part, I reveled in the secret and wasn’t ready to share it with him. I expected he would be sarcastic or hurtful, and perhaps even jealous. I never knew why you were as willing to keep secrets.

  To my mind, all three of us were happy. With each other, with our home, with all the possibilities of the future.

  And then an old paramour of Gabriel’s called him to Washington late that winter. He enjoyed making a nuisance of himself to the FBI so well that he chose to stay for a bit of time. You and I were alone and free to be in love.

  Gabriel sent us a curling love letter of his own tucked into the pages of that novel, 1984. And every few days another letter arrived, filled with adventures and protests. We both read them, but I dismissed the events he discussed as if they had no effect on me. What did I care for Communists or South Korea or earthquakes in Ecuador? Neither you nor I had been reading the newspapers or magazines much, because it had always been he who’d bothered to purchase such things when we ran errands in town. For us, the land was a sanctuary apart from politics and civilization.

  It was heaven.

  THIRTY-NINE

  WILL

  Thanks to a particularly intense nightmare that woke me up yelling and the low-grade fever that came with it, Mom freaked out. She let me go to school after I argued for about ten minutes that I had reviews for finals next week, that I obviously wasn’t contagious since nobody else in the family was sick, and managed to get Dad on my side with a well-placed line about soldiering through hardship for success. But the price was leaving two hours early to see a doctor.

  At lunch I was so nauseated I only managed to choke down the to-go mug of Mab’s tea I’d thought to brew this morning. Cold, it tasted vaguely like dirt. Matt slid in next to me on the bench. He thumped down his giant paper bag of food. “You on some weird power diet?” he asked, jerking his chin at my tea. “Or just charging up?”

  “It’s tea. My stomach hurts.”

  “Try some ginger,” said Shanti as she and Lacey joined us.

  “Where’s he gonna get ginger in the cafeteria?” Matt asked. He paired it with a smile and a quick kiss on her cheek.

  From across the table, Lacey pointed at me with her fork. “I like to suck on mint when I don’t feel good.”

  “That’s what Dylan said about you,” put in Austin as he sat on my other side, smirking.

  “Ugh.” Shanti rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “Besides,” Lacey said lightly, “Dylan doesn’t taste that good.”

  It even got a laugh out of me. For a moment I forgot to pay attention to where I was looking. Lacey frowned and leaned toward me so that her gold crucifix tapped against the table. “What’s wrong with your eye?” she asked.

  I looked down, winced. “Nothing. It’s just … ah.” I shrugged. Glanced around at the curious faces. “I was roughing around with Ben and he accidentally threw me into the fence. This is just some, uh, hemorrhage from the blunt force trauma.”

  Thank God for online medical diagnosis. Of course, it had also suggested that a change in eye coloration could be a tumor. I wasn’t looking forward to the doctor’s appointment and whatever they’d tell Mom. The situation was pretty messed up when you started hoping you were cursed by blood magic.

  “Jesus.” Matt offered me half his sandwich. It was as big as his hand. “You should eat some real food.”

  “Yeah, thanks, but no.” I could barely choke down the simple tea.

  Austin shoved his shoulder into mine. “Matt says you’re missing practice because you stayed out all night with some girl.”

  “That isn’t what I—” Matt leaned around behind me and punched Austin’s arm.

  “Mab,” I said. She wasn’t some girl.

  Shanti lifted her dark eyebrows so high. “Mab Prowd, who kidnapped you from the farmers’ market?”

  I nodded.

  One of her eyebrows stayed up. The other lowered. “The one whose family is some hippie cult out on the prairie? Who doesn’t come to school because they don’t believe in traditional education?”

  I didn’t know that was the reason for sure, but I nodded again.

  Shanti’s lips pursed, and I got the distinct impression I was being judged. I focused on my tea. How did Matt kiss a girl who could pin you down like that?

  A quick glance up showed her looking over at the lunch line, where Holly was paying with her punch card. But to my surprise, Shanti said, “Well then. You should introduce her sometime. Officially.” Her voice was nice. Sharp, but nice.

  “Sure,” I said. At her side, Lacey seemed as surprised as me.

  Matt swung an arm around Shanti and tugged her right up against him. “That’s my girl.”

  “Your girl?” she said coolly.

  “My woman,” he corrected. Her face broke into a smile. She kissed him full on the mouth. We all looked away. Austin muttered something unflattering, Lacey dug into her salad, I managed to finish the tea.

  And sitting in the cafeteria while my friends were just being my friends, I started tipping in favor of all Mab’s magic being totally insane. I had some crazy disease, and was only believing her because she was new. Exciting. Because I wanted to kiss her. And because she said she could help me.

  Suddenly I couldn’t wait for the doctor’s appointment. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to know what was wrong or be totally clueless.

  MAB

  Lukas slept through the night without any dreams, and woke refreshed enough to join us for a hearty breakfast. Even Donna seemed cheerful after aiding us with such a powerful spell. Magic sparked inside me so bright and ready, I wanted to drive out and pick up Will first thing, to bring him here regardless of his being grounded and cleanse the curse out of his blood.

  But he surely had school, and I’d been neglecting my own schoolwork long enough. To show Lukas a good example, I spread out with a pile of algebra worksheets at the kitchen table for a few hours. They weren’t my favorite, but solving for missing numbers was remarkably like putting together patterns of magic, and so I didn’t despise it, either.

  By early afternoon, I decided I’d waited long enough, and gathered up all the things I’d need for the cleansing into a woven bag. I’d have preferred the blood ground for this, but because of the rains last night, the world remained damp and muddy. And so I left everything tucked away and ready in the barn, then returned to the Pink House for the car so that I might go claim Will from his imprisonment.

  Sunlight smeared when I emerged from the shade, and Donna waved from the edge of the yard. She had on thick gloves and was raking old leaves out of a garden box. Lukas crouched next to a tent of sticks, and when he saw me he jumped to his feet. “Hey, Mab.”

  “Lukas.” The skin under his eyes was a little hollow, but he didn’t move at all like he was still in pain. I smil
ed, thrilled that redrawing the lines of magic from the black candle rune seemed to have helped so well.

  He stuck his hands into his pockets suddenly. “Will you start the fire for me?”

  I glanced past him to his tent of sticks, then to Donna, who raised her eyebrows noncommittally. Sighing very gently, because I knew he feared to try his magic and feared fire even more, I said, “Lukas, there are matches in the kitchen, next to the silverware drawer.”

  His hands fisted in his pockets, but he nodded, then raced barefoot over the grass and pounded up the porch.

  Donna made her way to me, boots brushing loudly through the tall grass. When she reached me, she put her hands on my cheeks and said very seriously, “You be gentle with that young man today, Mab.”

  “I am.” I frowned, realizing she meant Will and not Lukas.

  She shook my head very slightly. “I mean it. He isn’t part of this, and his newness reeks off him like he was a fresh head of garlic.”

  “He’s strong.”

  “I believe you, but he’s also not you. He isn’t somebody who lives and breathes magic, little queen. He’s from out there—from the rest of the world.”

  I pulled away from her. “I know it, Donna.”

  “It’s scary stuff.”

  “Will isn’t afraid.” Anger coiled in the palms of my hands, and I curled my fingers up into loose fists in order that nothing spilled out.

  “Perhaps he should be, a little.”

  “Because you always are.” I tightened my fists and then let go, wiping my palms against my dress and staring into Donna’s eyes.

  Her lashes fluttered, but she never looked away. “I am.”

  Guilty, and thinking of her magic last night, I touched her wrist, just at the end of her sleeve. “I know you have reason. But I don’t. We don’t.”

  Donna smiled. “Sure you do, you just make different choices about it.”

  WILL

  Dr. Able was Mom’s primary care doctor, so she swung right in. Chatted up all the nurses and told me not to slouch in the waiting room chair. I flipped through a Highlights magazine and tried not to rub my chest. Mom didn’t even know about the bruise.

  I got called back and Mom, thank God, stayed behind.

  Dr. Able seemed used to guys like me who didn’t really want to be there. He was in his fifties, with rimless glasses and a tiny green frog sticker randomly stuck to the shoulder of his lab coat. He kept his smile on and didn’t make me talk other than to tell him my symptoms. I stuck to the physical, focused on the frog sticker.

  We did the usual regimen: height, weight, temperature, blood pressure. Turned out my vitals were just fine. He wasn’t happy about the bruise, but since it didn’t hurt, hadn’t even been an open wound, and wasn’t hot to the touch, he said we’d only have to keep an eye on it. He prescribed some antibiotics in case it was cellulitis. Told me to keep hydrated. Drew some blood. Promised if it didn’t get better in a couple of days we’d do an X-ray and explore other options. If I got another fever or the bruising started to get any infection streaks, I should come back in. Probably, I’d gotten food poisoning or a fast virus and the bruise was unrelated to the fever and vomiting, since it was three days later and I’d been mostly fine since. I joked about getting it from the farmers’ market.

  My eyes, that was something he recommended I go to a specialist about. Could be trauma, like I’d told Matt, could be a genetic thing. Since my vision wasn’t affected, it could be nothing, but the headaches meant it could be worse. I asked if I should be worried, and he said he didn’t think so. I didn’t really believe him.

  He explained everything again to Mom, and she frowned at me like she was disappointed I hadn’t told her about the bruise. She asked for his penlight so that she could see the red in my eyes. “Oh, Will,” she said, her thumb on my cheek.

  On the way home, Mom took a hand off the wheel and skimmed her fingers through my hair. “I’m worried about you, baby boy.”

  “I promise I’m okay, Mom.” I looked over at her. In profile, she seemed exactly how she’d always been. Proud. Pretty. Gentle. Like the last year hadn’t happened, and she’d never been delicate enough to need therapy. Her hair was in a simple ponytail, with fancy clips holding shorter strands off her face.

  Mom offered me a lipstick smile. She’d rarely worn makeup until recently. To hide the sadness, I thought. She said, “I know. Why don’t I drop you at home and go pick up this prescription and some of that fried chicken you like so much? Dad should already be there.”

  “Sure.” I gave her a smile back, then leaned my head against the window. My head was aching a bit, behind my eyes. I didn’t want to tell her, though. I just needed water and ibuprofen.

  And the second we got home, I was calling Mab. If I had to, I’d sneak out tonight, but we were doing her cleansing. No more delays. I had to, either so all this would clear up and Mom could stop worrying, or so I’d know it was … something else.

  But when we arrived and I dashed upstairs to my bedroom for some privacy, there was no answer.

  The phone at her place rang and rang. Apparently they didn’t even have an answering machine.

  I hung up and tried again. Same result.

  The headache behind my eyes burned. I squeezed them shut and put my hands flat against the wall. Taking long breaths, I did a few push-ups. Slow and measured. After about twenty, I just leaned my forehead in. The wall was cool. What was I gonna do? I guessed just keep trying. Maybe go up there tonight anyway, if I could get away.

  Outside my window, I heard a car door slam. Probably Mom leaving for my prescription. I spun around and dug my iPod out of my backpack. Jammed the earbuds in and hit play.

  Two minutes later I was sitting at my desk with my physics textbook out. At least I could study. My pen tapped against the paper, though, in time with the hard music beat. I immediately started doodling next to a picture of Max Planck.

  The iPod was set loud enough I didn’t hear Ben knock or open the bedroom door. He had to shove my shoulder and tug one of the earbuds out. It popped away, and his voice interrupted my music with “—is here.”

  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.”