The Blood Keeper

by Tessa Gratton

  Tilting his head around, he said, “Who’s there?” Eli and Winchester gave us a knowing smile.

  “Banana.”

  Will’s eyes creased as he laughed, shaking his head, too. “Please, God, don’t remind me of that.”

  I held out my hand. “Excuse us, friends,” I said. “I have business with Will Sanger.”

  WILL

  Everything about the last two weeks had been slow. Mom and Dad had forgiven us for our impromptu road trip. Probably because Ben covered for us with seamless lies. I’d passed all my finals—barely. And I snuck Havoc and Valkyrie into my bedroom every night. Set an alarm to get them out before Mom woke up in the morning.

  Dad and I had a long discussion about the practicalities of me taking some time off before “furthering my education,” but I had a year to convince him before I graduated. It didn’t seem hopeless. Especially now that Ben was on my side. He argued that when it came down to it, I’d make the right choices. That Dad should trust me.

  To make up for stressing Mom out, I looked up lavish recipes on the Internet that we spent hours on together in the kitchen. Seeing Mom and Dad relaxed after a great meal with smiles on their faces and their hands woven together when I came out of the kitchen with an experimental zucchini cake made life worth living.

  We’d gotten the invitation in the mail just a couple of days ago. A little blue envelope with a postcard inside of a field of sunflowers. It said, KANSAS GOLD. On the back was a short message: Please join us for a barbecue at five p.m. on the twenty-first, a going-away party for Silla and Nick. All family welcome!—The Prowd family.

  I showed it to Mom, who pursed her lips and stared at me thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “I’ll speak with your dad about it.” Mab took me down through the forest, past the wide field of sunflowers, and to her silo again.

  In the sunset, the tiles glared dark red and orange, like a pillar of fire. She stood before it, facing me, and her dress made it look like she’d walked out of that fire, all crackling with energy.

  I didn’t know what to say. I could hardly breathe. “Come up with me?” she whispered.

  I nodded, and Mab tucked that red dress up around her thighs to climb. If I’d had any doubts I was firmly back in my body again, they flat-out disappeared as I watched her move gracefully, dangerously, higher.

  When she reached the top of her tower, she leaned back over and beckoned me. “Aren’t you coming, Will?” Her hair caught fire, and she was the sun. It flashed as the real sun sank lower, casting shocking color toward us from the west.

  I gripped the ladder and climbed to her, head craned back, unable to take my eyes off hers. She took my hands as I arrived, and pulled me over and into her arms. Vertigo swept the hills into a spin, but I held on to Mab and focused on her. She smiled and started to talk, but I stopped her with a kiss. She tasted like the cherry dumplings someone had brought to the party: sugar and cinnamon, with a burst of hot red fruit at the edges.

  Mab laughed. She wrapped her arms around my neck and lifted up off the ground. I closed my eyes, hugged her so hard her spine cracked. She squeaked, and I started to let her down, but she shook her head and gripped tighter. “Not yet,” she whispered.

  I held on to her, eyes shut, breathing through the scratchy curls that swarmed around my face. They’d picked up the smell of the grill, all smoky and delicious. I could feel her warmth through her thin dress, and had the urge to turn her around and move her hair. To kiss her where the black candle rune had been. Where I’d carved into her skin.

  “I have something to show you,” she said, gently pushing away.

  MAB

  I’d found the stack of papers in Arthur’s room, when I’d gone through to tidy everything Gabriel had pulled apart. It had dropped behind his bedside table, the little pile tied together with a yellow ribbon. Written in Granny’s hand.

  This is a love letter, it began. And a confession.

  Sitting in the center of Arthur’s room, I’d read straight through the account, then clasped it to my chest and ran here to my silo, to hide it from the world. All the world except for Will.

  I lifted it out of the hollow I’d created between two of the redbud roots, unbound the ribbon, and offered it to him. He knelt with his back against the rim of the silo, shuffling through the papers. Slowly, his eyes widened, and I found myself searching for little flecks of red. But there were none to be found.

  He didn’t speak as he read, didn’t move as the sun set and he drew the letter closer to his face in order to see. I wished I could light a fire in the palm of my hand.

  All around us the breeze blew, making music from the chimes and bells in my tree.

  I closed my eyes and recalled the final page of the letter, which I came up here to read again and again over the past few days, until it had seared into my imagination.

  You always wondered why I didn’t let you near the roses. Why I kept the little ones away, why nobody could help me tend them until Donna came with her hard scars, keeping magic out of her skin.

  Because I dream of him, Arthur. He comes into my dreams and I don’t know if he’s still alive somewhere under those roses or if I’m imagining it because of all this guilt piled up. When you went away for any amount of time, I used to dig into the flowers and try to find his bones. But the earth had swallowed them whole.

  And you always wondered why I stopped using my magic. It wasn’t that I stopped, but that I channeled all of it into keeping him bound. Keeping Gabriel prisoner in those thorns. I had none left to spare. And yet I did not miss it at all. I had you. I had our beautiful family.

  Now I am dying, and I cannot go to God with this in my heart alone. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can look back at our years together and agree I did the right thing, that I could only defend myself and live.

  And I hope that someday when you grow weary of your long life, that you will come to me, and perhaps he’ll be waiting, too. All three of us will have a chance again, to laugh and dance together.

  I love you.

  WILL

  Evelyn Sonnenschein’s last words echoed in my thoughts as I put the papers down and looked up at Mab. She was on her knees before me. Hands clasped. Big blue eyes worried. And sad.

  Before I could change my mind, I got up. I moved around behind her and crouched. Pushing aside her mass of hair, I slid a finger under one of her shoulder straps and pulled it off. Mab breathed quickly, and I slipped the back of her red dress down.

  Gripping her around the ribs, I leaned in and put my lips against her skin where the rune had been. I closed my eyes and listened, breathed against her as gently as I could. She wrapped her arms around her stomach so her fingers could brush mine. And she sighed.

  There it was. Her heart.

  Just under my mouth.

  I turned my head to the side and put my ear where my lips had been. I didn’t move as I listened to her blood pumping, to her lungs whispering like the wind through leaves. Then I pulled her back into my arms, hugging her. The place where the black candle rune had been pressed up against my chest.

  Mab said, “I think it’s time to say goodbye.”

  Shock turned me cold. I jerked. “What?” I tightened my arms around her.

  She twisted enough to smile quietly. “I didn’t mean goodbye to me.”

  I let go. Mab crawled back to the base of the tree and lifted a basket of ribbons and beads and slim black crow feathers. Her expression softened, turned almost shy, and she offered me the basket. “They’re charms for my redbud tree. Will you help me hang them?”

  My throat tightened. I nodded at Mab, and she drew one feather free of the others. Blue ribbons and little silver bells dangled from it, catching the very last rays of daylight.

  She showed me how to tie it on, and together we filled her tree with wings.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank the following people, who made The Blood Keeper possible:

  My partner, Natalie Parker, for every d
ay, for pretending to love my crazy.

  My early readers: Maggie Stiefvater and Brenna Yovanoff, for holding me to my best and being mean. Myra McEntire and Robin Murphy, for helping me to make it stand alone.

  Laura Rennert, for working on Sundays.

  Suzy Capozzi, for saying there should be more kissing and letting me rewrite it all.

  All the copy editors, library and marketing gurus, publicity whizzes, and sales geniuses at Random House, especially Jocelyn Lange and the subrights team, for selling the book in eight territories before I’d even started writing it. No pressure! And Nicole de las Heras, for a cover I can’t look away from.

  Robin McKinley, for writing about roses and beasts and transformations. Pieces of this book have been in my head since I was ten years old.

  Melinda Harthcock, for helping me understand what turning into crows might do to a boy’s dreams.

  My family: Dad, for reminding me that Marines are not soldiers and soldiers are not sailors, and for being my hero. Mom, for the T-shirts, and for being like Evie on the outside but loving as fiercely as Josephine. Sean and Travis, for making sibling rivalry a thing I write about but don’t really understand. And Adam, for being my proof that war can break you, but you can heal.

  The members of the U.S. military—all of you I know and love, and all of you I’ve never met and never will. Thank you for being brave.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TESSA GRATTON has wanted to be a paleontologist or a wizard since she was seven. Alas, she turned out to be too impatient to hunt dinosaurs, but is still searching for someone to teach her magic. After traveling the world with her military family, Tessa acquired a BA (and the important parts of an MA) in gender studies, then settled down in Kansas with her partner, her cats, and her mutant dog. She spends her days staring at the sky and telling stories about magic. This is her second novel. Visit her online at tessagratton.com.