Blood and Salt

by Kim Liggett

  I dropped to the hardwood floor, feeling cold and empty. For a moment, I still believed I was Katia, trapped in that cell, Coronado’s shark eyes boring into me.

  I sprang to my feet, my head pounding like a tribal drum. I staggered around the library searching for her, but found no one. Had she really been here? Or was it just another vision, like seeing the dead girl?

  My hand, I remembered. I studied my palm, but there was no mark, not even a hint of blood. I cupped my hands over my mouth, trying not to scream. Her scent was all around me—inside of me—both repulsive and intoxicating, like the narcotic scent of undiluted tuberose—utterly carnal—buttery sweet.

  I pressed my hands against the bandage on my chest. Something must’ve gone wrong with the last protection mark. Instead of weakening the visions, it seemed to have made them stronger. Is this what it felt like to be a conduit?

  I snatched my bag and ran into the courtyard to find the sky had darkened, everyone gone; the school gate was already locked. Somehow the entire day had passed me by.

  Without another thought, I began to scale the stone wall next to the gate. I’d never climbed a wall before, but my fingers found the grooves in the rock easily, as if I were born to it. I could smell the ancient layers of oxygen and minerals in the stone, even the lake where the clay that formed the mortar had come from.

  Something was happening to me.

  Crouched on top of the wall, I jumped down to the sidewalk, scaring the crap out of some poor lady walking her dog, then took off running toward home. I ran until every thought in my head was snuffed out by the sound of my own heartbeat. Until I knew I was still here. That I was still me.

  6

  GOLDEN

  AS SOON AS the elevator door opened to our dimmed apartment, I knew something was off. Usually, at this hour, Mom would be flitting around the kitchen, cooking dinner. Rhys would be camped out on the sofa doing homework, looking thoroughly disgruntled. Tonight, the apartment felt barren, with an odd musky scent in the air.

  “Rhys?” I ran to my brother’s room to find his bed perfectly made—nothing out of place. My mother’s room looked much the same.

  I glanced at the clock on her nightstand and my heart stuttered. I’d been MIA for over ten hours now. They were probably worried sick about me.

  My phone. I ran back to the living room, frantically digging through my bag. As soon as I turned it on, it vibrated. I had messages.

  My hands trembled as I dialed voice mail.

  “Ashlyn”—my mother’s voice was low and urgent, making my hair stand on end—“the time has come for you to let me go, but I will never truly be gone. I will always be a part of you.” The way her voice wavered nearly gutted me. “On the summer solstice, your father and I will walk the corn for the last time. We’ve been chosen as Katia’s and Alonso’s vessels. This is my fate.” She let out a short ragged breath. “Take care of your brother, as he will take care of you. I didn’t leave you unprotected. You’ll know wh—” A horrible screeching noise interrupted her, cutting off the call.

  “Mom?” I whispered into the receiver as the phone slipped out of my sweaty hands, crashing to the hardwood floor. If she’d gone back to Quivira, where was Rhys? Fighting back the tears, I slumped to the ground trying to piece my phone back together, when I caught a glimpse of a familiar figure near the terrace.

  I crawled toward it. Staring back at me was the dead girl, the black silk ribbon billowing from her neck. Reaching out for her, my hand grazed the glass, and it dawned on me. I was looking at my own reflection.

  Cautiously, I reached up to my throat and felt the shock of silk.

  I untied the bow and slipped it from my neck. Although the long black strand looked refined and delicate, it had a significant weight to it, a heft of durability. This was proof that she was real, that it really happened, but as I studied the palm of my hand where the wound should’ve been, I felt crazy all over again. The ribbon seemed to coil around my fingers like it belonged there.

  What the hell’s happening to me?

  I crammed the black strand into my pocket and went to the kitchen to splash cold water on my face.

  A glint of gold caught my attention. There on the kitchen table lay an open stainless-steel briefcase, filled to the brim with gold ingots nestled between stacks of cash and a few documents.

  I picked up one of the small gold bricks, and a strange vertigo gripped me. A tingling sensation pulsed beneath the surface of my skin. The ingot morphed into the golden blade that Katia had used to cut my hand. “Oh God.” I tried to drop it, pry my fingers loose, but I only seemed to clasp it tighter.

  A wave rose up inside of me. I struggled to hang on to the present, but I could feel the past crushing me from the inside out.

  • • •

  As I lead the Larkin girl and Mendoza boy through the corn to the sacred circle, I sense their bond . . . their connection. They’re deeply in love. The girl is beautiful, with long chestnut hair, eyes like shaded moss. The boy has Alonso’s handsome fine-boned features and lean build. The girl holds out her hand to me—the promise of freedom trembling in her veins. I use my golden blade to slice through her skin and then my own. Our palms meet. I feel her life unfold in my bloodstream like a poem. Every dream she’s ever had, every fear she’s ever known. Just when I begin to give up hope, a tingling warmth explodes deep inside of me, deeper than anything I’ve ever felt before.

  Tears spring to my eyes as I embrace her. “Nina,” I whisper. “A vessel at last.”

  • • •

  The memory receded, leaving me in confusion and despair.

  My hands shook as I dropped the gold ingot to the table.

  The young girl from the vision was my mother, Nina. I’d never felt her presence so intensely, so intimately. And the boy must’ve been my father, Thomas. The resemblance to Rhys was undeniable.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant to be a vessel, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

  A faint fluttering, scraping sound came from my mother’s studio. Staring up the wrought-iron spiral staircase, a feeling of dread settled in the pit of my stomach. I crept up the stairs and opened the steel door. The dank smell of mold and perfume overwhelmed me. But it went deeper than that. Beneath the mandarin-inspired perfume was the metallic scent of the soil in which the fruit had grown. The salt breeze seemed to wrap around the sweetness of the pulp. I could even smell the sweat that came from the workers who harvested them. Burrowed deeper was the sinister gamy odor of rot and algae.

  My nose was never this good before. My mother always told me the Larkin women had exceptional olfactory skills—it must be another side effect of being a conduit.

  I turned on the lights and a shuddering breath escaped my lips.

  The studio was filled with black birds. At least twenty of them—perched on shelves, chairs, tables—all staring at me unflinchingly. It wasn’t just the sheer number that gave them a menacing presence. With their muscular bodies, daggerish beaks, oily black feathers and sharp talons that scraped against the worn wood of my mother’s apothecary shelves, I had the distinct feeling they were studying me . . . waiting for something.

  I wondered if they were real or if this was another vision, but when a bird swooped down from the open skylight, its stiff wing scraped against my shoulder blade, making me gasp.

  A flash of movement beneath my mother’s work desk caught my attention.

  “Who’s there?” I called.

  “Ash, is that you?” my brother’s voice answered.

  “Thank God.” I pressed my hands against my stomach.

  Rhys hated birds. I knew he’d never make it out of here on his own. “I’m coming to get you.”

  I kept my eyes on the desk, but I felt them watching me as I passed.

  “Where have you been?” Rhys tried to get out from under the desk, but his limbs were
folded in awkwardly.

  “I’m sorry.” I pulled him to his feet.

  “I tried to call you.” He held on to my arms. “I tried to find you at school. I was completely freaking out, and then I came up here to find Mom and all these—”

  A shrill cry pierced the atmosphere, making my brother flinch.

  I looked around and saw that the number of birds had multiplied. There were at least fifty of them now, all over the studio . . . watching us . . . waiting . . .

  “They’re just birds,” I said, trying to keep my voice as even as possible, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird my mom got this morning when the crow passed overhead. We saw another one at school . . . and now this. It had to mean something.

  Rhys’s bony elbow accidentally knocked over a bottle of ambergris oil, which shattered against the terra-cotta floor. The sharp sound agitated the birds—eyes darting, wings flapping, the grating sound of claws digging into wood and glass. One of the flapping birds took flight, swooping behind us. Rhys and I ran for the door. As I slammed it shut, crows bashed against it, sharp beaks crashing into metal, followed by a series of dull thuds as they dropped to the ground.

  Bright red blood seeped beneath the door.

  Rhys backed into the banister, a sheen of sweat covering his sallow face. “That could’ve been our skulls.”

  I knew he was right, but I needed to keep him calm. “Birds fly into windows all the time,” I said as I pulled him down the stairs. “We have bigger problems right now.”

  “Bigger that that?” He pointed toward the studio. “We need to call the police, or animal control, or something.”

  “We need to pack,” I said as I went into Rhys’s room and took a duffel bag from his closet, tossing it onto his bed.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “We’re going to meet her.” I snatched a pair of tennis shoes from under his bed.

  “Fine, but I’m calling the police first.” Rhys took his phone from the blazer hanging behind his door.

  “And how would we explain all this?” I dropped the shoes and pried the phone out of his sweaty hands, putting it in my pocket. “Um . . . hi, our mom ran off to be a vessel for a cult. Oh, and by the way, she has a secret lab full of demonic crows?”

  “See!” Rhys shouted. “You just admitted it . . . they are demonic.”

  “We can’t call anyone. We’re seventeen.” I pulled a stack of perfectly folded shirts from his drawer and shoved them into his arms. “You want social services to get involved? Then we’ll never get her back.”

  I heard him ranting to himself as I went into my room and started digging through the clothes that littered my floor.

  After a few minutes, Rhys appeared in my doorway, duffel slung over his shoulder. “Wait . . . did you say ran off to be a vessel for a cult?”

  I pretended not to hear him as I jammed random articles of clothing into an old backpack.

  “Ash!” He took a bold step into my room, nearly tripping over my lacrosse stick. “You need to tell me what’s going on.”

  “Mom.” I zipped my backpack. “Ran off to Quivira.”

  “How . . . how do you know?” His breath hitched in his throat.

  “She called me.” I pushed past him into the kitchen.

  “What?” He ran after me. “What did she say?”

  I rummaged through the junk drawer for the car keys. “She said she’s going back to Quivira with Thomas so they can become Katia’s and Alonso’s vessels.”

  “Perfect.” Rhys let out a burst of nervous air. “Our mother’s completely lost her mind. Maybe we just need to call the psych ward.”

  “And she left something for us.” I nodded toward the open briefcase on the table.

  With shaking hands, Rhys looked through the documents resting on top of the cash and gold. “Last Will and Testament, the deed to the apartment, our passports?” He sank down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “She’s not planning on coming back,” he whispered.

  I felt a stab of fear as I prepared to tell him more about what happened today.

  “The dead girl. I saw her again at the library . . . she looked just like me . . . and she wasn’t alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I stared him straight in the eyes. “I met Katia.”

  He lowered his chin, taking in a deep breath through his nose. “Katia, as in our five-hundred-year-old ancestor, Katia?”

  “She talked to me. She cut me,” I said, rubbing my palm.

  He leaned forward with his head in his hands, looking like he was going to pass out.

  “No. It’s not like that. Look . . .” I sat next to him and held out my palm. “There’s nothing there. I must’ve blacked out or something.”

  As Rhys reached out to touch my hand, an icy current ran from my fingertips all the way up my wrist, almost as if my blood leapt away from his touch. I pulled my hand back and the feeling subsided.

  He crossed his arms. “So it was some kind of hallucination?”

  “I think so.” But when I put my hand into my pocket, I felt the ribbon resting there. I wanted to show it to him; I wanted to tell him about the memory of Mom and Thomas, but I wasn’t quite ready to share any of that yet. And I was pretty sure Rhys wasn’t ready to hear it.

  My brother skimmed his hand over the gold and cash. “Do you think she stole this?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe we can use it as a bargaining chip to get her back from Quivira.”

  His jaw dropped. “Quivira? Is that where you think we’re going? Have you lost your mind? We need to call the police or the FBI—we can’t handle this by ourselves.”

  “If we call the cops and this is stolen property—Mom will go to jail.” I forced myself to sit up straight. “We can do this. We have to try.”

  He leapt from the chair and started pacing the kitchen. “You think we’re just going to be able to waltz in there and take what Katia needs to break her blood bond to Coronado?”

  I stood, blocking his path. “I thought you didn’t believe in any of that?”

  “I don’t.” He swallowed hard. “But they do. It’s a cult. They’re dangerous.”

  “Katia told me we’d be welcome.” My eyes veered toward the chandelier as I thought of the dead girl. “That we’d be protected there.”

  “Oh, okay,” Rhys snapped. “I guess it’s fine because you heard it in your imagination.” He smoothed his hair away from his face and took a deep breath. “Even if we decide to get her, which I’m not saying we’re going to do, you think we can just put Quivira in the GPS, and it’ll take us there?”

  I pulled his phone from my pocket and typed in—Quivira, Kansas.

  “Eighteen hours and thirty-four minutes,” the distinctly British female computer voice replied.

  “Let me see that.” He snatched it back from me. “Look . . .” Rhys brought up an aerial photo. “It’s in the middle of nowhere—it’s just a bunch of farmland.”

  “Mom talked about the corn. This has to be it.”

  His breathing became heavy as he studied the photo.

  “Today’s June fifteenth,” I said. “There are six days until the summer solstice—until she thinks she’s going to walk the corn with Thomas so they can become vessels.”

  “See . . . that’s just crazy.” Rhys shook his head in disbelief and started pacing again. “Even if we found Quivira, what would we say to these people?”

  “We’re Larkins. If it’s anything like Mom said, we tell them we’ve come home. Gain their trust. Talk some sense into her, and get the hell out of there. They can pick a different vessel.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  “Maybe we can buy her freedom. Cults need money, too.” I had cautiously picked up the gold brick I’d dropped earlier to place it back in the briefcase when I felt something embedded o
n the back of the ingot. I turned it over to find the circle with the dot in the center—the same mark I received this morning.

  I ran my hand over the bandage near my collarbone. Either I was going crazy, like Mom, or I was really a conduit. And what did that even mean? She didn’t prepare me for this.

  I shut the briefcase, securing the latches.

  My brother’s arms were prickled with goose bumps. “I have a terrible feeling about this.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it,” I said as I touched the imaginary scar on my hand, “but I know we have to go there ourselves. It’s the only way to save her.”

  But it went deeper than that. Somehow I knew I needed saving, too.

  • • •

  I said my silent good-byes to the city as we crossed the George Washington Bridge in my mother’s SUV.

  Armed with enough cash and gold to float a small country, we were headed to Quivira.

  I watched my brother drift off into an uneasy sleep, his breath fogging up the side passenger window. Even though he was sitting right next to me, I’d never felt so alone.

  Pulling the black silk ribbon from my pocket, I draped it around my throat.

  7

  EVOLUTION

  THE SUN ROSE, flooding the car with hazy lemon light. I knew it was stupid, but it felt like nothing bad could happen to us as long as the sun was shining.

  As the light skimmed my brother’s face, he jerked awake as if he’d just come out of a nightmare. Raking his fingers through his hair, he let out a deep sigh. “Pennsylvania?” he asked as we passed a horse-drawn buggy with bright orange reflective triangles on the back. Inside the buggy, kids about our age stared back at us with the same kind of alien fascination our faces must’ve held.

  “Ohio.”

  “I’m sorry.” He stretched out his legs. “How long was I out?”

  “Six hours.”

  “I’ve got the next shift.”

  “We need gas, again,” I said as I pulled off the highway.

  Up ahead stood an old white house with a sweeping front porch that had been converted into a gas station/bait shop. The paint was peeling off in sheets, and it seemed like one stiff breeze could blow the whole thing to smithereens.