Blood and Salt

by Kim Liggett

  “Ash, you need to open this door, now.”

  “Just a minute.” I clamored out of the tub to face the full-length mirror.

  I ran my hands over my throat. My heart thrummed like a sick bird in my hollow chest. He’d severed my jugular. I’d felt myself bleeding out, but there was nothing there. It wasn’t just my throat that was left unmarred—there were no marks or blemishes on my entire body. Even the birthmark under my right arm had vanished. Every bit of me . . . erased.

  I racked my brain for answers, but none of this made sense. And then it occurred to me—what if none of this was really happening—what if it was all in my head? Or a vision?

  I held my head in my hands, pressing my skull as if I could squeeze out the craziness, but it only seemed to make things worse. I threw on a pair of shorts and a blouse that were hanging from the drying rack. I glanced at myself in the mirror, my hair wild, my eyes pinned with shock—I looked just like Marie on the night she died.

  I burst out of the bathroom, nearly knocking my brother off his feet. “I need to be alone,” I said as I ran up the stairs and out the front door.

  Longing for fresh air, I took in a deep breath, but the smell of burning hair and flesh filled my lungs. I couldn’t help thinking maybe Henry was the lucky one.

  As promised, Dane was waiting for me at the edge of the corn.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I said as I ran into his arms. But as soon as my feet hit the soil, I felt the memories rising up inside of me. I felt myself falling. I didn’t have the strength to fight anymore. I dove into the sickness with an almost religious fervor, letting the memories infect every cell in my body.

  It felt as if everything were leading me to this moment.

  The wave overtook me in one fell swoop . . . and I was gone.

  39

  BLUE

  MARIE TAKES MY HAND as we step through the corn. I feel the warmth of her skin against mine, like she’s just been lying in the sun. She looks back at me, a bittersweet smile curling the corners of her downturned mouth.

  I pull out the stone hidden in the folds of my gown, and unravel the black silk ribbon.

  Hearing the stalks rustling, I turn, thinking it’s Coronado walking toward me, but it’s not Coronado. Something unexpected grabs hold of my heart.

  • • •

  I felt myself splintering away from the memories, until I saw Dane’s face before me.

  As I stood on the threshold of the sacred circle, one foot in, one foot out, Dane stared at me longingly. He opened his mouth to speak—

  “You promised you wouldn’t stop me,” I whispered.

  Dane’s jaw clenched; he had a tortured look on his face.

  I gazed into his eyes for what I feared could be the last time and a pang seized me. I swallowed all of the emotion threatening to take me over. It took nearly all of my strength to walk away from him.

  As he let go of my hand, I stepped inside the circle, where I knew he couldn’t reach me.

  I’d always said Dane’s eyes were so clear I could never tell exactly what color they were—but today, I could see they were blue.

  As soon as the stalks closed in around me, I felt the memories taking hold of me once again, pulling me into the deepest, darkest place.

  • • •

  Marie glances back at me, her eyes glistening in the moonlight. “You found my ribbon.”

  A wave of nausea rips through me, but I swallow the bile burning the back of my throat. “Great deeds require great sacrifice,” I whisper as I slip the ribbon around her throat.

  Coiling the ends of the ribbon around my fist, I pull with all my might and bash her head against the hard earth.

  As I bind her ankles with the corn-husk rope and drag her toward the chasm, she looks up at me, dazed and gasping, with tears streaming down her face. “I thought you loved me.”

  I secure the end of the rope around a metal cleat embedded in the stone at the edge of the chasm and cradle her in my arms. “My sweet girl.” I brush golden hair away from her damp cheek. “You’ve betrayed me. But I’m giving you a second chance. Your blood will be the blood that brings me a vessel. One day, we’ll be together again, as you were once inside of me.”

  “You’re mad.” Marie tries to raise her head, but it’s futile.

  The golden blade throbs in my hand.

  I tighten my grip and brace her against my breast as I slit the palm of her hand.

  Warm blood spills, seeping into the earth, penetrating the vines, worming its way into the deepest roots.

  I kiss the tremulous breath rattling on her lips.

  “A mother’s love is the greatest love of all.” I pull the ribbon from her throat and nudge her body over the edge.

  40

  DESCENT

  I CAME TO, lying in the sacred circle, my face hanging over the edge of the crevice. The feeling of loss so heavy I could hardly lift my head.

  I peered through my disheveled hair to see the weighted rope tied to a metal cleat embedded in the rock ledge.

  I grabbed onto it. The grating sound of the braided cornhusks twisting in my hands, the rough texture against my skin, made me want to scream.

  I pulled and pulled until I reached the end—where a skeleton dangled from the end of the rope. Clasping the bones to my chest, I rocked back and forth. “Marie,” I whispered.

  All this time I thought it was Coronado dragging Marie through the corn. But it had always been Katia. She sacrificed her own daughter to the Dark Spirit in order to bring Alonso back. Marie betrayed her by telling Coronado where he could find them on the summer solstice, but she was just a girl in love. She didn’t understand. Is this what love did to you? Turned you into a victim? Or a monster?

  The stalks rustled on the perimeter of the circle. Panicked, I dropped Marie’s bones into the chasm and crouched, adrenaline blasting, straining to catch a glimpse of what was out there in the corn, when something icy curled around my ankle and yanked me over the edge.

  My limbs flailed wildly as I scrambled for purchase. When I finally made contact with something that felt like vines, I latched on to them with everything I had. My body whipped to a stop, bashing me into the jagged rock. Entwining my legs around my newfound tether, I had started to climb, inching my way toward the surface, when a scattering of rocks sounded beneath me.

  Hoping it was just my imagination, I squeezed my eyes shut, listening closely.

  The rock crumbled so close to me this time, I forgot how to breathe.

  Then something brushed my hair and I freaked. “Who’s there?” I screamed as I frantically swiped the air around me. I lost my grip on the rope and swung backward.

  Thankfully, the root caught my leg, but now I hung upside down, completely inverted—just like Marie.

  I tried not to imagine her pain. How long it must have taken for death to come. She might’ve cried out for days.

  I took in a shuddering breath—the grotesque scent of death was in the air—algae, decay, sour dirt, and a musky odor that seeped into my pores.

  “No more,” I cried into the void.

  I couldn’t take any more of the memories. I couldn’t take another moment of heartache, but this wasn’t a memory or a dream or a hallucination. I felt another presence in the chasm with me, prickling the back of my neck.

  A crunching wet sound followed, like fingernails scraping the side of the rock wall.

  “You are the vessel,” a voice behind me whispered.

  I twisted around, staring into the dark. My mind stuttered as a curtain of gray static threatened to overtake my consciousness.

  “You are the vessel.” The voice came from the right this time. I spun around, frantic to see what was down here with me.

  “Please, stop,” I cried. I felt the light leaving me and the darkness taking hold, stealing away all hope.<
br />
  “You are the vessel.” Like a bullet, the words ricocheted around my brain, until they settled deep inside me.

  Images flashed in the darkness. The memory of Katia cutting into my mother’s palm—a vessel at last. But it wasn’t my mother’s blood she was referring to. It was mine, inside her womb.

  “You are the vessel.”

  The way I healed when Katia cut into me—my knee at the field—my slit throat—the cut at the gas station—and how I healed the deer.

  “You are the vessel.”

  All of the overwhelming feelings, the intrusive memories, had nothing to do with being a conduit. Teresa told me I wasn’t like her. I’d never been a conduit.

  “You are the vessel.”

  Katia had been there since I met her, maybe even before I was born, lurking in my bloodstream. This is how I was tied to Marie. Katia killed her to give me life.

  I unwrapped my leg from the vine and let myself fall into the depths, hoping by some miracle, I would die.

  41

  FEMUR

  I DREAMED I SWAM in the salty sea. Sunlight was streaming through the surface, but I felt no need to come up for air. My lungs didn’t need air anymore. Joyfully, I did a somersault, then dove down, plunging farther into the abyss.

  Below me, my mother drifted in the deep blue with the silk ribbon dancing around her, like the blackest of ink. She’d never looked more beautiful. Her chestnut hair billowed in front of her face, momentarily obscuring my view, and suddenly everything changed. Every good feeling turned to dread—flooding my mind, suffocating my senses.

  The black silk ribbon was squeezing her throat, pinning her to the bottom of the ocean floor— belly bloated, mouth open, dead eyes, her once-beautiful hair knotted like tangled seaweed. A living reef of blood and flesh and bones.

  I turned away, kicking furiously toward the surface, but something tugged at me, pulled me down.

  I glanced back. My dead mother shot toward me like a comet—arms stretched out, fingers reaching. In a panic, I pushed forward, but that feeling of being held in place seized me again. One end of the black silk ribbon snaked out from her neck and wrapped around my wrist, holding me to her like a tether. I tried to break free, but the harder I fought, the tighter it wound. I turned back and, to my horror, found that it wasn’t my mother’s face at all. It was my own, staring back at me with a rictus smile.

  • • •

  I came to, lying at the bottom of the crevice. There was no water, but I was fighting to fill my lungs with air. Something hard and jagged protruded from my chest.

  I felt my broken body, every breath jolting me with searing pain. With each movement, a strange rattling sound echoed from the brittle rubble beneath me.

  I cried out my mother’s name, though I knew she was probably dead. She had to be. She’d served her purpose. Katia had no use for her anymore.

  I wanted to lie there and wait for Katia to come for me, but then I thought of Rhys. Dane could still bring my brother to safety. I had to get out of the chasm.

  Digging through my pockets, searching for anything that might help, I discovered a match I’d swiped from Spencer’s hidden chapel.

  With trembling hands I reached out and struck it against the limestone wall—phosphorous flared in my nostrils. Snatching a tattered piece of cloth from the ground, I wrapped it around a stick, and set the match to it. The torch illuminated a horrific scene.

  The walls of the chasm were stained with old blood and viscera—beneath me, a bed of discarded bones. Even the torch I held wasn’t a stick—it was one of their bones; the cloth, one of their wreathing gowns.

  These were the Larkin girls who came before me. The unchosen. They never made it to the outside world, because Katia had killed every single one of them and thrown them into the chasm.

  Marie fought to find me, to show me the truth. She was trying to warn me about Katia. I wouldn’t let her death be in vain.

  There was only one way out. I propped the torch against the side of the crevice and piled up the bones. Crawling on top of my ancestors, I stretched out my hand to Marie’s skeleton, and climbed her body.

  Every movement sent shock waves of pain pulsing through me, but I couldn’t give up.

  Once I’d reached her pelvic bone, I lunged for the rope, cringing at the crackling sound it made as I pulled myself upward.

  Midway up the rope, the torch burnt out, leaving only the glow of the moon to guide me.

  With each pull up the rope, the pain hit my torso like a thousand volts of electricity. Every inch was more agonizing than the last.

  The remaining few feet were the hardest, seeing the edge of the crevice, having to muster up my last bit of strength to grab the metal cleat and pull myself out into the open air.

  Grunting in pain, I dragged my broken body away from the edge of the chasm. The crops rustled along the perimeter, and I had a flash of remembrance. The boy from my vision, the one who stumbled out of the sacred circle and died in the corn—Katia told him to run, but she wasn’t trying to help him, she was feeding him to the corn. I also understood why he looked so familiar—the dark blond hair, the chiseled features. The boy from the vision was Thomas . . . my father.

  Desperate to get away from the memories, I pulled myself out of the circle and through the corn. Dane’s scent was all around me. I wanted to call out, but I was panting so hard, I couldn’t find my voice. I rolled onto my back to try and catch my breath, but it only made it worse.

  The gash in my head had already started healing, but something hard and sharp still sliced into my chest and back.

  I gripped the stalks on either side of me, bracing myself as I found enough air for one last primal scream.

  “Ashlyn,” Dane called as he tore through the field. When he found me, his smile faded into a grim line. “What happened?” he gasped as he kneeled beside me.

  “Help me,” I whispered in agony.

  “Please, tell me what to do.” His hands were clenched in front of him, like he didn’t know where he could touch me.

  “My chest.” I winced, guiding his hand to show him where the pain was. It felt like my skin kept trying to heal around the foreign object, only to be sliced open again. As Dane lifted up my shirt, the color drained from his face.

  “That bad?” I grunted.

  Terror flashed in his eyes. “It’s a bone.”

  “A cracked rib?”

  “No, it looks like part of a femur.” He glanced down at my legs in confusion.

  “It’s not mine,” I said. “There are dozens of skeletons in the chasm. Marie . . . all the Larkin girls. When I fell, it must’ve gone right through me. You need to pull it out.”

  “I . . . I can’t. If I take it out you’ll bleed to death. It’s a miracle you haven’t already. It looks like it’s gone straight through your heart.”

  “You have to do it,” I pleaded. “It will be okay.”

  He looked less than convinced as he stared down at the blood pooling around me. But I couldn’t speak anymore; the pain was too intense. My vision started going gray and I desperately tried to hang on to the last bit of consciousness.

  Reluctantly, Dane gripped the bone. “Should I take it slow or try to pull it out in one shot?”

  I held up my finger.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes and rested my head back on the soft earth.

  He pulled. The pain was unbearable, like I was being flayed alive. But the bone wouldn’t budge; it seemed to be wedged between my ribs.

  He stood, placing a palm on my shoulder for leverage. “You better not die on me.”

  I wanted to laugh, but a searing pain ripped through me as he tore the jagged bone out of my chest. Blood came gushing from the wound.

  “No, Ashlyn.” He kneeled, putting his hands over it.

  “I’m
the vessel,” I whispered. “I’m immortal—I can’t die.” Tears streamed down my cheeks as I said it aloud. “I never wanted this.”

  Leaning back on his heels, he looked down at the blood on his hands. “I . . . I’m so sorr—”

  “We need to find Rhys,” I interrupted. “You need to leave now.”

  He picked me up in his arms. “First, I’m getting you out of this place.” As soon as he took a step toward the outer perimeter a pain unlike anything I’d ever felt before welled up inside of me. It felt like something was crushing me from the inside out.

  I screamed in agony.

  “What is it? What’s happening?”

  He took another step forward and I could hear my ribs cracking beneath the pressure.

  “Go back . . . take me back inside Quivira,” I yelled.

  He rushed me through the corn. As soon as we broke through the perimeter, the pain subsided.

  Gently, he laid me on the grass. “I don’t understand.”

  “Katia won’t let me go. I can feel her inside of me. Please take my brother and Beth and leave.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “After the ritual, I won’t remember Beth or you or my brother.”

  “You don’t know that—”

  “Katia. I’ve seen into her heart. She killed her own daughter. She killed all the chosen Larkin girls and fed my dad and all the other Mendoza boys to the corn. She probably killed my mother, too. She’ll never give her followers immortality. They’re just breeders to her. And when she transfers her soul into my body, I’ll kill anyone who tries to keep me from being reunited with Alonso. Including you.”

  “Ashlyn, there’s another way.” Dane glanced up at the moon, sitting high in the night sky. “It’s almost midnight on the summer solstice. You and I . . . we can become blood bound.”

  “N-no,” I stammered. I couldn’t believe he was suggesting this. I would never wish this on another person. Especially someone I love.