Blood and Salt

by Kim Liggett

  That’s why Dane’s brand looked different from the other Mixeds’. It wasn’t because he was branded as a newborn, it was because his mark was Coronado’s signet. The crow . . . wings outstretched.

  “When he refused to hand you over, I was furious, but when I saw how much you cared for one another, how much you looked like Marie, I couldn’t resist his offer. It was worth the gamble. You were worth it.”

  “Dane offered himself as your vessel to save me?” I whispered.

  “We’ve all made sacrifices. I would’ve preferred to stay in my own body, but Katia wouldn’t let go of the past . . . of her vengeance. She left me no choice. My soul will always choose life. As will yours.”

  My chin quivered as I attempted to hold in the tears, to hold in the rage I felt tearing at my heart. “I would never choose this life.”

  “Never is a very long time,” he said softly.

  Tears streamed down my face. Dane had said the same thing to me when Rhys left Quivira.

  “You’re beginning to have doubts about hating us . . . Dane and me.” He crouched down in front of me. “I saw the look in your eyes when you first saw me in the corn. You feel something for me.”

  “I can’t listen to any more of this.” I placed my trembling hands over my ears. I felt so confused, so heartbroken, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

  “Come with me to Spain.”

  “I need my brother, I need Rhys,” I whispered as I rocked back and forth.

  “He’ll find you when he’s ready. It’s in both of our interests that he’s found.” His eyes narrowed. It was clear he felt threatened by Rhys in some way. “You belong with me . . . with Dane.” He brushed my hair back from my face and I flinched. “In time you may grow to love me, too.”

  I felt sick. “I don’t love anyone.”

  The slightest hint of a smile tugged on the corner of his mouth.

  “Besides, you’re lying,” I said. “I know what it’s like to have another person’s soul inside of you. Dane is gone. There’s only darkness for the vessel.”

  “That’s what Katia wanted you to see . . . to think . . . to feel. The world isn’t so black-and-white, Ashlyn.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I spat.

  He smiled more fully. The tiny dimple peeked out as if to taunt me, and it made me wonder. Was he in there? Could he see me? How could I still feel him if he were really gone?

  “We all have good and evil in our blood, what we do with it is up to us.” He reached out to touch my face. Every cell in my body called out for him, wanting to lean into his touch, to feel his hand against my cheek once more, but I forced myself to pull away.

  “Pride cometh before the fall, mi amor. Don’t let it keep you from happiness.”

  He stood and started to walk away, but paused at the edge of the circle.

  “Immortality can be lonely,” he said as he looked at me over his shoulder. “You’ll know where to find me. And I’ll always know where to find you.”

  As he left the circle, I watched my mother’s ashes dance in the wake of his footsteps. And like those flecks of ash, I felt completely untethered from the world, set adrift in an open sea without a shore.

  Lost.

  Alone.

  Irredeemable.

  49

  PROMISE

  AS I WALKED BACK through the corn, I dragged my hands along the stalks, feeling none of the magic that once lived there.

  I couldn’t feel Katia or Marie anymore.

  I couldn’t feel my mother.

  But I still felt Dane like a phantom limb.

  Every step I took away from him only seemed to deepen the ache. I loved him and I hated him. Even whispering his name felt like fire and ice scraping against my lungs. And now I was bound to him for all eternity, a prisoner of my blood.

  Even if I could forgive him for his betrayal, it wasn’t Dane anymore. Coronado had taken him over, body and soul. And yet, something of Dane remained. It made me question everything I thought I knew about the world . . . about myself. I reached my hand to my throat to feel the comfort of the black silk ribbon, but it had left me, too. It didn’t belong to me anymore. And neither did Dane.

  I stepped through the perimeter, back inside Quivira. Beth was waiting along with the others. They looked at me expectantly, but I had nothing to offer.

  “Katia’s dead,” I said as I walked past their needy eyes and grasping hands straight into the lake, hoping it would wash me of my sins. I let the warm water envelop me, and all I could think of was the time Dane carried me into the water, washing the blood from my skin. I pressed my palm against my mouth, longing to feel the delicate weight of Dane’s last kiss, but I only felt my own clammy, murderous flesh. I’d done the unthinkable. I killed my own mother. She gave up her life to save mine, and here I stood, all alone. Unable to live. Unable to die.

  I looked down at the milky water, watching it turn the softest shade of pink from my mother’s blood. My guilt felt unfathomable, a wild endless thing.

  Without a word or a sympathetic glance, Beth waded into the lake next to me and took my hand.

  As we both stared straight ahead, I wept.

  • • •

  We stayed like that—side by side, waist deep in the water until dark—until the community retreated to the meeting house, probably trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their mortal lives.

  The sky had turned the deepest, blackest blue I’d ever seen. Even the moon and stars didn’t dare show their faces tonight.

  “You should go home, say your good-byes.” I took a deep breath. “We’re leaving in the morning.”

  “You’re taking me with you?” She squeezed my hand in excitement.

  I attempted a smile for Beth’s benefit. “Do I even have a choice?”

  “No. No you don’t.” She hugged me tight. “I’ll come at first light. I have a surprise for you.”

  I listened to her footsteps as they disappeared into the corn—the opposite direction of the Grimsby lodge.

  Beth was full of surprises.

  • • •

  A surge of adrenaline rushed through me as I neared the Mendoza lodge. Feeling a need to expose every secret, I let myself in, descending two flights of stairs, to the wood-paneled wall at the end of the hall. I pressed the panels until I heard the familiar sickening pop. The door swung open. The scents of eucalyptus and blood washed over me. The blood from the chalice had belonged to Coronado. The truth was right in front of me all that time and I didn’t see it. I was so focused on Dane that I missed everything.

  I wondered what made Spencer want to strike an alliance with Coronado in the first place. Was it pure greed, or revenge? What did Coronado promise him in return?

  I thought about crossing the threshold, trashing Spencer’s sick sanctuary, but I stopped myself. I wanted the world to see who he really was.

  On my way back upstairs, I walked by Dane’s door. I rested my hand against the cool wood grain. I needed one last look. As I opened the door, his scent hit me dead on. It was like walking into a cement wall.

  I pulled the hollowed-out book from the shelf. The stationery, the red wax, and the seal were missing, but his secret stash remained. I took out the sunglasses—the map—the Backstreet Boys CD and put them in my shorts pocket, but when I started to close the book, I noticed the chart printed on the inside of the front cover. It was a list of all the different gemstones and their corresponding meanings.

  I looked up at his desk, trying to identify the stones when I saw that one was missing. I went down the list, trying to figure out which one it was. It was rose quartz. And according to the chart, rose quartz meant promise. Dane talked to me about the significance of rose quartz when he brought my ribbon back to me after the games. It was the same stone Marie left under Heartbreak Tree. And then I remembered something od
d.

  The first time Dane took me to Heartbreak Tree, I asked him if he’d ever written a note. He said, “If I had, I promise you’d know.”

  Promise.

  The missing stationery. The missing gemstone. Was it possible that Dane had left something for me under Heartbreak Tree?

  50

  NO STONE UNTURNED

  I HIKED THROUGH the pines until I came to the clearing, the silhouette of the weeping willow barely visible against the indigo sky.

  With my lantern low to the ground, I stumbled around, trying not to disturb people’s hopes and dreams. I didn’t need any more bad luck.

  I stepped inside the swaying branches of the willow, but I couldn’t find any sign of the rose quartz. I sank against the gnarled gray trunk.

  I could still smell us here. Our blood. Our sweat. It made me sick, but I wanted to roll in the dirt and wallow in our last memory before it disappeared forever. I remembered Dane explaining the significance of the tree. He said love was stronger than death and that true love would always find a way.

  The faintest whisper rose to my ears—the same sound I’d heard on the night Dane came to the Larkin lodge to return my ribbon. This time, the sound was coming from the split in the trunk. I reached in; my eyes welled with tears when I felt the familiar shock of silk wrapped around a stone with a letter attached. Carefully, I pulled it out of the crevice.

  “Ashlyn” was written upon the envelope in thick black India ink. I ran my fingertips across the indentations from pen against paper and my heart fluttered.

  The envelope had been sealed with dark red wax. In place of the coat of arms I’d seen on other Mendoza correspondence, Dane used his thumbprint instead. I pressed my thumb against it, swearing I could feel his touch there. I slid my finger under the seal, breaking it in two, and removed the heavy piece of stationery, feeling the weight of his good-bye.

  Ashlyn,

  This letter is full of words I should never have left unsaid.

  You once said to me, “Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.” I need you to remember that now.

  You were always the treasure, the gold, the glory, and the life worth fighting for.

  Zuni Pueblo Reservation. Zuni, New Mexico.

  Aiyana.

  This is me, letting you go.

  Dane

  Aiyana, the shaman of the Quivira tribe. My mother said she could help me break my bond to Dane. Could it be possible? Is this what he wanted?

  In that moment, as I held the letter to my chest, I would’ve given anything just to feel him again—his imprint on my skin, his kiss on my lips, his hair entangled in mine.

  My mother told me that love is love no matter how you come by it. But could I ever be at peace with the way Dane came to me? Could I ever be sure he didn’t love immortality more than he loved me? Was he in there with Coronado? Could he be saved? If Aiyana knew how to break the bond, maybe she knew of a way to separate them.

  Lying there, wrecked, I understood everything my mother had said to me during the ritual. Her warning had nothing to do with the physical pain I would face; it was about the pain of having to keep my heart open while it broke in two. She said I would feel like I couldn’t take another breath, that I couldn’t bear to feel my heart beat another second. My mother said that if I broke the bond I would never feel that strongly for another human being. But maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Katia sacrificed everything to be with Alonso, and her love for him drove her to madness. I knew that feeling, and it scared me.

  I wanted to bury the ribbon along with Dane’s promise, but I held on tightly. I couldn’t bear to sever my last tie to any of them.

  51

  PRECIPICE

  I RETURNED TO the Larkin lodge to find our front doorway littered with dishes of mystery meats and cheese balls. They’d been set out like offerings. Perfect.

  Stepping over the dishes, I went down the stairs and started cramming clothes into my bag. I left my mother’s belongings exactly where they were, undisturbed, as if I could somehow preserve her presence there.

  I went into the bathroom to get my toiletries, and when I saw Rhys’s toothbrush sitting on the edge of the sink next to mine, it brought a lump the size of a boulder to my throat. He forgot it. I didn’t know where he was, but I had to find him. I had to make this right.

  I took the toothbrushes and reached under the bed for the case full of cash and gold to find nothing but a few lint balls.

  It was gone. All of it.

  I racked my brain trying to figure out who could’ve taken it.

  Spencer. He’d been waiting in my room the day Henry passed away. I heard him rummaging around as I lay there bleeding out. He must’ve taken it then.

  “Bastard,” I screamed as I threw the toothbrushes against the wall.

  I slumped down on the bed, grabbing my hair in my fists, when I heard a car horn. For a minute I thought I might be hallucinating, but it happened again. Three short insistent bursts.

  I took my bag and ran upstairs to find Beth waving maniacally at me from behind the wheel of a deformed monster truck. She had a bright yellow scarf wrapped around her hair, like something straight out of a fifties’ bad-girl movie. In the backseat sat a giant balding Saint Bernard.

  “Is that Goober?” I asked as I stumbled outside.

  “Is that his name? I’m pretty sure this is his automobile,” Beth said as she got out to peruse the food. “But I don’t think he minds. Do you, baby? Do you, pretty baby?” she called out to him, and he wagged his whole back end. “Ooh, this one’s from Lauren. It’s ham salad. She molds it to look like a slice of watermelon. Look, she rolls it in parsley and she even puts raisins in it to look like the seeds. It’s her signature dish,” Beth said as she put it in the backseat.

  Goober immediately dug his face into it.

  I grimaced. “I wouldn’t let him eat that.”

  “Too spicy?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “First of all, Lauren made it. Could be poisoned.”

  “That’s more of a Hanratty thing—the cheese balls.” Beth smiled. “Besides, I already apologized to her.”

  “What the hell for? She was terrible to you. She got Brennon . . . her happily ever after.”

  “The cornhusk doll,” Beth said in a sweet singsong voice as she slung my bag in the backseat.

  “That was you?”

  Beth tried to suppress a grin. “She was being so grouchy to you.”

  Apparently, Beth had a wicked side.

  “Where did you learn how to drive?”

  “Dane read the manuals to me when I was recovering. To pass the time. It’s not hard. This one means go and this one means stop,” she said, pointing to the pedals on the floorboard. “It’s fun! And look at the wheels—they spin like windmills.”

  “Oh my God! Is this our car? Our Escalade?” I gasped as I ran my hands over the hot, butchered metal. “Tanner said he wanted to turn it into a convertible, that it would be good for hauling trash. I can’t believe he actually did it. Poor Tanner,” I said as I thought of his head rotting in the corn.

  As much as I wanted to jump in and go, I had to be somewhat practical about this. I had Beth to take care of now. “I’m sorry, but we can’t.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Spencer took it . . . all of it. No cash . . . no gold . . . no gas.”

  “Oh, looky here.” Beth heaved a giant pickling jar full of coins into my arms.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Dane gave it to me. He wanted me to have it . . . just in case. I think he’s been collecting it for years.”

  The mere mention of his name opened up a fresh wound.

  “It won’t get us very far.” I swallowed my emotions as I handed the jar back to her.

  “If it’s just money you’re worri
ed about, you can always make more,” she said as she put it back in the car.

  “Okay?” I burst out laughing. “So, you’re a counterfeiter, too?”

  “I’m not sure what that is, but I don’t think so,” she said with that unreadable smile. “Nina left you the formula.”

  “The formula for what . . . disaster?” I mumbled.

  “For making gold, silly.” She grinned, slapping me on the arm.

  My heart leapt into my throat. “What . . . what are you saying?”

  “The formula. It’s written all over your skin.”

  The realization grew inside of me like a slow-spreading fire. All the money we had growing up, the gold ingots, the secrecy of her work, the strange metallic smells, the fine gold dust that always clung to her fingertips.

  How hadn’t I seen it before? The marks on my skin weren’t just protection symbols. My mother wanted to make sure I’d have the means to support myself and my brother. It was her final gift to me.

  In a daze, I climbed into the passenger seat and Beth squealed. “Oh my stars! Are we really doing this?” She revved the engine. “We look so hump-able in this car.”

  “Kissable, Beth,” I corrected her gently. “We look totally kissable.”

  “Where to?” She smiled as she grinded the gear into place. “New York . . . Spain?”

  “Just drive,” I whispered.

  As we drove through the corn, following Rhys’s scorched path, I wrapped the black silk ribbon around my throat and tied it into a bow—the way Marie and I had always worn it.

  I pulled the CD from my pocket and slid it into the player.

  “This is Dane’s song!” Beth trilled as she sang along and bobbed her head to the awful synthetic beat.

  A boundless smile seized me from deep within. Tears sprung to my eyes as I breathed in the wonder of the universe.

  Maybe it wasn’t so black-and-white. Maybe I didn’t have to belong to anyone but myself.

  As I looked back over Quivira, to the disappearing lake, I closed my eyes.

  I didn’t want to erase it from my memory. I wanted to take in every scent, every detail, so I could conjure it up whenever I wanted. Quivira was a part of me now, as was my mother, Rhys, Beth, Dane, Marie, Coronado, and Katia. If I listened closely I could hear my mother whisper, “Uhurahak a u’ a.”