The Living Blood

by Tananarive Due

  “And we can’t,” Jessica said, not a question.

  “No. We can’t. I thought our serum would work eventually, but it doesn’t.”

  That failure sat hard, made Jessica angry in her silence. They could help stranger after stranger, but not her own daughter’s best friend? It was absurd, infuriating. And how must Moses’s parents feel, knowing that the miracles that had been granted to so many others at this very house might not be meant for them, despite their son’s grand name and high expectations? Moses’s entire family considered him their little miracle-bringer; since he had such a talent for books and school, his parents spoke incessantly about how Moses was meant to become a doctor like Alex and rescue his family from poverty. But Jessica had learned long ago how quietly heartless the world becomes when all miracles, even small ones, simply abandon you.

  Gazing into Alex’s red, glassy eyes, Jessica wondered if her sister was near tears. That wasn’t like Alex. Alex had been a rock even after their father had died when she was fourteen, her grief burning inward as adolescent-style rage instead. The one and only time Jessica had seen her sister cry was after Kira died, when Jessica herself had been beyond the reach of tears.

  “Hon?” Jessica said, taking Alex’s hand. “What is it?”

  Alex lifted her head to stare Jessica dead in the eye. Something else had happened. Whatever it was, Jessica saw her sister could barely bring herself to utter it aloud. The awfulness of Alex’s thoughts, even unspoken, made Jessica’s distant feeling of dread turn to ice in her veins.

  “I think I know what happened to Moses,” Alex said. “I think Fana knows, too.”

  At the sound of her daughter’s name, Jessica sat up straight in her chair, as though whatever her sister was about to say could strike her physically. “Alex, what?” Jessica asked, panicked. “What is it? What happened?”

  Alex locked eyes with her. “I don’t know if you’ve ever met Moses’s grandfather. He’s very arthritic, so he doesn’t leave the house much. They think he has a gift for telling fortunes. He throws bones—you know, he scatters bones on the floor and interprets the meaning. It’s all mumbo jumbo to me, but he threw bones for Moses while I was there. Well, big surprise, he said Moses is under a curse. Yeah, no kidding, I thought. Then he turned to me and said in Setswana, ‘You know who the witch is. The curse is hers.’ ”

  “What in the world did he mean by that? He’s blaming you?” And, more to the point, Jessica wondered, why was her analytical sister ruminating on an old man’s superstitions?

  Alex sighed, not answering for a moment. Her eyes drifted away from Jessica before she went on, taking a deep breath. “Jess, why isn’t Fana asking about Moses?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, he’s been gone for three days. The last time she saw him, he was carried away from here unconscious. Practically dead, from the way he looked. Those two were inseparable, and I haven’t heard Fana say a word about him. Have you?”

  “Good Lord, Alex, maybe she’s just upset.” Jessica wasn’t sure why, but she suddenly felt violently defensive. Why was Alex attacking Fana? “What the hell are you—”

  “Does she look upset to you? We both know what she’s like when she’s upset.”

  Alex meant the tantrums, Jessica knew. A few weeks ago, Fana had been honestly hysterical when Sarah slaughtered one of their chickens to make stew. They hadn’t even told her; Fana had smelled the meat simmering in the pot and started screaming, “I knew her! I knew her!”—something about the chicken’s spirit. Fana had always made her distaste for meat clear, but she’d never reacted that way when Sarah had brought a dead chicken home from town. Anyone passing on the path in front of their house, or standing anywhere nearby, would have heard Fana’s fit and thought she was possessed. In this village, or probably any other nearby, no child would dream of carrying on that way in the presence of her parents.

  Fana definitely wasn’t showing any emotional disturbances now. The past couple of days, she’d been as pleasant and even-tempered as Jessica had seen her, sitting in front of Jessica’s mirror to play with her mother’s little-used makeup, worrying Sarah to play hide-and-seek with her through the house, and of course, savoring Lewis Carroll. Maybe Fana’s most natural response to pain was blissful retreat, Jessica thought. Just like her mother.

  “Just tell me what you’re trying to say.” Jessica’s tone was sharp.

  Alex downed another swallow of her juice as if it were a swig of whiskey. “Before Moses slumped down asleep, he’d been playing with Fana out by the kraal. All afternoon, Sarah says. She saw them there before they walked off together,” Alex said, her eyes still gazing intensely.

  “I know that. I saw them through the window myself.”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t notice that Moses and Fana were having a fight. Not hitting each other, Sarah said, but Fana was having one of her fits, screaming at him. Sarah came out after them, and then Moses said they were going to collect worms.”

  Jessica didn’t speak, still waiting.

  Alex went on, slowing her speech. “So, the way things are, Moses fell asleep after he and Fana had a very bad disagreement. There’s no apparent cause. He’s . . . just . . . sleeping, as though he should spring up awake if we touch him on the shoulder. There’s no good reason for it to be happening. And Fana doesn’t seem concerned.”

  By now, Jessica felt impatient. “I really don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “Yes, Jessica,” Alex said, nodding, reverting to the overly gentle tones she’d used with Jessica in South Africa, when Jessica had honestly believed, each day, that her fragile soul might shatter. “You understand. Remember what Moses’s grandfather said.”

  Jessica’s jaw loosened, her lips falling open. “You think Fana did this to Moses?”

  Alex didn’t answer or nod. She only waited, watching Jessica’s expression.

  Jessica’s face went hot. She felt such a surge of rage toward Alex that it frightened her; her fingers twitched as she restrained herself from lashing out across the table to slap her sister’s face. Instead, she spoke stiffly: “You know what? That is the craziest thing that’s ever come out of your mouth. You’ve lost your damned mind, Alex. I mean it.”

  Calmly, Alex went on, as if she hadn’t heard Jessica. “Moses’s brother tells other children Fana has magic. And we know she does. Don’t pretend we don’t.”

  “I’m not listening to this bullshit, if you’re going to sit here and try to blame a three-year-old because you can’t—”

  “Tell me I’m lying, Jessica. We know. Fana has something other people don’t.”

  As anger slowly sifted away from her rational mind, Jessica was forced to admit that Alex’s words weren’t nearly as crazy as they sounded. There was something different about Fana. Whatever it was went beyond the way her wounds vanished almost immediately, or her advanced intellect, or her remarkable way of predicting what you were about to say before you spoke. Did it have to do with Fana’s trances somehow? There was something inside Fana that was impossible to describe, radiating from her, something that seemed stronger all the time.

  And, yes, it worried Jessica. Her heart drummed. She and Alex had never talked about this, and she’d never even formulated these thoughts clearly. Her stomach seemed to harden to rock as she felt the first clutch of real terror. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much she’d hoped to ignore Fana’s idiosyncrasies as her imagination.

  “Even if Fana does have some kind of . . . magic powers . . .” Jessica felt both foolish and frightened as she uttered the words. “How could she do that? How could she make someone fall asleep? And why hasn’t she done anything like this before?”

  At this, Alex sighed, and Jessica saw some of her sister’s resolve vanish for an instant. “I don’t know, honey. I wish I did. Maybe she’s done things we don’t know about. But here’s a question for you: Why are we calling her Fana even though she isn’t here? When I think about her, the name that comes to my min
d is Fana, like we never called her Bee-Bee. I know we said we’d play along, but this is something else. Am I right? Sarah does the same thing, and so do you. Don’t you? Isn’t she Fana in your head now?”

  Jessica nodded, dumbstruck. She was amazed both at Alex’s insight and the fact that she hadn’t noticed the shift before. When was the last time she’d even thought of her daughter as Bee-Bee? She wasn’t sure. “Oh, God. You’re right. It’s as if . . .”

  “We’ve forgotten,” Alex finished for her. Alex’s breathing sounded more shallow as she leaned closer to Jessica. “And here’s one more thing: Remember when we went outside after Fana came skipping in here to tell us Moses was asleep? Did you notice anything strange?”

  “You mean besides a child lying unconscious in my backyard?”

  “I mean on Moses’s skin.”

  In her memory, Jessica saw Moses’s glistening forehead, his slack mouth. “Like what? He was sweaty . . .”

  “Are you sure it was sweat? Think again. What about the grass? The leaves?”

  Suddenly, Jessica’s memory bloomed into Technicolor. That day, both Moses and Fana had been wet. Now she could remember the streaks of water on Moses’s legs, and how Fana’s shirt had been dotted with droplets, how her hair had felt damp to the touch. And hadn’t something dripped into Jessica’s eye while she was kneeling beneath the trees? She’d wiped it away absently, preoccupied with Moses, but now she remembered all too well: It had been water, falling from the leaves above her like fat dewdrops. But it couldn’t have been dew, not in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

  “Rain?” Jessica whispered.

  Alex nodded grimly. “That’s right. In our backyard, in the exact spot where Fana and Moses were playing, it looked like it had been raining. Except it wasn’t wet anywhere else, was it? And I didn’t hear any rain—did you? Of course not. We’re in the middle of the dry season. I bet we could ask everyone in this village, and no one has seen rain in weeks. Hell, I haven’t even noticed any clouds. But I think it rained here. It rained on Fana and Moses right before he fell asleep. And Jessica, when I add it all up, something’s not right. It feels like there’s some kind of magic at work, just like Moses’s grandfather said. And I think the magic could be Fana’s.”

  Jessica’s skin felt electrified, as if tiny snakes were writhing across her flesh. She suddenly squirmed, glancing back at the darkened hallway, toward the closed bedroom door at the end where Fana was sleeping. Were they talking too loudly? What if Fana woke up?

  Seeing her nervousness, Alex’s tone became soothing, less conspiratorial. “Look, I could be way off-base here—hell, I hope I am. You know how much I love Fana. And I’m not trying to make her out like the kid in The Bad Seed or anything. Even if she did something to Moses, maybe it’s just some kind of game to her. Or she doesn’t understand how serious it is. But you have to talk to her.”

  Jessica closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. Her mind formed fragments of a hasty prayer: My Lord Jesus, we’ve been through so much already, you can’t let this be true—

  She felt Alex squeeze her hand. “You have to ask her about Moses, Jessica.”

  “I’m afraid to hear what she’ll say.” The words sprang from Jessica, naked and honest. She felt tears welling behind her closed eyelids.

  “I know. But you have to do it first thing in the morning. Moses’s family is taking him to Francistown tomorrow, and then maybe Gaborone from there, depending on what the doctors say. And they can’t afford it. They’d have to sell off cattle just to get there, never mind the hospital bills. See what I’m saying? So if there’s some other reason Moses won’t wake up, we have to figure it out now.”

  Another reason like what? Unfathomable, unexplainable cruelty on Fana’s part? That her daughter was some sort of being with powers Jessica couldn’t even imagine? She shuddered, remembering Fana’s sweet baby-smiles throughout the day, then the image of Moses’s gangly, lifeless limbs dangling over his father’s arms as he was carried home while tears streamed down the man’s dark, weathered face. Why couldn’t she dismiss Alex’s words as insanity? Why?

  Jessica could feel the bottom of her world beginning to drop away; an ugly, too familiar feeling. Impossibly, her heart rate rose further still, until her chest seemed to stanch her breath.

  “No. This can’t be why. It can’t.” Jessica licked her dry lips. “Oh, God, Alex, please say a prayer tonight that you’re wrong about Fana.”

  “I will, sweetie. You know I already have.”

  But despite her hopes, Jessica already felt an awful certainty nesting dormant in her psyche, waiting to be born at last.

  • • •

  Fana drifted beyond sleep, to the place deeper than dreams. It is the place, The Man had told her, where time does not move.

  In this place, which was both real and not-real, the sky was drizzling with warm, misty rain that looked like fog. Fana liked rain, so it was always raining here. At first, as always, it looked like the backyard of her house, with the kraals and the mopane trees and a wire fence around everything. But it was not really her home, Fana realized right away, because the sky was the color of gold, and the grass was much greener than it ever was when she was awake.

  When the ground beneath her feet began to tremble, Fana wasn’t afraid. She only ran to the wire fence—when she ran here, her feet flew with each step—and watched as a herd of elephants lumbered past her, creating a wind because they were moving so fast. When Fana was little, her mommy and auntie and Gramma Bea and Grampa Gaines had taken her to a re-serve in South Africa, and that was the first time she had seen elephants. But those elephants were not free, not like these. When Fana was awake, she rarely remembered seeing the elephants because she wasn’t even two years old then—but here in the not-real place, she could remember nearly everything. She remembered their wrinkled gray skin and their floppy ears and their cracked white tusks, as her mommy called them (“See, Bee-Bee? See those sharp tusks? See the way they curve?”), and their small, black eyes. She remembered being able to feel how the elephants didn’t want any cars near them, and how they did not like the people smell floating to them in the wind. And she remembered how knowing that had made her cry.

  Here, the elephants were always free.

  Fana looked around, expecting to see The Man waiting for her. He always sat on top of a big, funny-looking animal with a long neck and big bump on its back. It looked like a make-believe animal, but The Man told her it was called a ca-mel, and Fana liked the way it knelt down on two legs so The Man could climb off. The only time Fana had ever seen a camel was in the not-real place, when The Man came to see her in his white robe and bushy beard.

  But The Man was not here this time, Fana realized. How did she get here, then? Before, she only came because The Man called her to tell her more stories about the Co-lo-ny and the Ri-sing, and all sorts of other important words she could only understand when he spoke to her. Or sometimes he just told her how strong and beautiful she was, and how he had great plans for her.

  How could she have brought herself here this time, without any help from The Man at all? Then, she remembered: She came to visit Moses!

  As soon as Fana thought of him, she saw Moses sitting cross-legged beneath the mopane tree, his face turned up toward the rain. His eyes were closed, but he knew she was there as soon as she walked to him with her feet bouncing her high across the field.

  “I wondered when you would come,” Moses scolded, not opening his eyes.

  Fana wondered why Moses couldn’t say nice things to her even now. But then Moses opened his eyes and smiled at her, and she felt better. “Will I remember this?” Moses said.

  Fana shook her head. “Only some parts, like a dream. But it’s not. It’s better.”

  “I know,” he said, sighing. “Oh, for shame not to remember!”

  “I can bring you back.”

  “No, you can’t do that, Fana,” Moses said, suddenly sounding very grown-up. From his voice, she realized he would
be a man soon, not her playmate like before. “My family is worrying for me. This isn’t nice for them, you see? Even now, I hear my mother’s tears. My heart hurts to hear her cry.”

  Fana knew she’d done something wrong. She looked away from Moses’s eyes. “You called me names.”

  Laughing, Moses pulled Fana down on top of him and hugged her against him, rocking slowly from side to side. “Lion cubs bite when they play, but they’re only teasing! I wasn’t trying to hurt you, silly girl. I’m sorry for calling you names. You act so big, I forget you’re still little.” Moses laughed. “The truth is, anyway, I was scared by the things you do. I didn’t understand before, not like now.”

  “Now I’m scared.”

  “Why should one like you be scared of anything?”

  “I’m in trouble . . . for making you sleep. Yes, I’m sure of it. My mommy knows.” Fana wasn’t sure how she knew this about her mommy, but she did. Everything would be changed now, she realized. She was not only scared at that moment, but sad, too.

  “Don’t be scared,” Moses said close to her ear. “I’ll tell your mma I had a fine time here. And so many adventures! I even saw spirits.”

  “You won’t remember.”

  “I’ll try very hard. I promise you. . . . Ay! Who’s that lekgoa over there?”

  Moses was pointing away from them, toward the empty cattle kraal. The distance to the kraal seemed much greater than when she was really awake, but Fana could see a boy sitting on the kraal’s wooden railing, staring at them. He had to be so far away to look so tiny! He was a pale boy, like a ghost almost.

  Fana had seem him before, but she did not know his name. Not yet. He was older than she was, but not as old as Moses. She waved at the boy, and he waved back at her.

  “He’s very sick,” Fana told Moses, because that was all she knew about him.

  “You should tell him to come have some of your blood, then!” Moses wasn’t supposed to know anything about how her blood could heal sick people; but in the not-real place, you always knew things you weren’t supposed to. That was why Fana liked it so much. There weren’t nearly as many secrets.