The Living Blood

by Tananarive Due

  Fana was still standing over Jessica, and for an uncanny instant Jessica could see a diffuse band of light around her daughter before it blinked away, as if she’d imagined it. But she hadn’t, and the merest glimpse of it made Jessica’s dying body buck. She tried to scream with an ecstasy that poured from her soul, but her mouth lay open, too weak to make a sound.

  “Shhhhh,” Fana said, touching Jessica’s hand. “Just be quiet now, Mommy.”

  Fana’s fingers tightened around hers and pulled. Miraculously, Jessica felt herself being lifted high, so high, like an infant to her mother’s breast.

  living

  For, you see, so many out-of-the-way

  things had happened lately that Alice

  had begun to think that very few

  things indeed were really impossible.

  —Lewis Carroll,

  Alice in Wonderland

  59

  May 2005

  Washington State

  Eriksen Farm—No Trespassing.

  The two signs, together, were a contradiction. The first was a quaint, sculpted sign with script lettering burned into glossy wood, a homey welcome mat. But the hand-painted warning beneath it was anything but welcoming. And anything but homey.

  Both signs, one atop the other, were set back slightly from the crumbling road that led to the semirural town of Toledo, easy to miss. But a driver passing slowly enough to see the signs would also notice the rutted dirt pathway that wound beyond the signs, through the army of trees that shielded the property from passing eyes. The dirt road was blocked by a heavy log gate wrapped with razor wire. There was nothing inviting about Eriksen Farm, and little to distinguish it from the other tree farms concentrated near Toledo, which lay in the cradle of Mount St. Helens and snow-covered Mount Rainier. The tiny town was surrounded by pasture and thousands of acres of Douglas fir, cottonwood, maple, and Western red cedar trees.

  The log gate had been there for years. The razor wire was recent, from the new people.

  Longtime residents knew the Eriksens had sold their farm years ago, all five hundred acres of it. They also knew that the new owners did not harvest their trees for lumber, so in reality, Eriksen Farm had become more a tree sanctuary. It was too bad, the neighbors said, that Eriksen had died and his sons had no interest in his business, which had thrived for two generations.

  And that glorious six-bedroom, colonial-style house Eriksen’s father had built for his family back in the sixties had once been the focal point of the town’s social calendar at Christmastime, since he’d invited the neighbors for annual banquets reminiscent of pioneer days, with whole smoked hogs and a table full of homemade pies, all of it served in his magnificent dining hall. Eriksen’s house was so pretty, it could have been a bed-and-breakfast if Mrs. Eriksen had been able to muster the heart to stay on after her husband died.

  Such a waste, they thought. Such a loss.

  Even the horse trails on Eriksen’s land, once free to local riders, had been blocked with timber and razor wire, with additional warning signs against trespassing. Eriksen Farm was now some kind of special school, people said. Or a hippie commune. Or a secret government outpost. Everyone had a different theory, traded at the town’s tack and feed or at the sandwich shop or at the Baptist church. Once in a while, neighbors saw a black Ford Bronco emerge from beyond the gate, but the ruddy-faced white man who drove the rig never waved or smiled when he climbed out to lock the gate behind him. And he always headed away from town, toward the interstate. Whatever business he attended to, he’d chosen to conduct it elsewhere. In privacy.

  Strange newcomers had come to Eriksen Farm. No question about it.

  And something was a little different today, the kind of detail only a careful eye would notice: Even though it wasn’t quite dawn yet, the gate to Eriksen Farm was wide open. Old man Eriksen had kept his gate open almost all the time, so that open gate was a familiar, friendly sight. Like old times, with none of that forbidding razor wire glaring accusingly at drivers on the road.

  That open gate looked almost like an invitation.

  • • •

  On the rare days it wasn’t raining, such as today, they did their morning meditation outdoors, near the wicker archway that led to the parcel they had cleared for their half-acre garden. Jessica was sitting cross-legged on the ground, feeling the moisture from the cool, dew-damp leaves seep through her blue jeans. Four others sat with her. Their morning ritual always began at 6 A.M., when the darkness had yet to succumb to the newborn daylight.

  Jessica could meditate for two hours each morning, but it was a long two hours, and she rarely felt enveloped by the state the way she wanted to be. She was still too easily distracted by the chorus of sparrows, swallows, robins, wrens, and chickadees in the trees, and the thrashing brush that told her a deer or an elk had wandered close. Once, she’d opened her eyes and seen a fawn eating from her blueberry bushes only a yard from their meditation circle, oblivious to their presence. She saw deer often now, and they were a nuisance to the garden, but the sight of the creatures was still magical to her, as if their appearance were a gift, an apparition from another place. She felt the same misty magic when she sat in her bedroom and saw a bald eagle soaring above the treetops, with its majestic white head and powerful beak and talons. The warrior bird. A family of eagles was nesting somewhere on the property, she knew. Just as her family was nesting here.

  Today, it was harder than ever for Jessica to lose herself in the elusive stillness of meditation. Her mind was wide-awake, half from rejoicing, half from worrying.

  They were coming today. This, at last, could be the beginning.

  Jessica opened her eyes, glancing briefly at the faces of the other immortals who shared the circle with her. David sat beside her, his expression as placid as if he were asleep; Teferi was across from her, deep in concentration; and Teka sat beside him, with his youthful, studious face. The sight of Teka still made Jessica smile. Khaldun’s former attendant had arrived at the property unexpectedly a year ago, seeking their fellowship. He’d told tales of disarray at the colony, of Khaldun’s refusal to emerge from his meditative state, of the gradual dispersal of Life Brothers, who had left Lalibela seeking new lives in the world outside.

  She hadn’t been surprised. David did not discuss the colony with her, and he rarely mentioned Khaldun’s name anymore, but Jessica knew he had to be feeling confused, sad, and betrayed. She could not imagine spending so many centuries under a man’s tutelage only to discover that her free will had been crippled so he could prevent her from starting a life of her own. Who might David have been if not for Khaldun’s misguided leadership?

  Jessica had expected some of the Life Brothers to try to find them, ready to start again without Khaldun. Teka had been the first to arrive, but she doubted he would be the last. Others would come, too. She could only pray they would come like Teka, in peace.

  The last immortal completing their meditation circle this morning was Lucas Shepard, who was as tall as Teferi, although much fairer. He took the morning meditation seriously, as he did everything else; he sat at his full height, breathing deeply, his hands positioned on his knees. He never missed a day. He clung to his studies religiously, treating Teferi and Teka like gurus. He’d been a dead man, beyond the reach of the blood’s healing powers, so David had performed the Ritual of Life on Lucas just as he had on her. Just as he had tried with Kira. Jessica suspected that Lucas never wanted any of them to believe that their blood had been wasted on him.

  And he needn’t worry about that. As far as Jessica was concerned, Lucas had more than proven himself. Alex had chosen him, which had been recommendation enough for her. And David, for some reason, had chosen him, too. Even now, when she asked David why he had been willing to impart his gift to a mortal, a stranger, by performing the Ritual of Life, he could not explain it in his usual logical terms. If you had been in my place, Jessica, you would have done as I did, he had said.

  Whatever the reason, Jessica
was glad. She liked Lucas. He was a good brother.

  Closing her eyes again, Jessica felt her mind following a barely perceptible vibration from the men who sat around her. She understood now what Khaldun had been seeking in his underground colony; the sensation was stronger when she meditated in a group, when she was surrounded by powerful minds with their own distinct energies. She felt not merely David, Teferi, Teka, and Lucas, but a formless combination of them all, a tuning fork for her mind. The dawn noises around her vanished, and her conscious thoughts came to a slow halt. She even seemed to breathe with the others, unconsciously matching their rhythms. Sometimes twenty minutes at a time passed this way, until Jessica heard herself marveling, I’m doing it, and then, of course, the sensation was interrupted. The sense of peace, of disconnection from her body, was gone.

  But it only takes practice, Teferi and Teka assured her. Meditation is a fragile art that takes years to perfect, and its difficulty is only compounded by too much effort, they said. They were wise men, the two of them. She was no longer fooled by Teferi’s bumbling exterior; he had a deep heart and an impressive command of difficult mental powers, and Teka was even more advanced. She felt honored to know them both.

  And already, she thought she could feel a difference. Meditation was her way of listening to God, and she was certain He was speaking to her. God had brought her through the hardest time, right after the storm, when she had emerged in the midst of so much death and destruction in the city that had been her first home. God had helped her realize she should be thankful, because it could have been far worse if the storm had not suddenly, mysteriously dissipated when it did. Five hundred dead might easily have been five thousand, or more. The deaths had been bitter, but Jessica’s quiet time with Him had given her enough perspective to find peace.

  Often, mortals died in great numbers all over the world. She could not prevent it. And she could not hold herself responsible. She could only do what she could. That was her first lesson.

  The Shadows were still there somewhere, and she could accept that, too. She no longer fought the nightmares that had plagued her after the storm, when she’d dreamed she was still trapped in that bedroom with whatever terrible thing had tried to steal her daughter from her. It had seemed to her that the Shadows had given her the dreams to try to punish her, to finally take her sanity. But she had won, yet again. Meditation kept the dreams at bay.

  And there was something else, too: Jessica found herself looking at David sometimes—after lovemaking, or watching him cooking in the main house’s kitchen, or watching him spar with Teka and Teferi—when she felt certain she knew exactly what was in his mind. Was it only the telepathy between two people who had known each other a long time and had shared horrible and glorious experiences together? She didn’t know. But to her, it was a sign.

  She was growing.

  And she would need her strength for whatever was ahead. She had no doubt of that.

  • • •

  “It’s not too late to call it off,” Dawit reminded Jessica as they walked back toward the house. He took her hand, hoping the gesture would soften his words, but it had to be said. At some future time, if they ever came to question the wisdom of what they had done today, he did not want to have to hold himself responsible for not raising the question one last time: Should we do this?

  Jessica sighed, and he wasn’t surprised to hear her deep disappointment. This question had always been the one remaining barrier between them, an argument that had wearied them both. “David,” she said gently, “I thought we were agreed. This has much less meaning to me if you’re opposed to it. Don’t you see? You have to want it, too.”

  Dawit pondered her words as they climbed the whitewashed steps toward the porch, past the potted wild strawberries with their white blossoms and the blue lupine flowers that Jessica’s mother had gathered in the woods and arranged there. What did he want?

  He felt a growing lightness of spirit he could only describe as happiness, a feeling he hadn’t experienced since he had lived with Jessica and Kira in Miami. But it was even more pronounced than that, he realized. In Miami, he had felt so much tension, bracing for the day he would be forced to leave his family, either because of the intervention of the Searchers or capricious accident or illness. For the first time since he had agreed to accept the Life Gift five hundred years ago, Dawit felt the life he had won was finally, truly his own. His life, and his gift, were his to do with as he pleased.

  Sometimes, it was still difficult for him to grasp so simple a concept.

  There was no reason to fight it except Khaldun’s words, which still rang authoritatively in his mind: No one must know. No one must join. We are the last.

  The love Dawit felt for Khaldun nearly overwhelmed him at the mere mention of that man’s name, but he could not know if these were his true emotions or only programming left over from his years under Khaldun’s spell. He might never know. But he did feel guilty for disobeying Khaldun’s Covenant once again by imparting the Life Gift to Lucas Shepard, and that guilt told him he was not yet entirely a man. He was not yet free.

  But he and Jessica had their own colony now. Fortunately, Teka knew the technologies of the House of Science, and he had not come from Lalibela empty-handed; he had brought advanced weapons. For the protection of Fana, he said. If they were ever attacked by outsiders—either his brethren or mortals who had found them despite their precautions—they would be ready. The incident at the Botswana clinic would never be repeated. Dawit led regular drills to be certain of that.

  “I believe this is what we must do,” Dawit said finally, squeezing Jessica’s hand. “It is right. I want to do this as much as you, despite my misgivings. I promise you, our hearts are in harmony.”

  Even if the words had merely been a lie, Dawit might gladly have uttered them just to see the softness that melted across his wife’s shining eyes. With a girlish smile, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her soft mouth to his. Dawit inhaled her breath, savoring the kiss. He knew with certainty that he could kiss this woman for the next five hundred years and never tire of it. He had lived without her too long. They kissed uninterrupted in the morning stillness.

  “Let’s visit Fana,” he said at last.

  • • •

  Fana had a small bedroom with a slanting ceiling adjoining their bedroom on the second floor of the house. Fana’s room had probably been designed as a nursery, because a doorway connected her room to theirs. It had only one window, but the window was well placed, and sunlight had already spilled across the wooden floors and braided rug. The sun lit up the framed Bob Marley poster that now hung on Fana’s bedroom wall, a gift from Alex.

  Fana, as usual for this time of day, was already awake. She had dressed herself in her favorite lacy, white housedress, and she sat in her chair before the window, staring outside. Her beautiful dreadlocks, shining black with a reddish tinge in the sunlight, hung down her back, nearly to her waist. She was still slightly small for her age, so her feet did not quite touch the floor, but her face had thinned, losing its baby fat, and her legs were growing long and lovely. She looked more like Kira each passing day, almost eerily so. Fana would be a beautiful woman someday, Jessica knew.

  Like her mother, David always said.

  “Good morning, princess,” David said, standing behind Fana to squeeze her shoulders. Fana had not moved. She might not even realize they were there. “It’s Daddy.”

  “And Mommy is here, too,” Jessica said, kneeling beside her. She took Fana’s hand, stroking it, then raising it to her lips to give it a kiss.

  Slowly, the way she would if she were blind, Fana slowly turned her head upward, toward Dawit, following his voice. “That’s right, my angel. I’m right behind you,” he told her. “And Mommy is kissing your hand. Do you feel that?”

  There it was! It was not a big smile, but Fana’s pink lips turned upward slightly.

  “We have a big day today, sweetie, so you may not see us again until much late
r. But Gramma Bea will come to check on you and get you anything you want. All right?” Jessica said.

  At first, Fana did not move or respond at all. But then, slowly, she began to nod.

  Jessica felt the tears then. Tears did not come to her each time she visited Fana, but they came most often in the mornings. She could remember well how Fana used to bound to her like a puppy, clamoring for attention and affection. Wanting to play, to be read to, to be listened to. In their private reminiscences together, David reminded Jessica of the first time he had met Fana at the Life Colony, how she had giggled when he told her that her name meant “light.” So much light had glowed from her face, he said, he had fallen in love with her in an instant.

  That, it seemed, had been an entirely different child.

  Something had happened to Fana after the storm. The first three months, she had remained in a catatonic state, and Jessica had been afraid she would never snap out of it. But with time, she had improved. After a year, she had begun feeding herself again. Then, she began climbing out of bed at night to use the bathroom instead of soiling her bedsheets. Then, she began dressing herself. Improvement came in slow stages, as if Fana were repeating the life lessons she had already learned.

  Now, rarely, Jessica and David could take Fana outside and she would even run with the other children, kicking a soccer ball or petting the horses. But never for longer than five minutes; or, once, for nearly ten. It was almost as if Fana caught herself being a true child and withdrew from the joy it brought, punishing herself. Jessica hoped not, but that was her fear.

  Fana never spoke aloud. She rarely responded to her playmates. She spent most of her time in a trance. But she was improving, and Jessica could only hope the improvements would continue. She was only seven now. Maybe by the time she was twelve or thirteen . . .