JULY 16
FIRST QUARTER
“Skol’ko volka ne kormi, on vsyo v les smotrit,” Lissa whispered to Stella. “My grandmother used to say it. It means, ‘No matter how well you feed the wolf, he still looks to the woods.’”
Stella giggled. “You’d think he’d be more at home here, after all the time he’s spent on your sofa.”
Maksim prowled between the windows, looking both menacing and uncomfortable. He had worried the knot in his tie low enough to expose the unbuttoned collar. The last month had been easier on him, the new-moon spell allowing him to live as normally as he ever had, but Lissa was still conscious of his other nature, chained.
He was supposed to be pouring tea, but Lissa had given up reminding him of that. He did remember to serve out vodka for the men.
A few of them had spoken to him in Russian, quietly, when they thought no one was near. Lissa watched them do it but couldn’t get close enough to hear.
The ladies crowded her, patted her hair, pinched her cheek. Yelena Ivanova’s rugelach were eaten up in no time, and Stella refilled the plate with shortbreads. She had asked Lissa to braid her hair for the occasion, and she’d dressed soberly in a silver blouse and gray skirt, but she still looked ridiculously young and English. She sat like a secretary, notebook balanced upon her knee, and wrote down the orders.
Izabela Dmitreeva took over the tea service. She whispered to Lissa, “Mr. Volkov used to come sometimes, when your grandmother was still with us. We wondered if he was all right.”
“He is very well,” Lissa said.
It had been his idea to come, in fact; he had even, amazingly, helped her vacuum the house.
He had done the most important thing of all: when the ladies were filing in, he’d stood with the sisters, shaking hands, as Lissa introduced Stella.
“Stella Moore,” some of them had repeated. “From England, are you, dear?”
And Maksim had glowered, without saying a word, until the ladies more properly said, “Koldun’ia, it is a pleasure to meet your sister.”
The men who’d come—few, as always, and only the elderly ones—nodded to him, their eyes dark and grave, and bowed their heads over Lissa’s hand and then over Stella’s.
By the end of the afternoon, they’d taken a page and a half of orders; they’d gone through six pots of tea and three dozen cookies; and Maksim had broken the brown teapot with the sudden pressure of his fingers.
“I am very sorry, koldun’ia,” he muttered. “Very sorry. It is only that I sometimes forget myself.”
He did not seem in a mood to break anything else, so Lissa merely handed him a rag and a dustpan and asked him to clean up the mess.
She and Stella saw everyone out into the halcyon summer evening. The house smelled pleasantly of tea and furniture polish.
Stella went up to change out of her nice clothes, and Lissa sat with Maksim in the front room.
“Thank you,” she said. “We will have a much easier time of it now, even if you don’t wish to come again.”
“You would have made an easy time of it for yourself without my help, koldun’ia,” Maksim said. “You do very well.”
“I try,” Lissa said, abashed.
“I have not forgotten,” Maksim said. “The nightmares, do they still trouble you?”
She shrugged. They did, but she had no intention of rubbing Maksim’s face in it.
He understood, anyway, by the tension in his posture; he looked away from her, out the window again, and shifted restlessly.
“You want to go out running or something, don’t you? It’s such a gorgeous evening,” she said. “I’m glad you’re well enough again.”
He was more than well enough, really. He’d regained much of his lost weight, eating well and training, and his skin shone brown with sun, except for streaks of pale scarring on the right side. He no longer limped at all.
“Go,” Lissa said. “We’ll finish the cleaning ourselves. Thanks again.”
He brought his attention back to her with an effort and smiled. “Next month, koldun’ia. Or anytime I can be of service.”
Once out the door, she saw him walk away swiftly, yanking at his tie, shoving his sleeves up his forearms.
Stella came down in a halter top, hair still damp and kinked from the braids. “We should bring him to the pub with us,” she said.
Lissa bit her lip.
Stella swatted her. “Joking. I’m not an idiot,” she said. “Though it would be funny, watching Rafe wonder … still joking, still joking! Want to get a falafel?”
JULY 16
FIRST QUARTER
Maksim reached the park, almost running now. He dropped his tie in a waste bin and then tore at the buttons on his shirt and let it flap open.
He stopped under an old oak and spread his arms wide, opening his chest, flaring his nostrils.
“Hey,” Gus said, edging up behind him.
Maksim turned and embraced her.
Gus stood stoically; just as Maksim began to release her, she hugged back, hard, and butted her head against Maksim’s for a second.
She was thinner and darker-skinned, hair bleached sun-gold. She looked boyish and wiry, the way she had when they’d traveled by sea, only even dirtier: army pants mottled gray, shirt nearly worn through, showing a salt-bleached sport top underneath. Fingernails worn to the quick, with dirt rammed up beneath them. A dozen bracelets of woven embroidery floss about her wrist. She reeked of smoke.
She was also alone.
“Shh,” she said, though Maksim had not spoken. “I said I’d take it on, and I did.”
Maksim wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face against her unwashed hair.
“I’m going to skip out for a while,” she said. “Someone’s going to notice he’s gone.”
“Maybe I should come with you,” Maksim said. “His friends might be able to tie him to me.”
Gus was shaking her head, hard. “Fuck that,” she said. “You’re staying. This is what you wanted. This is what you built.”
Maksim waited and held on until the fierce tremor in Gus’s body stilled and she stood away, holding her breath.
“I will stay,” he said. “I will be here when you are ready.”
Gus exhaled.
“And I think you might make the time for dinner before you leave,” Maksim said.
Gus looked down at her hands, all the knuckles dark with scars.
“How about a drink?” she said.
Maksim felt his throat tighten with something, pity or pride or guilt or all of those.
He would have taken her to a pub, at least, but she led him southwest through Parkdale to the LCBO. She let him pick out a bottle of bourbon that wasn’t the cheapest on offer while she fidgeted with the bracelets at her wrist.
Back outdoors, she was easier. They walked south past Gus’s old flat and sat on a bench overlooking the highway and the lake. The evening began to cool, fresh air drifting in off the water. Gus drank quickly until Maksim could see the tension loosened in her shoulders. She talked about the job a little and the places she had seen, forests on forests.
“I think that’s the kind of place I’ll go next,” she said, fingers tearing idly at the edge of the paper bag holding her bottle. “Someplace with gorgeous things.”
“Not South Africa,” Maksim said. “Choose a place where you will be a stranger.”
“If you’ll lend me a bit of blunt for a ticket,” Gus said, with her blinding grin, sunset haloing her tangled hair. “Right now, I have enough to make it as far as, oh, New York, and that’s if I don’t expect to be hungry when I get there.”
“Where are you staying? I will come by with money.”
“Nowhere,” Gus said. “Not now. I’ll be on a flight tonight, if you can get me drunk enough.”
And so midnight found Maksim bundling Gus into a security line at Pearson, with her kit bag and her bowie knife safely checked, her clothes still filthy, and her face, puffy and flushed, looking eve
ry bit as old as the faked passport said.
She didn’t look at him once she passed the scanners. Just kicked her feet back into her boots and walked on.
JULY 16
WAXING GIBBOUS
Sooner or later, the nightly terrors would fade; but in the meantime, thought Lissa, she could not be expected to keep her life on hold.
She arrived at Rafe’s apartment—he called it a flat—carrying a little box of Portuguese custard tarts and a bottle of the barbera she remembered him drinking the first time they’d gone out.
“Wow,” he said when he opened the door.
“Too much?” Lissa asked. She’d worn her hair down, rippling over her shoulders, over the thin straps of the top Stella kept trying to steal. It was a flattering top.
“Custard tarts,” Rafe said, skimming his palm over her collarbone. “Can’t resist ’em.”
“You’re not supposed to resist them.”
“Come,” he said. “There’s pesto salad and salmon steaks. If you can keep from distracting me while I finish cooking.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
“Rafe. There’s some stuff I don’t know—”
“I know. Remember? Everyone starts at square one, every time.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never even played the game.”
“It’s not a game,” he said, taking her hand. “Hasn’t been a game for a while now.”
He kissed her mouth and the hollow of her throat and led her inside to the table he had prepared.
Later, when she woke at the accustomed time, shivering, with the dream of the mummified baby terrible and familiar in her mind’s sight, she did not reach out for his hand. But she listened to his breath and knew he would still be there when the hour had ended.
About the Author
CLAIRE HUMPHREY’s short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex, Crossed Genres, Fantasy Magazine, and Podcastle. Her short story “Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot” appeared in the Lambda Award–nominated collection Beyond Binary, and her short story “The Witch of Tarup” was published in the critically acclaimed anthology Long Hidden. Spells of Blood and Kin is her first novel.
Visit her Web site at www.clairehumphrey.ca/. Or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
April 25: Waxing Gibbous (Lissa)
April 25: Waxing Gibbous (Nick)
April 26: Full Moon (Lissa)
April 26: Full Moon (Maksim)
April 26: Full Moon (Nick)
April 27: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
April 27: Waning Gibbous (Maksim)
April 28: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
April 29: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
Chapter 2
April 29: Waning Gibbous (Maksim)
Shulgin, Russia: 1707 (Maksim)
April 30: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
April 30: Waning Gibbous (Maksim)
Cadiz, Spain: 1813 (Maksim)
April 30: Waning Gibbous (Nick)
Cape Town, South Africa: 1814
May 5: Waning Crescent (Stella)
May 5: Waning Crescent (Maksim)
Chapter 3
May 8: Waning Crescent (Lissa)
May 10: New Moon (Nick)
May 11: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
May 11: Waxing Crescent (Maksim)
May 12: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
May 13: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
May 14: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
May 15: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
Chapter 4
May 16: Waxing Crescent (Nick)
May 17: Waxing Crescent (Maksim)
Western Russia: 1952 (Maksim)
May 17: Waxing Crescent (Nick)
May 18: First Quarter (Maksim)
May 18: First Quarter (Lissa)
Chapter 5
May 20: Waxing Gibbous (Nick)
Afghanistan: 1981 (Maksim)
May 21: Waxing Gibbous (Lissa)
Afghanistan: 1982 (Maksim)
May 21: Waxing Gibbous (Maksim)
May 24: Waxing Gibbous (Nick)
Chapter 6
May 24: Waxing Gibbous (Lissa)
May 25: Full Moon (Nick)
May 25: Full Moon (Jonathan)
May 25: Full Moon (Lissa)
May 26: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
May 26: Waning Gibbous (Maksim)
Chapter 7
May 26: Waning Gibbous (Nick)
May 26: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
May 26: Waning Gibbous (Nick)
May 26: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
Chapter 8
May 26: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
May 27: Waning Gibbous (Nick)
May 28: Waning Gibbous (Maksim)
May 28: Waning Gibbous (Nick)
May 30: Waning Gibbous (Lissa)
Chapter 9
June 1: Last Quarter (Nick)
June 1: Last Quarter (Lissa)
June 1: Last Quarter (Nick)
June 1: Last Quarter (Lissa)
Chapter 10
June 3: Waning Crescent (Lissa)
June 5: Waning Crescent (Nick)
June 6: Waning Crescent (Lissa)
June 7: Waning Crescent (Lissa)
June 8: New Moon (Lissa)
June 9: Waxing Crescent (Maksim)
June 9: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
Chapter 11
June 9: Waxing Crescent (Nick)
June 10: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
June 11: Waxing Crescent (Nick)
June 11: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
June 11: Waxing Crescent (Nick)
June 11: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
Chapter 12
June 11: Waxing Crescent (Nick)
June 12: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
June 12: Waxing Crescent (Maksim)
June 12: Waxing Crescent (Lissa)
June 12: Waxing Crescent (Maksim)
June 12: Waxing Crescent (Nick)
June 12: Waxing Crescent (Maksim)
Another Country: A Century Ago (Maksim)
June 12: Waxing Crescent (Maksim)
June 23: Full Moon (Lissa)
Chapter 13
June 23: Full Moon (Nick)
July 14: Waxing Crescent (Nick)
July 15: Waxing Crescent (Gus)
July 16: First Quarter (Lissa)
July 16: First Quarter (Maksim)
July 16: Waxing Gibbous (Lissa)
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. martin’s press.
SPELLS OF BLOOD AND KIN. Copyright © 2016 by Claire Humphrey. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover photographs: city © Peter Bowers / Getty Images; starry sky © Standret / Shutterstock
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-07634-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-8772-5 (e-book)
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First Edition: June 2016
Spells of Blood and Kin Page 28
