The Blood Keeper

by Tessa Gratton

  I glanced behind her at Holly, who was counting change for a woman and her fluffy poodle. There were only four cheerleaders, and I hadn’t thought of a plan of action beyond bringing coffee. “Need help?”

  Shanti gave me a pitying look. “Yes, it takes more than four competent cheerleaders to sell cookies to the hippies.” She took the second tray of coffee and put it on the corner of the table.

  “Does it take more than three?” I offered my best charming smile.

  Holly thanked her customer and, before Shanti could answer, slid around to my side. “Hi, Will. Thanks for the coffee.”

  Shanti said, “Three will do just fine.”

  “Great.” I waited.

  Holly’s eyes flickered to Shanti, and they shared one of those moments of silent girl communication. Shanti’s shoulders twitched in a tiny shrug, and Holly put her hand in mine. “Let’s go.”

  It took a second for my feet to catch up with hers. Her hand was warm, not at all like the cold, wet ankle I’d first touched in all the dark water. She didn’t hold on long, though. Just until she paused at a wool booth to sift through scarves. I stood there, watching her, wondering why I was there. She wanted to talk to me, to say something. I felt like I owed her some time at least, even though I’d been the one who saved her, so probably most people would say it was the other way around. I sure didn’t think so.

  The day she’d come back to school, I remembered waiting all morning like there was a sniper target between my shoulder blades. Waiting for the ball to drop. At lunch, she was there with her friends, with our friends, and I sat next to Matt while she pretended to eat the chips out of her lunch bag. Shanti’d teased her about the high-fructose corn syrup in them, and Matt had punched me on the shoulder and said, “Will’s here, she doesn’t have to worry.”

  She looked up from the wool scarves then and I saw her eyes, muddy brown like the water had been. I thought of my hands with her blood on them, the watery pink blood, and at the same time we said, “I’m sorry.”

  We wandered toward the booths with hot breakfast. Just to have something to do I bought a piece of fry bread to pick apart. There were rickety benches and plastic card tables there, and we sat down. Trees at this edge of the parking lot gave us some shade, but it was plenty warm. People walked everywhere, chatting like old friends, poking at asparagus and avoiding the warm exhaust from the all-natural meat booth’s refrigerator. I could see the cheerleaders’ booth from here, doing better business with the cookies than the shirts. Maybe seeing the girls in their own shirts was reminding buyers they’d never look that good.

  “I’m not sorry I’m alive,” Holly said. It was the first thing she’d said since our mutual apology a few minutes ago, other than the no when I’d asked if she wanted some fry bread.

  “Good.” I squinted. A ray of sun had pushed through the trees behind us and glittered off her gold earrings. It flashed in my eye.

  “I’m just sorry you have to put up with all that bullshit at school.” She sat with her hands clasped in her lap, watching the passersby with her usual calm.

  “It wasn’t important. Not a problem.”

  “It is; you’re doing it because of me.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. I tore off a hunk of the flat fry bread. It was dark gold and stretchy.

  Holly sighed sharply. “I do mind. Not about you, I mean, but … about the big deal. My mom got a call yesterday morning from a representative from some talk show. They want to have us come talk about near death and Kansas earthquakes.” She said it fast, in one breath. “That’s what I wanted to tell you yesterday. My mom thinks I should do it, but I’m tired of it, and I didn’t do anything.”

  I was glad I hadn’t actually tried to eat the bread. It was hard enough keeping the wince off my face without chewing, too.

  “Did they ask you?” She touched my wrist and then pulled her hand away.

  “No. Not that I know of. But I’ll say no, if they do.”

  Her smile was instantaneous. “Oh, good. I didn’t want to abandon you to it alone.”

  “Thanks. I, uh, I’m sorry, too.” I hurried on as her smile faded fast. “I know everybody’s treating you differently. Like you’re still … delicate.”

  “Yeah.” Holly stared at the table. She began picking at the plastic seam with her fingernail. “I feel like it, sometimes.”

  I looked at her pretty lips, at her brown-gray eyes that were the same color as the lake. “I don’t think you’re delicate. You survived a concussion and almost drowned.”

  “Thanks to you and Shanti.”

  “Okay, it was a group effort. We all rock.” I grinned at her, wanting her to feel better. Less like she was going to break.

  It got a light laugh out of her. “We do,” she agreed.

  We sat for a moment, both of us watching the people. I wondered if everybody thought they were weaker than they were. Except Ben, of course. I almost rolled my eyes at myself, and then a dazzling bit of yellow caught my attention.

  There, about five booths down and across the lane from the cheerleaders, was Mab.

  I pinched my eyes closed and wondered if she’d still be there when I looked. Except for the taste in my mouth and nightmares all week—choking on rose vines, sinking into thick mud—I’d done a great job not thinking about last Sunday morning.

  When I opened my eyes, there she was.

  Her hair was braided back at her ears. It fell behind her and reflected the sun like a mirror. Her table was covered in little glass jars and vials, piles of soap, and cloth bags tied with multicolored ribbons. A woman in long sleeves and a straw hat sat back in a folding chair. Next to her was a mixed-race boy about nine or so, cutting one of the bars of soap in half with a tiny knife. Mab leaned over him so that free strands of her hair fell around her face, and pointed at something in the soap. Whatever it was fascinated the kid.

  “Do you see that booth over there,” I asked Holly, “with the sign for Prowd Charms?” It looked like it had been painted by a toddler.

  “Yeah.” Holly tapped her nails on the table. “God, that’s the Prowds. The girl, Mab, she came to try out for our softball team once, a long time ago. I thought she was going to attack Kate with the bat. And she didn’t like the rules. I mean, it’s kind of a stupid game, but she didn’t even try.” Holly laughed. “Why?”

  “Oh.” I shrugged and stuffed a piece of fry bread into my mouth around the sudden taste of mud. It was greasy and warm. “No reason,” I said as I swallowed.

  “They live out—out by Matt’s uncle, actually.” Her voice lowered as though she was talking to herself. “Some old cult, I guess. Homeschool all their kids.”

  “A cult?” I thought of Mab with the goggles over her face and the knife. And cutting the heart out of the mud monster. In that moment, it was all real.

  “You should ask Kate. Her grandma used to have tea with Mab’s grandma sometimes, I guess when they were kids. Kate says her grandma says the family’s been on their land since after the Civil War. As long as there’s been a town here, really, and you know there’s Prowd Street over across from Highway 24. Same family.”

  “Huh.” I watched Mab tell two men in creased jeans something she obviously found distasteful. She crossed her arms and put on a very poor imitation of a welcoming smile. I realized I was grinning.

  “I should get back to the booth, I think,” Holly said.

  I shoved the fry bread away. “Sure.”

  As Holly and I walked past the Prowd Charms booth, I glanced at Mab and found her staring at me, too.

  MAB

  It was nearing fun to teach Lukas all about the ingredients I put in the charms, and why some made you clean and others made your bruises heal faster. He asked quiet questions, and sometimes Donna put in her two cents, while the sun beat down and gradually heated up the whole black parking lot. I noticed Lukas seemed to draw more attention than Donna and I ever did on our own. Probably it was how earnest he looked as he counted out change, or the delight tha
t swept his face when one of the hundred leashed dogs squished under the table to lick at his fingers. That all certainly made the market more enjoyable for me.

  I’d just finished explaining the difference between our cold tea and our fever tea to a very sweet woman who had a stroller with twins when I saw Will Sanger walking toward the booth beside one of the girls from the high school table. Her T-shirt was so tight I could see exactly where her bra was across her back, and her shorts might as well have been underwear.

  He turned to me then and smiled, and I started to smile back.

  “What’re you staring at?” Lukas asked.

  Donna said, “I believe that’s the girl who fell into the lake during the earthquake.”

  “What?” I broke contact with Will to frown at her.

  She put a hand to her forehead to block the bright sunlight. “Yes, it is, and the boy who saved her, too. Will Sanger.”

  “What?” I snapped back to look at Will, but he’d moved on, just his back to us. They arrived at the high school table, and Will said something to make all of the girls laugh.

  Donna said, “Her name is Holly, I think, and the boy dove into the lake for her when she fell in. Saved her life, the paper said.”

  My entire body quivered, and goose bumps raced up my spine to scatter down my arms like tiny insects. “That happened,” I whispered, “during Arthur’s earthquake?”

  Donna nodded.

  Even under the warm May sun, even without a wind to pick up our sweat, I was so cold. I thought of Will at that little lake just past our woods, slamming the homunculus down, tearing out its antler. The little lake. “At … at that lake on Mr. Riber’s land?”

  “Yes, Mab, are you all right?” Donna touched my shoulder, and Lukas, too, put a hand on my elbow. Their skin was so much hotter than mine.

  Closing my eyes, I drew in a long breath, cursing the black pavement under my feet that kept me off the earth, cutting the energy of the planet away from me. I hated being in town, with its grid of roads like a web holding the world prisoner. I focused on the heat of the sunlight, on the voices all around, the distant hum of traffic from the interstate, laughter and birdsong and my family’s hands on me. “Yes,” I said, opening my eyes. “I’m perfectly fine.”

  Like the last drop of blood that seals a spell, I found Will’s face through layers of crowd. I looked at his smile, at the play of light on his skin, and felt the snap of magic completing itself.

  WILL

  I was complimenting Lacey’s star cookies and explaining with a half-full mouth that I had to run to meet my brother for a late breakfast. “Yes,” I said to Shanti’s pointed glance at the empty cookie bag in my hand, “I’m gonna eat more.”

  She opened her mouth for whatever retort, but instead her mouth just stayed open. She and Holly, Kate, and Lacey all stared behind me with mixed looks. Kate and Lacey even shifted closer together, like they were grouping up against attack.

  It was probably the pug in a princess costume I’d seen wandering around.

  But when I turned my shoulder to look, it was only Mab.

  She stood with one hand up at her ear. Frozen in the process of tucking her braid back.

  “Hi, Mab,” I said, surprised. I smiled. “You know …” I turned to the cheerleaders, who stared at me now. My smile faltered. Holly narrowed her eyes at me, and I said, “Mab and I met, um, while I was out hiking, out on the prairie north of town.” As if I had to explain.

  Which I did, since ten minutes ago I’d let Holly go on like I had no idea who Mab was.

  Disappointment became a polite smile as Holly turned to Mab. “Hi. Did you want some cookies?”

  All the other girls turned their smiles back on, like it was a cue. “All proceeds go to the Mars and Kemp Scholarship fund,” Shanti added.

  Mab squinted her mouth like she didn’t understand the English. “No, no thank you. I just”—she looked back at me—“I wanted to ask Will something.”

  “Sure thing,” I said.

  But Mab tilted up her chin. “Alone.” She washed any sign of uncertainty off her face and waited.

  Everybody waited.

  I was trapped in a little pocket of girl politics.

  Slowly, I nodded. “Okay. I have to go meet my brother, so if you can … walk with me?”

  Shanti said, “Thanks for the coffee,” a bit too sweetly, but Holly caught my eye and waved her fingers. I didn’t think she was mad.

  But it still felt like I’d just made a choice.

  “Do you need to tell your mom?” I asked as Mab and I headed out of the market.

  “That isn’t my mom” was all she said. Unlike Holly, Mab ignored all the booths around, making her way clearly through the crowd. I dodged an old couple in matching Kansas City Chiefs T-shirts and caught up. Her hair fell everywhere, barely restrained by the little braids behind each ear, and her summer dress hung loose from her shoulders to just past her knees. She was barefoot. I nearly tripped over a wiener dog when I noticed. On this pavement the bottoms of her feet had to be burning. And filthy.

  She got to the street, only glancing at a busker with a fiddle. She smiled at him and then asked me, “Which way?”

  “Um.” I looked up and down the road. “Left.”

  We crossed and headed through a wide alley painted with bright murals onto the main drag. Either side of the street was lined with shops and restaurants, old lampposts and small trees. The buildings were tall and narrow, mostly brick. It looked like a modern Old West town, and I had a sudden memory of when we first moved here, of Aaron geeking out because the whole place had been burned down in eighteen sixty-something, during the Civil War.

  Mab walked to one of the concrete boxes that surrounded the trees. She climbed up onto it and stepped in, balancing on the thin roots. Her shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t even noticed how stiff she’d been.

  “You don’t like the city,” I said. I sat on the concrete.

  “It’s horrendous. At least they let some trees grow.” She reached up and brushed her fingers along the undersides of the little oval leaves. “It would be better if they built with wood.” She perched next to me, leaning her hands back into the roots and dirt. Cars drove past, sharking the parking spots all up and down the street. A crow cawed, and I glanced up to see one perched on the edge of a fake balcony right overhead. Only one, though. I looked all around for the rest of Mab’s friends.

  She inhaled suddenly, like cocking a pistol. “Will, why were you at the lake on Sunday?”

  “Uh.” I smiled at a family of four walking past us on the sidewalk. The little boy stared at me and waved a grubby hand. When they’d passed, I told her what I hadn’t told anybody. “I was having nightmares about it.”

  “About the lake?”

  “Do you remember the earthquake a few weeks ago?” My voice went all hushed, as if it was a secret. A secret that had been in the newspaper.

  Mab only nodded. Her eyes were so blue. Like, animation blue.

  “I was at the lake for it, and Holly, who you met back at the booth, she fell in. I dove in and found her.” I rubbed my hands slowly together, focused on the hissing sound they made. “My dreams are about that. Diving through muddy water. Not being able to find her. That kind of thing. I thought maybe if I went to the lake and, like, purged the memory, I’d be able to sleep.” I ran my hands through my hair, rough on my skull. “Guess that sounds ridiculous.”

  But when I looked at Mab, her face had gone all loose and happy. “I don’t think so at all, Will. I think you were exactly right.”

  “You do?”

  “You were meant to be there. Your dreams drew you to the lake that very morning. And so we met.” She said it matter-of-factly. Not like it was full of destiny and New Age woo-woo. “Our paths connected.”

  I stared. There was dirt smeared on her forehead. And that hair. So bright she’d never be missed at the bottom of a muddy lake. I thought of her jumping out of the tree with goggles on her head. Of the heart dissolving in he
r hands. It made my nightmares flash past. All mud and roses and sharp cuts on the palms of my hands. I winced.

  “Will?”

  “Yeah, I’m just … fine.” I smiled, pushing to convince her it was nothing. It was nothing.

  Mab touched my chest, exactly where the antler had jammed into me. Where there’d been a pale bruise for six days.

  Her fingers were cool through my T-shirt. Just like when she pressed her bloody hand against me and told me it was all impossible.

  I grabbed her hand suddenly. “It was real. Not impossible.”

  To my shock, Mab said, “It was a homunculus.”

  “A what?”

  “A man’s body that I created of earth and gave life.”

  I stared at her.

  Mab waited. She pushed hair over her shoulder.

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “What do you think it was, if not the thing I say?” She tilted her head, and the crow on the fake balcony cawed. It flapped down, and a woman jogging with earphones in gave us all a wide berth. The crow landed in the tree next to Mab and tilted its head just like hers. I stared at it. At its glossy black feathers. At the dark brown eye that stared right back.

  “Will?”

  “Uh.” I looked at the cracked concrete. The mud monster. What did I think it was? How could a thing made of mud and branches and rocks and feathers and a bloody heart be real? What else could it be? An alien? Government conspiracy? There wasn’t anything more believable than what she’d said. Slowly I lifted my eyes to hers again. “I guess I think it was a homunculus.”

  The smile she offered back made me glad we’d walked away from the cheerleaders.

  I smiled, too, and we stood there like we had nothing better to do. A car door slammed, and I jerked. “I gotta get to Ben. Um, thanks, Mab. For telling me.”

  Mab turned my hand over and drew an invisible circle in my palm. “You were meant to know.”

  SIXTEEN