Blood Magic

by Tessa Gratton

  The Deacon came last month, and I entertained him as best I could. We traveled down the coast, and he showed me the cemetery where he found Philip stealing bodies so long ago. I like the Deacon for many things—his amorality is refreshing after Philip, and his imagination quite matches mine. But here in Boston, he seems superstitious and old-minded. For all that I am powerful and skilled, he frowns at my pants and makes clear that he is displeased by the general mood of the modern world.

  I kissed him, and told him there might be things about the modern world he could admire, but he knows I only do it because I am furious with Philip.

  He is correct, of course. My heart is fixed upon my Prospero, my lost wizard.

  And so instead of having a passionate affair, the Deacon and I hunted for the bones of another witch like us so that we might surprise Philip when he returns with enough carmot to last thirty years.

  NICHOLAS

  It was late, so I tried not to slam any doors. The TV flickered from the den, and I could see both Lilith’s and my dad’s heads. I paused in the kitchen. I wasn’t hungry, and my head throbbed slightly. Maybe left over from being possessed. Maybe from being tired.

  My eyes narrowed. So much for Dad being worried about me. I strode to the den and perched on the edge of the single step leading down into the room. It was tricked out in black leather and those splattery kind of modern paintings that, now that I was thinking about it, looked a lot like arterial spray. “I’m home,” I declared.

  Dad twisted. “Nicholas Pardee, where the hell have you been?”

  “Out.”

  He stood, and Lilith followed, just sort of gliding up behind him. Dad put his hands on his waist, a sure sign that he was about to emote. “Damn it, Nick, your school counselor called, and—”

  “Everything was fine!”

  “No need to yell.” Dad’s measured voice grated, and if I could have growled without it sounding ridiculous, I would have. Why couldn’t he just yell back? Lilith slid her long hand across Dad’s shoulders, as though he was the one needing comfort. “I’m glad you and your friend Silla are all right, Nicky,” she purred.

  “We are.”

  “Nick,” Dad said, “you need to call me when this kind of thing happens. You’re involved in a possible assault, and there are preparations to be made.”

  “You mean lawyer stuff? I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t do anything—did she really say it was an assault?”

  His eyebrows lowered. “She said there are conflicting reports about you hitting a young woman.”

  “You believe I would do that?” I felt sick.

  “I just don’t know, Nick. With all this sneaking around you’ve been doing. Spending time in a cemetery, and with a clearly disturbed girl—”

  “She is not disturbed. I’m the one who should be worried about you, and your taste in women.”

  “Do not go down that path.” Dad stepped forward again. “You have done nothing but disrespect me and my wife for months. Disregarding all the good Mary’s tried to do, being hostile and openly disdainful, Nick. It will stop.”

  “Or what?” I crossed my arms over my chest. What was he going to do? Try to ground me? He wasn’t here enough to enforce anything. Take away my car? I could walk to Silla.

  Dad opened his mouth, but Lilith put a hand on his chest. “Let’s take a break, boys. Get some sleep. Talk in the morning when everybody’s calmed down.” She glanced at me. “Your father has had a long day, and couldn’t retire until he knew you were home.”

  “Whatever. I’m here. Good night.” I spun around and left as Lilith murmured something soothing to my dad.

  I hated her.

  Lilith was Josephine. She had to be. I didn’t know why she hadn’t grabbed me or attacked me or whatever. Preserving her identity or something, I guessed. And now she was getting Dad to back down, like she knew the truth about what had happened at school. Dad had met her right around the time Silla’s parents were killed, then she’d convinced him, a city man to the bone, to move out here to the middle of nowhere? Right after my grandpa died? She could easily have killed him, too.

  It all made sense.

  I needed proof, some way of convincing Dad before she hurt him, too. It wasn’t like I could tell him his mega-hot trophy wife was a nasty blood witch. Especially not now.

  Instead of tromping upstairs, I paused in the kitchen at the cellar door. Mostly, Dad was using the cellar for wine, but several boxes had gone down there when we’d moved in. As quietly as possible, I popped the door open (it stuck, thanks to old construction), and winced while I waited and listened for movement from the den.

  When nothing happened, I stepped down the first of the creaky stairs, feeling along the wall for the light switch. I’d been down here once, when we moved in, and even in the bright, hot afternoon had been grateful for the modern wiring. When the bulb flashed to life, it managed to flood out most of the shadows with weak white light. The stairway was narrow, and I tiptoed down to the concrete floor. There was another switch here, and I flicked it. The whole cellar was as large as the first floor, but it was divided up into as many rooms as the upstairs. This first room was lined with wine racks. They were maybe a fifth full with wine and a few random bottles of scotch and port. Sherry for Lilith. I briefly considered grabbing some whiskey to help me through the next hour, but decided I’d rather be sharp and on my toes.

  The dank cellar curved around into a second room, which was really the only other one not just sitting empty. Boxes were piled high, mostly cardboard, but with several clear plastic bins holding all our winter clothes. That was a new concept for me and Dad—changing out winter and summer clothes. What was wrong with having them all out all year? But as with everything, Dad gave in to Lilith’s suggestions without thinking.

  Too bad I hadn’t brought a flashlight: the words identifying the contents of every box were tough to make out. Mostly they said things like CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS and ROSE CHINA. A few had Dad’s old comic books, which Lilith had banished from the library (and that was the only thing that ever made me want to read them myself). I grabbed a box that wasn’t labeled, thinking if I was a body-snatching blood witch I wouldn’t store my secrets in a box reading SPELLS AND CHARMS.

  The cardboard was limp from the constant damp, and I easily pried open the flaps. Inside was a bunch of books. High school yearbooks, from some school in Delaware. Under the four volumes was a layer of letters addressed to Lilith. I pulled one out of its envelope and skimmed it. Love notes from a guy named Craig. Fortunately, they were more sappy than sexy. I dug a little deeper and found several sketching pads and a huge pile of little journals. I opened one to find the first pages or first paragraphs of about three dozen stories. Fiction things, one of which mentioned the main detective in one of Lilith’s series.

  Frustrated, I sat back on my heels. It was her stuff, all right, but regular old keepsakes, not the dark secrets I was hoping for. I guessed she probably kept that stuff closer to her. Maybe under her lingerie or something horrible like that, where I’d never look. Was I wasting my time?

  I decided on one last scan of the boxes, and when I stood, I saw the box behind the keepsakes I’d just gone through.

  The label was in different handwriting: DONNA, 12–18.

  For a moment, I didn’t breathe.

  I dragged it out, but my fingers wouldn’t obey when I told them to open it. I crouched there, staring at it for I don’t know how long. It was like I knew something inside was going to tear me up, or piss me off.

  It was filled with pictures. Mom must’ve had her own camera, and she photographed everything. I recognized the house from the outside and the cabinets in the kitchen, and there were two folks Dad’s age who must’ve been my grandparents. Grandpa Harleigh looked vaguely familiar. I remembered him scowling, not smiling.

  I didn’t spend much time with those; I’d never spent time with my grandparents and didn’t want to start feeling guilty about it. A lot of the pictures were taken in the
graveyard and the fields around it, at all times of the year. The clothes everybody wore made me laugh a little as I flipped through a stack from the high school. Which was exactly the same. I even recognized old Mrs. Trenchess. Course, she hadn’t been old at the time.

  And then there was Robbie Kennicot, in stonewashed jeans and what I very generously decided not to think of as a mullet. His eyes were just like Silla’s in the painting in their study. But he smiled way too much.

  Mom’s self-portraits almost made me throw the box away. She’d done that thing where you hold the camera as far from you as possible and push the button, and it captures a bunch of weird angles and perspectives.

  Her hair didn’t change much over the years, starting when she must have been in seventh or eighth grade. It was just thick and long, occasionally swooping back from her ears, other times just hanging straight and plain. Most of my own memories of Mom gave her shorter, pageboy cuts and a thinner face. It was weird seeing her like this. With bangles on her wrists and a really happy smile. There was one of her and Robbie, holding hands on the school bleachers. He must have taken it. Mom was kissing his cheek, her face all scrunched up from giggling. I wondered if she’d ever looked that cute when I’d been around. Or Dad. Surely she had. That’s why Dad had loved her in the first place.

  Staring at the photo of their obvious freaking bliss, the horrible thought occurred to me that it might not have been a very lot that kept me from being Silla’s brother instead of Reese. Ugh. Ugh.

  Rolling my shoulders as if that could banish the unfortunate thought, I let myself remember very clearly how I knew she wasn’t even close to being my sister: the way she’d climbed into my lap and savaged my mouth.

  The picture of Mom and Mr. Kennicot fit easily in my jeans pocket, folded in half. Had they snuck into the cemetery at night and regenerated bones? Made magic charms between kisses?

  I had this urge to choose a few of the photos and send them to her in New Mexico or wherever with a note: Found happier part of your life, the one I wasn’t in. Or just keep them in my pocket all the time so that when I did eventually see her again, I could show them to her and say … something. Why don’t I remember you this happy? What was wrong with me and Dad?

  I promised myself I’d be stronger than she’d been. I wouldn’t hate the power. I wouldn’t abuse it. My hands tingled as I thought of the magic, and I held them out before me. Tiny scratches from the bird attack itched with my pulse. But it was hard to focus on them, and I realized my hands were shaking.

  I dumped all the boxes back where they belonged and hurried upstairs.

  February 4, 1948

  I hardly know him. Philip is thin and quiet. Not the quiet of churning thoughts or deep contemplation. It is a stillness that has settled around him like a wide black lake. It is a shield, a castle, that I cannot push through. Even the carmot has not made his blood boil.

  I have tried to stir his blood, to drag him out into the world. I have kissed him and showered him with news. I have asked him what he’s seen. What he’s witnessed. He only shakes his head or closes his eyes. I bought a trio of canaries and possessed them all—I learned to sing with their throats and to carry them in an amusing sort of harmony. They almost sounded like the Andrews Sisters singing “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” Philip smiled, but only to please me.

  The Deacon has convinced him to travel west, into mountains far from the pollution of men in order to find his peace again. I will not go. I will not.

  I wish to tear this book into a hundred pieces.

  NICHOLAS

  Dad came up to the attic to wake me for school. “We need to talk,” he began ominously.

  I scrubbed at my eyes, aching all over. “Jesus, Dad, can’t I at least piss before we do this?” My neck was stiff and I just wanted to fall back into my pillows.

  “I don’t want you fleeing the scene before I get a word in.” He frowned. As usual, he looked like he’d walked out of a catalog. Perfect hair already styled, perfect shave, tie knotted perfectly evenly at God knows what time in the morning. I swear he didn’t even eat breakfast before brushing his teeth. Three times.

  “Fine, fine. What do you want to talk about?” I plastered on a smile. Dad would recognize it as quickly as I recognized his patronizing one.

  But he shook his head. “Your girlfriend. I think you should seriously consider not seeing her.”

  “What the hell?”

  His lips pinched downward at my language.

  “Seriously, Dad, what do you think you know?” My eyes narrowed. “It was Lilith, wasn’t it? What did that bitch say now?”

  “Nicholas Pardee, you will not, I repeat, not refer to Mary by that awful name.”

  “Which one?”

  He didn’t respond. Dad tried not to give credence to things he found lacking with something even so small as a blink. The picture tucked into my jeans pocket flashed in my memory. Mom, giggling and carefree. There was no way she’d ever been that way with Dad. No wonder she hadn’t turned to him when she’d needed him.

  After a moment of us glaring at each other, I threw my covers back. “I’m going to get ready for school.”

  “Nick.”

  Dad’s voice was quieter now, but just as firm.

  The cool morning air chilled all my exposed skin. I kept my eyes glued to my knees.

  “I spoke at length yesterday with the guidance counselor at your school. She told me some things about Drusilla Kennicot. Some very concerning things.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Her parents died in an appalling manner,” he said, like they’d spilled red wine on Lilith’s white carpet and hadn’t apologized. “And young Drusilla is having a difficult time.”

  “So?”

  “So, she might be needing better help than you can give, son. Think of her as being on the rebound.”

  “Dad, I’m not trying to help her. I just like her, okay?”

  “I understand being drawn to that sort of broken individual, but it—”

  “You mean Mom, don’t you?” I looked at him, feeling ridiculously breathless.

  Dad leaned forward in my computer chair, which he’d drawn close to the bed. “Yes. I don’t regret anything, Nick, of course, but I don’t want you to have to go through anything like what I did. What you did. Your mother was unstable, and I couldn’t tell when we were young.”

  “You loved her too much?” I sounded derisive on purpose.

  He hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

  Shock made me confess. “I, uh, I found a box in the cellar that’s filled with pictures she took when she was in high school. I didn’t even know she liked to take pictures.”

  “She used to hang a camera around her neck when she was”—Dad paused—“sober.”

  “I can get them for you. From the cellar.”

  He hesitated, his lips forming a thin line. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

  “Sure.”

  “About Drusilla.”

  “Just Silla, Dad.”

  “All right. I just want you to think about her, about things. She’s involving you in things you have no need to be involved with.”

  I almost laughed. “She isn’t. Look, here’s what happened. Her friend just had a bad afternoon—I don’t know if Wendy was drunk or just, I don’t know, upset. But Silla was trying to help her. All I did was grab her to calm her down. I don’t know who’s spreading lies, but that’s the truth.” I could feel the blood rushing into my cheeks and ears. I needed to call Silla so that we could get our stories straight. How could we not have talked about it last night?

  After a moment watching my face, Dad nodded. “Very well, Nick. I believe you. I only want you to be careful. I am not blind—I see those cuts on your neck and the backs of your hands that you came home with last night. I don’t know if you’re fighting, or what is going on. But if you trust this girl, I’ll trust your instincts.”

  I started to ask why he didn’t trust my instincts about his own damn wife. But I swa
llowed it. Dad was deliberately choosing to believe me about a girl he didn’t like. It was his clearest way of saying Maybe you should trust my instincts, too. I sat there in my boxers, feeling about ten years old. Dad got out of my chair and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You call me if you need me at school. If they try to punish you for something that you didn’t do. I’ll be around today, working here. I can get there in ten minutes.”

  Guilt made it hard to talk. “Thanks, Dad,” I managed.

  He nodded, then turned to go. “See you downstairs, son.”

  “Dad.”

  He glanced back.

  “You, uh, you love Mary like you loved Mom?”

  He didn’t even hesitate this time. “No. It’s very different, but not any less.”

  I couldn’t quite promise not to hate her, or not to think she was a soul-sucking psycho blood-witch wannabe. But I suddenly didn’t want her to be.

  May 1959

  Can I allow an entire decade to pass without note? If I had been born to this time, or did not know what life in other eras and places could be like, I might have drowned myself.

  I moved to New Orleans for a time, losing myself in new magic. But every dance with Li Grand Zombi, every blessing doll, made me wish I could turn to Philip and ask if he’d ever thought to try honey to make a healing stick or dancing and singing to call blood to blood.

  Here was this magic, akin to ours but holier. Philip would have loved Louisiana Voodoo. I had to leave it behind, because his absence pressed too hard against my discoveries. But the rest of the country was empty. A black-and-white television pretending to offer life.

  There is nothing more to remember. This old book is useless to me now.

  SILLA

  Tuesday morning was cool enough that I needed a jacket. Reese dropped me off at school about fifteen minutes early so that I could get my things from Stokes’s classroom, and the lot was mostly empty. Feeling naked without backpack or purse, I walked quickly toward the main building, hugging my corduroy jacket closed. The cold pricked at the little cuts on my hands from the bird attack. When all this was over, Reese and I would have to make one of the spell ointments for healing.