Blood Magic (12 page)

Silla pulled us to the right. “It’s only about two miles that way.” She pointed.

“Not a problem, unless you get cold.”

“I’ll survive.”

“Whiskey will keep you from hypothermia.”

She stopped, threw me a sideways glance. “And you?”

A smile spread across my mouth. “God, I hope so.”

We walked silently for a few minutes. There was no path, and we tromped through knee-high grass and weeds. My pants were going to need dry cleaning, and I wished I’d worn something more practical, like jeans. Oh, well. Silla, on the other hand, dove straight into the grass with total disregard for her clothes. I tried to imagine my ex tromping over anything but concrete or manicured lawns. Made myself chuckle.

“What?” Silla asked.

“I was just thinking about girls from Chicago dragging me off through fields like this.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Prissy girls? No way. I like this better.” I squeezed her hand.

“I mean Chicago.”

“Oh.” I dragged the sound out, like I was only just realizing what she’d meant. She rolled her eyes and smiled. “In that case, yes. Almost constantly. There was always something to do. Movies, clubs, libraries. I could hop on the El and get anywhere in the city.” I shrugged. “Didn’t need a car.”

“Sounds crowded.”

“Yeah. It was great.”

“Why’d you move here?”

“Ha—well, that’s because my dad is a lawyer and he thought it was in my stepmom’s best interest to get out of Chicago. Some stalker or something, they tell me. Real hush-hush. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more illegal than that. Or she made it up in an impressive play for Dad’s sympathy. They’ve only been married for a few months, so maybe she
used it to get her hooks in more securely. And to drag us out here.”

“Wow.”

“It was extremely convenient that Grandpa Harleigh croaked when he did.”

“Did you know him?”

“Nope. Just met him the once. I don’t know why he left me the house. No other family, I guess.”

“Will you go back to Chicago after graduation?”

“Sure, eventually. Periodically.”

“But not to live?”

“No.”

“What are you going to do? College?”

We hopped together over a tiny irrigation stream. “Find my mom.”

“You don’t know where she is?”

“Last I heard, somewhere in New Mexico pretending to be Native American.”

“What?”

“We’re, like, a sixty-fourth Cherokee or something totally minuscule like that, and she said she felt called to the ‘old ways.’ There wasn’t a forwarding address so that I could tell her the Cherokee were never a desert people.”

“How old were you when she left?”

“The first time? Eight. I don’t really remember, except being at the hospital. She’d bled all over the bathroom after a really stereotypical suicide attempt. And drugs, Dad says. She got clean, cracked up again when I was nine, tried to kill herself again, got clean, in this constant cycle. Then she screwed her
dealer and Dad used that as an excuse to divorce her. He got full custody, and basically a restraining order. I haven’t seen her since I was thirteen. Just random postcards. She claims she went through rehab and is on the right track. I’ll find out after school, maybe. Dad can’t keep me from her when I’m eighteen.” I fell silent. It had been a long time since I’d laid it all out like that. I guess it was the night for stories.

Silla didn’t respond for a while. I watched my shiny black shoes kick through dead grass and thought of Mom sitting down in a hostel or bus station, scrawling a few words to me and putting on the stamp, then forgetting I existed for another few months. Or taking a razor to her wrists again. It was too much to ask that Mom had really given that up. It was an addiction. She hated her own blood for some reason she never shared. And when she couldn’t drain herself dry, she’d turned to drugs to dilute the magic’s power.

“That sucks, Nicholas,” Silla finally said, sounding very formal. Like she was closing off some ritual. Acknowledging what I’d gone through in a way nobody ever had before.

“I like it when you call me that,” I admitted. “It’s real.”

“Nicholas,” she said again, but more slowly.

I shivered and had to roll my shoulders back to regain some firm ground. “So what about you, Silla? What are you going to do after high school?”

She winced and I wanted to know what had crossed her mind. But she said, “I don’t know. Go to college, I guess. I was going to apply to Southwestern State, in Springfield. They have a great theater program.”

“You want to act, then.”

“I’ve always loved it. Performance. The audience, the language, the action, and just the energy that’s all around it. But you know, I have to feel it again.”

“I guess you aren’t feeling much these days.”

“Easier that way.”

It was too perfect an opportunity to pass up. I stopped. When she realized, she did, too, and turned to me with eyebrows raised. I took one step, let go of her hand, and put both of mine under her jaw. I kissed her.

Just a gentle press of lips, to gauge her reaction. I could smell her makeup, powdery and light. Her lipstick tasted vaguely of sweet, sharp fruit.

Silla curled her fingers into the hem of my vest, and she leaned in. I was abruptly aware of the rush of blood in my ears, drowning out the night bugs and the rattle of wind through dry leaves. Silla shuddered and broke her lips from mine, then pushed her forehead against my neck. Her nose was freezing. I wrapped both arms around her and hugged her, tucking my chin over her head. She hunched into me, like she was taking shelter. I kissed her hair, and she lifted her face. “Nicholas.”

“Yeah?” I whispered.

Her hands crawled up my chest, and she raised them to bury in my hair. The fedora was knocked off and fell to the ground. She kissed me, hard. Like she was going to break my teeth. I gasped, grabbed her shoulders. Then I bit her lip and kissed back. We kissed like it was a competition, desperately clutching at each other.

Suddenly, Silla flung herself away. She turned her back. Her panting mirrored mine.

I was a little dizzy. And severely turned on. “Silla? Are you okay?”

She nodded and spun to me. Her eyes were bright as the moon. She held up her left hand, the one with the tiny pink scar. The tip of her middle finger was slick and dark. “I’m bleeding.”

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.” I cringed, reached for her hand.

“No, no, that’s okay. It’s just, you know—blood.” She shook her head like she was rattling nasty thoughts free, then smiled rigidly. I saw the drop of blood on her lip.

I got it. The harsh smell, especially from inside her own mouth, had to hit her hard after finding her parents like that. How did she manage the magic? I swallowed a shaky breath. “We can keep walking.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of us moved. And then we were kissing again, pushing against each other. I tasted the tang of her blood and it made me dizzy, but elated—I was flying high, and my heart pumped hot, boiling blood through my veins.

Silla stumbled and fell, tearing out of my arms. I grabbed at her, but she landed with a girlish grunt in a tuft of thick grass. “Silla, sorry, I …”

She pressed her hands down, and the grass began to transform.

It shivered, green and gold turning bright, eye-popping yellow. Magenta flowers blossomed up the stalks, and violet, electric-blue, neon-orange buds exploded. Silla was surrounded by a Technicolor land of Oz.

From the center of it all, her mouth parted and she brushed her fingers over the tips of grass and petals.

My brain whirred like a toy helicopter, spinning and spinning until all I heard was the roar of rotator blades. I’d never seen anything like it.

Silla pressed both hands to her mouth. She scrambled up and backed away. “I didn’t even say anything!” she said, as though explaining would change them back. She bumped into my chest. The wind began plucking petals up and tossing them around. For one ridiculous moment, I thought of Skittles commercials.
Taste the rainbow
.

She turned around to face me. “Oh God, Nick. You, um …” She continued babbling. This was the perfect opportunity for me to tell her everything. I should have. I should have taken her shoulders and calmly explained that she didn’t have to worry or freak out. I knew. About everything.

“Nick,” Silla whispered. Her cold fingers groped at mine.

“It’s okay,” I said slowly, for some reason unable to confess. Maybe because all I could really think about was whether she’d kiss me again. “I didn’t imagine that, did I.”

“No. It’s … magic. I—I know you can’t believe me, that it’s too impossible,” she said, and drew her hands away.

“No, no, I saw that thing with the leaf on Saturday night. I saw what you did then. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw it. This is like … proof.” All true. I hadn’t been sure. Hadn’t wanted to be.

Air hissed out through her teeth. “I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t the one
doing
it.”

I didn’t answer. Just licked my lips. They still tingled from her kisses. All of me tingled with the need to grab her up again and kiss her, to drive her into more magic. The helicopter roared in my head.

“It’s magic, Nicholas. Blood magic. You shouldn’t believe in it.”

Taking her hands, I drew her closer and kissed her. “But I do,” I said.
You, in the middle of all those flowers, are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen
.

As we trudged across Mr. Meroon’s cow pasture, eyes out for patties, I continued to throw glances at Nick. I wanted to grab his hair again, dig my fingers in until the hat tumbled off, and kiss him. The expression on his face was difficult to read in the moonlight, but he was obviously thinking hard about something. Me, probably. And blood magic. I hoped he wasn’t planning his escape.

The cool wind raised goose pimples on my arms, and I picked up my pace. I should have been more upset that I’d done magic accidentally, but I just couldn’t be. It was a beautiful night; I was with a really great guy who made me smile and didn’t think I was psycho. The magic had just been a spontaneous explosion of my general mood and excitement, catalyzed by the blood from my lip. From our kisses. It had been
our
mood.

“Is that the cemetery?” Nick asked. I popped back into the moment. My fingers tingled.

Milky tombstones were just becoming visible beyond the
low stone wall. “Yeah. Your house is that way.” I pointed off to our right. “That bunch of darkness is the woods around it.”

“Okay.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Why were you there the other night? With the leaf? Does it have to be a cemetery?”

“No, I guess not. But I like it there, near my father.”

We climbed over the cemetery wall. “Does this place get used by many?”

“No. My parents were the first in years. Your grandpa is over in the nicer, more modern one on the north side of Yaleylah. I don’t know why anyone would want to be buried there, though. It’s so sterile. Fake.” My voice lowered. “Death isn’t either of those things.”

“People might want it to be. Take those military cemeteries. All rows of little white headstones, exactly the same. Ordered, simple. Not like war.”

I wanted to be holding his hand again. He got slightly ahead of me, picking his way around a long, low tomb, and I watched him walk. He was so gangly and tall. Like half-grown animals, when their paws are still too big, and their legs way too long, and you know they’re going to grow into it all eventually and be the handsomest thing you ever saw. With messed-up hat-hair.

Wiping the smile off my lips as I realized I was crushing on Nick in the graveyard where my parents were buried, I hurried to catch up. He glanced over. “You okay?” His eyebrows rose, opening his face.

“Yeah.” I tucked in my chin and paced on, almost jogging around the bend in the overgrown path. “If we cut back this way, we can just follow the wall around to my house.”

His eyebrows arched up higher.

I paused and laughed nervously. “If you, um, want to come back to my house. You’re welcome.”

Stalking toward me, Nick kissed me again, arms going around me. He dipped me back like he had when we were dancing. “I’d love to,” he said against my mouth before leaning us back up.

My breath stuck in my throat, so I only nodded and turned away to lead him quickly down the treacherous path.

I stared at the kettle, focusing on the tinny hiss of bubbles bursting inside, and tried not to be so aware of Nick’s arm nearly brushing mine as he reached past me and flicked the white ruffle of the kitchen curtain.

“My stepmom would drop dead if she walked in here. Can I invite her over?”

“Why don’t you like her?” I lifted myself onto the counter to sit beside the two matching mugs. The paper flags from the tea bags dangled over the rims.

“She showed up at Dad’s offices, to hire him to help out with that stalker thing, and I’m pretty sure they were in bed by suppertime.” He shrugged, still looking out the window.

I crossed my ankles and swung my legs slightly. My heels knocked into the cabinets.

Nick turned his gaze and caught me staring. I licked my lips and glanced down at my rings.